Qualla: Koh Tang https://qualla.com/koh-tang en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:39:17 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/6/koh-tang-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Koh Tang https://qualla.com/koh-tang Koh Tang: Introduction https://qualla.com/koh-tang/ Photo credit U.S. Air Force, Public domain. Koh means island in Khmer. Tang translates loosely as legend. The name is far older than anything that happened here, and it has turned out to be uncomfortably apt for a rock in the Gulf of Thailand, fifty-two kilometres off Cambodia's southwest coast, that carries more history than a place with no civilian population has any business carrying. Frigatebirds nest on it. The Cambodian military keeps a garrison. Under the jungle and the coral sand are the reasons American recovery teams kept coming back for thirty years.

Read more: Koh Tang on Qualla

Image: U.S. Air Force | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/6/koh-tang-wp/w3c6-koh-tang-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Koh Tang: The Shape of It https://qualla.com/koh-tang/ Photo credit U.S. Air Force, Public domain. The island is a jungle ridge fringed with rock, highest at its northern extremity, and that geography has decided everything that ever happened on it. Two shallow coves press into the neck of the northern plateau, one on the east and one on the west; the eastern cove holds a long...

Read more: Koh Tang on Qualla

Image: U.S. Air Force | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/6/koh-tang-wp/w3c6-koh-tang-the-shape-of-it.mp3 0:06 2 full Koh Tang: What the Boats Brought https://qualla.com/koh-tang/ Photo credit U.S. Air Force, Public domain. In May 1975, weeks after taking Phnom Penh, Khmer Rouge troops landed on Thổ Chu, a Vietnamese island to the southeast, and removed 513 civilians — very nearly everyone who lived there. They were brought to Koh Tang and put to forced labour. All of them were killed. It is by a wi...

Read more: Koh Tang on Qualla

Image: U.S. Air Force | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/6/koh-tang-wp/w3c6-koh-tang-what-the-boats-brought.mp3 0:06 3 full Koh Tang: Two Beaches https://qualla.com/koh-tang/ Photo credit U.S. Air Force, Public domain. Between those two events, the island became the objective of an American assault. The crew of the seized container ship SS Mayaguez were believed to be held on Koh Tang; they were not, and had already been moved toward the mainland. US planners estimated twenty to thirty defender...

Read more: Koh Tang on Qualla

Image: U.S. Air Force | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/6/koh-tang-wp/w3c6-koh-tang-two-beaches.mp3 0:06 4 full Koh Tang: Three Men on the Right Flank https://qualla.com/koh-tang/ Photo credit U.S. Air Force, Public domain. As the west beach perimeter shrank through the evening, a three-man machine-gun team — Lance Corporal Joseph Hargrove, Private First Class Gary Hall and Private Danny Marshall — was covering its right flank from behind a rocky outcrop, outside the line. Their company commander be...

Read more: Koh Tang on Qualla

Image: U.S. Air Force | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/6/koh-tang-wp/w3c6-koh-tang-three-men-on-the-right-flank.mp3 0:06 5 full Koh Tang: Thirty Years of Digging https://qualla.com/koh-tang/ Photo credit U.S. Air Force, Public domain. What happened to them was assembled slowly and long afterwards. In 1999 Em Son came forward to American investigators and described his men capturing a wounded American on the west beach the morning after the battle, and his own order to shoot him; the description matched Hargrov...

Read more: Koh Tang on Qualla

Image: U.S. Air Force | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/c/6/koh-tang-wp/w3c6-koh-tang-thirty-years-of-digging.mp3 0:06 6 full