Saturday, May 13, 1972
Reds Shell Cambodia Capital
PHNOM PENH (AP) --Communist gunners fired five Soviet-made 122mm rockets into Phnom Penh's western outskirts at midnight Wednesday, wounding five persons and damaging one house, the Cambodian high command reported Thursday.Khmer troops on the western defense perimeter of the capital fired howitzers and mortars for more than an hour at suspected rocket launching sites, but no results were reported.The high command said Communist saboteurs managed to halt traffic on Highway 6 northeast of Phnom Penh temporarily by blowing up a loading ramp at a ferry station of Prek Kdam, 19 miles north of Phnom Penh on the Tonle Sap River.Repair work had already begun, the high command's deputy spokesman, Maj. Chhang Song, declared.Supplies continued to reach the Cambodian capital. A convoy of freighters and gasoline tankers ran a gauntlet of Communist fire on the Mekong River during which one of two tankers was damaged before arriving in Phnom Penh Wednesday.The command reported also that 1,060 soldiers and civilians fleeing from the crumbling southwestern front on Highway 16 had sought safety in the town of Takeo since May 8.During the past two weeks, Communist forces have blasted Khmer and South Vietnamese units off a 30-mile stretch of Highway 16 to seize a large portion of Kampot Province southwest of Phnom Penh, and open a corridor into South Vietnam's Mekong Delta region from Communist bases in Cambodian mountains.Two days ago, the Cambodians claimed that the Communists had put the towns of Tani, Tram Sosar and Tuk Meas on the highway to the torch. Refugees reaching Phnom Penh Wednesday reported that an American spotter plane was seen over the towns before they were destroyed."Reds Shell Cambodia Capital", by (AP), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Saturday, May 13, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Strips.