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The United States Air Force reached its nadir during the opening two years of the Rolling Thunder air campaign in North Vietnam. Never had the Air Force operated with so many restraints and to so little effect. These pages are painful but necessary reading for all who care about the nation's military power. Jacob Van Staaveren wrote this book in the 1970s near the end of his distinguished government service, which began during the occupation of Japan; the University of Washington Press published his book on that experience in 1995. He was an Air Force historian in Korea during the Korean War, and he began to write about the Vietnam War while it was still being fought. His volume on the air war in Laos was declassified and published in 1993. Now this volume on the air war in North Vietnam has also been declassified and is being published for the first time. Although he retired to McMinnville, Oregon, a number of years ago, we asked him to review the manuscript and make any changes that seemed warranted. For the most part, this is the book he wrote soon after the war.
This U.S. Air Force (USAF) publication, previously classified, tells the story of the opening two years of the Rolling Thunder air campaign in North Vietnam. The United States Air Force reached its nadir during this time. Never had the Air Force operated with so many restraints and to so little effect. These pages are painful but necessary reading for all who care about the nation's military power. Jacob Van Staaveren wrote this book in the 1970s near the end of his distinguished government service, which began during the occupation of Japan; the University of Washington Press published his book on that experience in 1995. He was an Air Force historian in Korea during the Korean War, and he began to write about the Vietnam War while it was still being fought. His volume on the air war in Laos was declassified and published in 1993. Now this volume on the air war in North Vietnam has also been declassified and is being published for the first time. Although he retired to McMinnville, Oregon, a number of years ago, we asked him to review the manuscript and make any changes that seemed warranted. For the most part, this is the book he wrote soon after the war. Chapter 1 - Flaming Dart * The United States Considers a Reprisal Attack * Flaming Dart I * Flaming Dart II * Chapter 2 - Planning * Paramilitary Activities and Bombing Plans * Rising Pressure from the Services to Bomb the North * Selecting Major North Vietnamese Targets * The Gulf of Tonkin Incident * Washington Forbids Follow-on Strikes * The Bien Hoa Incident * Beginning of a Limited, Two-Phase Program * Washington's Resistance to a Bombing Program Ends * Chapter 3 - Rolling Thunder Begins * The Air Challenge in North Vietnam * Command and Control of Air Resources * Preparations for a Rolling Thunder Program * The First Two Rolling Thunder Strikes * Initial Analysis of Aircraft Losses * An Air Strategy Emerges * Beginning of Weekly Rolling Thunder Strikes * Supporting Operations for Rolling Thunder * Contingency Planning for a Larger Conflict * Chapter 4 - Gradual Expansion * Further Decisions on Prosecuting the War * Initial Bridge-Busting Attacks * Countering the North's Air Defenses * The Honolulu Conference of April 1965 * Rolling Thunder's Moderate Pace Continues * Expansion of the Leaflet Program * Cautious Optimism on Bombing Results * Chapter 5 - Pause and Escalation * The First Bombing Halt * Rolling Thunder Resumes * Hanoi Expands its Air and Ground Defenses * The Air Force Organizes for Extended Combat * Washington Rejects a More Air-Oriented Strategy * Beginning of Two-Week Bombing Cycles * Chapter 6 - The SAM Threat * Initial anti-SAM Operations * The First Iron Hand Missions * Improving Detection of SAM Sites * Continued Air Strikes on non-SAM Targets * Establishment of a Target Intelligence Center * Deepening Service Concern about Strike Restrictions * The First SAM "Kill" and the anti-SAM Campaign in Late 1965 * The Air Force Increases its anti-SAM Capability * Chapter 7 - Toward the Thirty-seven Day Bombing Halt * Additional Interdiction Changes and Planning for Negotiation * Continuation of the Leaflet Program * Beginning of a Thirty-seven Day Bombing Halt * Chapter 8 - Diplomacy Fails * Hanoi Rejects American Peace Overtures * Debate on Resuming the Bombing * Rolling Thunder 48 * More Deployment Planning * Rolling Thunder 49 * Chapter 9 - Rolling Thunder 50 * Westmoreland's "Extended Battlefield" Area * Selecting Rolling Thunder 50 Targets * Rolling Thunder 50 Begins * The Air Munitions Shortage * Circumventing Bad Weather With MSQ-77 Radar * Countering the North's Air Defense System * Improving MiG Watch and Border Patrol * Chapter 10 - The Strikes * The POL Debate * Approval of a Few POL Strikes * Gradual Expansion of POL Strikes * Strikes on Major POL Sites Begin * The Honolulu Conference, July 1966 * The POL Strangulation Campaign * Chapter 11 - Summary and Reappraisa
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.
Tracing the use of air power in World War II and the Korean War, Mark Clodfelter explains how U. S. Air Force doctrine evolved through the American experience in these conventional wars only to be thwarted in the context of a limited guerrilla struggle in Vietnam. Although a faith in bombing's sheer destructive power led air commanders to believe that extensive air assaults could win the war at any time, the Vietnam experience instead showed how even intense aerial attacks may not achieve military or political objectives in a limited war. Based on findings from previously classified documents in presidential libraries and air force archives as well as on interviews with civilian and military decision makers, The Limits of Air Power argues that reliance on air campaigns as a primary instrument of warfare could not have produced lasting victory in Vietnam. This Bison Books edition includes a new chapter that provides a framework for evaluating air power effectiveness in future conflicts.
This excellent report analyzes the historic initial bombing campaign against North Vietnam in 1965 known as Rolling Thunder. The Vietnam War was many things to many people. It represented, among many other things, the clash between the views and objectives of America's civilian leadership and traditional military doctrine. It illustrated the difficulty in prosecuting a conventional war against an unconventional enemy and in waging a limited war against an enemy waging an essentially unlimited war. The Rolling Thunder campaign, the longest sustained aerial bombing campaign in history, was a microcosm of the problems the United States faced in the war as a whole. American air power doctrine was based on the concept of strategic bombardment, a concept based on two fundamental assumptions: The first assumption was that any American war would be waged to destroy the enemy's ability to wage modern warfare. The second assumed that any enemy the United States might engage would be a modern industrialized state. In Vietnam, neither assumption held true. The American objective, when engaging the North Vietnamese, was to persuade the North Vietnamese to desist in their support of the war in South Vietnam. Further, North Vietnam was anything but a modern industrialized state. The resulting aerial campaign, Rolling Thunder, was a far cry from that envisioned in plans developed before the American intervention. A campaign of graduated pressure intended to signal "resolve" to the North Vietnamese, Rolling Thunder failed to persuade the North Vietnamese and it failed to destroy their ability to prosecute their war in South Vietnam. This study illustrates how American air power doctrine developed in a manner incompatible with the employment required over North Vietnam and how even the best military advice can be ignored if it does not conform to the objectives of the civilian leadership. Moreover, the study indicates that even if the military had been allowed to carry out its desired intensive bombing campaign, the results might not have changed. Finally, the study indicates the problems inherent in developing effective air power doctrine across the spectrum of modern conflict.