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The Vietnam Experience

EASTER OFFENSIVE

Ironically, on the heels of Lavelle's departure, Hanoi forced Washington's hand. urhen North Vietnam launched its 1972 "Easter offensive," Communist logistics and air defenses had reached an all-time high. The spring attack was no guerrilla war writ large as the 1968 Tet offensive had been; this one was a modern Blitzkrieg with no air cover but plenty of portable and mobile SAMs, tracked AA guns, and battle tanks. American forces had been substantially reduced during President Nixon's "Vietnamization" program to turn conduct of the war over to the Vietnamese and were hard-pressed to stop the enemy steamroller. In fact, South Vietnam could not have survived without U.S. land- and carrier-based aircraft.

In-country use of air power was never better demonstrated than during the siege of An Loc, beginning April 2. Astride Route 13 leading to Saigon 70 miles south; the city was attacked by NVA forces from the north and west. Strong infantry with armor support threatened to overrun the South Vietnamese garrison, and only allied aircraft could redress the difference. It was a FAC's war, with multiple air and ground controllers working under the direction of an airborne "King FAC."

Repulsed the first time, the Communists tried again two weeks later. They came in greater strength, with artillery, rockets, and increased antiaircraft coverage. U.S. and VNAF pilots dived into automatic weapons fire, and even 57mm "bursting stuff" was reported. A-37 "Tweets" worked with fighter-bombers and Spooky gunships to beat off repeated enemy assaults. However, captured documents and prisoner interrogations proved again that the enemy most feared the mighty BUFFs. B-52s turned to tactical support, capable of carpet bombing swaths of destruction through jungle foliage concealing enemy troop concentrations.

While the "shooters" kept fully occupied, so did the "haulers." Lockheed C-130s flew constantly in support of An Loc and other besieged garrisons, frequently after the airfields had been overrun or rendered untenable. Helicopters picked up part of the slack but could not deliver the volume of supplies required by the South Vietnamese. Consequently, Hercules crews resorted to the container delivery system (CDS), flying low and slow (only 130 knots) to slide the CDS packages out the ramp. One C-130 could deliver as much as 15 tons, and the NVA knew what that meant, so they tried harder. A Herc was shot down, forcing the airlifters to switch tactics. They changed to a ground radar system that permitted controllers to tell the Herc crew when to jettison the parachute packages. Dropping from 6,000 feet or more, the C-130s were largely immune to enemy small-arms fire.

Some measure of the bombing effort is proven by the bare statistics: Stratoforts logged more than 2,000 sorties inside South Viemam per month during May and June. Yet the victory came at a price: 39 USAF planes including 14 FACs, O-2 Skymasters, and OV 10 Broncos.

Lest there was any doubt about the importance of air power in stemming the Easter offensive, no less a source than the head of the North Vietnamese Air Force provided testimony. Years after the war, Lieutenant General Tran Van Minh told American officers that An Loc would have been held without B-52s and C-130s.

LINEBACKER

Faced with no option other than capitulation, Washington finally untethered its airmen and launched Operation Linebacker. Strikes resumed throughout North Vietnam with naval aircraft mining Haiphong Harbor. Frequent air battles occurred that spring and summer, and on occasion Air Force crews had to settle for even odds in the score column. It was a harsh reminder that even in the missile age the dogfight was not dead.

In the second and third rounds of the air war (1969 and 1971 and 1972 and 1973), Air Force fighters claimed 51 MiGs against 28 known losses. It was less than a two-for-one exchange, even worse than the Rolling Thunder record. May was the heaviest month of Linebacker as the Air Force went 11-6 against the MiGs, while the Navy, benefiting from the Top Gun program, scored 16-zip. June 1972 was the Air Force's worst air-to-air month of the war: two MiGs for seven Phantoms. July was somewhat better: a six-six tie.

Not even the most optimistic generals could ignore the mounting losses to MiGs. Finally, in August, the 7th Air Force requested professional help from the Navy. Four vought Crusaders from the carrier USS Hazzcock flew to Udorn, Thailand, to impart some of the F-8 community's knowledge. The detachment leader was Lieutenant Commander John B. Nichols, a former tactics instructor and 1968 MiG killer. What he found appalled him. Checking the statistics, Nichols learned that a survey of 500 Air Force MiG engagements showed only 70 kills. Frequently the F-4s flew predictable profiles, relying mainly on Sparrow missiles, and ignoring the Phantom's excellent vertical performance.

"We used to know this stuff (dogfighting), but we forgot it," the base commander told the naval aviator. "We believed those days were over."While the Udorn wing already had the best record in 7th Air Force, the Navy men saw room for improvement. They held class daily, flying with and against the "blue suiters" to impart Top Gun doctrine. One Phantom pilot later credited the Navy "finishing school" with his two MiGs. Overall, the 432nd Tactical Fighter Wing turned in the best 1972 performance (a three-to-one kill ratio) but it trained for the air-air mission. Most of the other units got by as best they could.

Meanwhile, tactical aircrews made good use of new weapons. Laserguided bombs (LGBs) had been tested in Vietnam in 1968 but required "tweaking" to be effective. Once fully developed, they were employed against some of the hardest targets in North Vietnam, especially during the Battle of the Bridges, an interdiction campaign integral to Linebacker I. Most notable was the Thanh Hoa Bridge, a 360-foot structure spanning the Song Ma River. Notoriously difficult to knock out, it was called "the Dragon's Jaw" by the North Vietnamese, who regarded it as a symbol of national power.

However, Phantom crews had the means to slay the dragon. One of them was a pilot named Dick Jonas, a part-time songwriter who became the air-war balladeer.

The "bombs with the brains" were usually conventional 2,000 pounders fitted with guidance units that steered the bombs via fins in response to laser designators. The technique required two jets: one with the designator to "illuminate" the target, the other to drop the smart bomb into an aerial "basket" within range of the target. It was not a perfect system, but it afforded a "standoff' capability that put the attackers out of effective reach of most AA guns. The Paveway I introduced a family of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) to the Air Force inventory.

On April 27, the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing led the way with eight Phantoms carrying laser- and television-guided bombs against the Dragon's Jaw. Clouds prevented use of Paveways, but the TV guided munitions inflicted serious damage.

Three weeks later, on May 13, having already struck the prestigious Paul Doumer Railroad Bridge in Hanoi, F-4Ds of the 8th Wing used 3,000 pound Paveways plus "dumb bombs" to drop a span of Thanh Hoa in the water. It was sweet revenge for tactical aircrews, who had lost 11 planes in nearly 900 sorties against the Dragon's Jaw since 1965. Nevertheless, the dragon proved hard to slay, and follow-up strikes by the Air Force and Navy were needed to close the bridge permanently.

Other "choke points" were struck repeatedly, denying North Vietnam the uninterrupted flow of supplies it needed to sustain the attack. From April to June, the Wolfpack alone attacked 105 bridges supporting enemy logistics.

With the failure of its spring offensive, Hanoi appeared more willing to talk in Paris. But negotiations broke down again and Nixon resorted to his final authoritv. He sent the Stratoforts north.

Ironically, the B-52 campaign was run by fighter pilots. Three World War II aces stood in the chain of comrnand from General John C. Meyer, Commander in Chief (CinC SAC), to Lieutenant General Gerald W Johnson (8th Air Force on Guam) and Lieutenant General John W Vogt (7th Air Force in Saigon). Among them they had shot down nearly 50 enemy aircraft, but the intense bombing campaign against North Vietnam was a whole new experience. Coordination was a key factor, especially with SAC: headquarters calling the shots, often at the last minute, and widely dispersed B-52s: some 50 at U-Tapao, Thailand, and 150 more at Andersen AFB, Guam. The latter required grueling 12-hour missions.

Some initial wrangling among commanders in Washington, Hawaii, and Saigon was necessary before things kicked off. Some Air Force leaders wanted to paste the MiG fields, while others insisted that B-52s were better employed against logistic targets such as rail yards and supply depots. The latter argument won out, and relatively few BUFF strikes went after airfields.

Operation Linebacker II, conducted from December 19 to 30, employed nearly 750 B-52 sorties. General Meyer, the SAC commander in Omaha, predicted a ballpark estimate of three percent losses. However, early losses were unexpectedly heavy, largely owing to unimaginative tactics dictated by SAC headquarters. Flying "airline profiles" with predictable routes, altitudes, and even schedules, each three-plane cell was subjected to a barrage of SAMs, which the available jammers could not fully defeat. Bomber crews were frustrated at not being permitted to use their "doomsday" equipment, the most effective electronic countermeasures reserved for nuclear missions into the Soviet Union. Consequently, 15 BUFFs were lost with 66 crewmen killed, missing, or captured, and two more Stratoforts reportedly were written off with heavy damage. Although SAC had no way of knowing it at the time, the Vietnamese air-defense commanders had been planning for Linebacker II since 1969.

After the war, rumors circulated of "mutinies" among B-52 crews. It was an exaggeration (only one crewman refused to fly), but SAC's unimaginative tactics generated a great deal of resentment with attendant drooping morale. Still, there was humor among the chaos. On one night over Hanoi, a BUFF flier blew his coach's whistle over the radio, signaling a "time out" in the proceedings. His squadronmates later swore that the SAMs stopped shooting for a minute and a half!

However, other U.S. aircraft suppressed the air defenses sufficiently to enable the '52s to operate with tolerable losses (the final figure was just over 2 percent), and Hanoi's remaining defenses were hammered into submission. An agreement finally was reached in Paris, with the armistice occurring in January 1973. Air power had won a victory of sorts.

Walter J. Boyne, USAF (ret.) Series Editor, Barrett Tillman. The Longest War. Alpha Bravo Delta Guide to the U.S. Air Force. Alpha Books. 2003.

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