manteiv

12/15/24, 12:15 AMHistory - Article - Air War in Vietnam

Page 1 of 13https://online-infobase-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/HRC/LearningCenter/Details/2?articleId=398583

Help My Research

More History Resources | More Infobase ResourcesAmerican History Search

Home Browse Curriculum Tools Search Options Sources

Access provided by:

Back

Save Print Share Download Citation Read Aloud Save to Drive

Air War in Vietnam       

The U.S. military could never be sure of its control of the ground during the war in Vietnam. A "pacified" village might harbor Viet Cong sympathizers who would report on American troop movements or plant booby traps to help the Communists. Jungles and hillsides might be honeycombed with the enemy's underground tunnels and bunkers. A trip down a peaceful-looking road could prove suicidal a!er dark. But Americans ruled the air over Vietnam with supreme confidence. Never before in the history of warfare had airpower been used so extensively—to attack the enemy, to destroy enemy cover and food supplies, and to carry out dozens of other tasks. The lavish use of airpower in Vietnam symbolized American technological know-how and material resources. In the end, though, statistics on numbers of missions flown and tons of bombs dropped were no more a guarantee of victory than were the body counts on the ground.

12/15/24, 12:15 AMHistory - Article - Air War in Vietnam

Page 2 of 13https://online-infobase-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/HRC/LearningCenter/Details/2?articleId=398583

North Vietnam's Air Defenses

American pilots in Vietnam were an elite group; they were carefully selected, highly trained, and highly motivated. They had a wide array of the world's most sophisticated weapons at their disposal. Among the fighter-bombers employed in Vietnam was the air force's F-100 Super Sabre, which primarily provided air support for ground troops in South Vietnam. The F-105 Thunderchief—nicknamed "Thud" for the sound it was said to make when it crashed—was used by the air force extensively over North Vietnam. The navy and Marine Corps operated the A-4 Skyhawk and the A-6 Intruder. The B-52s of the air force's Strategic Air Command were also employed in both South and North Vietnam. The supersonic F-4 Phantom fighter served the air force, navy, and marines, and shot down the majority of enemy planes (mostly Russian- and Chinese-built MiGs over North Vietnam).

12/15/24, 12:15 AMHistory - Article - Air War in Vietnam

Page 3 of 13https://online-infobase-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/HRC/LearningCenter/Details/2?articleId=398583

Republic F-105D Thunderchief

In South Vietnam, American airpower was used to support the ground troops in a variety of ways. Helicopters transported them into battle zones and evacuated the wounded; gunships and fighter- bombers hit enemy positions with machine-gun fire, bombs, rockets, and napalm. One type of air support later came back to haunt many U.S. soldiers. In 1962, the air force began to spray chemical defoliants in Vietnam, to kill o" the vegetation that provided hiding places in jungles and forests for Communist forces. In Operation Ranch Hand, specially equipped C-123 cargo transport planes, flying just 150 feet above treetop level, sprayed the defoliating chemicals over the target zones. The uno"icial motto of the Ranch Hand pilots was "Only you can prevent forests." They also used herbicides to destroy food crops that the Viet Cong depended on. Twelve million gallons of a chemical spray called Agent Orange, named a!er the color of the barrels in which it was stored, were sprayed over South Vietnam.

In 1969, a scientific report linked Agent Orange, which contained a poisonous chemical labeled 2,4,5-T (a type of dioxin), to birth defects in laboratory animals. Critics of American policies in Vietnam worried about Agent Orange's e"ects on members of the civilian population who came in contact with the spray. Its use was ended in 1970. But it was not only civilians who were at risk. American servicemen o!en came in contact with Agent Orange, either on Ranch Hand crews or as part of ground forces moving through areas sprayed with defoliants. In the years following the Vietnam War, many veterans began developing skin and liver diseases and cancer, or had children su"ering from birth defects. In 1982, a group of veterans who believed their health had been damaged by Agent Orange

12/15/24, 12:15 AMHistory - Article - Air War in Vietnam

Page 4 of 13https://online-infobase-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/HRC/LearningCenter/Details/2?articleId=398583

sued the chemical companies that produced the spray. The case was settled with an agreement by the companies to establish a fund for Agent Orange victims.

Defoliation Mission in Vietnam

The air war over North Vietnam was a major part of the American strategy for victory. President Johnson's advisers believed that bombing could bring North Vietnam's leaders to their knees; however, they were not always in agreement as to how much would be required to do the job. Military leaders complained of the restraints imposed on the American bombing campaign. U.S. planes were not allowed to attack the center of Hanoi, or the port of Haiphong, or the dikes that crisscrossed North Vietnam's richest agricultural lands. In the early months of Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing was concentrated on North Vietnam's transportation system: its roads, bridges, and railroads. President Johnson maintained tight personal control over the campaign, choosing many of the targets to be hit at regular Tuesday lunch meetings in the White House.

As the war dragged on, Johnson's civilian advisers, who favored limited bombing, gradually gave

12/15/24, 12:15 AMHistory - Article - Air War in Vietnam

Page 5 of 13https://online-infobase-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/HRC/LearningCenter/Details/2?articleId=398583

ground to military advocates of a more extensive attack. In 1966, U.S. bombers were allowed to hit oil and gas storage facilities and ammunition dumps, both previously o" limits. In 1967, the permitted targets were again expanded to include airfields, power plants, and factories around North Vietnam's major cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. The number of sorties flown against the north jumped from 55,000 in 1965 to 148,000 the following year. (A sortie is a single mission flown by a single plane.) Total bomb tonnage dropped increased almost fourfold the same year. During the three and a half years of Operation Rolling Thunder, American pilots dropped an average of eight tons of explosives a day on North Vietnam. The bombing may have been "limited" but it was not light.

Policy makers in Washington thought of bombing as a "bargaining chip" in diplomacy. On several occasions Johnson stopped the bombing, to see if North Vietnam was willing to o"er concessions in return. The longest bombing halt ran from mid-December 1965 through January 1966. But the two sides remained far apart. The North Vietnamese would not negotiate unless the bombing was permanently ended; they also demanded that any peace settlement include the formation of a coalition government including the Viet Cong in Saigon. In 1967, Johnson sti"ened the U.S. negotiating position, writing to Ho Chi Minh that the bombing would be suspended only if North Vietnam ended infiltration of troops and supplies into South Vietnam.

American pilots fought a very di"erent kind of war than that experienced by the grunts in the jungles and rice paddies of South Vietnam. Navy radar intercept o"icer Pete Sillari, who flew missions over North Vietnam in the backseat of an F-4 Phantom, remembered the war as "very sterile and cool":

I got in this little steel box that was as fast as the speed of sound. It was air-conditioned. I had all this high-tech equipment around me to get me back to my home steel box, where I had a hot shower and a hot meal, and then I'd get drunk every night. There was never any contact with people on the other side.

12/15/24, 12:15 AMHistory - Article - Air War in Vietnam

Page 6 of 13https://online-infobase-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/HRC/LearningCenter/Details/2?articleId=398583

Russian Mikoyan-Guerevich MiG-17F

There was never any contact unless the pilot's plane happened to get shot down. "SAMs [surface-to-air missiles] connect you up with people on the ground," Sillari added, "and MiGs connect you up with people." With Soviet aid, the North Vietnamese set up a deadly system of antiaircra! defenses, including radar, antiaircra! guns, SAM batteries, and MiG-17 and MiG-21 fighters. Most of the U.S. planes lost over the North were shot down by SAMs or antiaircra! fire. But some were also lost in "dogfights" with enemy aircra!. The United States lost 92 planes in such fights, while shooting down 193 MiGs. The top American ace in the war, air force captain Charles DeBellevue, was credited with shooting down six MiGs. The best day's score was racked up by navy lieutenant Randy Cunningham and his radar interceptor o"icer, Lt. ( jg) William Driscoll, who managed to down three MiG-17s in one day. The military made every e"ort to rescue downed pilots. The Air Forces Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service specialized in going in with helicopters and amphibious planes to pick them up, o!en under enemy fire. Some 3,000 U.S. pilots were rescued during the war a!er being shot down.

Not all American airmen were so fortunate. The North Vietnamese regarded the more than 500 pilots they captured as "war criminals" and treated them very harshly, ignoring the Geneva Conventions for the protection of prisoners of war (POWs). Most POWs were initially taken to the Hoa Lo Prison, which they dubbed the "Hanoi Hilton." That was a bitter joke, because the accommodations they found there were anything but hotel-like. Navy pilot Howard Rutledge, shot down over North Vietnam in November 1965, was told by his North Vietnamese interrogator, "You are not a prisoner of war. Your government has not declared war upon the Vietnamese people … You are protected by no

12/15/24, 12:15 AMHistory - Article - Air War in Vietnam

Page 7 of 13https://online-infobase-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/HRC/LearningCenter/Details/2?articleId=398583

international law." Rutledge was repeatedly tortured and was confined for six years alone in a windowless cell. Prisoners were tortured to extract confessions of "war crimes," and to break their will. Some found ways to resist. Navy commander Jeremiah Denton, brought before a press conference to testify to the good treatment the prisoners were receiving, spelled out the word torture by blinking his eyes in Morse code, a message decoded by CIA analysts watching news footage of the event. Torture of the POWs stopped a!er the autumn of 1969, perhaps in response to negative international publicity.

First Aid Treatment for a U.S. Soldier Captured by the North Vietnamese

American pilots had orders to avoid civilian targets, and U.S. o"icials denied that any significant damage was being done to nonmilitary targets in North Vietnam. But whatever the o"icial policy, many civilian population centers were hit by American bombs. Important targets in North Vietnam were guarded by batteries of guns and missiles. Twisting and turning wildly through the air to avoid enemy antiaircra! fire, fighter-bomber pilots could not always ensure that their bombs would land anywhere near the designated targets. When pilots for one or another reason could not find or hit their

12/15/24, 12:15 AMHistory - Article - Air War in Vietnam

Page 8 of 13https://online-infobase-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/HRC/LearningCenter/Details/2?articleId=398583

assigned target, they searched for other targets to hit instead. Capt. Randy Floyd, a marine pilot who flew bombing missions in North and South Vietnam in 1968, testified before Congress in 1972 about his experiences:

If we found we had any ordnance [bombs] le! or we tried to drop it and the ordnance did not drop, malfunctioned, there was an ordnance drop zone fi!y miles out to sea, but this was rarely used. Primarily it was used when you had ordnance that hung up and you wanted to go out and jettison it. But if you found no movers [moving targets], and you had bombs le! a!er hitting the secondary target or something, or if you just felt like hitting something else, you would go and drop the bombs somewhere else, wherever you like in North Vietnam, in the target area.

Dick Rutan, a test pilot, flew air force F-100s over South and North Vietnam in 1967 and 1968, winning a Silver Star for his exploits. He later recalled his first flight into North Vietnam:

My first impression when we crossed the DMZ was that somebody had turned the goddamn place into the moon. I've never seen so many bomb craters in my whole life. I was appalled. And the thing that really got me was the city of Dong Hoi. It was the first major city north of the DMZ … You could see it was a fairly large town. But they had bombed that thing right into the Stone Age. All you could see was foundations. There was not a stick standing. Totally destroyed … And I thought—why in the world? Why did we do that?

Michael Maclear, a correspondent for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, made a film documentary of the results of American bombing in North Vietnam in 1969. Traveling south along the heavily bombed Highway 1 in North Vietnam, Maclear found that five cities—Phu Ly, Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa, Vinh, and Ha Tinh—had been "leveled" and others showed extensive bomb damage. So despite the o"icial denials, civilian targets were hit o!en and hard in Operation Rolling Thunder and in later bombing campaigns. A CIA study in January 1967 estimated that 20,000 North Vietnamese (80 percent of them civilians) had lost their lives due to U.S. bombing. All told, between 1965 and 1973 an estimated 100,000 North Vietnamese civilians were killed by the bombing campaign.

12/15/24, 12:15 AMHistory - Article - Air War in Vietnam

Page 9 of 13https://online-infobase-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/HRC/LearningCenter/Details/2?articleId=398583

C-123 Provider

Attacks on the civilian population united the North Vietnamese behind the war e"ort, just as German attacks on London during the Battle of Britain in World War II had sti"ened the resistance of the English. And the material damage the bombing did to North Vietnam's capacity to wage war was limited. There just were not that many vital targets to hit in a largely agricultural nation like North Vietnam. Navy radar intercept o"icer Pete Sillari described the e"ect of U.S. bombing as one of moving "the dirt from the north side of the road to the south side. The next day we'd move the dirt from the south side of the road to the north side."

Even when they had an important target to aim at, American pilots found the bombing campaign di"icult, dangerous, and too o!en futile. The Thanh Hoa bridge, 75 miles south of Hanoi, carried rail and road tra"ic, and was a vital link in North Vietnam's transportation system. It was first attacked on April 3, 1965, shortly a!er the start of Operation Rolling Thunder. Two U.S. planes were lost in the raid, which inflicted only minor damage on the bridge. Three planes were lost the next day (two of them to MiG fighters, the first air victories for North Vietnamese pilots). Over the next few years, U.S. planes returned to the bridge dozens of times. And although dozens of planes were shot down, none ever succeeded in destroying the bridge, which became a symbol of North Vietnamese resistance.

The North Vietnamese went to great lengths to keep their transportation system rolling. Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett visited North Vietnam in 1966 and described the countermeasures that the North Vietnamese were taking to attacks on their bridges: