he stood by and watched the irregulars advance. On 20 August, two SGU battalions, one Hmong and the other a Lao unit from Pakse, walked up Phou Nok Kok, the mountain commanding Route 7 between Ban Ban and 'Nong Pet. The communists did not respond until two days later, and not insufficient strength to threaten SGU positions on the heights. By then, the irregulars on Phou Nok Kok became the core of the effort to deny Route 7 to the enemy. By the 25'" the enemy had abandoned any effort to reclaim Phou Nok Kok. On 27 August, Vang Pao's irregulars marched onto the plain itself, taking the southern salient and capturing a PT-76 tank, an artillery piece, and a truck. By this time, the Pakse SGU had cut Route 7, and its troops were patrolling the road west of Ban Ban. The station applauded the irregulars' success but wanted credit to go where credit was due. "Extremely effective airstrikes have been the key factor in guerrilla successes thus far. Heavily committed in the Muong Soui sector, to the west, and now challenged east of the plain, the North Vietnamese had contributed to Vang Pao's advance onto the plain by entrusting its defense largely to the Pathet Lao." Laos 1970s On February 12, 1970, "the communists attacked irregular units on the Plain of Jars, and Souvanna Phouma, presumably encouraged by Ambassador Godley, formally requested B-52 support. Nixon granted it, and on the night of 17 February, three bombers hit the advancing North Vietnamese. Photographs and ground observation revealed grievous enemy losses, despite the time for preparation afforded them by information leaked through insecure FAR radio communications." Regarding CIA presence by the end of the war; by the summer of 1970, the airline had some two dozen twin-engine transports, another two dozen short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) aircraft, and some 30 helicopters dedicated to operations in Laos. There were more than 300 pilots, copilots, flight mechanics, and air-freight specialists flying out of Laos and Thailand. During 1970, Air America airdropped or landed 46 million pounds of foodstuffs—mainly rice—in Laos. Helicopter flight time reached more than 4,000 hours a month in the same year. Air America crews transported tens of thousands of troops and refugees, flew emergency medevac missions and rescued downed airmen throughout Laos, inserted and extracted road-watch teams, flew nighttime airdrop missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, monitored sensors along infiltration routes,