Security Mission
Wallace Stanley Tyson
Commander, 1/12th Cavalry, 1971-1972

 

 

 

On April 24, 1972 I received notice that I had to go to Bien Hoa for some sort of briefing.

 

Little did I know the next few days would involve traveling to a foreign country, in civilian clothes, to plan a security mission to evacuate US Embassy personnel and foreign government officials. The following details are from a series of letters I wrote to my wife, Dotty.

 

 

April 26, 1972

At 0900, I went to Brigade, put on some civilian clothes that were provided from somewhere, pocketed thirty bucks borrowed from Lt Col Herbert Moody, Chief of Staff, and went along with a couple of Captains from Brigade, caught a bird and went to Tan Son Nhut.

 

We transferred to another aircraft and took a fifty minute flight to the west to attend a coordination meeting. Upon landing, we were met by staff members of the United States Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

 

They took us to our hotel, formally the Les Royale, but now the Phnom, and we checked in – trying our best to look like tourists and not like US military types out of uniform. The air here is sweet and fragrant like in Hawaii, a bit muggy after the last shower, and the city is truly beautiful. I imagine Saigon was much like this back in the days of the French before the war. The streets are wide and don’t have the trash and litter that’s so common in Vietnam, and they are not overrun with Hondas. In fact, there is very little traffic, a few pedicarts and an occasional automobile. The people are small, the native dress is different, the women appear a bit more “chesty” than the Viets, and all in all, they are a fine looking people.

 

Lunch was in the restaurant next to the pool, along with several Europeans who regarded us with more than casual curiosity. I had steak and mushrooms and a salad, a small loaf of bread, butter and iced tea. Just a tad better than breakfast, but you have to take it where you find it! For supper, there was French onion soup, duck and small potatoes. Talk about contrasts in life styles, but since the embassy was paying the bills, why not.

 

Tonight we took a walk along the main street, quiet and peaceful here in the city, but even so, their war with the Khmer Rouge is closing in on them. The air field we came in on has been shelled several times over the past week or so. That brings me around to why we are here.

 

The 1/12th Cavalry has been designated as the battalion that will be sent here if it becomes necessary to evacuate the Embassy staff and the upper level members of the Cambodian Government. We will secure an LZ sufficiently large enough to accommodate several ships at a time and will hold it until all the people who have to come out are on their way. After that the units of the 1/12th would follow.

 

The staff pointed out several possible locations that could be used, but the one that would best serve our purpose is a concrete stadium, bowl shaped and surrounding a soccer field. There is an outside fence, and there are defensible ramps leading up into the stadium. The field could hold at least two of those big Navy rescue choppers at a time.

 

April 27, 1972

We looked at the possible LZ’s again this morning, and I walked up each of the ramps and tried to visualize what thousands of people waiting to escape from the Khmer Rouge would look like and what they would be doing to try to gain entrance to the stadium. The Embassy staff members seemed to believe the local police would keep them under control, so I asked them how long they thought the police would exercise, or, for that matter, would have any authority once the people saw the leadership of their country abandon them and cut out for safety. They really didn’t even want to think about that sort of situation – probably did not fit in with any of the Embassy’s contingency plans.

 

For lunch I had sharkfin soup, charcoal broiled shrimp, sweet and sour pork, rice Cantonese, pepper steak and tea. The place was clean and the food was great. We ate early, because in order not to waste anything, the management takes the leftovers and puts them back in the pot. With luck, we were early enough to be eating the original servings.

                                                                                                    

We returned to Bien Hoa later in the day.

 

 

Webmaster’s Note:

The 1/12th Cavalry left Vietnam on June 21, 1972 without having to implement the security mission for the evacuation of the United States Embassy personnel in Phnom Penh.

 

The Khmer Rouge initiated their dry-season offensive to capture the beleaguered Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh on January 1, 1975 and on April 1, 1975, President Lon Nol resigned and left the country. His exit was prompted by fear of certain death if he fell into Khmer Rouge hands. On April 12, United States embassy personnel were evacuated by helicopter. The ambassador, John Gunther Dean, invited high officials of the Khmer Republic to join them. But Sirik Matak, Long Boret, Lon Non (Lon Nol's brother), and most members of Lon Nol's cabinet declined. They chose to share the fate of their people. All were executed soon after Khmer Rouge units entered Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975.  

Source: Russell R. Ross, ed. Cambodia: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.

 

 

 

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