See "Call Sign Rustic: The Secret Air War Over Cambodia, 1970-1973" by Richard Wood, Smithsonian Institution Press. This work has little to do with COMBAT SKYSPOT or B-52's, but it is an excellent reference on this part of the war in Southeast Asia.
See also http://www.yale.edu/cgp/us.html, and http://www.yale.edu/cgp/maplicity.html, which links to an excellent searchable database.
“I want this done. Now that is one thing that can turn this around some. They are running these Goddamn milk runs in order to get the Air Medal. You know what they are doing, Henry. It’s horrible what the Air Force is doing. They aren’t doing anything at all worth a damn.”
“The whole Goddamn Air Force is over there farting around doing nothing and I have watched that stuff and they aren’t doing a thing. I mean they get one or two trucks a day and fly 800 sorties and get 1500 Air Medals. You know that’s all it is. It’s awful.”
-Conversation between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, 9 December 1970.
How we came to bomb Cambodia:Transcript of conversation between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, 9 December 1970.
Continuing the brilliant leadership:Transcript of conversation between Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig, 9 December 1970.
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| United
States bombing of enemy troop dispositions in Cambodia - particularly in
the summer of 1973, when intense aerial bombardment (known as Arclight)
was used to halt a Khmer Rouge assault on Phnom Penh - bought time for the
Lon Nol government, but did not stem the momentum of the communist forces.
United States official documents give a figure of 79,959 sorties by B-52
and F-111 aircraft over the country, during which a total of 539,129 tons
of ordnance were dropped, about 350 percent of the tonnage (153,000 tons)
dropped on Japan during World War II. Many of the bombs that fell in
Cambodia struck relatively uninhabited mountain or forest regions;
however, as declassified United States Air Force maps show, others fell
over some of the most densely inhabited areas of the country, such as Siem
Reab Province, Kampong Chnang Province, and the countryside around
Phnom Penh. Deaths from the bombing are extremely difficult to estimate,
and figures range from a low of 30,000 to a high of 500,000.
Whatever the real extent of the casualties, the Arclight missions over Cambodia, which were halted in August 15, 1973, by the United States Congress, delivered shattering blows to the structure of life in many of the country's villages, and, according to some critics, drove the Cambodian people into the arms of the Khmer Rouge. |
The bombing
was by far the most controversial aspect of the United States presence in
Cambodia. In his book Sideshow, William Shawcross provides a vivid image
of the hellish conditions, especially in the months of January to August
1973, when the Arclight sorties were most intense. He claims that the
bombing contributed to the forging of a brutal and single-mindedly fanatical Khmer Rouge movement. However, his arguments have been disputed
by several United States officials - including the former ambassador to
Cambodia, Emory C. Swank, and the former Air Force commander in Thailand,
General John W. Vogt - in an appendix to the second volume of the memoirs of then Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/cambodia1.htm
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