B-52’s Role in Vietnam War

Vietnam War and B-52 Bases

The Air Force’s decision to employ the B-52 in Vietnam aggravated friction within the plane’s crews trained for nuclear operations. But high-level command decisions influenced the volume of friction during a series of 11-day air campaigns, including Operation Linebacker II.

The Stratofortress played a key role in Arc Light, Commando Hunt, and Linebacker raids that took place throughout Southeast Asia from 1965 to 1973.

B-52

The B-52 was designed as a Cold War nuclear bomber, but its deployment to Vietnam marked the beginning of a new chapter in its legacy. During the Second Indochina War, air crews transformed the Stratofortress from a distant, nuclear-armed platform into a close-air-support juggernaut. Their missions helped break the siege at Khe Sanh and brought Hanoi back into negotiations. Despite these gains, the B-52s, and the Air Force theory and doctrine that drove them, ultimately could not save South Vietnam.

The 2nd and 307th Strategic Bombardment Wings deployed to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam and U Tapao Royal Thai Airbase, Thailand in February 1968, just as the North Vietnamese launched its Tet Offensive. These Arc Light strikes were the first time in history that the Air Force used the B-52 against a land-based enemy force using saturation pattern bombing. But a series of missions proved the strategy futile, as the North Vietnamese improved their defense systems and counterattacked with Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).

In March 1969, Air Force officials upgraded U-Tapao to a main operating base. The move cut the distance the bombers flew from their targets by two thirds and shortened their mission times. It was also near enough to launch close-air support missions against North Vietnamese forces besieging Khe Sanh. These around-the-clock attacks, aided by ground-based radar, destroyed tons of enemy supplies and helped the besieged Marines break out.

These missions exposed the weaknesses of the Air Force’s doctrine and theory, and made many airmen doubt their profession. The high casualty rate — including the loss of two BUFFs—also sparked criticism of the Air Force. By late 1972, it had become clear that a major effort was needed to reverse the growing trend of defeat in Vietnam. The decision to deploy more B-52s and to use them in more sophisticated attacks like Operation Linebacker II was made at the highest levels of the Air Force. The decisions of these leaders profoundly impacted the lives of the B-52 crews who carried out the raids.

Linebacker II

In December 1972, Strategic Air Command launched Linebacker II. This bombing campaign, aimed at Hanoi and Haiphong, was much more ambitious in scope than the previous Rolling Thunder campaign and included targets beyond the overland routes used by the North to resupply its regular units operating in South Vietnam. It was intended to sap the enemy’s ability to sustain combat operations and encourage him to return to serious negotiations for a political settlement.

Unlike the earlier campaigns, Linebacker II was a sustained effort that would continue through the monsoon season and required all-weather force of heavy B-52s augmented by F-111 attack aircraft to operate against target complexes within the urban areas of Hanoi and Haiphong. The mission was to destroy war making factories and allied supply lines within the cities as well as choke external supplies shipped into Hanoi and arrived by rail from China. Internal stockpiles of military equipment would also be targeted.

Over the course of eight days, 120 B-52s from Andersen and U-Tapao dropped more than a million tons of ordinance on the northern capital, and suffered only two lost aircraft, one at a time. This was a dramatic increase in intensity from the prior campaigns, and an indication that CSAF chief Gen Curtis LeMay had no intention of calling off the operation until he had convinced the White House to do so.

The mission was successful in reducing the flow of resupply funds to Hanoi and encouraging him to resume peace talks, but it did not accomplish its ultimate goal of defeating the North Vietnamese army. Instead, the operation proved that a properly conducted bombing campaign could achieve military objectives that were of vital political importance.

It was also a significant demonstration that a properly trained and equipped integrated air defense system could inflict significant losses on an attacking aircraft, despite the fact that such a force had not yet been fully developed for use against a high-level strategic strike such as the B-52.

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