For two days and nights the Krahom battalion crept through the jungle. They stopped often, rested, reviewed the battle plan. At first the going was quick. The trails and secret roads running south from Pong Pay were well established and unhindered. Twelve miles north, in Laos, the same road network was being heavily bombarded. On 31 October Lyndon Johnson had announced the cessation of all bombing of North Viet Nam. Within two days, American B-52 crews had been redirected—tripling their tonnage on the Ho Chi Minh supply trails in Laos. No bombs interdicted the Krahom move. From Pong Pay they moved en masse to Phum Chuntong, then Phum Kha Panang and Phum Bang Hio, to the outskirts of Phum Sath Din. The unit disintegrated into three- to seven-man student teams led by a single hardened yothea
