REBEL VILLAGE RECOVERS

***This post is dedicated to James R. Vallandingham. He enjoyed reading this blog.***

3 bridges right to left: 1 bombed out bridge, 1 under construction, and 1 temporary bridge

I'm heading out of the town of Neak Luong, cruising east down Highway 1. With no auto taxis in this part of Cambodia, I'm riding on the back of a motorbike taxi. It's not my preference, but there's no other option in this rural locale. With hot tropical air blowing in my face, we turn north, onto a bumpy dirt road. Out here in the countryside, away from the highways there are few paved roads.

Passing by rice paddies, we slow down to arrive at three bridges, all parallel to each other. The oldest bridge on this river is only ruined foundations; it was destroyed during the war years. We make a noisy crossing over metal planks, on a temporary one lane military style bridge. Just next to it, bare steel reaches up from the concrete supports of a third larger bridge under construction. Infrastructure like the new bridge is sorely needed in this poverty stricken province.

Before continuing on, I'm startled by a Russian made helicopter from Vietnam. It swoops low overhead as it flies eastward towards home. Young Khmer boys run up to the road, yelling at the chopper in threatening tones. Even though the war between the Khmers and Vietnam ended years ago, there's still a great deal of hatred directed at the Vietnamese.

We continue down the remote rural road, until minutes later arriving at our destination, the village of Svay Samsep.

Nakri at right, with her cousin

It's here that my guide introduces me to Nakri. Her name translates as a type of flower, which is fitting, since she's wearing a red flowered skirt. She's somewhere in her 50's, but she looks younger than her years. Her hair is styled in an old fashioned 1960's bob. Through her smile, I can see three gold teeth.

Nakri invites us to have a seat in the shade outside her village home. Over the next hour, her story unfolds. Like all Khmers who survived the war years, both Nakri and her village went through quite an ordeal.  

Back in the 1960's before the war, Svay Samsep was a quiet farming community. Nakri's family owned a lot of land, and her father was the village headman. As village leader, he was also loyal to King Sihanouk. When war came in 1970, and Sihanouk joined the Khmer Rouge, that meant that her little village joined the Khmer Rouge side too. Simple country people like Nakri knew nothing about communism. But just like their king, they were suckered into joining the Khmer Rouge. They had no idea that the genocidal communists would later destroy Cambodia.

As more Cambodians loyal to the king went to the countryside to join the fight, the nearby hills of Phnom Cheu Kach became a Khmer Rouge stronghold. I can see those hills today, and since they're close to the village, the war came to this quiet farming community. Nakri was in her 20’s, when her village was bombed for the first time.

“Afternoon bombing,” she tells me, “some people died.”

Over time, Svay Samsep and the surrounding landscape were hit with many B-52 strikes from the US  Air Force. The village didn't have many direct hits like the bombing that had hit Neak Luong, but there were many near misses. After one bombing close call, Nakri said that, “every building in the village had cracked walls.”

Some of the attacks lasted for hours, and this wasn’t just from aerial bombing, but from artillery attacks as well. Nakri recalls, “Sometimes  bombings were from 3pm, all the way until the next morning.”

Rusted tailfin from a 500 pound bomb dropped by a B-52 during the war

Walking towards her house, Nakri shows me a rusty, twisted tailfin lying on the ground. This is a tailfin from an American 500 pound bomb, dropped from a B-52 sortie during those dangerous days. There were so many B-52 air raids, that when the bombings finally ceased in 1973,  numerous large bomb craters remained surrounding the village. Later, Khmer Rouge executioners used some of these massive craters to bury corpses of those they murdered.

Even though Nakri's village had sided with the Khmer Rouge, that wasn't enough to save all of her family when the radicals took over. Nakri was sent to a neighboring province to work on a forced labor commune, and three of her seven siblings died during the Pol Pot years. They learned too late how the Khmer Rouge really were. 

Nakri's cousin, who is sitting with us, chimes in, “Pol Pot Regime, didn’t give us enough food.” Many who died during the Khmer Rouge years weren't just executed, others died from starvation.

Fortunately for Nakri, she had a skill the Khmer Rouge needed. “I know about weaving and sewing,” she tells me. 

That skill may have saved her life, as she no longer had to work slave labor in the fields. “Pol Pot people stop me farming, have me make krama,” Nakri says. The krama is the traditional red and white Khmer scarf, worn by all Khmer Rouge cadres. Today she's wearing a krama of a different style. It's checkered blue and white; she also wove it herself.

When the Khmer Rouge were forced from power, Nakri and her father returned  to their village. “When people come back, every village so quiet,” she recalled, “you could choose anywhere to live.” Many villages were virtual ghost towns then. But during that time it was also chaos. With no rule of law to protect them, Nakri's family lost most of their land. 

Hills where Khmer Rouge guerrillas once hid, are now used to supply construction sand.

Later Nakri's life took a turn for the better. After the Khmer Rouge were ousted, she married. Her new husband was a former student. Since he didn’t have any ties to the Khmer Rouge, he was able to become a police officer in 1980. He is now the village police chief.

In recent years, Nakri started her own business. As construction has picked up, she began selling sand to builders. I look over at the nearby hills of Phnom Cheu Kach. Even from here, I can see the yellowish scars of bare earth, where large sections of the hills were cut away. This is where Nakri gets sand for her business; her workers dig it out of the ground in that former Khmer Rouge stronghold.

Most of the massive bomb craters around the village are filled in now, as local farmers use the land for agriculture again. But her village still has a lot of unexploded munitions. Just last week, Nakri called up a demining group, asking them to come remove the bombs that still threaten their safety.

I notice Nakri still has short hair, rare for ethnic Khmer women these days. She wears the same bob hairstyle that the Khmer Rouge forced all women to wear back during their era of terror. Another remnant of those years, is her dislike for the Vietnamese, much like the kids I saw earlier.  

But overall, life has improved here for Nakri and her family. “My family is ‘normal’ now,” Nakri says. “With my husband as policeman, I don’t worry about anything.”

Hmmm... I wonder...  where did she get the money to buy those gold teeth? From her sand business, or from her husband the policeman??

THE BOMBER IN THE LAKE

Twisted wreckage of a US B-52 bomber in a Hanoi lake

“Your driver here,” my hotel clerk says. She's arranged my taxi today, since I’m looking for Huu Tiep Lake in Hanoi. Looking at my taxi, I find it’s a xe om, a motorbike taxi. There are plenty of auto taxis in Hanoi, but for some reason the clerk called a motorbike for this trip.

I grudgingly put on my helmet, and we’re off into Hanoi's crowded downtown streets. My driver doesn’t speak English, and as we motor on, he stops more than once to ask for directions. Apparently the little lake I’m seeking isn’t so well known. I grow impatient, as he doubles back to turn down a crowded alley. After several tight turns the alley narrows; we just miss hitting a pedestrian. Now I know why the hotel clerk didn’t get me a car. These alleys are so narrow, that only motorcycles and pedestrians can enter.

My driver finally pulls out between two apartment buildings, and there is Huu Tiep Lake before me, a small the lake surrounded by a crowded residential neighborhood.  As I dismount, children are walking out the front gate of a primary school. At one corner of the lake, a group of Vietnamese men are playing cards, while they smoke and lounge on plastic chairs.

It’s a quiet everyday scene, in a quiet Hanoi neighborhood. But one visible feature is out of place, and it’s out in the lake. Rising out of the greenish waters of Huu Tiep, clearly visible above the waterline, is the twisted wreckage from an enormous American jet.

Close up of the wreckage in Huu Tiep Lake

A nearby marker explains, “AT 23.05 ON DECEMBER 27TH 1972, THE BATTALION No 72 – AIR DEFENCE MISSILE REGIMENT No 285 SHOT DOWN ON THE SPOT A B52G OF THE US IMPERIALIST VIOLATING HA NOI AIRSPACE. A PART OF THE WRECKAGE FELL IN TO HUU TIEP LAKE”.

One can only imagine what it was like that evening. The city sirens went off as the air raid began, and everyone in Hanoi ran for shelter. They heard distant explosions, as the bombers found their targets. Then out of nowhere, this ton of wreckage dropped down out of the night sky, and crashed right into their tiny neighborhood lake.

Only part of the lower fuselage of the B-52 protrudes above the water line. I wonder, how much more lies beneath? Looking at this twisted wreckage raises so many questions. What happened to the Air Force crew aboard that night, and how many survived? What was their target in Hanoi, and were there any civilian casualties? This is only one section of the huge bomber, what happened to the rest? Since it broke apart in mid-air, other sections must have fallen onto Hanoi as well. Did any wreckage land on any houses?

Among the wreckage peeking above the lake water, are wheels from the bomber’s landing gear. These have been lying half submerged in the lake for so many years, that weeds are now growing out of the sides of the tires. The Vietnamese were so proud of having knocked this giant bomber down from over their skies, that they have left this section of twisted aircraft lying here in the lake ever since, as a kind of strange war trophy from those dangerous days. This lake even has a local nickname, 'Hồ B52', which translates as 'B-52 Lake'.

Wreckage from numerous downed US aircraft are piled together in a bizarre display in Hanoi

The American air assault on North Vietnam was first unleashed in 1964 as the US war began here. This continued until 1968, when the bombing was finally halted by President Johnson. Hanoi’s skies were then quiet for three and a half years, until they got pounded again in 1972. President Nixon resumed aerial bombing as a political weapon, hoping to pressure the communist leadership at the negotiating table. Hanoi was hit again and again, as Nixon tried to force the North Vietnamese communists to end the war. This was cynically known as, ‘Bombing for Peace’.

Although the bomber wreckage in Huu Tiep Lake is a grim reminder of those many years of destruction, it certainly isn’t the only reminder to be found in this city. On another day I head to Hanoi’s Military History Museum, where I find wreckage that is even more jarring.

There the Vietnamese have taken a heavily damaged fuselage from an American cargo plane, and left it standing vertically on its nose. Leaning up against the plane, and surrounding it

USSR made surface to air missile, used to shoot down many US aircraft over North Vietnam

on the ground, is an enormous pile of aircraft wreckage and metal debris. These are the remains of countless American made aircraft, that were shot down all over North Vietnam. There are wrecked B-52 engines, wing sections, an US Air Force F-111 engine, a propeller from a French flown Hellcat, remnants of an F-4 jet, and much, much more. Millions of dollars of expensive military aircraft, have been reduced to debris.
 
US aircraft dominated the skies over Vietnam, and they were occasionally opposed in the air. North Vietnam had its own small air force, but since their aircraft were inferior in numbers and performance, they didn’t often challenge America’s more experienced pilots. To take down the US Air Force and US Navy jets, the North Vietnamese relied much more on ground based weapons supplied by the Soviet Union.

Positioned behind the memorial of twisted wreckage, are many of these Russian made anti-aircraft guns that the NVA used to shoot down numerous US aircraft. The grand daddy of them all is

Logo on US aircraft wreckage in Hanoi's Military History Museum

also represented: a rusty Russian made surface to air missile and launcher, (aka SAM) is still aimed at the sky. SAM’s were what American pilots feared the most. These ‘flying telephone poles’ had such range, that they were even able to take out the high flying B-52s, like the one I saw lying in Huu Tiep Lake. You would think that the Vietnamese would give some credit to their Soviet patrons, who gave them the high tech SAM missiles in the first place. But there's no mention of their appreciation here.

Alongside the missile, other smaller anti-craft guns are on display, along with plaques that boast of how many aircraft each armament shot down. One gun alone lists the dubious claim that it shot down a total of 124 US aircraft. Although that figure isn’t likely to be true for a single weapon, American air losses during the long war in Vietnam were indeed costly. Between 1964 – 1973, more than 3,000 jets and planes were lost over Vietnam. An additional 4,000 helicopters were also

B-52 wreckage and disarmed bombs in a Hanoi park

destroyed. I wonder how many lives, and how billions of dollars, were destroyed this way.

In Vietnam, the USA had the world’s best fighter jets, bombers and helicopters, but even these were not able to bring about victory through air power. 

To be sure, America could have easily destroyed all of Hanoi with just one well placed nuclear bomb, but the war in Vietnam was a limited war. Using nuclear weapons would have caused not only massive civilian casualties, but it may have brought retaliation by the Soviets, or the Chinese. Then this limited war in Southeast Asia could have easily escalated into World War III.

The American people learned in Vietnam, that being a superpower does have its limits.