While post-battle American estimates of the size of the KR force on Koh Tang range as high as 200 men, Run insists there were no more than forty fighters on the island during the operation.
"We had 40 men, but only 20 men took part in most of the fighting," he said.? "But those American troops were not professionals like the Khmer Rouge ... they spoke loudly, laughed and smoked so it was easy to monitor their movements."
In the air above Run and his fellow KR defenders, American planes and AC-130 Specter gunships subjected their positions to withering cover fire that continued uninterrupted throughout the operation.
At the height of the fighting the KR positions were targeted with a 15,000 pound BLU-82 cluster bomb, at the time the biggest non-nuclear weapon in the US arsenal, carving out a huge crater still clearly visible on the island 25 years later.
"We lost six men on the island, and another ten when their boats were sunk when approaching Koh Tang," Run recalled.?"But many, many more people were killed by bombs in [Sihanoukville].
While Clark and Barnett both express interest in someday meeting with Run and his fellow Koh Tang defenders in an effort "to bring closure" to the painful lingering memories of the battle, Run makes it clear that any such reunion is unlikely.
"[Koh Tang] was just like a training exercise ... the real battle and the real victory was the liberation of Phnom Penh on April 17," he said.? "People say now that the Khmer Rouge killed one million people [between 1975-1979] but another million people must have been killed by American B-52 attacks on Cambodia ... I saw whole villages destroyed by B-52s and I'll never forget that."
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