Operation Ranch Hand

Operation Ranch Hand PDF Author: William A. Buckingham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Operation Ranch Hand

Operation Ranch Hand PDF Author: William A. Buckingham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description


Operation Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961-1971

Operation Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961-1971 PDF Author: William A. Buckingham, Jr.
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1300769548
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This book is a study of the process by which herbicidal military policy was made in Southeast Asia. The author relates the intense controversy over the effects of the Agent Orange spraying program. He connects policy to operations, showing how pressure from scientists and disagreements within the government imposed limits on the program. He explores the technical difficulties in spraying herbicides; and he pays tribute to the Ranch Hand airmen who flew planes "low and slow" over enemy positions (altogether, Ranch Hand aircraft took over 7,000 hits). Since the 1975 renunciation of the use of herbicides, this military episode has remained unique in U.S. history. Includes notes, appendices, bibliography, and photos.

Operation Ranch Hand

Operation Ranch Hand PDF Author: United States. Air Force. Office of Air Force History
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781453821824
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book is a model study of the process by which military policy was made in Southeast Asia. The author relates the intense controversy over the effects of the Agent Orange spraying program. He connects policy to operations, showing how pressure from scientists and disagreements within the government imposed limits on the program. He explores the technical difficulties in spraying herbicides; and he pays tribute to the Ranch Hand airmen who flew planes "low and slow" over enemy positions (altogether, Ranch Hand aircraft took over 7,000 hits). Since the 1975 renunciation of the use of herbicides, this military episode has remained unique in U.S. history. With maps and photographs; this is a facsimile reprint of a U.S. government publication.

Operation Ranch Hand

Operation Ranch Hand PDF Author: William A. Buckingham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Herbicides
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Operation Ranch Hand

Operation Ranch Hand PDF Author: William A. Buckingham (Jr.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Herbicides
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Operation Ranch Hand

Operation Ranch Hand PDF Author: Office of Air Force History
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781508644460
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Since the dawn of powered flight, there has been debate about the uses of aviation in war. The air weapon could be, and has been, used for a variety of missions: to gain control of the skies, to bomb an enemy's population or war-making resources, to support armies and navies in battle, to interdict the flow of men and materiel to the battlefield, for observation, reconnaissance, the gathering of intelligence, to transport men and supplies, and for virtually every other aspect of modern combat. One of aviation's more unusual military applications occurred in Southeast Asia, where American and Vietnamese planes sprayed large areas of Vietnam and Laos with herbicides in an effort to deny cover and concealment to the enemy, and to destroy his food supply. Herbicides, or weed-killing chemicals, had long been used in American agriculture. After World War I, the military of various nations realized their potential for war and developed techniques to use them. Although the Italians had used lethal chemicals delivered from the air in Abyssinia in 1936, the Allies and Axis in World War II abstained from using the weapon either because of legal restrictions, or to avoid retaliation in kind. During the early 1950s, the British on a limited basis employed herbicides to destroy the crops of communist insurgents in Malaya. In 1961, President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam asked the United States to conduct aerial herbicide spraying in his country. In August of that year, the South Vietnamese Air Force initiated herbicide operations with American help. But Diem's request launched a policy debate in the White House and the State and Defense Departments. On one side were those who viewed herbicides as an economical and efficient means of stripping the Viet Cong of their jungle cover and food. Others, however, doubted the effectiveness of such a tactic and worried that such operations would both alienate friendly Vietnamese and expose the United States to charges of barbarism for waging a form of chemical warfare. Both sides agreed upon the propaganda risks of the issue. At last, in November 1961, President Kennedy approved the use of herbicides, but only as a limited experiment requiring South Vietnamese participation and the mission-by-mission approval of the United States Embassy, the Military Assistance Command Vietnam, and South Vietnam's government. Operation Ranch Hand, the designation for the program, began in January 1962. Gradually limitations were relaxed and the spraying became more frequent, and covered larger areas. By the time it ended nine years later, some eighteen million gallons of chemicals had been sprayed on an estimated twenty percent of South Vietnam's jungles, including thirty-six percent of its mangrove forests. The Air Force also carried out herbicide operations in Laos from December 1965 to September 1969 with the permission of the Laotian government.

The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia 1961-1971

The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia 1961-1971 PDF Author: Etats-Unis. Office of air force history
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Operation Ranch Hand

Operation Ranch Hand PDF Author: U. S. Military
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781549985614
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
This Air Force publication provides a detailed history of the Air Force role in Operation Ranch Hand, which saw eighteen million gallons of chemicals sprayed on an estimated twenty percent of South Vietnam's jungles, including thirty-six percent of its mangrove forests. The Air Force also carried out herbicide operations in Laos from December 1965 to September 1969 with the permission of the Laotian government. One of a series of books detailing the Air Force's involvement in the war in Southeast Asia, this volume was written by Major William A. Buckingham, Jr., while assigned to the Office of Air Force History. The author rightly emphasizes that the Air Force served as an instrument of national policy in conducting the herbicide spraying. The book is a model study of the process by which military policy was made in the Southeast Asia War. Major Buckingham relates the intense controversy, both within the government and among the public, over the military, political, and ecological effects of the program. He connects policy to the operations, showing how pressure from scientists and disagreements among government policymakers and military leaders imposed limitations on the spraying program. He explores the technical difficulties in using herbicides: the right chemical agents had to be delivered in sufficient quantity at the optimal time of the growing season, only against certain crops and categories of vegetation, and only in areas where the destruction provided harm to the enemy and no danger to friendly or neutral populations. And Major Buckingham pays tribute to the bravery of the Ranch Hand airmen who flew their planes "low and slow" over territory often heavily defended by the enemy. Remarkably, Ranch Hand's UC-123 Providers took more than seven thousand hits from ground fire, but lost only a few crews and aircraft. Indeed, the most celebrated of the planes, "Patches," survived over six-hundred hits. The Ranch Hand operation was unique in the history of American arms, and may remain so. In April 1975, President Ford formally renounced the first use of herbicides by the United States in future wars. "As long as this policy stands," Major Buckingham writes, "no operation like Ranch Hand could happen again." Operation Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia * Chapter I - The Development of a Military Herbicide Capability * Chapter II - The Decision to Send Spray-Equipped C-123s to South Vietnam * Chapter III - The Deployment of Spray Aircraft to South Vietnam and Initial Defoliation Operations * Chapter IV - Early Evaluations and Expanded Operations * Chapter V - Crop Destruction Begins and Washington Further Relaxes Controls on Defoliation * Chapter VI - Ranch Hand's Mission Expands and Becomes Routine VII. Herbicides Reach Their Peak While the War Deepens and Widens * Chapter VIII - Herbicide Use Declines * Chapter IX - Ranch Hand Ends Its Work * Chapter X - Epilogue

Operation Ranch Hand: Herbicides in Southeast Asia 1961-1971

Operation Ranch Hand: Herbicides in Southeast Asia 1961-1971 PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Presents the full text of a paper entitled "Operation Ranch Hand: Herbicides in Southeast Asia 1961-1971," by William A. Buckingham, Jr. Operation Ranch Hand was a military code name for the spraying of herbicides from U.S. Air Force aircraft in southeast Asia. Notes that one of the herbicides was Agent Orange. Offers information on the history of Operation Ranch Hand.

The History, Use, Disposition and Environmental Fate of Agent Orange

The History, Use, Disposition and Environmental Fate of Agent Orange PDF Author: Alvin Lee Young
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387874860
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
For almost four decades, controversy has surrounded the tactical use of herbicides in Southeast Asia by the United States military. Few environmental or occupational health issues have received the sustained international attention that has been focused on Agent Orange, the major tactical herbicide deployed in Southern Vietnam. With the opening and establishment of normal relations between the United States and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1995, the time has come for a thorough re-examination of the military use of Agent Orange and other "tactical herbicides" in Southern Vietnam, and the subsequent actions that have been taking place since their use in Vietnam. The United States Department of Defense has had the major role in all military operations involving the use of tactical herbicides, including that of Agent Orange. This included the Department's purchase, shipment and tactical use of herbicides in Vietnam, its role in the disposition of Agent Orange after Vietnam, its role in conducting long-term epidemiological investigations of the men of Operation RANCH HAND, and its sponsorship of ecological and environmental fate studies. This book was commissioned by The Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Installations and Environment) with the intent of providing documentation of the knowledge on the history, use, disposition and environmental fate of Agent Orange and its associated dioxin.