[This article was first published in Army Sustainment Professional Bulletin, which was then called Army Logistician, volume 2, number 6 (November–December 1970), page 22. The text, including any biographical note, is reproduced as faithfully as possible to enable searchability. To view any images and charts in the article, refer to the issue itself, available on DVIDS and the bulletin’s archives at asu.army.mil/alog/.]
THE JURY IS STILL OUT on the degree of success of the sixty-day joint U.S. and Republic of Vietnam military sweep through the Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia in May and June 1970. The verdict may be a long time coming, but the preliminary assessments are clear. The Communists suffered the greatest single logistics defeat in the five-year history of the war in Southeast Asia from the Cambodian sweeps. In fact, Hanoi lost more materiel during the two-month-long Cambodian operation than during any one-year period — including the Tet offensive — since the escalation of the Vietnam War in 1965.
The military objectives of the Cambodian operation were to capture or destroy the arms, ammunition, and supplies that had been built up in the sanctuaries over a period of years and to disrupt the enemy’s communications network. This was achieved through 10 major operations launched against a dozen of the most significant base areas in Cambodia. At various times, as many as 32,000 U.S. troops and 48,000 South Vietnamese participated in the action.
With all the planning, precision, and execution of a delicate surgical operation, the Cambodian sweeps cut off the enemy from resupply by sea by pushing his secure areas farther to the west and north, away from South Vietnam itself and away from Cambodia’s key port — Kompong Som. In 1969, for instance, the largest part of the munitions being delivered to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in Cambodia came by sea.
It will take the enemy a very long time to recoup his losses in materiel — losses that can only be replaced from the North and in the face of counteraction by South Vietnamese ground forces and U.S. air forces.
Here is a list and some interesting data on the weapons and supplies captured from the sanctuaries:
- More than 20,000 individual weapons — enough to equip about 74 full-strength North Vietnamese infantry battalions.
- More than 2,500 big crew-served weapons — enough to equip about 25 full-strength North Vietnamese infantry battalions.
- More than 15 million rounds of ammunition — about what the enemy has fired in South Vietname during the past year.
- 14 million pounds of rice — enough to feed all the enemy combat battalions estimated to be in South Vietnam for about four months.
- 143,000 rockets, mortars, and recoilless rifle rounds, used against cities and bases, equivalent to what the enemy shoots in about 14 months in South Vietnam.
- More than 199,000 antiaircraft rounds, 5,000 mines, 61,000 grenades, and 83,000 pounds of explosives, including 1,000 satchel charges.
- More than 400 vehicles captured or destroyed.
- More than 12,500 bunkers and other military structures destroyed.
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