Khmer National Armed Forces
Khmer National Armed Forces | |
---|---|
កងយោធពលខេមរជាតិ (Khmer) Forces armées nationales khmères (French) | |
Founded | 9 October 1970 |
Disbanded | 17 April 1975 |
Service branches | Khmer National Army Khmer National Navy Khmer Air Force National Gendarmerie |
Headquarters | Phnom Penh, Khmer Republic |
Leadership | |
Commander-in-Chief | Marshal Lon Nol |
Chief of Staff | Lt Gen. Sisowath Sirik Matak |
Personnel | |
Active personnel | 300,000 (at height) |
Industry | |
Foreign suppliers | Australia Canada France Indonesia Israel Japan South Korea South Vietnam Taiwan Philippines United Kingdom United States |
Related articles | |
History | Military history of Cambodia |
The Khmer National Armed Forces (
General overview
Being essentially a continuation of the old Royal armed forces under a new name, the FANK played a more partisan role in the
History
On November 20, 1953, the French protectorate of
Most of the senior members of the Officer corps had been officials in the colonial regime. Lon Nol, for example, served as Commander of the Cambodian Police under the French protectorate. In 1955 Gen. Lon was promoted to Chief-of-Staff of the FARK, and in 1960 was appointed Minister of Defense. Meanwhile, Cambodia was admitted as a protocol state member of the US-sponsored
As a representative of the conservative Khmer who had supported the French rule, Lon Nol never accepted Sihanouk's neutralist policy of non-alignment. Though the Prince's sporadic purges of leftist movements would quench Lon's wrath at the growing communist insurgency, what truly worried him was Sihanouk's covert deals with North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, which allowed them to establish base-camps on the Cambodian side of the border with South Vietnam and built a massive supply infrastructure. Lon also knew that Sihanouk's balancing appeasement of the US from 1968 onwards by allowing B-52 aerial bombings and ‘hot pursuit’ cross-border raids against NVA/VC base areas within Cambodia would be ineffective in stopping the wider, home-grown insurgency. One of the measures he was able to undertake was the build-up of a strong anti-communist faction within the FARK's officer corps that would back him should Sihanouk shift again towards the left.
Alignment with the United States
On March 17, 1970, while Sihanouk was absent from the country on a state visit to
Lon Nol also had to deal with a number of dissident FARK senior officers whom, though sharing most of his views, felt that the overthrow of Sihanouk had been one step too far. Many of these royalist officers resigned in protest from the armed forces' structure when Gen. Lon proceeded to transform with American help the old FARK into the FANK to accommodate the character of the new Republican regime. By contrast, new recruits were readily available from the ranks of the far-right Khmer Serei, a US-backed anti-communist guerrilla group led by the hardline Nationalist Son Ngoc Thanh which had fought against Sihanouk's regime during the 1960s and who always viewed him as a communist crony.
The measures quickly implemented by Lon Nol's administration included the issue of ultimata demanding
Civil War years
The creation of the Chinese-sponsored FUNK coalition by Sihanouk and the lending of his popular support to the anti-Republican insurgency gave it greater legitimacy in the eyes of the pro-Sihanoukist Cambodian peasantry, many of whom began to flock into its ranks. This move inadvertently also allowed the Khmer Rouge to recruit peasants from the villages on the rural areas under their control that otherwise would have been uninterested. In addition, many politically moderate Cambodians came to dislike Lon Nol's authoritarian (and unstable) republican regime, due to his corrupt ways and oppressive rule that curbed political and civil rights far more than Sihanouk had done.
In the wake of the
Meanwhile, FANK troops committed numerous
Facing them was the FUNK's armed wing, the
Collapse
In January 1975, coinciding with the North Vietnamese winter offensive that shattered the South's defences apart, the Khmer Rouge closed in on Phnom Penh, already overcrowded with 250,000 civilian refugees, and besieged it. President Lon Nol, FANK Commander-in-Chief Gen.
The last stand of the army of the ill-fated Khmer Republic in any form took place around the Preah Vihear Temple in the Dângrêk Mountains, close to the Thai border. Remnants of the FANK's 9th Brigade Group occupied the area for a few weeks in late April 1975, following the collapse of the Lon Nol regime.[5] Even though their government had surrendered, FANK soldiers continued to fiercely hold their ground for nearly a month after the fall of Phnom Penh against several unsuccessful attempts by Khmer Rouge forces to reduce this last holdout. The Khmer Rouge finally succeeded on May 22, after shelling the hill where the temple stands, scaling it, and routing the defenders, as Thai officials reported at the time.[6]
Command structure
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Regional Commands
Prior to the War, Cambodia was divided into seven military districts termed 'Military Regions' (MR, French: Régions Militaires) encompassing one to ten military sub-districts (French: Subdivisions) of unequal size roughly corresponding to the areas of the country's 23 provinces and districts. They were organized since September 1969 as follows:
- First Military Region (French: Région Militaire 1) – headquartered at Svay Rieng military sub-districts.
- Second Military Region (French: Région Militaire 2) – headquartered at Koh Kong military sub-districts.
- Third Military Region (French: Région Militaire 3) – headquartered at Kampong Chhnang military sub-districts.
- Fourth Military Region (French: Région Militaire 4) – headquartered at Oddar Meanchey, and Angkor Chum military sub-districts.
- Fifth Military Region (French: Région Militaire 5) – headquartered at Ratanakiri military sub-districts.
- Sixth Military Region (French: Région Militaire 6) – headquartered at Kratié Province, the MR 6 covered the Kratie and Mondulkiri military sub-districts.
- Phnom Penh Special Military Zone (PPSMZ, French: Région Militaire Spéciale de Phnom Penh – RMSPP) – headquartered at Kandal military sub-districts.
The 6th MR and its regional HQ at Kratie were lost permanently upon the desertion of the local Cambodian garrison troops to the enemy soon after the beginning of hostilities.[7] A special military zone for the lower Mekong River, designated the Special Mekong Zone – SMZ or 12th Tactical Zone (French: Zone Spéciale du Mekong – ZSM; Zone Tactique 12) was established in mid-1971 at
Branches
The FANK's predecessor was first established on November 9, 1953 under the terms of a French-Khmer convention and initially received the designation of Cambodian National Armed Forces (French: Forces Armées Nationales Cambodgiennes – FANC), changed in 1955 to Royal Khmer Armed Forces (
- Khmer National Army (French: Armée nationale khmère, ANK)
- Khmer Air Force (French: Armée de l’air khmère, AAK)
- Khmer National Navy (French: Marine nationale khmère, MNK)
Elite forces
- Cambodian Airborne Brigade
- Cambodian Para-Commando Battalion
- Khmer Special Forces
- Lake Brigade
- Cambodian Marine Corps (French: Corps de Fusiliers-Marins Khmères)
- Cambodian Navy SEALs
Training facilities
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The Air Force Academy was transferred from Pochentong to the provincial capital of
To train Khmer National Navy officer cadets, a Naval Academy (French: École des Officiers de Marine) was established at Chrui Chhangwar Naval Base in late 1971, and an Enlisted Man Training Center (French: Centre d'Instruction), which provided specialized courses for junior ranks was set up one Kilometer south of the Cambodian Capital.[11]
An Air-Ground Operations School – AGOS (French: École des opérations air-sol – EOAS) was opened in May 1973 by the Khmer Air Force to train forward air guides (FAGs) for the Army.[12][13]
Foreign assistance
Soon after its creation in 1970, the Khmer Republic requested and received military assistance from the United States, South Vietnam, the
More specialized training was also provided to selected FANK personnel. Paratroops' tactical courses were held at the Australian-operated
Chinese instructor pilots from Taiwan were posted on loan at the KAF Battambang Air Academy to train its pilots whereas Khmer cadets and air crews were sent for L-19, 0-1, UH-1, T-28, AC-47, EC-47, AU-24, and C-123 training to South Vietnam, Thailand, and the United States. Most of the advanced courses and specialized training of Khmer combat pilots was conducted by Thai instructors at the RTAF
An input of fourteen Cambodian naval officers were sent to the United States to attend advanced courses at various US naval training institutions. Some eight students attended the US Naval Academy (USNA) at Annapolis, Maryland, whilst two senior officers went to the Naval War College (NWC) in Newport, Rhode Island and the Navy Supply Corps School (NSCS) in Athens, Georgia; four other students attended the small boat tactics school at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY) and the adjacent Naval Inshore Operations Center at Vallejo, California.[21]
See also
- Cambodian Civil War
- First Indochina War
- Kampuchea Revolutionary Army
- Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Armed Forces
- Republic of Vietnam Military Forces
- Royal Cambodian Armed Forces
- Royal Gendarmerie (Cambodia)
- Royal Lao Armed Forces
- Vietnam War
- Weapons of the Cambodian Civil War
Notes
- ^ UNGEGN: Kâng Yoŭthôpôl Khémôrôchéatĕ, ALA-LC: Kang Yodhabal Khemarajāti, IPA: [kɑːŋ joːtʰeaʔpɔl kʰeːmaraʔciət]
- ^ Conboy and Bowra, The War in Cambodia 1970-75 (1989), p. 18.
- ^ Conboy and Bowra, The War in Cambodia 1970-75 (1989), pp. 10-12.
- ^ Conboy and Bowra, The War in Cambodia 1970-75 (1989), p. 7.
- ^ Sutsakhan, The Khmer Republic at War and the Final Collapse (1980), pp. 168-170.
- ^ Fenton, J. To the bitter end in Cambodia, New Statesman, 25-04-75.
- ^ United Press International, May 23, 1975.
- ^ Conboy and Bowra, The War in Cambodia 1970-75 (1989), p. 33.
- ^ Conboy, FANK: A History of the Cambodian Armed Forces 1970-1975 (2011), p. 19.
- ^ Sutsakhan, The Khmer Republic at War and the Final Collapse (1980), pp. 48-49.
- ^ Conboy and Bowra, The War in Cambodia 1970-75 (1989), pp. 15-17; 46.
- ^ Conboy, FANK: A History of the Cambodian Armed Forces, 1970–1975 (2011), p. 240.
- ^ Conboy and Bowra, The War in Cambodia 1970-75 (1989), p. 20.
- ^ Conboy, FANK: A History of the Cambodian Armed Forces, 1970-1975 (2011), p. 220.
- ^ Conboy, FANK: A History of the Cambodian Armed Forces, 1970-1975 (2011), p. 255.
- ^ Conboy and Bowra, The War in Cambodia 1970-75 (1989), pp. 10-11.
- ^ Rottman and Volstad, Vietnam Airborne (1990), p. 27.
- ^ Conboy and McCouaig, South-East Asian Special Forces (1991), p. 15.
- ^ "Timeline - NZ's Vietnam War 1963-75". Vietnamwar.govt.nz. Archived from the original on April 22, 2023. Retrieved 3 June 2018.
- ^ Conboy and McCouaig, South-East Asian Special Forces (1991), pp. 48-50.
- ^ Conboy, FANK: A History of the Cambodian Armed Forces, 1970-1975 (2011), p. 258.
- ^ Conboy, FANK: A History of the Cambodian Armed Forces, 1970-1975 (2011), p. 241.
References
- Arnold Issacs, Gordon Hardy, MacAlister Brown, et al., Pawns of War: Cambodia and Laos, Boston Publishing Company, Boston 1987. ASIN B000UCLTO4
- Elizabeth Becker, When the War was over Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, Simon & Schuster, New York 1988. ISBN 1-891620-00-2
- George Dunham, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Bitter End, 1973–1975 (Marine Corps Vietnam Operational Historical Series), Marine Corps Association, 1990. ISBN 978-0-16-026455-9
- Gordon L. Rottman and Ron Volstad, Vietnam Airborne, Elite Series 29, Osprey Publishing Ltd, London 1990. ISBN 0-85045-941-9
- Kenneth Conboy, FANK: A History of the Cambodian Armed Forces, 1970-1975, Equinox Publishing (Asia) Pte Ltd, Djakarta 2011. ISBN 978-979-3780-86-3
- Kenneth Conboy, Kenneth Bowra, and Simon McCouaig, The NVA and Viet Cong, Elite 38 series, Osprey Publishing Ltd, Oxford 1992. ISBN 978-1-85532-162-5
- Kenneth Conboy, Kenneth Bowra, and Mike Chappell, The War in Cambodia 1970-75, Men-at-arms series 209, Osprey Publishing Ltd, London 1989. ISBN 0-85045-851-X
- Kenneth Conboy and Simon McCouaig, South-East Asian Special Forces, Elite series 33, Osprey Publishing Ltd, London 1991. ISBN 1-85532-106-8
- Kevin Lyles, Vietnam ANZACs – Australian & New Zealand Troops in Vietnam 1962-72, Elite series 103, Osprey Publishing Ltd, Oxford 2004. ISBN 1-84176-702-6
- Sak Sutsakhan, The Khmer Republic at War and the Final Collapse, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington D.C. 1980. – available online at Part 1Part 2Part 3 Part 4.
- William Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia, Andre Deutsch Limited, London 1979. ISBN 0-233-97077-0