Bombing Cambodia

The US had until 1969 taken almost no action against communist sanctuaries in Cambodia. President Nixon decided to end that and secretly authorize the bombing of the sanctuaries near the South Vietnamese borders using B-52’s. The first bombing took place on March 18, 1969. The bombing went on under the name of Operation Menu. The first area attacked was Base Area 353 which the Americans believed contained the communist headquarters for all of Southern Vietnam. The attacks were done in complete secret. So much so that the official reports of the bombing had different locations reported and very few know of the actual locations of the bombing missions. The secret bombings went on for a year until the United States started publicly bombing sanctuaries in Cambodia.