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Casualty Info
Home Town Portland, OR
Last Address Portland, OR
Casualty Date May 01, 1970
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Other Cause
Location Cambodia
Conflict Vietnam War
Location of Interment Skyline Memorial Gardens - Portland, Oregon
Description Apr 29 - May 2 1970; ARVN units, 25th Div and 5th Div and four Ranger battalions from the 2nd Ranger Group and US 1st Cav Div, 9th Inf Div and 11th Armored Cav Regt operation against the Parrot's Beak to target the NVA/VC base areas in Cambodia.
On 30 April ARVN forces launched Operation Toan Thang 42 (Total Victory), also labeled Operation Rock Crusher. 12 ARVN battalions of approximately 8,700 troops (two armored cavalry squadrons from III Corps and two from the 25th and 5th Infantry Divisions, an infantry regiment from the 25th Infantry Division, and three Ranger battalions and an attached ARVN Armored Cavalry Regiment from the 3rd Ranger Group) crossed into the Parrot's Beak region of Svay Rieng Province. The offensive was under the command of Lieutenant General Đỗ Cao Trí, the commander of III Corps, who had a reputation as one of the most aggressive and competent ARVN generals. Tri's operation was to have begun on the 29th but Trí refused to budge, claiming that his astrologer had told him "the heavens were not auspicious". During their first two days in Cambodia, ARVN units had several sharp encounters with PAVN forces losing 16 killed while killing 84 PAVN and capturing 65 weapons. The PAVN, forewarned by previous ARVN incursions, however, conducted only delaying actions in order to allow the bulk of their forces to escape to the west.
FYI- The Cambodian campaign (also known as the Cambodian incursion and the Cambodian invasion) was a brief series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia, which was officially a neutral country, in 1970 by South Vietnam and the United States as an extension of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. Thirteen major operations were conducted by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) between 29 April and 22 July and by U.S. forces between 1 May and 30 June.
The objective of the campaign was the defeat of the approximately 40,000 troops of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC) in the eastern border regions of Cambodia. Cambodian neutrality and military weakness made its territory a safe zone where PAVN/VC forces could establish bases for operations over the border. With the US shifting toward a policy of Vietnamization and withdrawal, it sought to shore up the South Vietnamese government by eliminating the cross-border threat.
A change in the Cambodian government allowed an opportunity to destroy the bases in 1970, when Prince Norodom Sihanouk was deposed and replaced by pro–U.S. General Lon Nol. A series of South Vietnamese–Khmer Republic operations captured several towns, but the PAVN/VC military and political leadership narrowly escaped the cordon. The operation was partly a response to a PAVN offensive on 29 March against the Cambodian Army that captured large parts of eastern Cambodia in the wake of these operations. Allied military operations failed to eliminate many PAVN/VC troops or to capture their elusive headquarters, known as the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) as they had left a month prior, but the haul of captured material in Cambodia prompted claims of success.
