Vietnam War MAP
Original U.S. Army Map Service 1:50,000 military topographic map covering Krakor and the eastern Pursat Province shore of Tonle Sap, Cambodia.
Sheet 5848 IV - Series L7011 - Edition 1-AMS.
Compiled in 1965 and issued by U.S. Army Map Service, Far East in June 1965. The mapping was produced from aerial photography taken during 1958, with field annotation completed in 1961.
The sheet covers Krakor, Route 5, the Tonle Sap shoreline, surrounding villages, rice-growing areas, streams, flooded terrain and the road network leading west towards Pursat and east towards Kampong Chhnang and Phnom Penh.
Krakor is shown with the Sala Srok Krakor district office, surrounding commune offices, Route 5 and the railway running through the town.
Floating fishing villages, abandoned floating settlements, ferries, fords, tracks, rice fields, inundation areas and extensive wetlands around Tonle Sap are also marked.
Krakor sits on Route 5 between Phnom Penh and Pursat, with Battambang farther west.
Route 5 and the railway formed the principal land communications corridor across western Cambodia. Krakor also provided access north towards the fishing settlements and waterways of Tonle Sap.
In 1965 Cambodia remained under Prince Norodom Sihanouk and officially neutral in the Vietnam War. U.S. military mapping of Cambodia continued as part of wider Army Map Service coverage of Southeast Asia while the war in neighbouring South Vietnam expanded.
The principal Viet Cong and North Vietnamese sanctuary areas inside Cambodia during this period were farther east along the South Vietnamese border. Krakor's later military importance developed around Route 5, Pursat and the western communications corridor.
Following the overthrow of Sihanouk in March 1970, Route 5 became one of the main military supply routes of the Khmer Republic.
Government forces depended on the road and railway connecting Phnom Penh with Kampong Chhnang, Pursat and Battambang.
Khmer Rouge forces progressively expanded through the surrounding countryside, attacking roads, bridges, rail communications and isolated government positions.
Pursat Province became heavily contested as FANK forces attempted to retain the towns and Route 5 corridor while Khmer Rouge units operated through the rural and forested areas surrounding them.
Krakor sat directly on this western supply line.
By the closing stages of the war in 1974-75, Khmer Rouge control across rural Cambodia had left government forces increasingly dependent on defended towns and shrinking road corridors.
Several settlements along Tonle Sap are specifically marked "Floating Village" and others "Abandoned".
These markings pre-date the Khmer Rouge war.
The map was based on 1958 aerial photography and field information completed in 1961, years before the Khmer Rouge armed insurgency began in 1967.
Tonle Sap rises and falls dramatically with the annual flood cycle. Floating fishing communities moved with changing water levels, fishing grounds and shoreline position. An abandoned annotation records a settlement location found unoccupied or relocated during the survey period rather than a Khmer Rouge destruction site.
This also explains why some mapped village positions appear removed from the later shoreline.
Series L7011 retained much of the appearance and terminology of earlier French Indochina mapping.
The U.S. Army Map Service used geodetic control established by the Service Géographique de l'Indochine between 1933 and 1944, supplemented by American surveys conducted between 1958 and 1960.
Place-name information was supplied by the Service Géographique of the Royal Khmer Armed Forces - FARK.
French colonial romanisation remains visible throughout the sheet:
Names such as Boeng Tonle Sap, Stung Pouthĭsat and the French-style accents and spellings give the L7011 series its older French Indochina appearance.
The legend is extensive, identifying roads by surface and width, railways, ferries, fords, bridges, administrative offices, temples, airfields, cemeteries, canals, flooded land, rice fields, marshes, mangrove, bamboo, plantations and forest.
Contour interval is 10 metres with supplementary 5 metre contours and a 1,000 metre UTM military grid.
This June 1965 sheet records Krakor and the Tonle Sap shore before the Cambodian Civil War transformed Route 5 and Pursat Province into an active military corridor.
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be fun. Stay safe, Patric