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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.
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.
Author: Colonel John K. Ellsworth
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1782896899
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 30
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Book Description
This SRP examines Operation ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968) bombing campaign in the context of military Principles of War and their applications. It analyzes accomplishment of strategic objectives and future implications for applications of airpower doctrine. It reviews the pre-Vietnam strategic situation, discussing its military, political, social, global, and doctrinal characteristics. It then analyses Operation ROLLING THUNDER by phases, focusing on its controversial aspects. This analysis concludes that Operation ROLLING THUNDER failed to accomplish most of its strategic objectives. It offers several contributing factors to account for this failure. This SRP concludes with examination of the lessons learned about airpower doctrine and of the strategic implications of Operation ROLLING THUNDER for the overall war effort in Vietnam.
Author: John Schlight
Publisher: Department of the Air Force
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 430
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Book Description
United States Air Force in Southeast Asia. Documents the Air Force's support of the ground war in South Vietnam from 1965 to early 1968. Includes sections on the air campaign conducted during the Communists' siege of the Marine camp of Khe Sanh. Also contains several appendices, a glossary, and bibliographical notes.
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.
Author: Norman Polmar
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN: 0160931223
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 154
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Book Description
This is the sixth monograph in the series The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War. It covers aircraft carrier activity during Operation Rolling Thunder in the war. Operation Rolling Thunder was one of the longest sustained aerial bombing campaigns in history. And it would be a failure. The U.S. Navy proved essential to the conduct of Rolling Thunder. Exploiting the inherent flexibility and mobility of naval forces, the Seventh Fleet operated with impunity for three years off the coast of North Vietnam. The success with which the Navy executed the later Operation Linebacker campaign against North Vietnam in 1972 revealed how much the service had learned from and exploited the Rolling Thunder experience of 1965–1968. The book includes several photographs with backgrounds of key aircraft used as part of Operation Rolliing Thunder during the Vietnam War. Other products relating to the Vietnam War can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/battles-wars/vietnam-war Other products relating to U.S. Naval History can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/armed-forces-military-branches-history/united-states-navy-usn-history Other products published by the U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/902
Author: Charles River Editors
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781089925095
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 100
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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading "Targeting bore little resemblance to reality in that the sequence of attacks was uncoordinated and the targets were approved randomly - even illogically. The North's airfields, which, according to any rational targeting policy, should have been hit first in the campaign, were also off-limits." - Earl Tilford, U.S. Air Force historian The Vietnam War could have been called a comedy of errors if the consequences weren't so deadly and tragic. In 1951, while war was raging in Korea, the United States began signing defense pacts with nations in the Pacific, intending to create alliances that would contain the spread of Communism. As the Korean War was winding down, America joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, pledging to defend several nations in the region from Communist aggression. One of those nations was South Vietnam. The seeds of Operation Rolling Thunder, America's elaborately constrained air war against North Vietnam, appeared almost from the first moment that the USA inherited the conflict from the French. The half-communist, half-nationalist Viet Minh rebels of Ho Chi Minh evicted the French in 1954, but not before the latter partially created an anticommunist state, South Vietnam, in the lower half of the nation. Home to many Vietnamese who stood to lose property and potentially their lives in the event of the country's reunification, the new state struggled with both Viet Cong guerrillas supplied by the north and its own internal corruption and factionalism. Many thousands of North Vietnamese fled there to escape Ho Chi Minh's repression and occasional mass executions as well. Faced with such a determined opponent, skilled in asymmetrical warfare and enjoying considerable popular support, the Americans would ultimately choose to fight a war of attrition. While the Americans did employ strategic hamlets, pacification programs, and other kinetic counterinsurgency operations, they largely relied on a massive advantage in firepower to overwhelm and grind down the Viet Cong and NVA in South Vietnam. The goal was simple: to reach a "crossover point" at which communist fighters were being killed more quickly than they could be replaced. American ground forces would lure the enemy into the open, where they would be destroyed by a combination of artillery and air strikes. Naturally, if American soldiers on the ground often had trouble distinguishing combatants from civilians, B-52 bombers flying at up to 30,000 feet were wholly indiscriminate when targeting entire villages. By the end of 1966, American bombers and fighter-bombers in Vietnam dropped about 825 tons of explosive every day, more than all the bombs dropped on Europe during World War II. As Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote to President Johnson in May of 1967, "The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one." (Sheehan, 685). Operation Rolling Thunder: The History of the American Bombardment of North Vietnam at the Start of the Vietnam War chronicles one of the most controversial campaigns of the war, and the effects it had on both sides. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Operation Rolling Thunder like never before.
Author: Donald L. Gilmore
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company Incorporated
ISBN: 9781402728525
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
Using the same format that made Eyewitness D-Day so unforgettable, this new volume offers an equally powerful look at the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial conflicts of the 20th century. It was also one of the most divisive. American involvement in Vietnam nearly tore the nation apart, and the war’s repercussions remain a part of the public consciousness. Written by military historian Donald Gilmore and edited by D.M. Giangreco—author of Eyewitness D-Day—Eyewitness Vietnam traces the history of America’s longest war, illuminating its causes, battles, and aftereffects, its unfolding and unraveling. Accompanied by maps and nearly 250 photographs—many seen here for the first time—each chapter highlights a specific operation and special feature of the fighting, from the Viet Cong’s guerrilla tactics to the MIA issue. And, just as in the bestselling Eyewitness D-Day, numerous interviews with first-hand participants, both American and Vietnamese, present a compelling, intimate, and deeply personal view of this tumultuous time. “I never had the thought that our mission wasn’t worth it. I questioned the rules by which we had to operate…those were dumb. Those cost lives.”—Major Leo Thorsness, Wild Weasel squadron pilot, Medal of Honor recipient
Author: U.s. Naval Academy
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781499190717
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 48
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Book Description
The assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem on November 1, 1963, left a leadership void in Saigon that was never filled. Heads of state went through Saigon like a revolving door, yet none of them were able to successfully lead and govern the people of South Vietnam. On the other side of the globe, President of the United States John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. While the U.S. had a line of succession, President Johnson was relatively new to the Vietnam situation. Even though Johnson was new, he still had Kennedy's cabinet and advisers to aid his decisions. Despite this, by early 1964 two new leaders, Nguyen Khanh and Lyndon Johnson sought a solution to the decades long struggle in Vietnam. President Johnson inherited a three-front war in Vietnam. One front was North Vietnamese support of the Viet Cong (VC) insurgency in South Vietnam, and Johnson had to stop this support in order to defeat the VC. The insurgency itself constituted another front that had to be defeated in order to maintain a free and independent South Vietnam. The third overarching front was the creation of a stable and legitimate government in Saigon capable of governing the people of South Vietnam. The question for his administration was on which of these aspects to focus. Before Johnson could make that decision, he first had to decide if the U.S. should continue to aid Saigon; therefore, he had three options: leave Vietnam, continue in an advisory role, or escalate U.S. involvement. The political and military situations in Vietnam deteriorated to such a point through 1964-1965 that by February 1965 there were no good choices left from which President Johnson could choose. Johnson desired for there to be a stable South Vietnamese government before he committed U.S. forces to its defense; however, no such government emerged. The administration was unwilling to risk U.S. prestige, resources, and lives unless they were confident South Vietnam could succeed without U.S. support. Because of the instability in South Vietnam as well as the perceived risk of communist aggression, President Johnson decided that escalatory military actions would be limited and gradual. Therefore, President Johnson made the least bad decision he could in February 1965 by initiating Operation ROLLING THUNDER and committing the United States to the Vietnam War.
Author: Stephen Emerson
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
ISBN: 9781526708229
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 136
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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 America's unwavering commitment to its South Vietnamese ally in the face of continued North Vietnamese aggression, break Hanoi's 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.
Author: U. S. Department Navy
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781539775898
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 76
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Book Description
Naval Air War: The Rolling Thunder Campaign is the sixth monograph in the series The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War. It covers aircraft carrier activity during one of the longest sustained aerial bombing campaigns in history. And it would be a failure. The U.S. Navy proved essential to the conduct of Rolling Thunder and by capitalizing on the inherent flexibility and mobility of naval forces, the Seventh Fleet operated with impunity for three years off the coast of North Vietnam. The success with which the Navy executed the later Operation Linebacker campaign against North Vietnam in 1972 revealed how much the service had learned from and exploited the Rolling Thunder experience of 1965-1968.
