Operation Menu

Operation Menu was a secret American bombing campaign in Cambodia. It began on March 18, 1969, and finished on May 20, 1970. The rationale of these air raids was to destroy North Vietnamese and Viet Cong sanctuaries, which included arms depots, severing their supply lines to South Vietnam. This undercover campaign, which killed thousands of peasants, would cause the emergence and the rise to power of the Khmer Rouge and the Pol Pot as a dictator of Cambodia.

Operation Menu was divided into six different bombing missions; Operation Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dessert, Snack, and Supper. They were code names for different targets to be destroyed within Cambodia. The US Air Force used a new type of bomb to attack these sanctuaries; cluster munition, which would bring a lot of controversy. Many bomblets did not go off right away and got spread all over the Cambodian territory. They exploded when accidentally found and picked up by children, many of whom got killed or maimed. The aircraft employed to carry out these missions were th Boeing B-52 bombers, as well as F-100 Super Sabre, F-4 Phantom II, and F-105 Thunderchief.

Operation Menu was kept secret for many years until the New York Times broke the story of the secret bombings to the public. The planner, or instigator, of this brutal bombing campaign was Henry Kissinger, who was then the National Security Adviser of the Richard Nixon Administration. It was part of the first stage of the vietnamization of the war in Southeast Asia.

Below, a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress in the skies over Cambodia, carrying out a sortie during Operation Menu. The military aircraft employed took off from air bases in South Vietnam and Thailand.