Vietnam's Final Air Campaign

Vietnam's Final Air Campaign PDF Author: Stephen Emerson
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 152672846X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
An account of the last American bombardments that took place over North Vietnam while peace talks struggled in Paris. Includes maps and photos. On March 30, 1972, some thirty thousand North Vietnamese troops, along with tanks and heavy artillery, surged across the demilitarized zone into South Vietnam in the opening round of Hanoi’s Easter Offensive. By early May, South Vietnamese forces were on the ropes and faltering. Without the support of U.S. combat troops—who were in their final stage of withdrawing from the country—the Saigon government was in danger of total collapse and with it any American hope of a negotiated settlement to the war. In response, President Richard Nixon called for an aggressive, sustained bombardment of North Vietnam. Code-named Operation Linebacker I, the interdiction effort sought to stem the flow of men and materiel southward, as well as sever all outside supply lines in the first new bombing of the North Vietnamese heartland in nearly four years. To meet the American air armada, North Vietnamese MiG fighters took to the skies and surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft fire filled the air from May to October over Hanoi and Haiphong. With the failure of its Easter Offensive to achieve military victory, Hanoi reluctantly returned to the negotiating table in Paris. However, as the peace talks teetered on the edge of collapse in December 1972, Nixon played his trump card: Operation Linebacker II. The resulting twelve-day Christmas bombing campaign unleashed the full wrath of American air power. This book tells the story of these decisive campaigns and how they led, finally, to a ceasefire agreement.

Vietnam's Final Air Campaign

Vietnam's Final Air Campaign PDF Author: Stephen Emerson
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 152672846X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Get Book Here

Book Description
An account of the last American bombardments that took place over North Vietnam while peace talks struggled in Paris. Includes maps and photos. On March 30, 1972, some thirty thousand North Vietnamese troops, along with tanks and heavy artillery, surged across the demilitarized zone into South Vietnam in the opening round of Hanoi’s Easter Offensive. By early May, South Vietnamese forces were on the ropes and faltering. Without the support of U.S. combat troops—who were in their final stage of withdrawing from the country—the Saigon government was in danger of total collapse and with it any American hope of a negotiated settlement to the war. In response, President Richard Nixon called for an aggressive, sustained bombardment of North Vietnam. Code-named Operation Linebacker I, the interdiction effort sought to stem the flow of men and materiel southward, as well as sever all outside supply lines in the first new bombing of the North Vietnamese heartland in nearly four years. To meet the American air armada, North Vietnamese MiG fighters took to the skies and surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft fire filled the air from May to October over Hanoi and Haiphong. With the failure of its Easter Offensive to achieve military victory, Hanoi reluctantly returned to the negotiating table in Paris. However, as the peace talks teetered on the edge of collapse in December 1972, Nixon played his trump card: Operation Linebacker II. The resulting twelve-day Christmas bombing campaign unleashed the full wrath of American air power. This book tells the story of these decisive campaigns and how they led, finally, to a ceasefire agreement.

The Eleven Days of Christmas

The Eleven Days of Christmas PDF Author: Marshall L. Michel (III)
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1893554279
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
In December 1972, with an increasingly dovish Congress preparing to cut off all funding for the war in Vietnam, President Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of Hanoi by the Strategic Air Command's "big stick," its fleet of B-52 bombers. Never before had a B-52 been lost in combat, but the North Vietnamese SAM missile crews knocked them out of the sky in the first days of the engagement. Despite the losses, the surviving bombers kept coming, inflicting huge losses on the North Vietnamese. For eleven days the momentum swung back and forth, moving from what appeared to be a certain U.S. triumph, to a possible North Vietnamese victory, to the ultimate ambiguous denouement in which both sides won and lost.

Linebacker

Linebacker PDF Author: Karl J. Eschmann
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 9780804103749
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The account of the 1972 twelve-day assault by the U.S. on targets around Hanoi and Haiphong is provided through the personal words of the pilots and crew who flew the missions

Air War Over South Vietnam, 1968-1975

Air War Over South Vietnam, 1968-1975 PDF Author: Bernard C. Nalty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description


Air War - Vietnam

Air War - Vietnam PDF Author: Frank Harvey
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
From the briefing rooms and bombing runs to the dogfights and last ditch bail outs, here are the true stories of the fighting men of Vietnam as told by aviation expert Frank Harvey. This is what it was like to fight in the flame-filled skies of Southeast Asia.

Air War Over North Vietnam

Air War Over North Vietnam PDF Author: Stephen Emerson
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526708248
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
In early 1965 the United States unleashed the largest sustained aerial bombing campaign since World War II, against North Vietnam. Through an ever escalating onslaught of destruction, Operation Rolling Thunder intended to signal Americas unwavering commitment to its South Vietnamese ally in the face of continued North Vietnamese aggression, break Hanois political will to prosecute the war, and bring about a negotiated settlement to the conflict. It was not to be. Against the backdrop of the Cold War and fears of widening the conflict into a global confrontation, Washington policy makers micromanaged and mismanaged the air campaign and increasingly muddled strategic objectives and operational methods that ultimately sowed the seeds of failure, despite the heroic sacrifices by U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots and crews Despite flying some 306,000 combat sorties and dropping 864,000 tons of ordnance on North Vietnam 42 per cent more than that used in the Pacific theater during World War II Operation Rolling Thunder failed to drive Hanoi decisively to the negotiating table and end the war. That would take another four years and another air campaign. But by building on the hard earned political and military lessons of the past, the Nixon Administration and American military commanders would get another chance to prove themselves when they implemented operations Linebacker I and II in May and December 1972. And this time the results would be vastly different.

Operation Linebacker II 1972

Operation Linebacker II 1972 PDF Author: Marshall Michel III
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472827597
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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Book Description
After the failed April 1972 invasion of South Vietnam and the heavy US tactical bombing raids in the Hanoi area, the North Vietnamese agreed to return to the Paris peace talks, yet very quickly these negotiations stalled. In an attempt to end the war quickly and 'persuade' the North Vietnamese to return to the negotiating table, President Nixon ordered the Air Force to send the US' ultimate conventional weapon, the B-52 bomber, against their capital, Hanoi. Bristling with the latest Soviet air defence missiles, it was the most heavily defended target in Vietnam. Taking place in late December, this campaign was soon dubbed the 'Christmas Bombings'. Using specially commissioned artwork and maps, ex-USAF fighter colonel Marshall Michel describes Linebacker II, the climax of the air war over Vietnam, and history's only example of how America's best Cold War bombers performed against contemporary Soviet air defences.

On Yankee Station

On Yankee Station PDF Author: John B. Nichols
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612512860
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
Combining vivid personal narrative with historical and operational analyses, this book takes a candid look at U.S. naval airpower in the Vietnam War. Coauthors John Nichols, a fighter pilot in the war, and Barrett Tillman, an award-winning aviation historian, make full use of their extensive knowledge of the subject to detail the ways in which airpower was employed in the years prior to the fall of Saigon. Confronting the conventional belief that airpower failed in Vietnam, they show that when applied correctly, airpower was effective, but because it was often misunderstood and misapplied, the end results were catastrophic. Their book offers a compelling view of what it was like to fly from Yankee Station between 1964 and 1973 and important lessons for future conflicts. At the same time, it adds important facts to the permanent war record. Following an analysis of the state of carrier aviation in 1964 and a definition of the rules of engagement, it describes the tactics used in strike warfare, the airborne and surface threats, electronic countermeasures, and search and rescue. It also examines the influence of political decisions on the conduct of the war and the changing nature of the Communist opposition. Appendixes provide useful statistical data on carrier deployments, combat sorties, and aircraft losses.

Rolling Thunder 1965–68

Rolling Thunder 1965–68 PDF Author: Richard P. Hallion
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472823214
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Book Description
Operation Rolling Thunder was the campaign that was meant to keep South Vietnam secure, and dissuade the North from arming and supplying the Viet Cong. It pitted the world's strongest air forces against the MiGs and missiles of a small Soviet client state. But the US airmen who flew Rolling Thunder missions were crippled by a badly thought-out strategy, rampant political interference in operational matters, and aircraft optimised for Cold War nuclear strikes rather than conventional warfare. Ironically, Rolling Thunder was one of the most influential episodes of the Cold War – its failure spurring the 1970s US renaissance in professionalism, fighter design, and combat pilot training. Dr Richard P. Hallion, one of America's most eminent air power experts, explains how Rolling Thunder was conceived and fought, and why it became shorthand for how not to fight an air campaign.

Linebacker

Linebacker PDF Author: Karl J. Eschmann
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781520563800
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Twelve days that shook the world. The beginning of the end.By the end of Day 9, the bombing of North Vietnam had taken an enormous toll. The planners were running out of suitable targets because the damage inflicted on most targets was higher than initially predicted. It became questionable whether those few targets remaining in the high threat areas were even of sufficient worth to continue attacking. The commander of the air force in the Pacific even suggested that it was time to look for targets in lower threat areas.As on previous days, the TACAIR support effectively countered the enemy defenses. The few MiGs which had managed to get airborne were driven away by the American fighter patrols. Although up to 70 SAMs had been fired at the B-52's, the accuracy was noticeably poorer. The last desperate attempts to defend Hanoi were being made and it appeared the offensive was rapidly coming to a conclusion.In late 1972, the Vietnam peace talks were stalled, with the war at perhaps its most crucial point. The United States was searching for a way to strangle North Vietnam's war-waging capabilities by shutting down its supply pipelines in order to force it back to the negotiating table. The solution: Linebacker II, a massive, intricately coordinated twelve-day assault by over 700 combat aircraft against vital targets around Hanoi and Haiphong, enemy cities heavily guarded by MiGs, SAM missiles, and radar-guided antiaircraft.Here is an unprecedented look at one of the most critical campaigns of modern air warfare, a previously untold story, documented in rich, fascinating detail. It is told in the vividly personal words of the pilots and crews who flew the missions -- men who dramatically helped to end the American role in the Vietnam conflict and to bring the POWs home. Praise for Linebacker "Military buffs will appreciate this minutely detailed report of the American bombing raids over North Vietnam and the daring helicopter rescues." - Publishers WeeklyKarl J Eschmann graduated from Texas A&M University in 1971 with a Bachelor's Degree in Aerospace Engineering, and a Master's Degree from the Air Force Institute of Technology in Logistics Management in 1989. As a Second Lieutenant in 1972-73, he was a flight line maintenance officer responsible for two squadrons of F-4E Phantom IIs during the Linebacker I & II air offensives, as well as the Cambodian and Laotian campaigns. Since then he has had a distinguished air force career. He retired as a Full Colonel in 1998.