The third year of the Khmer Republic’s war, 1972, opened with a deceptive lull. Like a battered boxer after a punishing round, the U.S.-equipped Cambodian army (Forces Armées Nationales Khmères, or FANK) was still reeling from the disastrous Chenla II operation that had failed to break the Communist hold over central Cambodia (see ‘Chenla II: Prelude to Disaster,’ in the June 1992 Vietnam). The North Vietnamese Army (NVA), responsible for decimating FANK’s best troops, was focusing on logistical preparations for its upcoming Eastertide Offensive against neighboring South Vietnam. Nurtured, trained and abetted by the NVA and Communist China, the Khmer Rouge (Red Khmer, or KR) was building up strength and planning its future strategy. Meanwhile America continued its policy of pulling out of Southeast Asia, begun in 1969, while wishfully pumping up South Vietnam and Cambodia to stand by themselves.
On January 10, FANK’s 22nd Brigade pulled out of Krek near the area known to the Americans as the Fishhook, on the Vietnamese-Cambodian border, leaving Route 7, one of the last remaining open roads linking Cambodia and South Vietnam, to the enemy. Farther south that day, the first FANK offensive of the year was launched below Route 1, leading through the area known as the Parrot’s Beak into Vietnam. The 11 battalions of Operation Prek Ta, a FANKArmy of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) joint venture, made a lot of noise but the offensive proved inconclusive.
