Aviation) Air War Over South Vietnam 1968-1975

Air War over South Vietnam
1968–1975
Bernard C. Nalty
Air Force History and Museums Program

United States Air Force
Washington, D.C. 2000
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nalty, Bernard C.
Air war over South Vietnam, 1968-1975/Bernard C. Nalty.
p. 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index
1. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975–Aerial Operations, American.
2. United States. Air Force–History–Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975.
I. Title
DS558.8 .N35 2000 00-028867

959.704'348–dc21
Foreword
This volume covers the period from the Tet offensive and the opening of
the road to Khe Sanh in 1968 through the final collapse of South Vietnam in
1975. It deals with the role of the Air Force in advising the South Vietnamese
Air Force and waging war in South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Until the Tet
offensive of 1968, the United States hoped to compel North Vietnam, through
military operations and negotiations, to call off its war against South Vietnam
thus ensuring the survival of an independent South Vietnam. However, the 1973
peace agreement accepted the presence of North Vietnamese forces on territory
seized from South Vietnam, and the survival of the Saigon regime depended on
the forbearance of the communist leadership or the willingness of the United
States to vigorously respond to a new attack. This history includes the so-called
Vietnamization of the war, the withdrawal of American forces, American and
South Vietnamese operations in Cambodia, the South Vietnamese attack in Laos
toward Tchepone, the containment of the invading North Vietnamese forces in
1972, the provision of additional aid from the United States, the military impact
of the peace settlement, and the successful communist offensive of 1975. These
events took place against the background of deepening American disenchant-
ment with the war, initially voiced by a clamorous antiwar movement but even-
tually shared by a sizeable segment of the general populace. The unpopularity
of the war influenced the decision of the administration of President Richard M.
Nixon to minimize American casualties by increasing Vietnamese participation
in the fighting and substituting air power, wielded largely by military profes-
sionals or volunteers, for American ground troops, who were mostly draftees.
This, in short, is a story of frustration, disillusionment, changing goals, and
eventual disengagement that can teach an important lesson to those who would
impulsively commit American might without ensuring that the nation's vital
interests are involved and that the populace, which supplies the troops and
treasure needed for the effort, understands and supports the intervention. The
author, Bernard C. Nalty, devoted some thirty years to the Air Force history
program.
RICHARD P. HALLION
Air Force Historian
iii
The Author
Before retiring in 1994, Bernard C. Nalty was a senior historian in the

Office of Air Force History. He earned a B.A. from Creighton University and
an M.A. from Catholic University and served as an officer in the U.S. Army
from 1953 to 1955. He was chief editor and coauthor of Winged Sword, Winged
Shield (1997), the Air Force’s two-volume 50th-anniversary history, and has
written Air Power and the Fight for Khe Sanh (1973), an Air Force monograph
on the Vietnam War; Tigers over Asia (1978), an account of the Flying Tigers
during World War II; Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in
the Military (1986); and two pamphlets dealing with the Marine Corps in World
War II — Cape Gloucester: The Green Inferno (1994) and The Right to Fight:
African American Marines in World War II (1995). He is coauthor with Henry
I. Shaw, Jr., and Edwin T. Turnbladh of Central Pacific Drive (1996), a history
of Marine Corps operations in World War II. With Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., he
edited the thirteen-volume Blacks in the United States Armed Forces: Basic
Documents and its single volume abridgement Blacks in the Military: Essential
Documents (1981).
iv
Preface
The nature of the Vietnam War changed over the years, reflecting a radical
shift in U.S. objectives and prompting an adjustment in the mission of the Air
Force. Earlier histories in the United States Air Force in Southeast Asia series
describe the shift from a war fought by proxies — the armed forces of the Re-
public of Vietnam, trained and supplied by the United States, fighting to achieve
the American purpose of checking the spread of communism by maintaining an
independent South and communist North Vietnam supporting the Viet Cong
guerrillas seeking to destroy South Vietnam — to a struggle between the United
States and North Vietnam, with the South Vietnamese and Viet Cong relegated
to lesser roles.
The Tet offensive of February 1968 altered the nature of the conflict by
shaking public confidence in the ability of the United States to force the North
Vietnamese, through a combination of military and diplomatic pressure, to
abandon their campaign to absorb the South into a unified, communist Vietnam.
Disillusionment with the war began to surface during the mid-1960s in two
widely different groups — those who argued that the United States was wasting
lives and resources in Southeast Asia and those who believed that the nation
was not adequately supporting its men sent to fight a decisive battle in the strug-
gle against communism. The sudden and violent attacks that erupted during the
Tet holidays of 1968 followed official assurances of progress, timing that in-
creased the corrosive effect of the offensive on national resolve. Negotiation
loomed larger in U.S. policy and while military operations continued, South
Vietnamese forces began to assume responsibility for fighting the war.
This transfer of the burden of combat, which began in earnest after the
inauguration of President Richard M. Nixon in January 1969, came to be called
Vietnamization. The United States would supply South Vietnam with weapons
to defend itself, provide training, and maintain a shield behind which the South
Vietnamese could expand their armed forces. Because the Nixon administration
was determined to reduce U.S. casualties, especially among ground troop draf-
tees, Vietnamizing the ground war took priority. Air power, applied by military
professionals and volunteers, would have to provide the shield.
The Tet offensive changed the tactics of the war fought by the North Viet-
namese, though not Hanoi's ultimate goal of conquering the South. A failure
either to exploit the initial successes of the Tet offensive or to break off the
fighting and regroup brought crippling losses to Viet Cong units. North Viet-
v
namese troops, deployed and sustained by means of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, took
over the war, much as the Americans had taken over from the South Vietnamese
between 1965 and 1968. The expanded North Vietnamese role resulted in a shift
from unconventional tactics based on mobility and surprise to conventional
warfare by massed forces tied to extended supply lines far more fragile than the
Ho Chi Minh Trail. An invasion of South Vietnam, launched in March 1972,
proved vulnerable to overpowering U.S. aerial strength and ground to a halt
with the Saigon government still in at least nominal control of a large portion
of the South.
By this time, bringing home the troops took precedence over the survival
of an independent South Vietnam in American policy objectives. Even the
invasion of Cambodia in 1970 and the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese attack
on the Ho Chi Minh Trail a year later served principally to ensure that North
Vietnamese forces did not disrupt troop withdrawals. The departures continued,
even during the fighting that followed the North Vietnamese invasion of 1972.
Over the years, U.S. ground forces left at an accelerating pace that bore scant
relationship to the ability of the South Vietnamese to take over their duties.
By late 1972, the United States concentrated on obtaining a cease-fire and
the release of American prisoners of war, whatever the cost. To gain Saigon's
consent to a settlement that would leave North Vietnamese forces in control of
territory captured in 1972, the Nixon administration combined the threat of
abandonment with a promise of decisive aerial intervention in the event North
Vietnam renewed the war. But when the fighting resumed in the spring of 1975,
the United States stood aside as North Vietnam conquered the South, ending,
finally, the active involvement of the United States in this long and bloody
conflict.
vi
Acknowledgments
In writing this volume, my efforts benefitted from the help of numerous

persons. Dr. Wayne Thompson and Mr. Jacob Van Staaveren, authors of a history
of the air war against North Vietnam, shared their insights as did Dr. R. Frank
Futrell, author of the first volume in this series dealing with the air war in South
Vietnam, and Col. John Schlight, author of the second. Especially useful advice
came from authors of several of the Office of Air Force History’smonographs on
the war in Southeast Asia, among them Mr. Van Staaveren, Dr. Elizabeth H.
Hartsook, Capt. William A. Buckingham, Jr., Lt. Col. Roger P. Fox, and Capt. Earl
H. Tilford, Jr. Two military members of the office, Maj. John F. Kreis and Lt. Col.
Vance O. Mitchell, cheerfully shared their first-hand knowledge.
Over the years, almost the entire administrative structure of the Air Force
History Support Office and its precursors helped in various ways, including Dr.
Stanley L. Falk, Colonel Schlight, Col. Drue L. DeBerry, Mr. Warren Trest, Col.
John F. Shiner, Mr. Herman Wolk, Mr. Jacob Neufeld, Dr. B. Franklin Cooling, Dr.
Alfred M. Beck, and Mr. R. Cargill Hall. The roster of archivists, librarians, editors,
and typists includes Mr. David Schoem, Dr. George M. Watson, Jr., MSgt. Roger
Jernigan, MSgt. Barry Spink, CMSgt. Al Hargett, Mr. William C. Heimdahl, Mr.
Sheldon Goldberg, Capt. Sue Cober, Maj. Lucinda M. Hackman, Mrs. Yvonne
Kincaid, Mr. Lawrence Paszek, Mr. Eugene P. Sagstetter, Mr. Samuel Duncan
Miller, Dr. Beck, Mrs. I. Jewell Newman, Mrs. Ann Caudle, SrA. Terry Nance,
SrA. James Brannan, and Mrs. Debra Moss.
Writing this volume involved the use of documents not included in the
holdings of the Air Force. Dr. R. A. Winnacker and Mr. Charles Pugh of the Office
of Secretary of Defense; Mr. George C. McGarrigle, Dr. Ronald Spector, Dr.
Richard Hunt, Mr. Vincent Demma, Ms. Geraldine Harcarik, and Ms. Han-nah
Zeidlik from the Army; Mr. Ben Frank, Dr. Jack Shulimson, Mrs. Joyce Bonnett,
and Mr. Frederick Graboske from the Marine Corps; and Dr. Oscar P. Fitzgerald
and Dr. Edward Marolda from the Navy all provided information or access to
materials relating to their respective offices.
All of these individuals, and probably others I have inadvertently slighted,
contributed to the writing and publication of this book, but I take sole responsibility
for the narrative and interpretations that shape its conclusions.
vii
Contents
page
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 The Tet Offensive Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2 The Enemy Repulsed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3 Facing Some Hard Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4 The Air War from Tet to Mini-Tet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5 Above Highlands, Plain, and Delta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6 Testing the Single Manager Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
7 Unified Management takes a Final Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
8 Secret Bombing and Troop Withdrawals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
9 The Nature of the Air War, 1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
10 Improving the South Vietnamese Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
11 Storming the Cambodian Bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
12 From Incursion to Interdiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
13 The Continued Growth of South Vietnam’s Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
14 Further Disengagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
15 The South Vietnamese Invasion of Laos: Operation Lam Son 719 . . . 247
16 Action in South Vietnam and Cambodia 1971 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
17 Further Vietnamization and Accelerated Withdrawal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
18 Discipline, Drug Abuse, and Racial Unrest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
19 Invasion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
20 Reinforcement, Continuing Withdrawal, and Further Vietnamization . 333
21 Military Region I: Quang Tri City Lost and Regained . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
22 Kontum City, An Loc, and the Delta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
23 After the Truce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
24 Recapturing Mayaguez: An Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
Bibliographic Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
ix
Illustrations
Maps
Southeast Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
South Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48–49
Lam Son 719 Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Military Region I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Military Region II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Military Regions III and IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
Koh Tang Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
Photographs
President Johnson and his military advisers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Air Force Security Police and South Vietnamese soldiers guard the
perimeter at Tan Son Nhut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The U.S. Embassy in Saigon after Tet attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Bien Hoa bunker after Tet attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
President Lyndon Johnson, Brig. Gen. Robert N. Ginsburgh, and
Walt W. Rostow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Hue during the Tet fighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Royal Australian Air Force Canberra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Cholon district of Saigon after Tet attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Imperial Palace in Hue after Tet attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Khe Sanh combat base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
C–130 delivers cargo at Khe Sanh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
South Vietnamese UH–1 helicopters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Pre-Tet and post-Tet revetments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Aircraft destroyed during the Tet attacks at Bien Hoa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Burning fuel dump at Khe Sanh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
New Mexico Air National Guard F–100s at Tuy Hoa Air Base . . . . . . . . . 46
Relief of Khe Sanh during Operation Pegasus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Bomb craters in the A Shau valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
C–130 dropping supplies at the A Loui airstrip in the A Shau Valley . . . . 63
C–123 landing at the A Loui airstrip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
AC–47 gunships near Saigon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
x
Air War over South Vietnam, 1968–1975
Effects of bombing on the Ho Chi Minh Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

South Vietnamese troops in the Mekong Delta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Duc Lap Special Forces camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
C–7 landing at Duc Lap Special Forces Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Night observation device on an AC–119 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
North American OV–10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Gen. William C. Westmoreland and Gen. William W. Momyer . . . . . . . 100
Adm. U. S. Grant Sharp and Lt. Gen. Robert E. Cushman, Jr. . . . . . . . . . 101
Lt. Col. Joe M. Jackson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Gen. Leonard F. Chapman, Jr., and Lt. Gen. Victor H. Krulak . . . . . . . . 115
Gen. Creighton W. Abrams and Gen. George S. Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Combat Skyspot radar installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Cessna A–37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Departing troops board a commercial airliner at Da Nang . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Cessna O–2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
McDonnell F–101, McDonnell Douglas F–4, and Grumman OV–1 . . . . 146
A Military Airlift Command C–141 receives wounded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
A Marine Corps A–6 at Chu Lai Marine Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Bu Prang Special Forces Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
South Vietnamese A–37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Richard M. Nixon and Nguyen Van Thieu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
South Vietnamese UH–1 helicopter at Binh Thuy Air Base . . . . . . . . . . 168
South Vietnamese O–1 near Da Nang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
South Vietnamese C–119 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Norodom Sihanouk and Pham Van Dong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Lon Nol with Cambodian troops in the field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Air Force F–4 over the Fishhook region of Cambodia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Rice and ammunition captured in Cambodia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
C–130 dropping leaflets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Cambodian refugees in South Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
EC–121D over Southeast Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Robert C. Seamans and Gen. Cao Van Vien . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
South Vietnamese students at Sheppard Air Force Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
South Vietnamese cadet pilots at Nha Trang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
South Vietnamese UH–1 helicopters loading troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Maj. Gen. Tran Van Minh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Airmen loading 500-pound bombs on an F–4 at Phu Cat . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
UC–123s spraying defoliant over South Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Storage site in Gulfport, Mississippi, for herbicides removed
from Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Martin B–57G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Fuel tanks at Cam Ranh Bay destroyed by rocket attacks in 1970 . . . . . . 245
C–130 at Khe Sanh during Lam Son 719 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
xi
South Vietnamese personnel carrier in Laos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Soviet-built PT–76 tank captured during Lam Son 719 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Runway matting at Khe Sanh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Cambodians training in South Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
F–100s at Phan Rang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Air Force sentry and dog at Cam Ranh Bay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Destroyed trucks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
AC–47, AC–119, and AC–130 gunships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
South Vietnamese gunner training in UH–1 helicopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Hootches at Tan Son Nhut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Inspection of outbound cargo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Gates at Tan Son Nhut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Gen. John D. Lavelle and Lt. Gen. John W. Vogt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Haiphong harbor under attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
B–52s at Andersen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
EB–66s at Takhli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Wild Weasel F–105F at Korat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
F–111s and F–4s at Takhli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
A–7s at Korat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Enhance Plus F–5s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
SA–2 launcher and SA–2 missile in flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
U.S. Army helicopter gunship escorting Marine transport helicopters . . . 369
Capt. Steven L. Bennett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Installation of a 105-mm howitzer on an AC–130 gunship . . . . . . . . . . . 376
AC–130 crewmembers at consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Ex-prisoners of war on a C–141 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
Maintenance on South Vietnamese A–37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Phnom Penh evacuation area, April 1975 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
Civilians evacuated from Saigon on the USS Blue Ridge . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Vietnamese refugees crowd the decks of the USS Pioneer Contender . . . 424
Cambodiam patrol boat on bottom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
U.S. Marines board the Mayaguez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Koh Tang Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Air Force HH–53 rescues Marines from Koh Tang Island . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
xii
1968–1975
Introduction
A Turning Point
From the establishment of the Republic of Vietnam in 1954 until 1965, the
United States gradually increased its efforts to help that nation resist subversion
or military attack from communist North Vietnam. The volume of American aid
expanded; the number of U.S. troops stationed there grew from fewer than 700
to 23,000; and the distinction between advising and providing combat support
blurred, then disappeared. The Air Force, which sent its first detachment to
South Vietnam late in 1961, proceeded in a matter of months from training
South Vietnamese crews to actual bombing and strafing, though a trainee usu-
ally was on board during these first combat missions. By January 1965, Air
Force aircraft in South Vietnam had increased from one squadron of thirty-two
airplanes — North American T–28 trainers, Douglas B–26 bombers, and Doug-
las C–47 transports — to 218 aircraft of various types, including twin-jet Martin
B–57B bombers.1
In spite of expanded American aid, the South Vietnamese government stag-
gered from one crisis to another. Early in 1965, Air Force and Navy planes
began bombing North Vietnam, both to punish the communist enemy and to
shore up the discouraged and divided leadership in the South. Shortly afterward,
American combat troops arrived on the scene. Although initially assigned to
protect airfields and supply depots, the Marines and soldiers had by year’s end
assumed responsibility for waging war throughout the country, shunting the
armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam into a subsidiary role. At the begin-
ning of 1968, American combat and logistics operations involved more than
400,000 soldiers, sailors, and Marines and required a wide range of activity by
a Vietnam-based Air Force contingent numbering 56,000 men and almost 1,100
planes. Other Air Force units flying from Guam, Okinawa, or Thailand also
took part in the conflict.2
Because of the limited nature of the war — the objective was to preserve
South Vietnamese independence rather than to subjugate the North — the Air
Force did not exercise all its normal functions during operations in South
Vietnam. For example, as long as the enemy husbanded his aerial strength to
defend his homeland, instead of using air power to support his ground forces in
3
the South, air superiority over the South posed no problem. Therefore, the
function of maintaining air supremacy over South Vietnam required no more
than the presence of a few fighter-interceptors in case North Vietnam should
change its longstanding policy and launch an aerial foray. Another primary
function — formulating doctrines and procedures for organizing, training,
equipping, and employing forces — continued with Vietnam in mind. New or
modified aircraft and other equipment arrived in the battle area, and the senior
Air Force officer in the country, who doubled as deputy for air operations to the
Army general in overall command, campaigned for the adoption of Air Force
doctrine on issues such as the centralized control of tactical aviation, both
American and South Vietnamese.
The Vietnam War interfered with a function that had come to dominate Air
Force thinking during the intensification of the Cold War — providing strategic
forces to deter or, if necessary, to fight a nuclear war. The Air Force had to shift
Boeing B–52 bombers and KC–135 tankers from strategic assignments to de-
liver firepower for the Army and Marine Corps in Vietnam. The worldwide air
transport service, yet another Air Force function, rushed men and equipment to
Southeast Asia in times of buildup and evacuated the sick and wounded. Be-
cause much of South Vietnam was poorly charted, aerial mapping, also an Air
Force responsibility, proved essential. So, too, did the intelligence function
during a conflict in which rain, cloud, forest, and sometimes the noncombatant
populace concealed enemy movement.
The most important function, in terms of effort expended, came to be de-
scribed as close combat and logistical support to the Army. It included tactical
reconnaissance, close air support, tactical airlift, the support and resupply of
airborne operations, and the interdiction of enemy lines of communication. The
unusual characteristics of the Vietnam war — the absence of strategic targets in
South Vietnam, the lack of aerial opposition there, and Army tactics that em-
phasized finding and destroying hostile troops — compelled the Air Force to
concentrate upon the combat and logistic support of ground troops.3
The role of the Air Force — not attacking hostile troops in South Vietnam,
but bombing urban military targets in the North — created the image of a vast
nation using advanced technology to bully, though unsuccessfully, a smaller and
comparatively backward nation and aroused the wrath of a group of articulate
critics of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. The actual number of persons
opposing the war was small at the end of 1965, but grew rapidly as U.S. cas-
ualty lists grew longer, attracting a varied following. Some adherents saw the
war as an immoral effort to uphold a puppet regime at Saigon, while others
opposed foreign entanglements as a matter of principle, and still others were
dedicated pacifists. The most numerous and active element consisted of college-
age people whose lives and careers seemed threatened by military service.4
By late 1967, as demonstrations against the war grew larger and more
frequent, Alain Enthoven, a systems analyst in the Office of Secretary of
4
A Turning Point
Defense, warned, “We’re up against an enemy who just may have found a dan-
gerously clever strategy for licking the United States.” Hanoi, he said, might
continue the war over a number of years, keeping its commitment at an accept-
able level but forcing the United States to expend lives and money until a
disillusioned American public rejected the war.5
As the Air Force carried out its several roles in South Vietnam, the massive
infusion of U.S. men, equipment, and money that began in earnest during 1965
seemed to be bringing the war effort to the threshold of success, whatever the
antiwar activists might say. Early in 1967, Robert W. Komer, a special assistant
to President Lyndon B. Johnson, returned brimming with confidence from a
visit to South Vietnam. “Wastefully, expensively,” he reported, “we are winning
the war in the South. Few of our programs — civil or military — are very effic-
ient, but we are grinding the enemy down by sheer weight and mass.”6
At year’s end, prospects seemed, if anything, even brighter. Ellsworth
Bunker, U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, told the Overseas Press Club at
New York City of steady, though not spectacular, progress on the battlefield and
elsewhere. South Vietnam verged on becoming a true nation. Representative
government seemed to be taking root, and, in Bunker’s opinion, “The enemy’s
attempt to impose a solution by force has run into a stone wall.”7
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, Commander, U.S. Military Assistance
Command, Vietnam — the Army officer responsible for directing American
combat, support, and advisory activity in South Vietnam — shared this con-
fidence. A few days after Bunker’s New York speech, Westmoreland told the
National Press Club at Washington, D.C., “In 1965 the enemy was winning,
today he is certainly losing.” Although General Westmoreland, like Bunker,
refused to predict when the war would end, he did say that January 1968 would
mark the beginning of a new phase in the conflict, during which the United
States would strengthen South Vietnamese forces, assign them a greater role in
defending their country, and in general set the stage for a final phase, sometime
in the more distant future, when a strong and stable republic would crush the
last communist opposition on its soil.
The year 1968, Westmoreland warned, would see heavy fighting, for the
North refused to give up. Even though enemy forces had not won a major battle
in more than a year, they continued to infiltrate from sanctuaries outside South
Vietnam in an attempt to gain control of the rural populace and rebuild local
guerrilla units. He acknowledged that the enemy remained confident of victory,
but insisted that a transition to the final stage of the war lay “within our grasp.”
North Vietnam’s hopes of conquest, he declared, were bankrupt.8
President Johnson’s publicly expressed views coincided with those of his
principal subordinates, diplomatic and military, in the conduct of the war. On
the same day that Ambassador Bunker spoke in New York, Johnson outlined for
the White House press corps the goals of the Vietnam conflict. The main pur-
poses, he suggested, were to demonstrate that the United States intended to
5
honor its commitments in Southeast Asia and elsewhere; to resist aggression

against the South and thus discourage all would-be aggressors; and to enable
South Vietnam to chart its own future without fear of domination by the North,
a goal that the United States proposed to achieve by doing, in his words, “what-
ever we think is necessary to protect the security of South Vietnam.” The Pres-
ident insisted that American efforts over the years had made progress toward
these objectives, though hard work lay ahead. The level of U.S. military power
in South Vietnam at last seemed adequate, however, and Johnson told the press
that “General Westmoreland . . . anticipates no increase in that level.”9
Within a few months, claims of progress took on a hollow ring, as the
enemy at the end of January and beginning of February 1968 unleashed a series
of attacks throughout South Vietnam. The entire American war effort underwent
reassessment in the light of a request that General Westmoreland receive sub-
stantial reinforcements. The U.S. government, in the process, reached a cross-
road and turned onto a tortuous route leading, despite flurries of savage fighting,
to a gradually reduced American involvement and ultimately to a negotiated set-
tlement.10
For the Seventh Air Force, the principal Air Force command in South
Vietnam, these sudden attacks plunged airmen, many of them off duty, into the
midst of a ground war, as communist infiltrators raided billets in towns and
shelled or stormed crowded air bases. Security troops, including specially
trained Air Force detachments, rallied to protect the airfields, so that after only
brief disruptions, the strike, reconnaissance, and transport aircraft were back in
the skies, giving close combat and logistical support to embattled ground units.
President Johnson and his military advisers in the White House early in 1968.
6
Chapter One
The Tet Offensive Begins
From the windows of their villa not far from Tan Son Nhut Air Base, 1st Lt.
David C. Brown and other off-duty officers of the 12th Tactical Reconnaissance
Squadron watched fireworks begin bursting throughout Saigon, welcoming to
South Vietnam’s capital the lunar new year that began on January 31, 1968. The
holiday saluted by these joyous explosions traditionally began with the first new
moon after January 20, lasted for three days, and drew together families sepa-
rated for the rest of the year. During Tet, as this time of celebration was called,
a truce normally prevailed between the contending Vietnamese forces, and the
Saigon government took advantage of the cease-fire to grant liberal leave to the
armed forces.
When the sound of fireworks died away, the airmen went to bed, secure in
the knowledge that their quarters, in one of the many buildings leased for
American use because the air base had become so crowded, were being pro-
tected by South Vietnamese guards. Within a few hours, however, the harsh
crack of small-arms fire from the direction of Tan Son Nhut jolted Brown and
the others fully awake.1
To the south, enemy forces had gathered undetected near the air base, the
busiest in South Vietnam and the site of Seventh Air Force headquarters. Across
the runways from the Seventh Air Force area, near the civilian air terminal,
stood the buildings that housed the headquarters of the U.S. Military Assistance
Command, Vietnam, including the command post from which the commander,
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, directed U.S. ground forces, obtained air sup-
port for them, and maintained communication with his military and civilian
superiors. Near the compound of the assistance command lay the headquarters
of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff, patterned after the American Joint
Chiefs of Staff. A tempting target for the enemy, Tan Son Nhut and its environs
came under attack at about 3:20 a.m. local time on the first day of Tet, when a
group of Viet Cong — the communist guerrillas in South Vietnam — opened
fire from the darkness beyond the east end of one of two parallel main runways.
Besides awakening Lieutenant Brown and the other officers billeted at the
nearby villa, this attack diverted attention from the main enemy thrust.
7
Shortly after the firing broke out, several men materialized from the shad-
ows to hurl hand grenades at a bunker manned by Air Force security police that
guarded a gate at the west end of that same runway. At about 3:40 a.m., a taxi
stopped not far from the gate and disgorged a Viet Cong assault team that
quickly assembled a bangalore torpedo — threaded sections of pipe filled with
explosive — ignited the fuse, and blasted a hole in the chain-link fence sur-
rounding the base. Other attackers rushed through the gap to open fire with
rocket-propelled grenades that shattered the wall of the bunker, driving out the
defenders. The airmen forced from this position had done their assigned job,
however, holding off vastly superior numbers until other Air Force security
police could join American and South Vietnamese soldiers in setting up a defen-
sive line between the gate, now in enemy hands, and the end of the runway.
The Air Force unit responsible for halting the enemy advance was the 377th
Security Police Squadron, on alert since the previous afternoon because of at-
tacks against South Vietnamese towns far to the north of the capital. The squad-
ron had readied its eight thirteen-man quick reaction teams, while U.S. Army
signal and transportation battalions stationed on the base prepared to execute
their part of the defense plan, organizing three improvised rifle platoons, each
numbering about 40 men, to fight alongside the airmen. These soldiers and Air
Force security police, numbering fewer than 250 in all, formed the cutting edge
of a 900-man security force, composed of South Vietnamese as well as U.S.
troops, that now tried to contain and kill the well-trained assault troops entering
through the gap blown in the perimeter fence.
The American soldiers and airmen succeeded in stopping the Viet Cong,
thanks in part to three light tanks dispatched by the South Vietnamese base
commander, who bore formal responsibility for protecting Tan Son Nhut, even
though his U.S. tenants had made their own security arrangements. Rocket-
propelled grenades disabled two of the armored vehicles, but fire from the
survivor helped the Americans hold their ground through the night. Dawn found
the attackers in control of an area that measured approximately 1,000 by 2,000
feet, including the west gate but stopping short of the runway. Meanwhile, other
groups of Viet Cong were probing the southeastern perimeter of Tan Son Nhut
and attacking the Joint General Staff compound, but these forays presented only
a minor threat to base security.2
Since so many of his own units were short-handed, the South Vietnamese
officer responsible for security at Tan Son Nhut and the surrounding area called
for help, and elements of the 25th Infantry Division promptly responded. The
component closest to the base, not quite eight miles distant, boarded vehicles
and drove through the night, its commander dropping flares from his helicopter
to illuminate the roadway and reveal any ambush attempt. The relief column
encountered no opposition until it approached Tan Son Nhut shortly before
dawn, where it clashed with enemy forces massed just outside the base. When
additional units arrived, it joined in attacking toward the airfield.3
8
Air Force Security Police and South Vietnamese soldiers

guard the perimeter fence at Tan Son Nhut Air Base.
The arrival of the first contingent of American soldiers triggered savage
fighting around Tan Son Nhut, causing explosions that reverberated through the
building where Lieutenant Brown was staying. The sounds of battle drew closer
until, as he and his fellow officers watched, the enemy occupied a warehouse
just a hundred yards from the villa and began setting up machineguns to defend
against the rapidly developing American counterattack. Since the airmen living
away from the base relied on locally recruited guards for protection, they had
no more than a pistol or two among them and could only pile up furniture for
a barricade in case the Viet Cong tried to storm the building.
By mid-morning, South Vietnamese troops advanced upon the enemy-held
warehouse across the street. Army helicopters laid down a barrage of rockets
and machinegun fire, but before being killed or forced to flee, Viet Cong gun-
ners knocked out several vehicles approaching the warehouse. As the fighting
neared a climax, sniper fire tore into that wing of the villa where the Americans
had taken refuge. A bullet struck Lieutenant Brown in the head. After giving the
wounded man what first aid they could, two of the other officers braved stray
shots that still came from the direction of the warehouse, commandeered a
South Vietnamese truck, and drove him to a U.S. Army field hospital. There,
despite the efforts of a neurosurgeon, he died.4
Shortly after noon on January 31, at about the time Lieutenant Brown suf-
fered his fatal wound, a mixed force of American and South Vietnamese sol-
diers and Air Force security police were attacking the Viet Cong’s Tan Son
Nhut foothold from inside the base, while the recently arrived units from the
9
25th Infantry Division closed in on the enemy-held western gate. Viet Cong
mortar barrages impeded the counterattacks, as enemy gunners tried in vain to
screen an orderly withdrawal. An assault that might have crippled, at least tem-
porarily, a vital air base thus ended in failure.5
Although over within a half-day, the struggle on Tan Son Nhut airfield had
been fierce. The retreating enemy left behind 157 bodies and almost that num-
ber of individual and crew-served weapons. Four of the Air Force security
police died in the battle and eleven were wounded, while nineteen of the U.S.
soldiers fighting beside the airmen lost their lives and seventy-five suffered
wounds. South Vietnamese base defense forces sustained comparable losses:
five airmen killed and twelve wounded, with twelve soldiers killed and sixty-
seven wounded. Despite the shelling that accompanied the Viet Cong assault,
only thirteen American planes — eleven Air Force and two Navy — sustained
damage; not one was destroyed.6
Elsewhere in Saigon and vicinity, other Viet Cong attacks lost momentum
and collapsed in defeat, even though the enemy retained control of some resi-
dential sections of the city. When the first hostile rounds fell on Tan Son Nhut,
shattering the early morning quiet there, an assault team blasted an opening in
the masonry wall surrounding the U.S. Embassy and attacked the recently com-
pleted chancery building, a suicidal gamble that had far greater impact on public
opinion in the United States than on the outcome of the Tet fighting in South
Vietnam. None of the attackers — apparently five in number — entered the
chancery structure, though one was killed inside a residence within the com-
pound. The fight ended after about four hours, with two wounded Viet Cong in
custody and three others dead.7
The air base at Bien Hoa, about 15 miles northeast of Tan Son Nhut, also
came under attack, as enemy forces converged on Saigon from the north, east,
and southwest. A rocket and mortar barrage shook the base only moments be-
fore a raiding party penetrated the security fence guarding Bien Hoa’s lightly
manned eastern boundary. A sentry dog detected the presence of the enemy, and
the animal’s handler alerted the command post, which sent Air Force security
police and additional dog teams to the threatened sector. The Viet Cong, how-
ever, bypassed the bunker sited to defend in this direction and rushed onward
to occupy an engine test stand located by the near end of a runway overrun.8
While the enemy consolidated its hold on the test stand, a hard-surfaced pad
protected on three sides by sandbag revetments, a North Vietnamese regiment
infiltrated the Bien Hoa perimeter at three different places. As soon as it became
light enough to aim, some of the infiltrators began firing into the III Direct Air
Support Center, which controlled aerial activity in the III Corps area of central
South Vietnam. The center’s deputy director, Air Force Lt. Col. John E. Pitts,
grabbed a rifle and blazed away at an enemy soldier lying prone on a roof
nearby. The North Vietnamese weapon soon fell silent, but Pitts never dis-
covered if he had killed the marksman.9
10
Rubble from the 1968 Tet attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.
However those under fire may have felt, the sniping around the direct air
support center was mere harassment compared to the fighting that raged around
the engine test stand. Air Force security police worked their way to within
grenade-throwing distance of enemy troops firing from behind sandbag barriers
and the huge benches upon which jet engines were mounted for testing. At this
juncture, unfortunately, an Army helicopter strafed the test stand forcing the
airmen to retreat, but inflicting no friendly casualties. The incident occurred
because the Army officer assigned to coordinate helicopter support lay wounded
inside the bunker and could not contact the aircraft he was supposed to direct.
The Air Force security troops then stormed the test stand a second time, killing
or driving away the enemy.
The battle now shifted roughly a hundred yards to a shed, protected by an
embankment, where Air Force ordnance specialists disarmed live bombs that
strike aircraft had been unable to drop. A South Vietnamese security contingent,
armed with a 57-mm recoilless rifle, blasted the shed to splinters, Army heli-
copters strafed the position, but the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong held out
until U.S. airmen and South Vietnamese troops killed them with hand grenades
and rifle fire.10
As at Tan Son Nhut, the first U.S. Army units reached Bien Hoa at about
dawn to begin driving the enemy from the outskirts of the airfield. For the Air
Force, the battle at Bien Hoa proved more costly than the struggle for the other
base. Four airmen were killed in action, another died of a heart attack induced
by exertion during the fighting, and twenty-six were wounded. Enemy losses
within the base perimeter amounted to 137 killed and 25 captured. Hostile fire
11
Bunker at Bien Hoa bears the scars of the Tet attack.

destroyed a Cessna A-37 attack plane being evaluated for possible use by the
South Vietnamese and a North American F-100 fighter-bomber, while the attack
damaged seventeen other planes, four of them heavily.11
Although mopping-up continued at Bien Hoa into the afternoon of January
31, limited flight operations got underway by sunrise on that day. Among the
first aircraft into the sky was a Cessna O-1 observation plane flown by Maj.
James Grant, a forward air controller. He spent three hours searching out enemy
units and calling in air strikes or artillery concentrations, then refueled at Bien
Hoa for a second sortie. During the afternoon mission, his airplane suddenly
heeled, struck by the force of a detonation on the ground more than two miles
away. The explosion, he later reported, resembled a small nuclear blast — “a
gigantic flash and a rising mushroom cloud that reached 8,000 to 9,000 feet.”
The enemy had destroyed the ammunition stored by U.S. forces at a vast dump
near Long Binh.12
Nor were the Tet attacks limited to such vital installations as the Long Binh
Army base, Bien Hoa, Tan Son Nhut, and the embassy compound at Saigon. An
estimated 67,000 enemy troops, almost 45,000 of them Viet Cong and the
remainder North Vietnamese regulars, shelled or tried to seize military facilities,
towns, and government administrative offices from Khe Sanh in the north, a
base already surrounded by North Vietnamese troops, to Ca Mau in southern-
most South Vietnam. Among the objectives were five major cities, including
Saigon, the capitals of 27 of the nation’s 44 provinces, 58 lesser towns, and
some 50 hamlets.13
12
Of the ten major bases used by the Air Force in South Vietnam, only
four — Cam Ranh Bay, Phu Cat, Phan Rang, and Tuy Hoa — emerged un-
scathed from the initial Tet attacks. Enemy troops broke through the defensive
perimeters guarding Tan Son Nhut and Bien Hoa, but were expelled, killed, or
captured within the day. At other air bases — Pleiku, Nha Trang, Da Nang, and
Binh Thuy — the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong merely shelled the installa-
tions, using rocket launchers, mortars, or recoilless rifles.14
Airmen stationed at Binh Thuy, southernmost of the ten air bases, may not
have realized at first that Tet 1968 marked a special enemy effort. Located
among the rice fields irrigated by the Bassac River, the airfield had already
proved so inviting a target for shells and rockets that explosions shattered the
night three or four times each week. Not until February 13 did the Viet Cong
launch a ground attack at Binh Thuy, but that effort failed. Air Force security
police, two receiving wounds during the skirmish, drove off a demolition team
that approached the fence. Heavy defensive fire discouraged other infiltrators
who had crept through tall grass to hurl grenades over the barbed wire at a pair
of armored personnel carriers parked near the edge of the base perimeter.15
From a military standpoint, the enemy achieved his greatest success of the
Tet offensive at Hue, formerly the royal capital of Vietnam, a city that sym-
bolized past greatness. At the heart of modern Hue lay the Imperial City or
Citadel, walled around with earth and masonry and protected on three sides by
a moat. Patterned after the Imperial City at Beijing, China, the Citadel contained
almost a hundred buildings, including the palace from which Vietnam once was
ruled. Because of its status as a shrine, Hue seemed immune to attack and was
lightly held by South Vietnamese units, further reduced in strength by holiday
leave. Lax security enabled enemy soldiers, who had arrived amid the Tet
throng, to exchange civilian clothes for uniforms, break out concealed weapons,
and seize almost all the objectives assigned them. Except for the military
assistance command compound in the new city and a South Vietnamese division
headquarters inside the Citadel, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soon
controlled all of Hue.16
Only at Da Nang, one of six places attacked on the morning of January 30
rather than on the 31st, did the enemy fail completely. Since General West-
moreland had rejected a Tet cease-fire in the northern provinces, the Marines
protecting the town and its airfield remained on full alert. As a result, they
intercepted the main North Vietnamese force advancing on Da Nang and, aided
by South Vietnamese and U.S. Army units, repulsed a two-pronged thrust
toward that city and nearby Hoi An. Enemy forces did not stage an infantry
assault, although a rocket barrage temporarily closed one runway. Since flight
operations continued without interruption, the Tet attack on the airdrome
amounted to little more than a nuisance raid.17
In suddenly lashing out against towns and installations throughout the
country, the enemy had taken advantage of U.S. preoccupation with the border
13
regions, a reaction to recent battles at Loc Ninh, Dak To, and Bu Doc and to the
encirclement of the Marine combat base at Khe Sanh. The military assistance
command hoped to seal the borders with U.S. troops, leaving the South Viet-
namese — along with the South Koreans, plus the few Australians and New
Zealanders serving in the country — to protect the interior, including the vital
installations at Tan Son Nhut, Bien Hoa, and Long Binh. Had the enemy been
able to conceal the military buildup around the cities more thoroughly, the Tet
offensive might have caused far more damage.18
As early as mid-December 1967, an informal intelligence group in the base-
ment of the White House had become convinced, mainly on the basis of trans-
lations of prisoner of war interrogations and captured documents, that an enemy
offensive was in the making. Four individuals made up this group: Walt W.
Rostow, special assistant to the President for national security affairs; Brig.
Gen. Robert N. Ginsburgh, an Air Force officer serving as a senior member of
Dr. Rostow’s staff; Art McCafferty, director of the White House situation room;
and Mary Lee Chatternuck, secretary for the team, who screened the transla-
tions, calling attention to pertinent items. The available evidence indicated an
impending “winter/spring campaign” — which turned out to be the Tet offen-
sive — with two possible objectives, either Khe Sanh in the far northwest or
“towns like Hue.” Although alert to the possibility of an attack, the White
House group, like most analysts elsewhere, simply could not believe that the
enemy could maintain pressure on the Marine outpost and launch simultaneous
assaults throughout South Vietnam.19
Meanwhile, isolated bits of intelligence were surfacing in South Vietnam,
revealing the possibility of assaults on Tan Son Nhut and Bien Hoa. These clues
proved to be fragments of a plan to take advantage of the Tet holiday and seize
major U.S. air bases and military installations.20 Since reports pointing toward
an offensive formed but a small fraction of the 600 items that might reach intel-
ligence specialists in a single day, they disappeared in the torrent of data and
caused no particular alarm. The assistance command continued planning to use
South Vietnamese troops for protecting Saigon, for example, while U.S. forces
normally based near the capital took the offensive “in the more remote areas.”21
Early in January 1968, however, General Westmoreland reconsidered the policy
of entrusting the defense of Saigon to South Vietnamese units.
His change of plan apparently resulted from a conference on January 10
with Lt. Gen. Frederick G. Weyand, the Army officer in command of II Field
Force, who was scheduled to shift the bulk of his forces from the vicinity of the
capital to an operating area near the Cambodian border. Intelligence reports re-
ceived over the weeks had convinced Weyand that Saigon was in danger. He
outlined for General Westmoreland the evidence he had found so persuasive,
and the senior commander decided to cancel part of the planned deployment, so
that about fifteen U.S. Army battalions would be available to defend the city
and the nearby installations.22
14
President Lyndon Johnson, Brig. Gen. Robert N. Ginsburgh, and Walt

W. Rostow (left to right) examine a terrain map of the Khe Sanh area.
At the approach of Tet, other signs of impending action appeared, as the
enemy recruited porters and made his final troop dispositions.23 Although the
various elements of intelligence now gleam like newly washed nuggets, at the
time they lay buried among tons of gravel — interrogation reports, captured
documents, and other information, some of it contradictory and much of it local
in scope. A team of Department of Defense systems analysts, who studied the
role of intelligence in the Tet offensive, concluded, “While there were reports
of coordinated attacks on cities prior to the commencement of the Tet offensive,
they were more like voices in the crowd than a warning of disaster.” Indeed, the
analysts sympathized with those intelligence specialists whose attention had re-
mained focused on Khe Sanh and the border region. According to the findings
of the inquiry, an officer reading the pertinent intelligence documents, though
he would have expected “some sort of significant effort by the communists,”
could not have known where, when, or in what strength. He probably would
have “guessed the DMZ” — the demilitarized zone north of Khe Sanh — as the
marshaling area, and “shortly after Tet” as the time, but he would have had no
idea of “the extent and scope of the effort.” Whether in the White House
basement, at the Pentagon, or at Westmoreland’s headquarters in Saigon, most
of those who studied the intelligence data did not grasp the magnitude or timing
of the planned offensive.24
The military assistance command’s attitude toward the 1968 Tet truce re-
flected an order of priority that emphasized the threat to Khe Sanh. In agreeing
reluctantly to a holiday truce, in part to help sustain South Vietnamese morale,
General Westmoreland specified that military operations continue in I Corps,
where Khe Sanh was located, and in the demilitarized zone just to the north. In
the region excluded from the Tet cease-fire, troops and air crews were to take
“every precaution” to ensure “an absolute minimum of danger to or involvement
15
of any civilian populace.” Westmoreland tried to limit the cease-fire, where it

applied, to just twenty-four hours, but, as a concession to South Vietnam’s
President, Nguyen Van Thieu, he accepted a 36-hour truce to last from 6:00
p.m. local time on January 29 to 6:00 a.m. on January 31.25
Already concerned that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong would attack
Saigon during their self-proclaimed seven-day truce, scheduled to last from
January 27 to February 3, General Weyand took note of the continuing hostile
activity near the capital and on the evening of the 29th alerted his troops. When
the enemy did strike, however, his first blows fell not on Saigon, as Weyand had
anticipated, but on Da Nang, Nha Trang, Kontum, Hoi An, Qui Nhon, and
Pleiku, all to the north of the capital. These attacks, launched some twenty-four
hours before the main effort, prompted the South Vietnamese high command to
order an alert throughout the country. Unfortunately, the nation’s armed forces
had no way to recall the thousands of men given holiday leave, many of whom
did not have access to radio or telephone. Most units remained at about half
strength when the Tet offensive erupted in full fury. As a result of the early
attacks, General Westmoreland summoned all U.S. forces to maximum alert, is-
suing a last-minute warning that called attention to the danger of raids upon
supply depots, troop billets, and population centers.26
The full extent of the Tet offensive gradually revealed itself to eyes fixed
upon Khe Sanh. Indeed, the belief lingered that the North Vietnamese intended
to make Khe Sanh a second Dien Bien Phu, storming the Marine combat base
in an attempt to deliver the same devastating blow to American resolve that the
fall of Dien Bien Phu, some fourteen years earlier, had inflicted on the French.27
As late as mid-February, for instance, President Johnson spoke of enemy plans
to overrun Khe Sanh and attack eastward to “plant his flag on the free soil of the
Republic of Vietnam.”28
The allocation of air strikes during the crucial first three days of the Tet
offensive reflected the importance placed on Khe Sanh. The number of sorties
flown in support of the Marine base increased by eighty-eight — fifty-one by
fighter-bombers and thirty-seven by B-52s — over the three days preceding the
urban attacks.29 The isolated bastion required a large share of the aerial transport
available at this time, for the 6,000 defenders relied almost exclusively on Air
Force cargo planes to fly in the food, munitions, and medicine that normally
would have come by truck convoy. Luckily, an emergency airlift had already
replaced the 1,500 tons of ammunition destroyed on January 21 when North
Vietnamese shells detonated the main munitions dump.30
Though American planners considered an assault on Khe Sanh understand-
able, albeit foolhardy, in view of the aerial might available for its defense, the
objectives established by the enemy for the Tet offensive all but defied belief.
In his Tet exhortation to the Vietnamese, Ho Chi Minh, North Vietnam’s chief
of state, vowed to “restore power to the people, completely liberate [the] 14
million people of South Vietnam, [and] fulfill our revolutionary task of estab-
16
Hue, during the Tet fighting, from across the Perfume River.
lishing democracy throughout the country.” These spectacular accomplish-
ments — which to American eyes appeared impossible — would result from the
“greatest battle ever fought in the history of our country,” an engagement re-
quiring “many sacrifices.” The victory gained through these efforts, Ho de-
clared, would “decide the fate and survival of our fatherland and . . . shake the
world and cause the most bitter failure to the imperialist ringleaders.”31
North Vietnamese military doctrine, rooted in communist ideology rather
than military experience, looked to a general uprising in Vietnam’s towns and
cities, a thunderclap to signal the triumph of communist arms. According to this
mythology, which ran counter to actual experience in the war with France, con-
ventional combat units and citizen guerrillas would isolate the population cen-
ters, and the oppressed urban masses would then rise up to effect their liber-
ation. This certainly had not happened against the French, who realized after
their defeat, largely by regular troops, at Dien Bien Phu in the far-off north-
western highlands that they could not win the long, bloody, and expensive war.
Perhaps the enemy, in mounting the 1968 Tet offensive, sought deliberately or
instinctively to duplicate the effect of Dien Bien Phu, demoralizing the Ameri-
can people by attacking a number of towns simultaneously instead of over-
whelming a single bastion.32
If the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong who suddenly appeared on the
streets of Saigon actually expected a spontaneous uprising, they encountered
cruel disappointment, for few citizens took up arms beside them. On the other
hand, government authorities received few warnings of the secret gathering of
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers. Some families sought to ingratiate
themselves with the attackers by giving them token assistance, such as food and
water, while others shunned any involvement and simply barricaded themselves
17
in their homes. The communists harangued the citizenry to rise up and some-
times kidnapped or executed previously identified government officials, but
neither speeches nor terror had much impact. In general, the inhabitants of
Saigon displayed apathy toward both sides, withholding support from the as-
sault forces but also refusing to turn them in.33
Although the enemy at Saigon seemed indecisive in trying to marshal pop-
ular support, relying mainly on rallies reinforced by occasional terrorism, at
Hue he quickly established leadership committees to rule the captured city and
then set about killing those who might oppose him. Throughout the Tet offen-
sive, even at Saigon, the attackers seemed to know precisely where to find
members of the opposition, but only at Hue did communist cadres systemati-
cally ferret them out — American nonmilitary officials, South Vietnamese sol-
diers or police, several Roman Catholic priests, or other influential persons —
and herd them off for re-education, in this case a euphemism for murder. During
the weeks that communist forces ruled Hue, executioners killed some 2,800
people, most of them listed by Viet Cong intelligence as being enemies of the
new order. In addition to these carefully chosen victims, the number executed
almost certainly included relatives or associates of persons on the list, along
with some who simply were misidentified. This bloodshed, instead of consoli-
dating the power of the city’s conquerors, created a climate of fear and hatred
that resulted in acts of revenge after the recapture of Hue, when the communist
cadre members in turn became prisoners.34
Assisted by underground sympathizers who kept quiet about infiltrating
troops and singled out those South Vietnamese hostile to the communist revolu-
tion, North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong guerrillas suddenly brought the
war to South Vietnam’s towns and principal cities. No general uprising occur-
red, however, and Air Force security police helped beat back the initial assaults
on key air bases, although hostile gunners continued to harass these installations
through February and March. Suddenly caught up in battle, the officers and air-
men in these security detachments helped defeat attacks on Tan Son Nhut and
Bien Hoa that could have delayed and weakened the Air Force response to the
Tet offensive. As it turned out, despite casualties and aircraft losses, the
reconnaissance, tactical fighter, observation, bombardment, and transport
squadrons promptly carried the war to the enemy, locating and attacking his
forces and shuttling troops and cargo among the embattled towns.
18
Chapter Two
The Enemy Repulsed
Once the American and South Vietnamese forces had beaten back the sud-
den attacks on the air bases, General Westmoreland sought to defeat the enemy
country-wide, systematically using air power to support counterattacks designed
to regain total control of Saigon, Hue, and the other cities. To help him achieve
his objective, the Seventh Air Force devoted roughly 70 percent of its sorties
during February to those activities later categorized as close combat and logis-
tics support of ground forces.
Of some 56,000 operational sorties flown in South Vietnam that month by
fixed-wing aircraft of the Seventh Air Force, 43,000 supported the war on the
ground, support that included tactical reconnaissance, combat support, airlift,
and attack. Tactical reconnaissance accounted for about 10,000 sorties, pro-
ducing visual sightings by forward air controllers as well as aerial photographs
and infrared imagery. Not quite 2,500 were classified as combat support, limited
at the time to battlefield illumination, defoliation, and psychological warfare
missions. Another 19,000 airlift sorties flown by Air Force transports carried
men or material needed by tactical units. The number of attack sorties flown
during February exceeded 10,000 — almost one operational sortie in six — with
70 percent of them providing close air support to ground units and the rest
attempting to interdict enemy movement. In addition, the 3d Air Division flew
1,291 B–52 sorties against targets in South Vietnam, missions designed to kill
enemy troops, destroy supplies, or disrupt lines of supply and communication.
The Tet attacks thus triggered a month of sustained aerial warfare in
support of ground operations throughout South Vietnam. Besides the squadrons
of the Seventh Air Force, tactical fighters, attack planes, and light bombers of
the Navy, Marine Corps, South Vietnamese Air Force, and Royal Australian Air
Force participated in the February fighting. The 10,000-odd attack sorties flown
by the Air Force represented slightly more than half the monthly total for Feb-
ruary. Marine aviators flew about 27 percent of the February attack sorties,
Navy airmen 8 percent, the South Vietnamese 11 percent, and the Australians
1 percent. During the response to the Tet offensive, support of ground
forces — whether with aerial transport, reconnaissance, dropping flares or
19
propaganda leaflets, close air support, or aerial interdiction — served as the

focal point for American air power.1
Before joining in this response to the Tet offensive, many Air Force units
had to recover from the first stunning blows delivered by the North Vietnamese
and Viet Cong. Although a nationwide alert had gone into effect after the Jan-
uary 30 attacks on Da Nang and five other cities north of Saigon, the street
fighting that broke out in the capital and elsewhere some 24 hours later
prevented airmen who had not yet returned to their posts from getting there.
Moreover, some aircraft crews, especially those delivering cargo or on routine
courier missions, found themselves either trapped on the ground at bases under
attack or unable to land at destinations raked by hostile fire.
Key staff officers in Saigon could not reach Seventh Air Force headquarters
at Tan Son Nhut. Such absences hampered the work of the tactical air control
center in preparing the daily operations order that specified the number and type
of tactical air sorties, the kinds of ordnance, and the times over target. For three
days, while fighting raged in Saigon, no more than three officers handled this
essential job.2
On January 31, Air Force and South Vietnamese airmen attacked their first
target, a textile mill not far from Tan Son Nhut that the enemy had converted
into a fortress. After the structure had been bombed and recaptured, the battle
shifted to an enemy stronghold in the residential area around the Phu Tho race-
track, within striking distance of the air base. Throughout most of February,
communist forces clung to the race course and its environs, launching thrusts
from this region into Saigon proper and into Cholon, the Chinese quarter south
of the airfield. By the end of the month, however, U.S. and South Vietnamese
troops had eliminated the pocket and regained control of Saigon and nearby
hamlets.3
Because the conflict had enveloped populated places, Air Force forward air
controllers faced the unpleasant task of directing attacks against enemy forces
that had taken over and fortified the homes of South Vietnamese civilians. One
Air Force officer acknowledged that he had been reluctant to direct his first
strike against a suburb of Saigon. He described the target as “a nice little town,
a pretty place, very picturesque,” where the Viet Cong had dug in. He exper-
ienced this uneasiness even though he was following rules of engagement that
required him to have clearance from South Vietnamese authorities before
calling down bombs or artillery fire on any inhabited place. In this case, an
American ground commander assured him that the local South Vietnamese
province chief had evacuated the town, but even so he found “it was difficult to
start putting in . . . ordnance,” for he knew, “before the day was out we were
going to make a lot of people homeless.”4
Around Saigon and elsewhere, U.S. airmen observed complicated rules of
engagement that, among other things, required that an appropriate South Viet-
namese authority approve air strikes or artillery fire in or near population cen-
20
The Enemy Repulsed
A Royal Australian Air Force Canberra over South Vietnam.

ters or in close proximity to South Vietnamese troops. Even though the rules
placed responsibility on officials expected to be concerned about the lives and
welfare of their fellow citizens, the enemy had converted the cities into battle-
fields, at least in part to demonstrate the weakness of the Saigon government,
and urban destruction proved unavoidable. Within most of the towns or cities
attacked at Tet, American firepower contributed comparatively little to the
devastation, for South Vietnamese troops, supported by their own artillery and
aviation and acting with the consent of their own authorities, did the greater
share of the fighting.5
A widely publicized example of urban destruction — the battle for Ben
Tre — involved American, rather than South Vietnamese, artillery and air
power. Two Viet Cong battalions infiltrated the town, roughly 35 miles
southwest of Saigon, and attacked on the morning of January 31, taking the
South Vietnamese defenders completely by surprise. When dawn broke, the
only friendly forces in Ben Tre were seventy or eighty U.S. advisers and a
handful of South Vietnamese soldiers, holding out near the center of town. An
American infantry brigade went to the rescue, but became pinned down by Viet
Cong troops firing from the cover of houses and other buildings. Realizing that
his men had to have additional firepower to fight their way through, the brigade
commander obtained approval for the use of mortars, artillery, and air strikes
against enemy strongpoints within the town.
One of the forward air controllers working with the brigade, Maj. James
Gibson, shared the normal reluctance to attack a populated area. “We would
have preferred not to operate within the cities,” he said, “and our choice has
never been to operate in the cities — that is the philosophy of our brigade, and
from what I have been able to read and understand, it is the philosophy of the
United States military services in this country.” At Ben Tre, however, the
enemy had selected the battleground, leaving the brigade commander and South
21
Devastation from the Tet attacks in the Cholon district of Saigon.

Vietnamese authorities the choice, in Gibson’s opinion, of either using over-
whelming firepower or allowing the leading elements of the relief force to be
“pretty well wiped out.”
As Major Gibson remembered the battle, parts of Ben Tre already lay in
ruins when he arrived above the town. He and his fellow forward air controllers
promptly directed seven strikes against enemy emplacements within an eight-
block area in the comparatively untouched eastern section of the city. These
attacks, he believed, “killed the VC [Viet Cong] offensive in that part of town.”
Gibson and the other forward air controllers also called down artillery fire, since
they could, from their slow-moving planes, keep track of the advance on the
ground and pinpoint the centers of enemy resistance. By the evening of Feb-
ruary 2, the Americans controlled the ruins of Ben Tre, but two days of mop-
ping up lay ahead.6
After the recapture of Ben Tre, where 500 or more noncombatants may
have died, an anonymous “U.S. major” declared: “It became necessary to des-
troy the town in order to save it.” This widely quoted comment, which seemed
to summarize the contradiction between American aims and accomplishments
in the Vietnam war, riveted attention upon Ben Tre and the death or dis-
placement of civilians. Indeed, at Ben Tre more noncombatants perished than
soldiers, though the exact number of civilian deaths could not be verified.
Although subsequent news stories challenged the first estimates of property
destroyed and spoke of Ben Tre’s recovery, the officer’s words raised the
question whether the United States could build a nation, the Republic of South
Vietnam, by waging a destructive war on its territory. At Ben Tre, if not else-
where, bombs and shells seemed to be destroying the very thing the United
States claimed to be trying to nurture, a self-sustaining society. The path to
independence dead-ended at the refugee camp.7
22
The Enemy Repulsed
Air power, whether American or South Vietnamese, also lent its destructive
might to the recapture of other towns, among them Phuoc Le, the capital of
Phuoc Tuy, a coastal province southeast of Saigon. Although the Viet Cong,
some 700-strong, did not attack here until the early morning of February 1, air
support responded slowly, for by this time it was needed throughout the coun-
try. Before dawn, an Air Force O–1 based at the Phuoc Le airstrip took off on
a routine patrol and began dropping flares, and soon discovered the approaching
enemy, whose fire prevented the aircraft from landing. Meanwhile, hostile fire
began grazing the path from the pilots’ quarters to their parked planes, a passage
that one officer described as “Death Valley.” Despite the danger, the controllers
crossed Death Valley to reach their O–1s, take off, and continue the battle from
a more secure flying field.
The early reports proved so vague that South Vietnamese authorities and
American commanders hesitated to approve air strikes on the town. The defend-
ers had to wait some three hours before their request for air support produced
a handful of Army helicopter gunships. These aircraft used their multi-barrel
machineguns to strafe the Viet Cong who had closed the airstrip and laid siege
to the American and South Vietnamese headquarters in the heart of town. For
much of the day, one Army and two Air Force observation planes circled over-
head, directing both armed helicopters and the fighter-bombers that joined them
in attacking targets in and around the provincial capital. Late in the afternoon,
the Viet Cong, battered from the air and prodded by South Vietnamese troops
entering the town, began to retreat.8
Elsewhere, an eleven-day battle raged for control of Da Lat, some 135
miles northeast of Saigon. Since Da Lat had never before come under commu-
nist attack, even though it was the site of the national military academy, the Tet
assault had shocked the irregular troops and military police defending the town.
Before the startled eyes of this small garrison, Viet Cong seemed to appear
simultaneously throughout Da Lat, but the attackers could not take full advan-
tage of surprise. Between them and victory stood the first-year students from the
military academy, the only class that had not received holiday leave. These
young men set up a blocking position in the city, causing the enemy to hesitate
long enough for the local commander, Maj. Dao Mong Xuan, to organize the ill-
trained students. Legend has it that several American soldiers, spending the
night on the upper stories of a downtown bordello, heard firing from the streets
below, reached the major by telephone, and alerted him to the direction in which
the attackers were moving, enabling him to deploy his force appropriately.
Whether or not he benefitted from this particular intelligence source, the
South Vietnamese commander’s hurriedly organized defense stopped the Viet
Cong, forcing them to dig in and await reinforcements, which unaccountably
proved late in arriving. By setting up a perimeter inside the city, the enemy pro-
vided a well-defined target for air power and artillery, but forward air control-
lers to direct this firepower were scarce. To meet the need, Col. Philip Erdle, a
23
pilot as well as a professor at the Air Force Academy, volunteered to help. Erdle
had come to Da Lat to advise the staff of the South Vietnamese military acad-
emy on organizing an engineering curriculum, but in this emergency he com-
mandeered an O–1 and helped handle the seventy-four sorties flown by Seventh
Air Force and South Vietnamese planes.
Aided by these strikes, South Vietnamese rangers and infantrymen drove
the Viet Cong from Da Lat. The bombing destroyed about 200 homes and other
structures, and perhaps fifty noncombatants died in the battle. The destruction
and loss of civilian life here proved far less than at Ben Tre, but more than at
Phuoc Le in Phuoc Tuy Province.9
If the fighting at Da Lat seemed typical of the Tet offensive — suddenly be-
gun, bitterly fought, but involving comparatively few troops and over in a short
time — the battle at Hue more closely resembled the urban combat of World
War II in terms of duration, ferocity, and numbers involved. American Marines
and soldiers, along with South Vietnamese troops, waged a struggle that began
on January 31, the first day of Tet, but did not end until February 24 and the
elimination of the last pocket of Viet Cong resistance within the walled city.
The unfurling of South Vietnam’s red-and-yellow flag over the recaptured pal-
ace verified the failure of the entire Tet offensive, though mopping up in and
around Hue continued for another week.10
During the early days of the fighting at Hue, South Vietnamese officials
sought to minimize damage to the city and casualties among its inhabitants by
forbidding the use of artillery, napalm, and high-explosive aerial bombs.
Through the evening of February 3, the counterattacking forces relied on direct-
fire weapons — rifles, machineguns, tank guns, and recoilless rifles — supple-
mented by tear gas, in a house-by-house battle. The exhausting and bloody
struggle, however, prompted the South Vietnamese to lift these restrictions for
much of the modern city. Two days later, they lifted restrictions for the ancient
Citadel. After February 5, air power could join with artillery in engaging targets
throughout most of the city, although certain structures — temples and public
or historic buildings — could not be bombed or shelled.
Despite the change of policy, the weather prevented air power from playing
a decisive role in the fighting at Hue. Daytime cloud cover and low-lying fog
that persisted through most mornings limited the total number of combat sorties
by tactical aircraft to about 150, one-third of them by Marine aviators. At night,
when fog and cloud usually abated, Marine and Air Force planes flew almost
50 strikes, usually following instructions from radar operators on the ground.
To avoid endangering American and South Vietnamese troops fighting in the
midst of the city, where only the thickness of a wall might separate friend from
enemy, the night strikes engaged targets on the outskirts of Hue where clearly
defined radar checkpoints existed or the enemy could otherwise be pinpointed.11
Progress on the ground remained slow, however, and South Vietnam’s
leaders grew impatient. On February 10, Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, former
24
The Enemy Repulsed
The Imperial Palace in Hue, damaged during the Tet fighting.

commander of the South Vietnamese Air Force, and a dozen of the country’s
military and civilian leaders visited the strife-torn city, where they talked with
the U.S. officers directing the battle — Gen. Creighton W. Abrams of the Army
and two Marines, Lt. Gen. Robert E. Cushman, Jr. and Brig. Gen. Foster C.
LaHue. The discussion focused on the enemy’s practice of fortifying schools
such as Hue University, public buildings like the city post office, and even
historic or religious shrines. Vice President Ky weighed the lives of American
and South Vietnamese soldiers against the value of such structures and accepted
responsibility for the damage that would result from using whatever supporting
weapons might be needed to dislodge the enemy. Within the week, the South
Vietnamese corps commander for the northern provinces, Lt. Gen. Huong Xuan
Lam, specifically authorized air strikes against the historic palace itself, which
served as a Viet Cong redoubt. Most of the bombs dropped within the Citadel,
however, exploded on targets between the palace and the southwest wall.12
The battle for Hue helped alienate an individual uniquely able to shape
American public opinion. The members of the press visiting the city included
Walter Cronkite, a popular and influential television commentator, who had
initially accepted the idea that the United States was successfully waging war
to help the South Vietnamese create a nation. By the outbreak of the Tet offen-
sive in 1968, however, he had begun to doubt reports of steady progress, and the
house-by-house fighting that he saw at Hue further disillusioned him. He came
away convinced not only that the enemy was far more tenacious than American
officials had been willing to admit, but also that the conflict was destroying,
rather than building, a South Vietnamese nation. His televised “Report from
Vietnam,” broadcast on February 27, struck a pessimistic note, emphasizing the
25
surprise achieved by the enemy, detailing the havoc caused by the Tet fighting,
and predicting that the “bloody experience of Vietnam” would likely “end in a
stalemate.”13
Although the destruction that Cronkite reported, along with the remarks
about Ben Tre attributed to the anonymous major, might imply otherwise, U.S.
forces continued to observe rules of engagement prescribing the circumstances
in which various weapons could be used. As before, South Vietnamese author-
ities had to approve specific targets, though they might designate general areas
subject to aerial attack without further review. Both the South Vietnamese corps
commander and his American counterpart had to agree before air strikes could
take place within an inhabited place. Psychological warfare planes had to warn
civilians to flee, either by dropping leaflets or making loudspeaker broadcasts,
before the first bomb fell. The rules also specified that a forward air controller
in contact with forces on the ground direct the bombing. If the enemy, as he had
during the Tet offensive, took refuge in shrines, temples, or similar buildings,
senior American or South Vietnamese commanders on the scene might approve
air attacks without consulting a higher headquarters. Should the war return to
the Citadel at Hue, however, the allies were to use tear gas and direct-fire
weapons before resorting to aerial bombardment or artillery fire.
Such in general were the revised rules of engagement governing combat in
towns. Since commanders and local officials had to apply them to specific situa-
tions, the regulations could not in themselves prevent the death of noncombat-
ants and the destruction of their property. As had happened during the Tet fight-
ing, the safety of friendly forces or the need to destroy the enemy might again
outweigh a genuine desire to protect the civilian populace.14
A concern for South Vietnamese noncombatants kept General Westmore-
land from using Boeing B–52s in the urban battles, where their large, devas-
tating bombing pattern would have endangered not only civilians but friendly
troops, sometimes just a grenade’s throw from the enemy. As a result, these
planes supported the counteroffensive on the ground by flying some 200 sorties
during February against troop concentrations, base areas, and supply routes a
safe distance from South Vietnamese towns and villages.
Khe Sanh remained the focus of B–52 activity in South Vietnam during the
month. More than 1,000 of the 1,500 sorties flown against targets in the South
hit the enemy forces massed in the vicinity of that base. In addition, most of the
170 targets bombed in Laos contributed directly to the security of Khe Sanh.15
A key individual in selecting B–52 targets at this time was Marine Lt. Gen.
John R. Chaisson, the director of General Westmoreland’s combat operations
center, a joint organization with Air Force representation. The major ground
combat units sent their requests for air support to Chaisson and his staff, who
arranged them in order of priority and apportioned the total available sorties,
beginning with the most important targets. Although encirclement of Khe Sanh
and attacks on the cities triggered additional target nominations, the assistance
26
The Enemy Repulsed
command had at its disposal a greater number of B–52 sorties than ever before.
From 800 per month, the number of sorties authorized by the Joint Chiefs of
Staff increased to 1,200 (40 per day) on January 22 and to 1,800 (60 per day)
on February 15. In order to fly the approved 60 sorties each day, the Strategic
Air Command had to place at General Westmoreland’s call a force of 26 B–52s
deployed to the Pacific after North Korean motor gunboats captured the U.S.
communications intelligence ship Pueblo on January 23. By mid-February, 104
B–52 bombers stood ready to support ground operations in Southeast Asia — 66
on Guam; 23 in Thailand; and 15 on Okinawa.16
Although under the “command control” of the Strategic Air Command,
which could reconvert them in a matter of hours to carry hydrogen bombs in the
event of nuclear war, the B–52s stationed in the Far East served as Westmore-
land’s flying artillery, battering area targets too large for tactical fighters and
usually beyond reach of the heaviest guns. After Chaisson’s combat operations
center had completed a slate of recommended targets for the B–52s, it submitted
them for Westmoreland’s approval. The recommendations reflected intelligence
produced by Seventh Air Force, which in turn benefitted from advice given by
the Strategic Air Command Advance Echelon, a liaison agency located at Tan
Son Nhut. A list containing proposed times of attack, the targets, and the recom-
mended weight of effort then went to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, where
the 3d Air Division — later redesignated the Eighth Air Force — planned mis-
sions that normally hit the selected targets about forty-eight hours after they had
been proposed to General Chaisson.17
Normally, Westmoreland readily approved the slate of targets presented by
Chaisson. In the event the schedule of strikes had to be adjusted in the middle
of the night, Chaisson usually did not awaken Westmoreland but made any nec-
essary alteration on his own initiative, waiting to explain the change in the
morning when the commander arrived at headquarters. The threat to Khe Sanh,
however, and the Tet offensive persuaded Westmoreland to move from his resi-
dence to the headquarters, where he began closely supervising B–52 activity.
Each evening, after a briefing that covered all four tactical zones or corps areas,
he approved a schedule of B–52 strikes, and on the following morning, he re-
viewed the latest intelligence on previous attacks. In short, Westmoreland was,
in Chaisson’s phrase, “personally . . . fingering the targets.” Although Chaisson
could offer “side comments and all that,” Westmoreland usually “would just
say . . . these are the ones we are going on.” Occasionally, he might establish “a
flat priority,” directing Chaisson to concentrate the available sorties for a
specific purpose — the defense of Khe Sanh, for instance — but allowing his
subordinates to select the exact targets.18
Upon receipt of the compilation from Westmoreland’s headquarters, the 3d
Air Division, commanded at the time of the Tet fighting by Maj. Gen. Selmon
W. Wells, began planning the attacks, even as higher headquarters were review-
ing the targets. The same list that General Wells received, called a strike
27
request, went also to the Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command, Gen.
Joseph J. Nazzaro; to the Commander in Chief, Pacific, Adm. U. S. Grant
Sharp; and to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. For some overriding reason, such as
interference with another more critical activity, any of the reviewers might veto
a strike. If they remained silent, and they usually did, the 3d Air Division
headquarters issued an operations order for the specific day, formally authori-
zing the attacks and establishing takeoff times.
Radar operators in Southeast Asia directed the actual bombing, using the
Combat Skyspot radar targeting equipment and techniques developed over the
years. After the arrival of the day’s operations order issued by the 3d Air
Division, the Combat Skyspot radar teams made the necessary calculations that
would enable the ground controllers to tell each mission when and where to
release its bombs. The considerations in determining a release point included
the speed and altitude of the aircraft, ballistic characteristics of the bombs, and
nature and location of the target.
The B–52 crews reported the results of their missions — those fires and
secondary explosions visible four miles in the air — but the magnitude of effort
proved easier to calculate than results, and that sort of data proved essential for
logistics and manpower planning. A record of munitions dropped and hours
flown entered the maw of a computer in the Pentagon, forming an automated
data base used in supplying the 3d Air Division with bombs, fuel, spare parts,
and replacement crews.19
To help General Westmoreland bring the B–52s to bear against enemy con-
centrations around Khe Sanh, the Strategic Air Command on February 15
adopted so-called Bugle Note procedures, capable of focusing as many as forty-
eight sorties per day against targets near the base. To do so, the 3d Air Division
designated two pre-initial points where approaching three-plane B–52 cells
came under control of a Combat Skyspot radar that routed each cell to one of
several initial points and then to a target. Thailand-based bombers approaching
Khe Sanh from the west checked in at one pre-initial point, while those coming
from the east, dispatched from Guam or Okinawa, used the other. Cells took off
alternately from western and eastern airfields so that the bombers arrived at
their pre-initial points about ninety minutes apart throughout the day. By
carefully selecting initial points, a radar controller could vary the interval
between strikes so that one might follow another by as little as half an hour or
as much as two hours, thus avoiding an overly rigid, easily predictable pattern.
As anticipated, Bugle Note demonstrated that maintaining a steady, around-
the-clock launch rate eased the burden of arming, fueling, and servicing the
bombers, but minor changes in the procedure proved necessary. For example,
the arrival at the pre-initial point of two cells every three hours, instead of one
every ninety minutes, not only doubled the weight of explosives that could be
dropped on a single target box but allowed time to evaluate a strike before the
next cells of B–52s arrived. General Westmoreland expressed pleasure with
28
The Enemy Repulsed
Khe Sanh combat base. The craters in the hills at the top of the picture
attest to the intensity and accuracy of the air bombardment at Khe Sanh.
Bugle Note, and soon other pre-initial points were designated for radar con-
trolled B–52 strikes elsewhere in South Vietnam.20
In spite of General Westmoreland’s satisfaction with B–52 effectiveness,
questions persisted concerning the results of their use. After more than two
years of bombing, the evidence of success remained tenuous at best, consisting
of air crew reports, aerial photographs, some prisoner of war interrogations, and
occasional reports from friendly troops following up a raid. Unfortunately, the
bombing usually took place deep in enemy territory where ground reconnais-
sance was impossible or in jungle that impeded photography, and the testimony
of thoroughly shaken survivors of B–52 attacks was contradicted by statements
from prisoners whose units had evaded the bombers. One Viet Cong defector
told an Air Force interrogator, “We always get a two-day warning.”21
Although that may well have been an exaggeration, several hours’ advance
notice could have come from agents among the thousands of Vietnamese em-
ployed at Tan Son Nhut where the target list was prepared, at bases in Thailand
that launched B–52s or those in South Vietnam that provided support aircraft,
or at the various American and South Vietnamese headquarters that received
notice of B–52 attacks. The enemy, moreover, had other means of learning from
thirty minutes to several hours ahead of time that a B–52 strike was imminent.
Soviet trawlers off Guam, for instance, reported the takeoff times and numbers
of bombers. North Vietnamese or Viet Cong communications analysts might
pick up radar jamming signals, indicating that the cells and their escort would
pass near radar-controlled guns or missiles. Intercepted radio traffic, using
infrequently changed call signs, might reveal the approach of the bombers and
29
their location at the moment, while the presence of any radar suppression escort
was an additional clue to the general course the B–52s were following. Intelli-
gence such as this, combined with the enemy’s realization that certain units or
base areas were especially vulnerable to pattern bombing, probably enabled the
enemy to evade at least some B–52 strikes, provided he was not in actual con-
tact with American or South Vietnamese ground forces and could move.22
Photo reconnaissance proved more helpful in defeating the Tet offensive
than in obtaining day-to-day evidence of B–52 effectiveness. Reconnaissance
crews based at Tan Son Nhut, for example, flew twenty-one missions on Feb-
ruary 1, seeking out enemy activity within about an eight-mile radius of the
base. Coverage expanded, even as the Tet offensive collapsed, as U.S. intelli-
gence continued to watch for another series of urban attacks. By late April,
these Tan Son Nhut airmen had flown ninety-two missions in South Vietnam
and produced more than 180,000 feet of film. To help process and analyze this
photographic data, along with that obtained outside the country, Seventh Air
Force requested the assignment of sixty-four additional technicians, thirty-five
of them photo interpreters. These specialists began arriving about March 1 and
remained at Tan Son Nhut for sixty days.
Pictures taken during the weeks following Tet revealed hundreds of hastily
dug emplacements in the vicinity of Saigon, ranging in purpose from storage
pits to individual foxholes, but ground patrols found that some were the work
of friendly troops, who had deployed in response to the initial Tet attacks and
then moved on. The photo interpreters did, however, detect new hostile deploy-
ments, including 37-mm antiaircraft guns dug in along the A Shau Valley infil-
tration route and around Khe Sanh. In March, after the Tet offensive had ended,
General Westmoreland’s troops discovered a cache of ammunition for the So-
viet-built 23-mm antiaircraft gun, a further indication that the enemy in South
Vietnam no longer relied upon concealment, supplemented by light automatic
weapons, for defense against air attack.23
Before the photo reconnaissance crews had begun systematically seeking
out the Tet attackers, forward air controllers went aloft in search of the enemy.
Unfortunately, hostile fire forced some controllers to abandon the airstrips from
which they usually operated and to find bases less vulnerable to attack. All for-
ward air controllers in the northern provinces of Thua Thien and Quang Tri,
where Khe Sanh was located, had to retreat briefly to the comparative safety of
Da Nang. As a result, the twin-engine Cessna O–2A observation plane, with
five-hour endurance, had to spend two hours flying to and from the surrounded
Marine base.24
Like the forward air controllers in northernmost South Vietnam, a large
number of transport crews found themselves caught up in the fury of the Tet of-
fensive. Maj. Billy G. Gibson, a Lockheed C–130 pilot, took off from Cam
Ranh Bay on January 30 to carry men and cargo to several airfields. He arrived
over Ban Me Thuot, site of the earliest Tet attack, as enemy fire was scourging
30
The Enemy Repulsed
the runway. The control tower operator warned him not to descend below 6,000
feet, an altitude safely beyond the effective range of Viet Cong heavy machine-
guns. Unable to complete the scheduled mission, Gibson returned to the quiet
of Cam Ranh Bay and unloaded. For the next few days, he flew from Cam Ranh
Bay, easily the most secure of South Vietnamese air bases, to Qui Nhon, Da
Nang, and Chu Lai. During each landing, he recalled, his crew could see explos-
ions on the ground and hear artillery at the perimeter, but the airmen were never
close to the explosions.25
Cam Ranh Bay, where Gibson’s plane was based, became a refuge for
C–130s that normally operated from Tan Son Nhut. The new arrivals included
a transport flown by Capt. Lloyd J. Probst, which had been approaching Tan
Son Nhut when the Tet attack began. After circling for what seemed like hours,
Probst received instructions to fly to Cam Ranh Bay, which served as his opera-
ting base for the next few days.
Crews aloft when the Tet fighting erupted fared better than those who were
off-duty in their quarters at hotels like the Marlin, a short distance from the
airfield itself. After receiving reports of gunfire near the hotel, a duty officer at
Tan Son Nhut told the airmen to return immediately to the airfield. Four officers
at the Marlin failed to get the word, however, and were trapped when the Viet
Cong attacked the building. Although the enemy killed one guard, others kept
the assault team from advancing beyond the lobby, saving the lives of the un-
armed crew members barricaded behind a door on an upper floor.26
Scattered among several billets in Saigon, the crews of the Fairchild
C–123s operating out of Tan Son Nhut did not receive a recall notice and were
cut off by the January 31 fighting. Relief crews had to be flown in from Phan
Rang for the C–123s, since the 834th Air Division, the headquarters responsible
for airlift in South Vietnam, had decided to transfer these aircraft and all other
Tan Son Nhut-based transports not parked in protective revetments to safer air-
fields. Within forty-eight hours, the stranded crewmen made their way to Tan
Son Nhut and caught flights to Phan Rang where they rejoined their assigned
airplanes.
On the eve of the Tet offensive, a squadron of seventeen UC–123 spray
planes stood ready to scatter herbicide that either stripped away the enemy’s
jungle concealment or destroyed crops that fed Viet Cong guerrillas. When the
Tet offensive began, most of the South Vietnamese who pumped herbicide into
the aircraft were on holiday leave, and the fighting — Bien Hoa, like Tan Son
Nhut, was the objective of direct attack — kept them from returning. Even
though defoliation missions might have proved helpful by depriving the enemy
of the foliage that screened him, air transport seemed more important. Air Force
mechanics therefore began removing the rubber chemical tanks so the UC–123s
could again carry supplies and ammunition. By February 5, all had been recon-
verted to transports, and by the end of the month they had delivered some 3,500
tons of cargo among the various airstrips in South Vietnam.27
31
Reconversion of the UC–123s represented one means of coping with the

disruption of tactical airlift caused by the Tet onslaught. Shelling or ground
attack forced transports to evacuate or avoid certain airfields at the very time
that widespread fighting required the rapid movement of men and cargo
throughout the country. In these circumstances, the airlift control center
scrapped its usual practice of devoting 90 percent of all cargo missions to rou-
tinely scheduled resupply and the remaining 10 percent to emergencies. So
many crises arose immediately after the Tet holiday that the center had to estab-
lish degrees of emergency. By February 2, however, high priority items jammed
the terminals, and organizations filling emergency requests began to assign top
priority to every order, frustrating the arrangement. The passage of time and
diminution of backlogs, rather than arbitrary priorities, finally sorted things out.
The volume of cargo delivered and number of passengers carried declined
sharply in the immediate aftermath of the Tet offensive. Crews could not get to
their planes, airfields came under attack and shut down for hours at a time,
preventing transports from reaching their destinations, and schedules meant
nothing. On January 30, the airlift system had transported the usual 3,500 tons,
but on the following day, as widespread fighting disrupted planned flights, the
amount of cargo declined by almost 1,500 tons, and the number of passengers
underwent a similar reduction. Within four days, however, aerial transport had
rebounded, though this recovery did not signal a return to peak efficiency.
With many roads closed, fighting all over the country, and speed of move-
ment the main consideration, Air Force transports took off partially loaded with
critical cargo or shuttled frantically between bases instead of making longer
flights, touching down at several airfields in succession to unload or take on
shipments. The number of sorties therefore rose, although flying hours declined,
a combination that indicated inefficient operation. Yet, until the crisis passed,
efficiency remained a secondary consideration. C–130s and C–123s were doing
the work of trucks, as demonstrated early in the Tet fighting when transports
carried troops a mere fourteen miles, flying from Tan Son Nhut to Duc Hoa
because the enemy had cut the road.28
The need to move troops and cargo as rapidly as possible increased the de-
mand for C–130s, the largest tactical transport flown by the Air Force. Under
normal conditions, sixty-odd C–130s could have flown the necessary logistical
and troop carrier sorties, operating in a manner that avoided overcrowding air
bases, cargo terminals, or aircraft maintenance facilities. The frenzied response
to the Tet offensive disrupted efficiency, however, imposing a burden that this
number of C–130s simply could not bear.
As a result, a total of ninety-six of these transports operated in South
Vietnam during March. The additional C–130s from Japan and the Philippines
caused overcrowding and further inefficiency, but in the tactical situation
following Tet, more of the planes were needed, regardless of operating theory.
Of the March total, sixteen flew down from Tachikawa, Japan, where thirty-two
32
The Enemy Repulsed
A load of cargo is pulled from an Air Force C–130 at Khe Sanh by a

cable attached to the load that has snagged the runway’s arrester cable.
Using this system, the transport delivered cargo without landing.
C–130s had arrived in February. Half the Tachikawa contingent served in South
Vietnam, changing places with the others, so that half remained available in
Japan to support the U.S. buildup in South Korea following the North
Vietnamese capture of the intelligence ship Pueblo.29
The South Vietnamese Air Force shared in the airlift and other missions
flown in response to the Tet attacks. Fortunately, the headquarters staff heeded
a January 31 alert, returning to Tan Son Nhut before the enemy struck. Such
was not the case in most tactical units, however. The method of recall used for
the squadrons at Tan Son Nhut, for instance, consisted of dispatching couriers
on motor bikes, but because of Tet, many South Vietnamese airmen had left
their listed billets to attend family reunions at unknown locations. As a result,
U.S. Air Force advisers had to take over some maintenance and even flight
duties during the three days that elapsed before most South Vietnamese squad-
rons returned to near-normal strength. Among those rejoining his unit was a
squadron commander at Bien Hoa who had been taken prisoner by the Viet
Cong, but managed to escape.30
South Vietnam’s fighter-bomber squadrons, with almost ninety aircraft,
entered the battle on the afternoon of January 31, helping U.S. Air Force North
American F–100s attack enemy units dug in not far from Tan Son Nhut. By the
end of February, South Vietnamese Douglas A–1s and Northrop F–5s had flown
some 2,500 operational sorties, about 2,200 close support or interdiction and the
others flak suppression or other forms of escort. Using roughly seventy helicop-
ters, the South Vietnamese flew almost 3,200 operational hours during the
month, carrying approximately 11,500 men and 220 tons of cargo. Especially
valuable during the counterattacks were twenty-eight Douglas C–47 transports
33
that flew 800 sorties, shuttling 7,600 men and 320 tons of cargo among various
airfields. These same transports flew an additional 200 sorties, dropping flares
to illuminate battlefields at night or, if suitably modified, engaging in radio
direction finding. One AC–47 gunship, used to train South Vietnamese crews
in the use of side-firing machineguns, saw extensive action around Saigon.31
A high accident rate — during 1967 roughly ten times the U.S. Air Force
rate — had become almost a hallmark of South Vietnam’s Air Force,32 but the
problem subsided during the Tet counteroffensive, only to emerge again later
in the conflict. During the hectic weeks following the enemy attacks, the South
Vietnamese flew on weekends — normally a time for relaxation — at night, and
in bad weather. “Although such conditions might be expected to increase acci-
dents,” wrote Brig. Gen. Donavon F. Smith, chief of the Air Force Advisory
Group, he found that the reverse was true. He attributed the improved perfor-
mance to “increased motivation stimulated by the crisis.”33 Perhaps the impor-
tance of these missions prompted inexperienced, careless, or overly bold pilots
to fly with greater precision.
All in all, the South Vietnamese sustained few aircraft losses as a result of
the Tet offensive. Of some 300 combat and administrative types on hand when
it began, seventeen were lost during the following thirty days and two received
major damage. Also destroyed was one C–119 transport used for training, while
a second plane of this type sustained severe damage. The maximum effort made
in response to the Tet offensive did, however, disrupt scheduled training.34
South Vietnamese UH–1 helicopters landing to pick up

South Vietnamese troops for an airmobile assault operation.
34
The Enemy Repulsed
The Tet offensive lasted until the end of February, when South Vietnamese
and American troops at last regained control of Hue, its Citadel, and its suburbs.
Beating back the enemy had required savage fighting, a fact reflected in the
number of U.S. Air Force officers and men killed or wounded during that
month, contrasted with the totals for earlier periods. Casualties within South
Vietnam for February 1968 were 260, 39 of them killed, compared to 120 killed
and wounded during the preceding month and 130 in February 1967. The initial
Tet attacks and the fighting that ensued claimed thirty-two U.S. Air Force
planes, more than twenty of them destroyed on the ground, compared to a
monthly average of seven losses during 1967. Also during February, some 300
Air Force planes sustained battle damage, roughly eighty more than in a typical
month of the previous year.35
Air Force casualties, though higher than usual, formed but a small fraction
of the 450 Americans killed and more than 2,000 wounded each week during
the month-long Tet battles.36 The South Vietnamese, moreover, whether civil-
ians or members of the armed forces, bore an even greater share of the suffering
caused by the Tet offensive. After two weeks of fighting, for example, the South
Vietnamese army had lost more than twice as many killed as the American
ground forces. Although the number of noncombatant casualties remained elus-
ive, an estimated 600,000 persons fled the ruins of their homes during February
and sought shelter in refugee camps, some of them forced from one such make-
shift haven to another.37
From a military standpoint, the enemy suffered grievously during the Tet
offensive, gaining no permanent tactical advantage in return. Within thirty days,
the South Vietnamese once again controlled the cities and were beginning to
reassert their authority in the countryside. Ho Chi Minh’s bid for victory might
well have cost him half the attacking force, more than 30,000 regulars and guer-
rillas killed or made prisoner.38
Indeed, the Central Office for South Vietnam, the communist headquarters
for operations in the South, acknowledged that the Tet offensive had failed to
ignite the urban uprising that would have ended the war. Although confident
that the South Vietnamese “revolution-minded masses” stood ready “to make
any sacrifice in return for the country’s genuine freedom and democracy,” Ho’s
lieutenants reluctantly conceded that, “when confronted with the enemy’s iron
grip and oppressive control,” the urban populace proved “hesitant and fright-
ened.” As might be expected, headquarters maintained that the offensive would
have succeeded, if carried out with the proper military discipline and ideological
zeal, and fixed the blame on those who had executed the plan. The cadres as-
signed to foment the uprising had lacked revolutionary zeal, the critique stated;
military operations had received too much emphasis, political indoctrination too
little, and control of both had been lax.39
Although the overall military results of the Tet offensive disappointed the
enemy, the attacks at Tan Son Nhut and Bien Hoa came close enough to success
35
to dramatize a number of weaknesses in air base defenses, including the poor

protection afforded parked aircraft. Although existing revetments could absorb
shell fragments in their earth-and-steel walls, a rocket or mortar round might
plunge through the open top and destroy the airplane within. To correct this
deficiency, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze on March 6 approved the
construction of 165 roofed shelters capable of withstanding hits from mortar
shells and from all but the largest rockets. This decision launched a program
that completed 373 steel-roofed shelters in South Vietnam by January 1970,
when work came to an end. The evidence indicated that the shelters had repaid,
in terms of damage prevented, the $15.7 million invested in them. Also 1,000
open revetments, better constructed than those in place at the time of the Tet
attacks, complemented the more expensive roofed shelters.40
To prevent repetition of the frenzied activity of the morning of January 31,
when Army truck drivers and radio technicians had grabbed rifles and deployed
in provisional platoons to fight alongside lightly armed security police, the Air
Force moved swiftly to strengthen its base defense forces in numbers and fire-
power. Reinforcements swelled the various base security detachments — at Tan
Son Nhut, for example, the number of combat teams more than doubled — and
the airmen assigned to them now received mortars, recoilless rifles, and similar
light infantry weapons, as well as dependable radios. In April 1968, at Phan
Rang Air Base, a 500-man quick reaction force took shape. Besides defending
this airfield, its components could deploy by air to any other base in South
Vietnam within two hours.41
Despite additional men, better weapons, and the construction of aircraft
shelters, some aspects of air base security received only a short-lived impetus
from the Tet offensive. The building of personnel shelters and the placement of
sandbag revetments around the lower floors of barracks proceeded sporadically,
prodded along by occasional shellings of a particular base. Other projects, such
as installation of floodlights around defensive perimeters, waxed and waned in
response to changing perceptions of the threat. The absence of a continuing pro-
gram reflected the policy of short tours in Southeast Asia, which usually lasted
only one year. Base commanders changed frequently and each had to learn for
himself the danger on the ground. Also, construction priorities emphasized such
morale-sustaining projects as theaters or exchanges, sometimes at the expense
of base security.42
Besides demonstrating weaknesses in air base defense, the Tet offensive
dramatized the importance of local intelligence, such as that provided by the
area source program, administered since 1964 by the Air Force Office of
Special Investigations. Within an eighteen-mile radius of each base used by the
Air Force, the local program director recruited South Vietnamese agents to
report suspicious occurrences, such as the sudden appearance of crude aiming
stakes that might herald a nighttime rocket or mortar attack. The assaults upon
air bases during the 1968 Tet holidays and the frequent shelling of these instal-
36
The Enemy Repulsed
Revetments built before 1968 (top) were open on top and susceptible to
rocket attacks from overhead. Shelters built after the 1968 Tet attacks
had steel arches on top, covered with eighteen inches of concrete.
lations in the weeks that followed demonstrated the need for such a program
which, at its peak in late 1969, included some 400 civilian sources.43
The Tet offensive affected the civic action program, in which U.S. officers
and enlisted men carried out inexpensive and informal welfare projects designed
to create among the South Vietnamese a sense of loyalty to their government.
Air Force personnel provided encouragement, instruction, financial aid, and
even labor for a variety of self-help projects undertaken by South Vietnamese
living near the air bases. These ventures ranged from aiding refugees to making
souvenirs to sell to American troops to assisting in the construction of schools
and dispensaries. In the field of medicine, however, emphasis rested on giving
37
basic care to the sick and injured rather than training others to do so, although
some South Vietnamese received rudimentary instruction in public health prac-
tices like disposing of waste and ensuring clean water.44
The Tet fighting, since it brought destruction to many communities near the
Air Force bases, created an overriding need for emergency relief, usually in the
form of food, cash, medical care, and building materials. American airmen, who
recently had been shelled from some of the same villages that now needed their
help, at first proved less than eager to volunteer their time or donate money for
local relief projects sponsored by their units. Commanders, moreover, showed
reluctance to allow those who did volunteer to go very far from base, especially
at night, until South Vietnamese authorities restored security. Also, the South
Vietnamese government inadvertently delayed recovery by enforcing draft laws
so rigidly that many English-speaking interpreters and able-bodied laborers,
essential elements of successful civic action, ended up in military units far from
their war-ravaged villages.45
Although thousands of homes remained in ruins and hundreds of thousands
of refugees were being cared for in camps, the military situation in South Viet-
nam at the end of February 1968 had turned against the North Vietnamese and
Viet Cong. The enemy had persisted in fighting pitched battles when he could
have pulled back and regrouped, as a result suffering staggering losses without
gaining a permanent hold on the towns and cities. In much of the countryside,
the South Vietnamese government seemed to be filling a power vacuum created
by the Tet attacks, with the bloodied Viet Cong going underground. In the Uni-
ted States, however, the impact of Tet proved more severe, causing the nation’s
leaders to seek means of limiting the American role in the conflict, thus re-
ducing casualties, even as they dispatched reinforcements, including Air Force
squadrons, to meet the immediate threat.
38
Chapter Three
Facing Some Hard Decisions
Although the Tet offensive caught the U.S. armed forces at a time when
they were straining to meet their world-wide obligations, the Air Force had
greater depth in terms of readily available units than the other services. To
reinforce General Westmoreland, the Army could call on just one fully trained,
combat-ready division, the 82d Airborne. The Marine Corps had elements of
one division and its aircraft wing available for service in South Vietnam; once
these had departed, any further Marine reinforcements would have to come from
a division-wing team serving with the Atlantic Command. The Navy could dis-
patch five aircraft carriers and five cruisers to Southeast Asian waters, but only
by redeploying ships committed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In
contrast, the Air Force had a dozen tactical fighter squadrons immediately avail-
able for service in South Vietnam.1
Had it not been for North Korea’s recent capture of the intelligence ship
Pueblo, the Air Force could not have tapped this reservoir of trained units, for
President Johnson had mobilized eight Air National Guard tactical fighter
squadrons as part of his reaction to that emergency. The eight were among
twenty-two Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units summoned to ac-
tive duty in response to the Pueblo crisis. The mobilization took place on Jan-
uary 26, only three days after North Korean naval forces seized the ship and,
providentially, five days before the main Tet attacks. The eight squadrons, each
with twenty-five F–100Cs, reconstituted an Air Force strategic reserve depleted
by the redeployment to the Far East in the wake of the Pueblo incident. Three
tactical fighter squadrons, totaling seventy-two McDonnell Douglas F–4Ds,
flew from the United States to South Korea, and one squadron of eighteen
F–100Ds deployed to South Vietnam, so that an equal number of F–4Cs, better
suited than the F–100Ds to the kind of aerial combat likely to erupt over the
Korean peninsula, could depart for South Korea.2
The Tet offensive, to the surprise of General Westmoreland’s superiors, did
not trigger a sudden request for air, ground, or naval reinforcements. After a
week had passed with no request for more men and machines, Army Gen. Earle
G. Wheeler, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, telephoned Saigon and learned that
39
An aircraft destroyed during the Tet attacks at Bien Hoa.

Westmoreland intended to crush the Tet offensive with the forces he had. He
planned to shift more troops to the five northern provinces of I Corps, a move
that, in Wheeler’s opinion, might expose the cities to further attack.3 “Do you
need reinforcements?” Wheeler asked Westmoreland. Acknowledging that
“capabilities are limited,” Wheeler offered “the 82d Airborne Division and
about one-half of a Marine division, both loaded with Vietnam veterans.” Con-
fident that the United States was “not prepared to accept defeat in South Viet-
nam,” he urged Westmoreland to ask for as many troops as he might need.4
Although he looked upon reinforcements as insurance against “the worst
possible contingency” — the unlikely loss of Khe Sanh — General Westmore-
land decided to accept the additional troops that Wheeler had offered.5 The Joint
Chiefs of Staff then began preparations to tap the existing strategic reserve for
the promised units. While ground troops formed most of the reinforcements, the
plan under consideration by the Joint Chiefs called for as many as five tactical
fighter squadrons, plus additional tactical airlift.6
As the reinforcement program took shape, Wheeler came to view the Tet
offensive as an opportunity not only to punish the enemy on the battlefield but
also to reconstitute the dwindling strategic reserve. Motivated by the Tet offen-
sive and the perilous state of the pool of U.S. military manpower, Wheeler again
urged Westmoreland to ask for more men. Although Wheeler denied he was
“trying to sell” additional troops, he warned that “the critical phase of the war
is upon us” and urged Westmoreland not to refrain from asking for “what you
believe you need under the circumstances.”7
Scarcely had General Wheeler sent this advice, when the Joint Chiefs of
Staff met with President Johnson and discussed reinforcing General Westmore-
land and rebuilding the strategic reserve. In effect, the military leadership
40
Facing Hard Decisions
A Khe Sanh fuel dump burns after a Viet Cong rocket attack.
proposed sending to South Vietnam almost all the ground troops currently in the
manpower reservoir and replacing them with 120,000 mobilized reservists and
National Guardsmen. Clearly, the President found the plan unpalatable, for ex-
panding the war in Southeast Asia and increasing the number of Americans
under arms would not only fan the flames of opposition to an increasingly
unpopular war, but also play havoc with the budget and jeopardize social pro-
grams at the heart of his administration. Indeed, later that day, Secretary of
Defense Robert S. McNamara formally asked General Wheeler for less ambi-
tious alternatives to large-scale reinforcement and mass mobilization.8
Hard upon the President’s instructions, as relayed by Secretary McNamara,
came Westmoreland’s response to Wheeler’s thinly veiled invitation to ask for
the bulk of the strategic reserve. “Needless to say,” he answered, “I would wel-
come reinforcements at any time,” but he stopped short of asking for them.9 The
President’s advisers — McNamara, Clark Clifford (who would become Secre-
tary of Defense after McNamara’s resignation took effect on February 29), Gen.
Maxwell D. Taylor (Wheeler’s predecessor, who served for a time as Ambassa-
dor to South Vietnam), Walt W. Rostow (who had interpreted the intelligence
on Khe Sanh), and Richard M. Helms (director of the Central Intelligence
Agency) — interpreted Westmoreland’s use of “welcome” as meaning that he
could use the additional men but really did not need them to avoid defeat.10
Thus alerted to the attitude of Johnson’s close advisers, Westmoreland soon
was declaring that he “desperately” needed more men to hold the northern prov-
inces without placing the cities in new jeopardy. Specifically, he asked for all
41
the infantry units in the strategic reserve, in excess of 20,000 men, thus bringing
his American forces to their authorized strength of 525,000, a goal approved but
not yet reached when Tet fighting broke out.11
When Westmoreland called for more men, the administration was already
preparing to send him additional battalions from the strategic reserve. On Feb-
ruary 12, President Johnson summoned the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff to the White House and directed that the Air Force fly to South Vietnam
the 27th Marines and one brigade from the 82d Airborne Division, roughly
10,500 men, about half the total infantry strength of the strategic reserve. The
Marines, based at Camp Pendleton, California, took off from nearby El Toro
Marine Corps Air Station and arrived at Da Nang on February 17. The soldiers,
from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, disembarked at Chu Lai on the 21st.12
This infusion of strength seemed to satisfy Westmoreland, even though he
had expressed a desperate need for the 10,000 ground troops remaining in the
strategic reserve. He now made it clear that his command did not totter on the
brink of disaster. “I am expressing a firm request for additional troops,” he told
Wheeler, “not because I fear defeat but because I do not feel I can fully grasp
the initiative from the recently reinforced enemy without them.”13 If anything,
this statement reinforced the idea that Westmoreland could use more troops, but
did not really need them.
Such a carefully hedged request could not justify the kind of mobilization
that Wheeler believed necessary to provide men to fight the Vietnam War and
at the same time rebuild a strategic reserve to meet threats elsewhere. This fact
loomed large in his mind as he prepared for the trip that would bring him to Sai-
gon on the morning of February 23. “As you would surmise,” he told West-
moreland before departing for Southeast Asia, “the administration must face up
to some hard decisions in the near future regarding the possibility of providing
you additional troops, recouping our strategic reserves in CONUS [continental
United States], and obtaining the necessary legislation in terms of money and
authorities.” Since the President and Secretary McNamara had thus far avoided
large-scale mobilization, General Wheeler apparently hoped to return from
South Vietnam with a request from Westmoreland that would enable him to link
a massive call-up of reservists to the reinforcement of the military assistance
command to deal with the Tet offensive.14
During discussions in Saigon, according to Westmoreland’s recollection,
Wheeler suggested the military assistance command submit “a requirement that
would permit the development of a substantial reserve for worldwide use.” In
carrying out Wheeler’s wishes, Westmoreland proposed a bank of reservists
from which U.S. forces in South Vietnam could draw over the coming year.15
Such a bank would contain roughly 176,000 men, selected from among 262,000
mobilized reservists and National Guardsmen, and include two Army brigades
and a half dozen Air Force squadrons. Besides obtaining access to the bank of
reinforcements, from which he might draw throughout the year, Westmoreland
42
would receive 30,000 men during the summer of 1968, some of them mobilized
from the reserve components. The immediate reinforcements would include two
Air Force tactical fighter squadrons, in addition to two others scheduled to be
sent under the 525,000-man ceiling.16
The prospect of mobilizing more than a quarter million from reserve com-
ponents to fulfill General Westmoreland’s request for 206,000 men — the
176,000 bank from which he could freely draw plus 30,000 reinforcements
during the coming summer — jolted the administration into examining the harsh
realities of the Vietnam conflict. President Johnson promptly convened a group
of trusted advisers for what came to be called the “A to Z policy review.” Clark
Clifford, Secretary of Defense-designate, served as the chairman of this panel,
which met for the first time on February 28, the day before Secretary McNa-
mara stepped down. As its nickname indicated, the project involved an exami-
nation of every aspect of the war effort — military, budgetary and economic,
diplomatic, and political.17
Prospects for further reinforcement seemed good when the “A to Z” group
reported to the President on March 4. These advisers endorsed the mobilization
of 262,000 reservists and National Guardsmen to rebuild the strategic man-
power pool and recommended sending some 22,000 men to South Vietnam in
addition to the 10,500 that had just arrived. The Air Force contribution to the
22,000-man force would be six tactical fighter squadrons, totaling some 3,000
officers and men, in addition to the pair of squadrons authorized before Tet for
Vietnam duty, but not yet sent, and the F–100Ds that replaced the F–4Cs trans-
ferred to South Korea. The report of the group did not, however, state that these
actions would suffice or that nothing further would be necessary.18
Opposition to the plan quickly gathered momentum, however, and General
Wheeler soon was acknowledging “strong resistance from all quarters to putting
more ground forces into South Vietnam.” The reinforcement of General West-
moreland’s command and the calling up of reserves, Wheeler conceded, seemed
certain to “raise unshirted hell in many quarters.”19 Front-page stories in the
New York Times and Washington Post, surely based on leaks from within the
Johnson administration, declared that General Westmoreland, who had talked
openly of victory as recently as November, now requested 206,000 men. The
press combined the bank of 176,000 potential reinforcements with the 30,000
who would be sent to Vietnam during the summer to arrive at a total that
shocked a public grown weary of a long and inconclusive war. The efforts since
1965, when the United States took over the war, apparently had accomplished
nothing, and the proposed solution seemed to be more of the same.20
President Johnson persisted for a time in his efforts to fulfill West-
moreland’s request for a total of 30,000 men, though the lack of confidence that
characterized the “A to Z” report and the mounting public clamor and growing
political opposition to the numbers involved caused him to avoid any extensive
mobilization to create a manpower bank for South Vietnam and a strategic re-
43
serve available worldwide. The political and economic risks seemed to out-
weigh the uncertain military and diplomatic results. General Wheeler attributed
the President’s reluctance to three developments: “leaks in Washington” that
created “an extremely difficult political and public atmosphere”; a balance of
payments deficit that undermined willingness to face the expense of extensive
deployments overseas; and “doom and gloom generated by the Tet offensive”
which had cut into public support for the war effort.21
The Air Force contribution to the projected 30,000-man force included four
F–100C squadrons, manned by Air National Guardsmen mobilized for the
Pueblo crisis, and two Republic F–84 units that would be called up especially
for service in South Vietnam. Admiral Sharp, the Commander in Chief, Pacific,
brought about elimination of the F–84s, however, pointing out that age, lack of
range, lack of bomb capacity, and dependence on scarce spare parts made the
F–84 a liability rather than an asset.22
While the 30,000-man contingent took shape, the President received advice
that caused him to reconsider the wisdom of sending even this force. Several
civilian officials in the Department of Defense called Secretary Clifford’s
attention to North Vietnam’s demonstrated ability to match U.S. reinforcements.
Thus far, the enemy had refused to fold, however much the United States raised
the ante in terms of manpower and equipment. Another comparatively small in-
crease seemed unlikely to give him pause.
Far more important were the findings of a panel composed of distinguished
citizens who had served in the military or in government that met from time to
time, with a varying roster of members, to review the conduct of the war. In
1968, the membership included Dean Acheson, Secretary of State to President
Harry S. Truman; C. Douglas Dillon, President John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of
the Treasury; and two former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen.
Maxwell Taylor and Gen. Omar N. Bradley. At President Johnson’s invitation,
the group, nicknamed the “Wise Men,” met in Washington in mid-March 1968
to review the progress of the war since their previous session in November
1967. Beginning on March 18, these advisers listened to representatives of the
Departments of State and Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Central
Intelligence Agency, whose conflicting testimony left at least one critical
question unresolved. The experts appearing before the group could not agree
whether any reasonable increase in the tempo of the war — one that did not risk
intervention by China or the Soviet Union — could compel North Vietnam to
abandon its designs on the South. As a result, the group counseled imposing a
ceiling on U.S. involvement, believing that no degree of escalation — whether
heavier bombing of the North or massive reinforcement in the South — could
guarantee that North Vietnam would call off the war.23
Within a week of the meeting of the Wise Men, General Wheeler flew to
Clark Air Base in the Philippines, where he outlined for General Westmoreland
the President’s plans for cutting the 30,000-man augmentation by about one-
44
third, a reduction accomplished by including almost the entire 10,500 men sent
to Vietnam in February as part of the total. Since the Air Force had not con-
tributed to the February build up — save to send the F–100s that replaced F–4s
destined for South Korea as part of the Pueblo deployments — it would send
two tactical fighter squadrons in addition to the two already authorized for duty
in South Vietnam when the Tet offensive erupted. The force numbered some
24,500, thus keeping total U.S. strength in the country below a new authorized
maximum of 549,000. As it turned out, Gen. Creighton Abrams, who succeeded
General Westmoreland in July, decided he did not need all the ground forces the
President was willing to send him.24
The 24,500 reinforcements approved by the President included five tactical
fighter squadrons, four from the Air Force and one from the Marine Corps. First
to reach its destination was the Marine unit, which arrived from Iwakuni, Japan,
with its McDonnell Douglas A–4s late in April. On May 3, Air Force elements
began arriving when the 120th Tactical Fighter Squadron, mobilized in January
at Denver, Colorado, reached Phan Rang Air Base. Two days later, another Air
National Guard unit, the 174th Tactical Fighter Squadron of Sioux City, Iowa,
landed its F–100Cs at Phu Cat. These three squadrons represented the balance
of the 525,000-man force authorized for South Vietnam when the Tet fighting
began. In June, two more Air National Guard tactical fighter squadrons brought
their F–100Cs to Tuy Hoa, including the 188th from Albuquerque, New Mex-
ico, and the 136th from Niagara Falls, New York, both of which had been on
extended active duty since January. These two units formed part of the 24,500-
man augmentation, and their arrival increased Air Force tactical fighter strength
in South Vietnam to twenty-five squadrons.25
Besides strengthening U.S. forces in South Vietnam, President Johnson ad-
dressed the problem of building a strategic manpower reserve, though without
the kind of general mobilization that would disturb the nation’s economic and
political balance or intensify the existing public opposition to the war. Because
of the possible consequences of a major call-up, the administration decided to
mobilize no more than 62,000 reservists or National Guardsmen in addition to
those already on extended active duty because of the Pueblo crisis. The number
who reported in May for extended active duty totaled some 57,000; roughly 75
percent of these officers and men reconstituted the strategic reserve, while the
remainder went to Southeast Asia. The Air Force’s share of the May mobiliza-
tion numbered about 1,000, all of them members of the Air Force Reserve rather
than the Air National Guard. One unit mobilized in May, the 71st Special Oper-
ations Squadron, trained in Fairchild AC–119G gunships and served in South
Vietnam during the first six months of 1969.26
As he weighed the recommendations of his various advisers and worked out
this modest program to reinforce General Westmoreland and at the same time
rebuild a strategic manpower pool, President Johnson apparently concluded that
the escalation of American might in South Vietnam had reached a dead end. As
45
F–100s of the New Mexico Air National Guard’s 188th

Tactical Fighter Squadron lined up at Tuy Hoa Air Base.
he had in the past, the enemy seemed likely to match any military action that the
President deemed reasonable. Moreover, the war was rending the fabric of
American society, setting supporters and opponents of the war at each other’s
throats. As the narrowness of his victory over a peace candidate in the New
Hampshire Presidential primary seemed to demonstrate, popular support for his
policies, which he considered balanced and rational, was rapidly disappearing.
On March 31, 1968, during a televised speech, Johnson announced that he
would not seek reelection to a second four-year term and called a halt, effective
the next day, to aerial and naval bombardment north of the 19th (later the 20th)
parallel. His withdrawal from political life, he believed, would help restore
national unity, while the restrictions on attacking North Vietnam might lead to
a negotiated settlement of the conflict.27
The President’s decision to limit both reinforcement and bombing signaled
abandonment of the idea, expressed by Westmoreland before the National Press
Club as recently as November, that limited military action could force North
Vietnam to call off the war. It also committed the United States to seek a
negotiated peace. Since concessions formed an inescapable part of negotiation,
emphasis shifted from fighting a war on behalf of the South Vietnamese to pre-
paring them to take over the conflict and defend their nation after the fighting
ended.
Preliminary cease-fire talks began at Paris in May, but quickly bogged
down in often pointless detail, such as the shape of the table at the negotiations.
In July 1968, while the conversations at Paris droned on, Secretary of Defense
Clark Clifford visited Saigon and told South Vietnamese officials that the
United States “was greatly interested in what we and the GVN [Government of
Vietnam] could do jointly to strengthen the RVNAF [Republic of Vietnam’s
Armed Forces].” Nguyen Van Thieu, South Vietnam’s president, proposed three
46
kinds of help that the United States could provide: increasing his nation’s
military forces, especially irregular local defense units; making better weapons
available; and improving housing for servicemen and their families.28 By year’s
end, the military assistance command was helping South Vietnam organize,
train, and arm a balanced force, regular and paramilitary, slightly in excess of
800,000 men, an increase of roughly 100,000 since Tet.29 These actions lent
substance to President Johnson’s statement in his March 31 speech that South
Vietnamese forces would “progressively . . . undertake a larger share of combat
operations against the Communist invaders.”30
The restrictions imposed on the bombing of the North, effective April 1, did
not result in a reciprocal reduction of North Vietnamese pressure against the
government of the South. As a result, the authorization of sixty B–52 sorties per
day, approved during the Tet fighting while the fate of Khe Sanh seemed to
hang in the balance, remained in effect throughout 1968. By December, how-
ever, the Strategic Air Command, now headed by Gen. Bruce K. Holloway, was
warning General Abrams, who had taken over the assistance command some
five months earlier, that the 106 B–52s in the western Pacific could not continue
flying 1,800 sorties per month in Southeast Asia without affecting the nuclear
retaliatory force. Intensive use increased the strain on planes, crews, and
mechanics, causing bombers to be sidelined frequently for maintenance and re-
pair, thus limiting their versatility. Although the B–52s could readily be
modified to carry nuclear weapons, at any given time a variable number re-
mained grounded because of hard usage over South Vietnam or Laos. Using
strategic aircraft, refueled by Boeing KC–135 aerial tankers, to shower high
explosives on targets in Southeast Asia reduced the number of bombers and
tankers available for prompt retaliation in case of all-out war. Since one B–52,
with refueling, might have to attack two or more targets in rapid succession, the
impact of each lost or delayed sortie was therefore multiplied.31
President Johnson’s reappraisal of the war effort, though it did not diminish
the B–52 bombing campaign, sounded the death knell for an Air Force plan to
fight a unified Southeast Asia campaign, combining operations in both Viet-
nams and much of Laos, in which the focus would shift from ground combat to
aerial warfare. During March, as the “A to Z” policy review convened at the
President’s direction, the Air Force launched its own evaluation in the hope of
influencing future strategy, encouraged perhaps by vigorous support of the air
war by Senator John C. Stennis, a Mississippi Democrat, and other like-minded
legislators. Air Staff agencies and analysts from RAND, a research corporation,
conducted studies dealing with intensified bombing of the North, an air offen-
sive against southern North Vietnam and adjacent regions of Laos, and adoption
of a new strategy for South Vietnam that made greater use of air power. At the
outset, the study teams were considering three closely related campaigns, with
success in South Vietnam dependent in large measure upon the impact of air
operations in North Vietnam and in southern Laos.
47
48
49
The course of action suggested for the campaign in South Vietnam called
for exchanging territory for security, abandoning outlying strongpoints like Khe
Sanh (which, by coincidence, soon would be given up) to concentrate on pro-
tecting the population, which had resettled within clearly defined defensive
zones. Army and Air Force fliers based within these defensive zones would
maintain surveillance over the outlying territory and by charting enemy activity
determine interdiction areas vulnerable to air attack. American ground units
were to engage in what the Air Force planners called “mobile defense,” lashing
out against hostile concentrations outside the secure region, while training
South Vietnamese forces to assume responsibility for the war. Adoption of this
scheme of mobile defense would, the planners suggested, reduce casualties
among U.S. ground troops by some 41 percent. The proposal, in brief, envi-
sioned air power and limited infantry action as a shield, maintained at a compar-
atively low cost in Americans killed and wounded, behind which the South
Vietnamese could gather strength to take over the war.
After examining the three studies, Gen. John P. McConnell, the Air Force
Chief of Staff, concluded that, taken together, they offered a blueprint for dec-
isive aerial action against the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong throughout
Southeast Asia. The Vietnam conflict, he believed, would and should become
an air war supplemented by ground action instead of the ground war fought with
massive but poorly focused aerial support, as had, in his opinion, been the case
since 1965. He attempted to persuade his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff
that the war — treated as loosely related efforts in Laos, South Vietnam, and
North Vietnam — should be a unified campaign fought from Hanoi in the North
to Ca Mau in the South and from the coastline westward through the infiltration
routes in southern Laos. His proposal came too late, however, to receive serious
consideration. On the basis of his own assessment, the President had decided to
exempt much of North Vietnam from aerial attack.32
Even as the President and his advisers were beginning the policy review
that led to this scaling down of the air war, a new reconnaissance project offered
fleeting promise of impeding the enemy’s use of Cambodia as a supply route
and military staging area. American officials already had obtained evidence of
Cambodia’s role in supporting North Vietnamese logistics. During the enemy’s
preparations for what became the Tet offensive, for instance, agents reported
that cargo unloaded at the port of Sihanoukville was carried in trucks toward the
South Vietnamese border. In addition, General Westmoreland called attention
to activity in the Parrot’s Beak, a salient of Cambodian territory pointing toward
Saigon. Patrolling on their side of the border, South Vietnamese troops dis-
covered numerous arms caches, heard the sound of truck traffic on nearby Cam-
bodian soil, and found indications, later confirmed by aerial reconnaissance,
that sampans regularly travelled the waterways in the Plain of Reeds, a swamp
south of the Parrot’s Beak, delivering cargo to the Viet Cong. The evidence
pointed to an offensive but not to a particular objective; indeed, the activity lent
50
credence to the belief that the enemy would strike in the border area rather than
attacking the cities at Tet.33
Although debate raged among American officials as to the amount of mili-
tary assistance the communist forces in South Vietnam were receiving through
Cambodia, the enemy may well have enjoyed free passage since 1965. During
that year, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who ruled Cambodia, severed diplomatic
relations with the United States, alleging that American troops had violated the
nation’s border, a charge that he had frequently repeated. In January 1968, a
U.S. diplomat arrived at Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, a sign that the two
nations might again cooperate, perhaps to a degree that would impede the pas-
sage of supplies to the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese units in the South.
Some three weeks before the Tet offensive, Sihanouk welcomed Chester
Bowles, the U.S. Ambassador to India. During a series of meetings from Jan-
uary 8 through January 12, the Prince and his Prime Minister, Son Sann, dis-
cussed with Ambassador Bowles how the Vietnam conflict affected Cambodian
independence and territorial integrity. Although Bowles indicated otherwise at
a press conference afterward,34 the topics discussed at Phnom Penh include the
“hot pursuit” by U.S. or South Vietnamese forces of hostile troops seeking
refuge across the Cambodian border. Sihanouk acknowledged his concern about
the use of his country as a safe haven by the communists and said that he did not
object to hot pursuit in uninhabited areas, though he could not admit it publicly,
for fear of bringing down on Cambodia the wrath of the communists. According
to Bowles, Sihanouk said, “If the U.S. engaged the VC/NVA [Viet Cong or
North Vietnamese Army] on Cambodian territory, both would be guilty of vio-
lating Cambodian soil, but the VC/NVA would be ‘more guilty’,” because, in
his own words, “You would be liberating us from the VC.”
The Cambodian ruler, Bowles reported, “did not want Vietnamese of any
stripe on Cambodian soil, since they . . . were traditional enemies of Cambodia.”
This did not mean, however, that Sihanouk would turn against the Viet Cong
and North Vietnamese. Indeed, he told Bowles that he intended to maintain
good relations with the communists because they formally recognized Cam-
bodia’s boundaries, which South Vietnam did not, and also, as Bowles reported,
“because the future of Southeast Asia was ‘Red’.”
Nor could Sihanouk accept everything the United States had done. He told
Bowles that U.S. troops had to some degree contributed to his problems by
attacking communist forces in the border region of South Vietnam, making
Cambodia seem an attractive place of refuge. Sihanouk also claimed that pre-
vious attempts at hot pursuit, far from exterminating the Viet Cong or North
Vietnamese, had killed mostly Cambodians, the very reason that he now hoped
to limit the practice to uninhabited areas.
Although willing to permit hot pursuit in the border wilderness, Prince
Sihanouk hoped to rein in the Vietnamese intruders using either his own forces
or the International Control Commission, a peacekeeping agency dating from
51
the 1954 Geneva settlement that had produced the two Vietnams. To do this,
however, he had to locate the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong concentrations
and for this information he turned to the United States.35
Specifically, he asked to receive on a regular basis whatever information
the Americans could obtain on the location of communist forces in northeastern
Cambodia. Armed with this data, he could either send his own soldiers to eject
the foreigners or appeal to the international body. Unfortunately, either ap-
proach seemed utterly unrealistic. Cambodia’s army could scarcely maintain
order in the country, let alone mount an offensive against the infinitely stronger
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong; and the International Control Commission —
with one member from a communist nation, one from a pro-western nation, and
one from a neutral nation — not only had problems reaching a consensus but
also demonstrated an inability to enforce those decisions it did make.36
In a later meeting with Son Sann, Ambassador Bowles found the Cam-
bodian official insisting upon restrictions on hot pursuit that Sihanouk had not
demanded, including a pledge that neither Americans nor South Vietnamese
would ever again bomb or shell Cambodian villages or frontier outposts, the
subject of many of Sihanouk’s protests over the years. Although Bowles de-
clined to offer such assurances — to do so would have exceeded his author-
ity — Son Sann did not withdraw, contradict, or modify any statements the
prince had made.37
Prince Sihanouk and Ambassador Bowles then prepared a bland public
communiqué that mentioned neither hot pursuit, the Cambodian ruler’s worries
about Vietnamese on his nation’s soil, nor his desire for intelligence on
communist bases in the Cambodian wilderness. Instead, the statement focused
upon American willingness to provide the International Control Commission
with helicopters for its investigations and Cambodia’s determination that its
territory be respected.38
Within a week of the conversations between Ambassador Bowles and
Prince Sihanouk, the U.S. government was organizing Operation Vesuvius “to
develop hard intelligence on the enemy use of Cambodia, particularly of
installations which are accurately located and can be identified on the ground.”
The information used in Vesuvius came from aerial photo missions over Cam-
bodia, side-looking radar surveillance by aircraft patrolling on the South Viet-
namese side of the border, reports from patrols secretly dispatched in Cambodia,
and statements by defectors or prisoners of war. After interpretation at the com-
bined intelligence center, jointly operated by the Americans and South Viet-
namese, the data was sent to the U.S. Embassy at Saigon before being shipped
to Prince Sihanouk. Lt. Col. John J. Rosenow, at the time the project officer at
the military assistance command’s combined intelligence center, completed the
first Vesuvius “package” on January 24. It listed ten “targets” where North
Vietnamese or Viet Cong had established bases of operation in the jungles of
Cambodia.39
52
Other Vesuvius packages followed at fairly regular intervals during the

year. The areas in Cambodia thus reconnoitered included the Parrot’s Beak,
which projected to within 35 miles of Saigon and sheltered two hostile bases,
and the Nam Lyr Mountains, site of yet another base, about 130 miles north of
Saigon. Prince Sihanouk tried to act on the information the Americans gave
him, turning first to his generals and then to the International Control Commis-
sion. Since the armed forces of Cambodia consisted of about 35,000 indiffer-
ently trained men, to attack the bases might trigger a communist counteroffen-
sive that could destroy the nation. Sihanouk asked the International Control
Commission to investigate the Nam Lyr region, but the agency did not respond,
because of either the persisting ideological stalemate among the members or
simply a realization that the group could never enter territory considered
sensitive by the North Vietnamese.40
Although Cambodia’s use of this intelligence proved disappointing, the
project yielded benefits to the Americans. Aerial reconnaissance, supplemented
by ground probes, revealed extensive activity as supplies and reinforcements
passed through eastern Cambodia from Sihanoukville or by way of the roads
and trails through southern Laos. The military assistance command became con-
vinced by year’s end that communist forces maintained ten major base areas in
Cambodia to support operations in South Vietnam.41
Since late 1967, the military assistance command’s studies and observations
group had been sending patrols, made up of nine or ten South Vietnamese and
two or three Americans, into easternmost Cambodia. The depth of penetration
varied from twenty to thirty kilometers, and the patrols might either land from
helicopters or infiltrate on foot through the forest. Although the principal mis-
sion of the teams continued to be reconnaissance, they sometimes planted mines
and occasionally engaged in combat, either in self-defense or when capturing
a prisoner for interrogation across the border in South Vietnam.42
By late summer 1968, intelligence indicated that North Vietnamese units
in Cambodia were gathering strength for an offensive in South Vietnam. The
increasing threat caused General Wheeler to raise the possibility of attacking
“the whole range of major bases in the border area of Cambodia . . . either en-
tirely . . . by air ordnance or by a combination of air-ground operations.”43 Both
General Abrams at Saigon and Adm. John S. McCain, Jr. — recently appointed
Commander in Chief, Pacific, in Hawaii — expressed interest in Wheeler’s
proposal which, if it received Presidential approval, would amount to hot
pursuit, using brigades supported by the necessary aerial bombardment and
artillery fire.44 When the North Vietnamese autumn offensive came, however,
it proved less vigorous than expected, spending its momentum in the western
highlands.
Although the enemy struck a comparatively light blow during the fall of
1968, the Cambodian bases remained a source of danger, looming like thunder-
clouds that might, at any moment, release a deluge, and General Abrams con-
53
tinued to favor hitting them. He now proposed singling out three of the ten
— one in the Parrot’s Beak and two in the Fishhook, roughly ninety miles to the
north — and attacking them with an infantry brigade supported by tactical
fighters, artillery, and B–52s.45
The Abrams’ recommendation encountered a cool reception at Washington.
The Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency did not share his
view of the importance of Cambodia in communist strategy, denying — errone-
ously, as events would prove — that any large volume of cargo moved through
Sihanoukville toward the border region. The Central Intelligence Agency
seemed convinced that North Vietnam channeled through southern Laos almost
all the men and supplies destined for the Cambodian bases. The roads and trails
of southern Laos, just coming under systematic attack in the fall of 1968,
appeared to be better targets than the Cambodian bases themselves. These lines
of communication, after all, could be attacked without extending the conflict
into Cambodia, imperiling the improved relations between that kingdom and the
United States, and risking worldwide criticism for extending the violence.46
Although action against the Cambodian bases lay several months in the
future and the Tet offensive had been defeated, the fighting in South Vietnam
continued, even as the Johnson administration sought to enter peace negotia-
tions with North Vietnam. May 1968, for instance, saw a series of attacks,
mainly on Saigon, that constituted an enemy spring offensive. The initiative did
not, however, rest exclusively with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, for
during the year American and South Vietnamese forces launched more than
seventy major operations, some of them lasting several weeks.
54
Chapter Four
The Air War from Tet to Mini-Tet
The pattern of Air Force activity established in the Tet battles of February
1968 prevailed with minor fluctuations throughout the rest of the year. The
share of fixed-wing operational sorties devoted to close combat and logistical
support of ground forces did not dip below 75 percent in any month and rose no
higher than 84 percent. From February through December, Air Force tactical
units used 19 percent of their fixed-wing operational sorties in South Vietnam
for reconnaissance, including patrols by forward air controllers. Combat sup-
port — the narrow category embracing herbicide, psychological warfare, and
battlefield illumination missions — accounted for just 4 percent and airlift for
37 percent. Some 17 percent were attack sorties — either close support strikes
on hostile positions on the battlefield, direct support in the vicinity of the front
lines but distant enough so that coordination with artillery was not necessary,
or interdiction of the supply and communication routes sustaining the enemy.
The total number of attack sorties reached a peak for the year during May.
Besides scattered clashes throughout South Vietnam, that month saw the final
days of an American thrust into the A Shau Valley, a region firmly in enemy
hands for about two years, and enemy attacks on towns and military instal-
lations — a kind of mini-Tet — that again involved Air Force security detach-
ments and flying units. Since a majority of aerial operations in the country sup-
ported the ground war, the volume of sorties, especially attack sorties, tended
to keep pace with the fighting on the ground. November and December, how-
ever, may have been exceptions to this due to President Johnson’s decision to
halt the bombing of the North and release of a large number of tactical fighters
to increase the number of missions in the South.
The relationship between the intensity of the ground fighting and the num-
ber of Air Force attack sorties persisted even though Marine Corps or Navy
squadrons could increase their sorties in time of emergency, and the South Viet-
namese air arm was training to assume a greater responsibility for providing air
support. The emergence of South Vietnam’s air force had barely begun, how-
ever, for during 1968 its monthly total of attack sorties exceeded 2,000 just
twice, in February and March, at the time of the Tet offensive and immediately
55
afterward. The typical South Vietnamese effort amounted to some 1,800 sorties
per month, roughly 9 percent of the monthly average for all the allies.
Two aerial contingents besides the South Vietnamese generated compara-
tively few attack sorties during the year. The Royal Australian Air Force flew
between 230 and 250 attack sorties each month, roughly one percent of the
effort. In contrast to the steady contribution by the Australians, the U.S. Navy
averaged some 1,500 sorties in South Vietnam during February and March —
plus the sorties dispatched against North Vietnam at the time — but operations
dropped off to fewer than 200 per month throughout the spring and summer and
did not begin to recover until the bombing of the North had ended.
Air Force tactical units therefore set the pace in attack sorties, followed by
Marine airmen. The Air Force conducted about 125,000 or 58 percent of the
212,000 attack sorties flown in South Vietnam from February through Decem-
ber 1968. The Marine Corps share was almost 60,000 or 28 percent.1
Once the Tet fighting ended, the Seventh Air Force shifted its resources to
the relief of Khe Sanh, an operation delayed by the wave of attacks upon towns
and military installations. Preparations for a drive to open the road to the
encircled Marine combat base had begun late in January, before the Tet offen-
sive. Army Maj. Gen. John Tolson’s 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) came
under the operational control of III Marine Amphibious Force, and the force
commander, General Cushman, directed Tolson to devise an operations plan.
The Tet battles intervened, however, drawing the air cavalrymen into the
fighting around Quang Tri City and Hue, and not until February 29 could Gen-
eral Tolson’s staff resume planning for the relief of Khe Sanh.2
Tolson’s planners realized that an advance to Khe Sanh, where Marines and
South Vietnamese rangers remained firmly in control, required a supply base
with an airstrip capable of handling Air Force C–123s. Ca Lu on Highway 9, the
road leading to the combat base, seemed the perfect choice to support the
advance westward. Work began in mid-March, and Marine engineers and Navy
Seabees finished the project in time for the attack, Operation Pegasus, to begin
on April 1. The name Pegasus, a mythological winged horse, alluded to the air
cavalrymen, who in cooperation with Marine units would carry out the U.S.
share of a joint undertaking. The South Vietnamese contribution bore the title
Operation Lam Son 207 (Lam Son, a frequently used title, referred to the birth-
place of Le Loi, a legendary hero who defeated the Chinese in the fifteenth
century and established his imperial capital at what became Hanoi).
While completing the Pegasus plan, General Tolson realized how little was
known about North Vietnamese strength in an operating area that stretched from
Ca Lu along Highway 9 to Khe Sanh and beyond. As a result, he insisted that
the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, a helicopter reconnaissance unit, scout the
planned battleground for at least six days before the advance began.3
Thanks in part to a diversionary attack in eastern Quang Tri Province, the
advance to Khe Sanh moved swiftly, even though bad weather had grounded
56
From Tet to Mini-Tet
General Tolson’s helicopters at Ca Lu for several hours during the first day,
delaying his initial moves. On April 4, Marines stormed out of Khe Sanh to
capture an important hill overlooking the bastion and break the encirclement.
Two days later, South Vietnamese troops reached the combat base by helicop-
ter, joining the rangers who had formed a part of the defending force. Other
South Vietnamese landed west of the base on the following day in an unsuccess-
ful attempt to cut off the retreating enemy. The fight for Khe Sanh ended offi-
cially on April 5, when elements of the air cavalry arrived there.4
Air power played a critical role in Operation Pegasus, not only during the
preliminary reconnaissance, but throughout the advance. As in any operation,
General Tolson’s headquarters could request two types of tactical air strikes,
called preplanned and immediate. Requests for preplanned strikes originated
with the battalions, whose lists of proposed targets were consolidated at brigade
headquarters and passed on to General Tolson’s staff. The division, in turn, had
to send its request to the appropriate direct air support center at least twenty
hours before the preplanned strikes were to arrive. In contrast, a call for an
immediate strike, as the name implied, went by radio to the center in time of
emergency. During Pegasus, the air cavalrymen received almost 95 percent of
the emergency requests, but only 60 percent of the preplanned strikes.
All too common in the Vietnam war, these statistics were misleading, for
the schedule of preplanned strikes sought to achieve a predictably regular flow
of aircraft into the operating area so that some could be diverted, whenever
necessary, to emergency targets. The diversions, though anticipated in the over-
all plan, swelled the percentage of immediate strikes conducted, while sharply
reducing the other category.
Various factors did, however, affect the timeliness and impact of air sup-
port. Fog or low ceilings sometimes forced the cancellation of strikes. Also, at
the outset of the operation, planners selected arrival times for preplanned strikes
so close together that one flight could not attack before another appeared,
causing aerial traffic jams in which fighter-bombers occasionally ran low on
fuel and left, sometimes attacking alternate targets en route to refuel.5
The air cavalry division also benefitted from extensive support by B–52s,
which conducted a dozen strikes during the six-day preattack reconnaissance.
By the time Pegasus ended, General Tolson reported a total of fifty-three B–52
raids. His staff, however, could not determine how many of the 1,300 North
Vietnamese believed killed during Pegasus lost their lives in strikes by B–52s
or other aircraft.6
Khe Sanh had dominated General Westmoreland’s thinking during the early
weeks of 1968, but the base declined in importance after April, as the military
assistance command tried to avoid committing large numbers of men to the
static defense of outposts like this. In June, the Marines abandoned the plateau
on which the struggle had been fought, destroying the very bunkers that had
protected the defenders from North Vietnamese shells. Ca Lu now became the
57
Members of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

relieve Marines at Khe Sanh during Operation Pegasus.
westernmost U.S. base in the region, and Khe Sanh did not reappear in the mili-
tary communiqués until 1971 when it served as springboard for a South Viet-
namese advance into Laos.7
The relief of Khe Sanh represented just one of several efforts undertaken
by General Westmoreland in northern South Vietnam and, like Pegasus, these
other operations required Air Force support. Since late 1967, for example, plan-
ning had been underway to disrupt the passage of men and cargo through the A
Shau Valley, one of the places where the Ho Chi Minh trail, the supply and
reinforcement route from North Vietnam by way of southern Laos, entered the
South. The assistance command had outlined a series of plans, one of which
called for attacking the valley during April 1968. Scarcely had the operation
been committed to paper when the Tet offensive demonstrated the importance
to the enemy of the valley and the road net passing through it.8
Once the Americans and South Vietnamese had beaten back the Tet as-
saults, the Seventh Air Force considered the problem of interdiction within the
A Shau Valley. The airmen proposed dropping mines on the main exit roads,
bombing highway choke points with B–52s, and setting up special strike zones
where tactical fighters could attack at will. The use of delayed action bombs, set
to explode as long as seventy-two hours after impact, received careful scrutiny,
but the chemical fuzes fitted to these weapons had a minimum delay of twenty-
four hours, giving the enemy adequate time for removal. Aerial mines promised
deadlier results, but these could kill or maim the South Vietnamese and U.S.
58
soldiers that Westmoreland intended to send into the valley. To prevent possible
accidents during ground operations, Westmoreland wanted neither minefields
nor extensive special strike zones within the valley or along its exit routes.9
The task of spearheading the attack into the A Shau fell to General Tolson’s
air cavalry division, which would land in the valley proper while a brigade of
the 101st Airborne Division advanced toward the objective along Route 547A,
a recently discovered bypass apparently used by the North Vietnamese to mount
their attack on Hue during the Tet holiday. Weather lent a special urgency to
General Tolson’s activity, for the northeast monsoons were ending and as the
prevailing winds shifted, rain clouds would begin appearing from the southwest.
Air Force weather specialists at this time could provide five-day forecasts for
operations such as this; not until year’s end would photographs taken from earth
satellites enable forecasters to look further into the future. Whatever the details
of the weather predictions available to him, Tolson could be certain that the
inevitable tropical downpours would begin in May.10
General Tolson’s troops, those from the airborne division, and the South
Vietnamese forces taking part in the operation needed good weather. Helicop-
ters were to carry most of the men into battle and, since plans called for a raid
rather than permanent occupation of the valley, retrieve the units thus deployed.
Because only long-range artillery firing from newly established positions near
the southeastern exit could reach the heart of the A Shau, air strikes would be
vital, and most of the supplies destined for the air cavalry division would have
to arrive by way of a dirt airstrip at A Luoi.11
Because this airfield, unused for two years and pockmarked by B–52
bombing, loomed so large in his plans, Tolson proposed to seize it first, use it
as a main base, while landing troops elsewhere in the valley. Before committing
his force to this, he insisted upon three full days of aerial preparation, with
Army reconnaissance helicopters skimming the jungle canopy to locate targets
for B–52s and tactical fighters. Rain and low-lying clouds intervened, however,
creating a curtain over the valley that did not part until April 16. As a result,
Tolson postponed the assault from April 17 until the 19th to permit the kind of
thorough reconnaissance that had preceded the Pegasus attack.12
Although crew members on board the low-flying helicopters could, in the
words of an Air Force officer, “locate a gun . . . or an enemy position . . . by
actual eyeball-to-eyeball sighting,” the Army squadron did not have the fire-
power to engage such targets. The reconnaissance craft therefore radioed squad-
ron headquarters, where an Army operations officer conferred with an Air Force
liaison officer, who called for tactical fighters if he considered the target
worthwhile. As they arrived over the battlefield, the fighter-bombers reported
to a forward air controller who directed the actual strikes. Helicopter reconnais-
sance by the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, also produced area targets suitable for
B–52 attack, and the military assistance command requested these strikes, de-
livered by the 3d Air Division on Guam, through the usual channels.13
59
Repeated strikes by B–52 bombers left these craters in the A Shau valley.
Forward air controllers encountered unexpected communications problems
in the A Shau region. When they descended to search out targets on the valley
floor, towering ridges blocked radio traffic with Camp Evans, the division head-
quarters, where the air liaison officer coordinating their activity was located. To
solve the problem, controllers used a method tried during the relief of Khe Sanh
and assigned one O–2A to orbit at 10,000 feet and relay radio calls.14
Although the radio relay planes kept out of range of hostile fire, machine-
guns, 23-mm cannon, and 37-mm guns greeted the forward air controllers over
the A Shau Valley. Pilots considered the most dangerous of all to be the 37-mm
weapons, carefully camouflaged and apparently scattered at random throughout
the operating area.15 Observation planes flying as high as 10,000 feet above sea
level sometimes had to dodge shells from these guns concealed on hillsides, and
the same type of weapon, located on the valley floor, occasionally drove off
controllers trying to pinpoint targets, including antiaircraft sites, for fighter-
bombers. Whenever hostile fire proved too intense, the controllers, according
to a controller involved, “would leave and go to another target for a few minutes
and then return to the original one when it had cooled down,” tactics, born of
necessity, that “seemed pretty effective.”16
Dense forest within the valley hampered efforts to locate targets for air
strikes. A key road, for example, that twisted through the region passed beneath
lattice work to which the branches of growing trees had been secured. Traffic
passing beneath this living canopy would have escaped detection except that
bombs directed at some nearby target blasted away portions of the supporting
framework and exposed the road below. The highway segments thus revealed
appeared to be surfaced with steel planking or corduroyed with logs for use
60
during the rains of the southwest monsoon season. Beside the right of way ran
a row of wooden poles carrying what looked like telephone or electric lines.
Defoliants might have killed the greenery concealing the road, but the UC–123
spray planes flew too low and slow to survive the intense antiaircraft fire that
blanketed much of the valley.17
In spite of the enemy’s clever use of concealment, aerial observers,
especially the helicopter crews of the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, located enough
antiaircraft emplacements to persuade General Tolson to modify his plan.
Instead of striking first at the heart of the valley, seizing and improving the A
Luoi airstrip to serve as both artillery fire base and supply point, he chose to
launch the A Shau offensive with an assault at the northwestern end of the
valley, landing troop-laden helicopters near the Laotian border and cutting the
main road carrying ammunition to the gun crews defending A Luoi.18
The descent on April 19 into two landing zones in the northwestern A Shau
Valley did not go unopposed. Air strikes to level trees for helicopter landing
zones and suppress hostile fire alerted the North Vietnamese to an imminent
attack. One veteran Air Force forward air controller paid tribute to the Army
helicopter crews who parted the trees in search of antiaircraft positions.
However, he pointed out that enemy gunners “just played possum and opened
up on the big day,” thus nullifying the effect of the daring low-altitude recon-
naissance.19 When that big day arrived on April 19, North Vietnamese forces
defending one of the two landing zones correctly anticipated the routes of the
Army helicopters and threw up a wall of fire. Before Tolson’s headquarters
could warn the crews to use alternate approaches, the helicopters bored through
the barrage, losing nine of their number. Fortunately, the defenders of the other
site reacted less vigorously.20
While Tolson’s men were getting a grip on the entrance to the valley, ele-
ments of the 101st Airborne Division seized the roads exiting from it. Here, too,
operations plans underwent last-minute adjustment, for a special forces team
reconnoitering a critical landing area stumbled upon a hornets’ nest of machine-
gun fire, losing three helicopters. Since this unit had received “a pretty good
bloody nose,” attention shifted a short distance southward to a hilltop that com-
manded the main road passing through the region.
Dense woodland covered this rise, however, requiring the air liaison officer
with the assault brigade to arrange for air strikes to blast a large enough gap to
accommodate five helicopters simultaneously. Over two days, tactical fighters,
most of then F–4s and Republic F–105s, dropped more than 300 bombs, ranging
in weight from 750 to 2,000 pounds, but the larger trees survived. “It’s a rude
awakening,” an Air Force officer acknowledged, “when a 2,000-pound bomb
goes off and right next to it you see a tree standing . . . maybe two feet in dia-
meter and 75 feet high.”21
Weather complicated the blasting of a landing site, for a low ceiling com-
pelled the fast-moving fighters to make shallow dives, causing an elongated
61
bombing pattern in which detonations were separated too widely to reinforce

one another. In addition, most of the available bombs simply could not do the
job. More 2,000-pounders, fitted with fuse extenders that caused the bombs to
explode just above ground, might have snapped off the trees, though without
uprooting them.22 Not until late in the year did the Seventh Air Force acquire a
dependable means of blasting out helicopter landing zones — massive bombs
weighing five tons or more and extracted by parachute from the cargo com-
partment of a C–130.23
After efforts to clear the hilltop had failed, the Air Force fighter-bombers
shifted their effort to a valley nearby. Napalm, along with 750- and 1,000-pound
bombs, destroyed the bamboo, brush, and small trees, and a final application of
high explosives detonated any mines the defender might have planted. On April
19, the same day that Tolson’s men stormed the A Shau’s farthest reaches,
helicopters began landing the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, while Air
Force forward air controllers directed fighter-bombers against mortars and
machineguns firing into the landing zone.24
From the southeastern exits of the A Shau, where the airborne brigade had
gone into action, the major effort shifted to the central part of the valley. There,
on April 25, Tolson’s air cavalrymen seized the A Luoi airstrip. Realizing that
rain and low ceilings were typical of the fast approaching southwest monsoon
season, division planners decided to fly a ground-controlled-approach radar into
A Luoi in one of the first helicopters. Somehow the plan miscarried and the
equipment failed to arrive as scheduled. Until April 29, Air Force C–130s
parachuting supplies onto the airstrip had to rely exclusively on their own
airborne radar as they groped through a cloud-choked valley.25
When the supply drops began on the morning of April 26, the C–130s had
to drop their loads from above a 700-foot ceiling that concealed the A Luoi
flying field. To locate the panels marking the drop zone, a pilot had to descend
to 500 feet, and align his approach, then raise the nose, increase power, and
climb through the clouds to the prescribed altitude. In the cargo compartment
behind him, a heavily laden pallet rested on metal rollers built into the floor and
leading to an open hatch. As the transport rose into the clouds and crossed the
700-foot level, the loadmaster released the restraints, the pallet slid to the rear,
and an extraction chute caught the slipstream, pulling the load clear of the
aircraft. A larger parachute then opened and slowed the pallet’s earthward
descent. At about 2:00 p.m., rain began falling, but the transports kept coming,
making some twenty deliveries on that first day.
The crew of the last C–130 to approach the airfield reported that the plane
had been hit by 37-mm and .50-caliber fire, then lost radio contact with A Luoi.
The handful of airmen at the airstrip, who had laid out the drop zone and
organized the retrieval of cargo, saw the transport break through the overcast;
holes gaped in its wings and the aircraft trailed a plume of either white smoke
or fuel. The roar of the turboprop engines increased and the nose lifted, but as
62
Supplies dropped by an Air Force C–130 fall near the airstrip at A Loui.
the extraction chute opened, it seemed to wrap itself around the right horizontal
stabilizer, tearing away most of the elevator on that side. Unable to release his
cargo, the pilot tried to get out of the valley, but rapidly lost altitude, crashing
within a mile of the A Luoi runway. The eight persons on board died in the
explosion and fire.26
Another crew narrowly escaped the same fate. On the 28th, as Capt. Ross
E. Kramer was flying some 30,000 pounds of ammunition toward the drop zone,
enemy gunners opened fire through a broken overcast that failed to conceal the
transport, even though the ragged clouds helped hide camouflaged antiaircraft
sites from the escorting fighter-bombers. During the passage along the valley,
the copilot, 1st Lt. Phillip Dibb, and the engineer, SSgt. Charles W. Ellis, kept
watch for tracers, clearly visible as they rose from the jungle below, and called
out warnings so that Kramer could evade the fire. The navigator, 1st Lt. Gary
K. Woods, not only kept the plane on course, but also tried to plot the location
of enemy guns for future air strikes. In spite of the pilot’s skillful flying, the
C–130 took several hits from 37-mm and .50-caliber rounds, but he continued
on, fighting a sluggishness in the controls.
Just three miles short of the release point, a 37-mm shell exploded beneath
the cockpit. Armor under the floor saved the pilot and copilot from injury or
death, but the transport incurred severe damage to the hydraulic and electrical
circuits and to the nose-wheel steering mechanism. Since he could still control
the plane, Captain Kramer continued on course, determined to drop the badly
needed cargo. Another round tore through the left inboard engine, but Sergeant
63
Ellis shut it down before it could catch fire, and Lieutenant Dibb feathered the
propeller, keeping it from windmilling out of control. Moments later, Ellis
reported that the inboard engine on the opposite side was losing power, leaving
Kramer no choice but to jettison the load. Airman 1st Class Robert Malone and
Airman Arthur R. Hagberg had anticipated such an emergency, opening the
hatch and lowering the cargo ramp well ahead of time. The transport still had
power enough to pull up and rid itself of the cargo pallets, which landed short
but directly on line with the drop zone. Retrieval teams gathered up the ammu-
nition as Kramer flew to Da Nang, where he made an emergency landing.27
From April 26 until May 3, the big transports dropped more than 2,000 tons
of ammunition, food, and gasoline onto the A Luoi drop zone. An estimated 94
percent of this cargo landed safely and was recovered and used by the men on
the ground. The parachute drops proved essential because bad weather had
delayed the reopening of the airfield for landings and takeoffs.28
Plans had called for Army helicopters to fly in bulldozers and similar
equipment from Camp Evans, near Quang Tri City, refueling at a point halfway
to A Luoi. Unfortunately, clouds blanketed not only the A Shau Valley but the
refueling point as well. Lacking the navigational gear carried by the C–130,
helicopter crews had to be able to see where they were flying, but the weather
refused to cooperate. Almost a week passed before the heavy equipment arrived,
delaying the efforts of Army engineers to fill craters blasted by earlier B–52
strikes and to extend the dirt runway. The first de Havilland C–7 twin-engine
transports landed and unloaded on May 2, followed two days later by the larger
C–123s and C–130s. Air Force planes landing at A Luoi delivered almost 650
tons of cargo.29
Weather also hampered the strike pilots and forward air controllers trying
to support troops fighting in the valley. Thunderstorms rolled in every after-
noon, and one controller insisted that he had been able to set his watch at
exactly 2:00 p.m. as the day’s curtain of rain descended on the northwestern end
of the A Shau. The storm then enveloped the entire valley, forcing the control-
lers to leave until gaps appeared in the cloud cover, enabling them to lead
fighter-bombers beneath the overcast and back into action.30
Ironically, weather played no role in the only bombing accident that marred
the A Shau operation. An Air Force forward air controller, instructed to lead a
flight of F–100s to a free-fire zone where they could jettison their bombs before
returning to base, saw several Army helicopters firing into the forest not far
from the map coordinates he had been given. He concluded that the Army air-
craft were launching their rockets into the same free-fire zone assigned to the
F–100s, advised the Army airmen that his fighter-bombers had munitions to
drop, and received a response that he interpreted as clearance to do so. He fired
a smoke rocket to mark the target only to learn, after one of his aircraft had
dropped its bombs, that he had accidentally directed the strike against friendly
troops, eighteen of whom were wounded.31
64
An Air Force C–123 with supplies for the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division
(Airmobile) touches down at the A Loui airstrip in the A Shau Valley.
General Tolson, among whose troops the bombs had fallen, absolved the
Air Force officer of blame, declaring that the pilot “was neither willfully neg-
ligent nor had a lack of regard for the responsibility vested in him.” All the
forward air controllers active in the A Shau Valley, Tolson maintained, had
been “fully aware of their responsibility,” but “when large volumes of tactical
air are used in a fluid situation with ground troops, accidents can and do hap-
pen.” He paid tribute to the “zest and desire” shown by forward air controllers,
adding, “This dedication and enthusiasm should not be dimmed.”32
The fast-changing situation mentioned by General Tolson also endangered
the forward air controllers, two of whom experienced narrow escapes when
bombs from unseen B–52s high above them screamed past to explode in the
jungle below. One of the controllers who narrowly escaped death, Maj. A. V.
P. Anderson, III, conceded that B–52 strikes could have a devastating impact
on the enemy, but urged better coordination to ensure that controllers had
warning enough to get clear.33
The weather, rugged terrain, and intense antiaircraft fire claimed some
twenty Army helicopters shot down and incapable of being salvaged, the one
Air Force C–130 downed near A Luoi, two Marine Corps attack bombers that
collided in mid-air, and one Air Force O–2A. Nine Air Force airmen and one
Marine died, but the Army aviators killed in Operation Delaware were included
in the service’s total — 172 dead or missing and 846 wounded. South Vietnam-
ese troops, who played a comparatively minor role, lost 26 killed and 132
wounded. Enemy casualties reportedly included 900 killed and 8 taken prisoner.
More important, the thrust into the A Shau Valley deprived the North Viet-
65
namese of thousands of weapons and thousands of tons of food, munitions, and

military equipment.34
Although the brigade from the 101st Airborne Division maintained pressure
on the exits from the valley, General Tolson’s forces departed, as planned, after
four weeks. By then, the daily thunderstorms made a quagmire of A Luoi’s run-
way, closing it to Air Force transports and forcing the air cavalrymen to depart
by helicopter rather than in C–123s or C–130s. May 17 was the official termina-
tion of the A Shau campaign, known as Operation Delaware for the Americans
and Lam Son 216 for the South Vietnamese. The thrust into the stoutly de-
fended valley, with its important road net and well-stocked supply depots, re-
presented the boldest stroke delivered by the assistance command in 1968.35
The defense and eventual relief of Khe Sanh and the subsequent attack into
the A Shau Valley loomed largest in U.S. activities in the spring of 1968, but
fighting also occurred elsewhere, as the enemy harassed air bases and other
installations before launching a spring offensive of his own. Rockets and mortar
shells exploded on airfields used by the Air Force, though less frequently than
during the Tet offensive. Tan Son Nhut bore the brunt of the intermittent
shelling, though Bien Hoa came under attack, and Cam Ranh Bay, until March
4 spared from bombardment, underwent its baptism of fire.
At Tan Son Nhut, the quest for souvenirs of these occasional shellings
sometimes got the better of common sense. Even though rockets or mortar
rounds were falling, airmen might dash from their shelters to photograph the
action or lay claim to shell fragments. Making off with shell fragments often
frustrated the work of Army crater analysis teams, which tried to locate firing
positions by examining bursting pattern and crater size in search of clues to the
type of weapon, direction of fire, and angle of impact.36
The nighttime harassment of Bien Hoa persuaded General Westmoreland
to approve an experimental attack against an area believed to shelter the enemy
gunners who bombarded the base. On “Napalm Sunday,” April 7, 1968, four-
teen C–130s flew low over a segment of forest, carefully marked with smoke
rockets launched by forward air controllers, and saturated the area with a mix-
ture of jet fuel and diesel oil. Each plane dropped four pallets; once clear of the
transport, the bindings fixed to the platform released sixteen fifty-five-gallon
drums containing the flammable mixture. The containers burst on contact, and
the forward air controllers ignited contents with rockets.37
General Westmoreland, whose science adviser, Dr. William McMillan, had
devised the scheme, expressed delight with the results achieved here and in later
tests. The massive smoke cloud that rose above the burning forest, along with
aerial photographs and reports from forward air controllers, convinced West-
moreland it was highly improbable that enemy resources could have survived
the heat, flame, smoke, and suffocating environment.38 Ground troops did not,
however, conduct a reconnaissance of the burned-out area to count bodies and
damaged equipment.
66
With the passage of time and the appointment of Abrams to replace West-
moreland, enthusiasm for this type of fire bombing diminished. Gen. George S.
Brown, who took over Seventh Air Force on August 1, 1968, persuaded Abrams
that C–130s were too few and too valuable to be exposed to ground fire on
bombing missions of dubious value. After seventeen missions, therefore, these
tactics were discarded.39
The danger to Tan Son Nhut and Bien Hoa, the two air bases nearest the
capital, produced yet another defensive measure, an airborne “rocket watch”,
that embraced Saigon, the two installations, and the surrounding territory. On
February 24, after the flames of Tet had turned to embers, Gen. William W.
Momyer, Seventh Air Force Commander, approved nightly aerial patrols of the
territory within twenty-five kilometers of the bases. Forward air controllers in
O–1s or O–2As received authority to direct Douglas AC–47 gunships against
any hostile rocket launcher or mortar within the zone that might reveal its
position by opening fire. Because of the frequency of such shellings and the
danger to air bases and other installations in this area, American airmen could
attack without consulting the South Vietnamese province chief.40
Since the patrolling AC–47s could direct a torrent of gunfire against a
specific rocket or mortar position, Seventh Air Force interpreted the rules of
engagement to give gunship crews freedom to attack such weapons with a mini-
mum of delay. Effective March 1, 1968, these aircraft might, in effect, act as
their own forward air controller and engage any rocket launcher or mortar with-
in the patrol sector that had opened fire on U.S. or South Vietnamese troops or
installations. In addition, the AC–47s could retaliate against fire directed at
them from the darkness below, provided that the hostile gunners posed a real
threat and the air crew could locate the source. The gunship had to identify the
source of fire precisely, for General Momyer and his staff did not want the
AC–47s using their multi-barrel machineguns to hose down large areas,
endangering friendly troops or South Vietnamese noncombatants.41
Even without the distraction of fire from the ground, locating mortar and
rocket positions at night proved no easy task. One week after the rocket watch
began, a forward air controller assigned to the patrol saw several rockets
forming a deep red string of fire. This spectacle vanished within seconds,
leaving a “black void” within which the controller tried to fix the exact point
where the fiery streak had originated. Since an AC–47 was not near at hand, the
pilot reported the estimated grid coordinates, but advised checking with the
appropriate ground commander before approving an air strike or firing an
artillery concentration, since the location might not be accurate. This word of
caution may have saved lives, or at least prevented a waste of ammunition.
Ground units had already fixed the location of the rocket battery, some three
kilometers from the point reported by the forward air controller, but by the time
an infantry patrol arrived, the enemy had pulled out, leaving only his aiming
stakes and the shallow trenches dug to accommodate the launchers.42
67
Circling AC–47s gunships fire on Viet Cong targets near Saigon.

To improve chances of destroying the extremely mobile rocket launchers
and mortars, General Momyer placed forward air controllers in the right-hand
seats of two-place Cessna A–37s. If the controller spotted hostile fire, the pilot
could at once bomb or strafe the source. This practice went into effect on April
26.43
General Westmoreland soon came to believe that Air Force gunship crews
and forward air controllers enjoyed too much freedom within the zone that
embraced Bien Hoa, Tan Son Nhut, and Saigon. “I am concerned,” he wrote
Momyer, that the authority to attack rocket and mortar sites at night without
specific clearance “could result in unacceptable casualties to friendly ground
forces.” He further warned, “In the fluid tactical situation that exists, it would
seem extremely difficult to keep FAC [forward air controller] and Spooky
[AC–47] crews thoroughly abreast of the exact location of friendly units and
personnel.” Before Momyer could reply, however, another series of urban at-
tacks had begun.44
On May 5, 1968, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched a spring
offensive that came to be nicknamed “mini-Tet.” In announcing the attacks, the
Viet Cong Liberation Radio claimed that the earlier Tet offensive had forced the
United States to play a “peace farce,” presumably the preliminary talks about
to begin at Paris and any substantial negotiations that might follow, and called
for “armed revolts . . . in coordination with the offensive of the liberation
troops” to sustain the momentum allegedly gained during February and “smash
the ruthless domination of the U.S. puppet clique.”45 In spite of this fanfare, the
68
renewed fighting lacked the surprise, severity, and scope of the January 31
attacks, so that mini-Tet seemed “a pale replica of the earlier offensive.”46
Lacking the distraction provided by the Tet holiday, with its truce and
attendant civilian travel, the enemy’s spring offensive failed to achieve surprise.
In Quang Nam Province, for instance, intelligence reports indicated that an
entire division had moved into place by the end of April and would launch an
attack, probably on Da Nang, by mid-May.47 Around Saigon, the intelligence
effort proved even more successful, for an agent obtained plans disclosing the
day the capital would come under attack and listing some of the units assigned
to the operation.48
Early on the morning of May 5, the enemy struck, exerting some effort in
the northern provinces and western highlands, but focusing his energy on the
capital city. In the north, the anticipated assault against Da Nang failed to
materialize, though the enemy showered rockets and mortar shells on the town.
The bombardment proved generally ineffectual, except for one round that ex-
ploded inside the III Marine Amphibious Force headquarters compound, killing
four Marines and wounding eight.49
To discourage hit-and-run shelling of this sort, Marine airmen, flying
borrowed Army helicopters, patrolled by day within rocket range of Da Nang.
Air Force O–2As made a sweep at dusk and then joined AC–47s in keeping
watch by night. In spite of an occasional success, the combined surveillance
effort did not prove deterrent enough to justify permanent retention. By mid-
1969, therefore, the Marines defending Da Nang were relying upon counter-
battery fire rather than air power to deal with mortars and rocket launchers.50
Nor was Da Nang the only target of enemy gunners in I Corps, for similar
attacks took place in all five provinces. At Hue, for instance, rockets and mortar
shells damaged several houses, killed as many as twenty-seven South Vietnam-
ese civilians, and wounded eight Americans working at an unloading ramp
along the Perfume River. Skirmishes and shelling also occurred in the vicinity
of Khe Sanh, where the siege had long since been broken, around Gio Linh, and
in Quang Tri City. At Camp Evans a dozen rockets struck the most vulnerable
targets — an ammunition dump, the fuel storage area, and helicopters parked
beside the airstrip.51
The heaviest fighting that erupted in I Corps differed markedly from the
shelling of Da Nang, Hue, or Camp Evans. At Kham Duc, a border outpost that
Army Special Forces had established, the enemy fought a pitched battle, rather
than conducting the kind of hit-and-run raid typical of mini-Tet. Although the
struggle ended with the enemy in control of Kham Duc, air power demonstrated
its ability to shift troops and mass firepower, reinforcing and then withdrawing
the garrison, all the while keeping the enemy at bay.52
To the south in mountainous western II Corps, the North Vietnamese
shelled Pleiku airfield, causing superficial damage. Engineers promptly filled
a hole gouged in a taxiway by a 122-mm rocket, a near miss shook the kennels
69
and the headquarters of the Air Force sentry dog detachment, and other rockets
severed a power line and blew a gap in the perimeter fence. The hits on the
outer barrier may have demonstrated the inherent inaccuracy of the rocket rather
than a specific plan, since no ground forces tried to exploit the opening.53
The heaviest mini-Tet fighting in II Corps began at midmorning on the 5th,
when the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong ambushed a U.S. truck convoy bound
for Kontum. South Vietnamese tanks and infantry went to the rescue, and both
U.S. Army helicopter gunships and Air Force tactical fighters attacked North
Vietnamese positions dominating the road. Fighting lasted about four hours,
after which the ambush party vanished among the hills. The air strikes con-
tributed to an enemy death toll placed at 120, roughly twice the number of
Americans and South Vietnamese killed, wounded, and missing.54
Bloody fighting took place around Saigon, though towns and installations
farther south experienced no more than the usual violence. The North Vietnam-
ese and Viet Cong assigned to attack the capital encountered alert and aggres-
sive South Vietnamese forces that had gone on the offensive after Tet to uproot
the enemy from the five provinces surrounding Saigon. Skirmishes flared at
several places around the city, including Tan Son Nhut, but attempts to infiltrate
the heart of the city failed, thanks mainly to the efforts of the national police.55
Among the early casualties at Saigon was the commander of the national
police, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, so severely wounded in the leg that he required
medical treatment in the United States. During the Tet offensive, a cameraman
had filmed him as he thrust his pistol toward the head of a captured Viet Cong
terrorist, fired, and sent the victim toppling lifeless onto the pavement. Shown
on American television, the film sequence drove home the brutality of the war,
raised questions about the South Vietnamese commitment to the ideal of due
process, and dismayed American officials like Secretary of State Dean Rusk,
who sensed that the scene would further erode public support for the war.56
Although much of the capital emerged unscathed from mini-Tet, the battle
for the suburbs lasted a week, as South Vietnamese and American troops fought
a stubborn enemy. Wherever the action broke out, U.S. Army helicopter gun-
ships and U.S. and South Vietnamese fighter-bombers pounced on the commu-
nists. On May 7, for example, some seventy-nine fighter-bombers based near
the capital took off to attack fleeting targets around Saigon. By the end of the
month, Air Force F–100s had flown 241 sorties against targets near the capital
and South Vietnamese F–5s and A–1s another 185.
As during the Tet fighting, airmen had to attack villages taken over by the
Viet Cong or North Vietnamese. In at least one instance, refugees from such a
place pointed out for the U.S. commander the exact buildings fortified by the
enemy, so that Air Force fighter-bombers could set just these structures on fire
with napalm. At other locations, however, communist forces had arrived far
enough in advance of the mini-Tet attack to excavate bunkers beneath the
concrete floors of new buildings and to burrow tunnels linking these shelters.
70
Here, air crews had to drop 750-pound bombs to collapse the underground laby-
rinth, causing severe damage to homes and shops. Before attacking any popu-
lated areas, U.S. commanders cleared their action with South Vietnamese
authorities and, if the inhabitants had not already fled, made loudspeaker
broadcasts or dropped leaflets urging them to do so.57
Once again, Tan Son Nhut proved a key objective, coming under attack on
the morning of May 6, some thirty hours after mini-Tet began. At 7:22 a.m., Air
Force security police manning bunkers on the southern perimeter reported about
forty black-clad Viet Cong moving eastward outside the fence. The enemy ap-
parently had chosen a French cemetery outside the base as an assembly area, but
fire from the airmen contained him there until South Vietnamese troops arrived.
Advancing with the help of a fusillade from the Air Force security detachment,
the South Vietnamese drove off the Viet Cong.
As the enemy was falling back from the fringes of Tan Son Nhut, mortar
crews lobbed shells among the bunkers guarding the southern perimeter. During
this bombardment, a member of the Air Force security unit spotted someone on
a nearby roof, steadying a wooden stake apparently being used to aim mortars
fired from the street beyond. The airman grazed the roof with a burst of gunfire,
killing the observer, and the shells stopped falling. Viet Cong gunners harassed
the base later that day and again on the 8th and 10th, but fired fewer than thirty-
five rounds in all. No serious shelling occurred until June 12, when rockets
destroyed one aircraft and damaged eight. The mini-Tet campaign thus petered
out with no further ground attack against Tan Son Nhut.58
The enemy shelled Bien Hoa twice on May 5 and again on the 7th, the first
attacks on the base since Napalm Sunday, April 7, and the fire-bombing of the
forest believed to hide the gunners and their weapons. The May 5 bombard-
ments, about three hours after midnight and again at dawn, wounded eleven air-
men, one of them seriously, and damaged thirteen aircraft, five trucks, and three
50,000-gallon rubber bladders used to store fuel. The shelling two days later
caused no Air Force casualties and did only minor damage. On neither day did
the Viet Cong attempt a ground assault.59
Launched by units battered during the Tet fighting and hurriedly reorgan-
ized and strengthened, the May offensive accomplished nothing of lasting mil-
itary value. Ambassador Bunker concluded that Hanoi had launched mini-Tet
for diplomatic reasons, timing it to precede by five days the announced opening
of preliminary truce negotiations in Paris. Ellsworth Bunker, U.S. Ambassador
to South Vietnam, believed that the May 5 attack on Saigon and an effort
launched on the 25th, the latter more closely resembling organized vandalism
than a military operation, may have had as their objective the capture of some
portion of the capital city in order to embarrass the Thieu government and thus
strengthen North Vietnam’s bargaining position.60
Once again, the enemy’s losses in manpower outweighed his military gains.
Estimates of communist battle deaths between May 1 and 9 totaled some 5,700,
71
about seven times the number of Americans and South Vietnamese killed in
action, By mid-May, according to intelligence estimates, the toll of enemy slain
had reached 12,500. The greatest impact of the May fighting, as had been true
of the Tet battles, fell upon South Vietnamese civilians, 107,000 of whom
joined the growing flood of refugees.61
Contributing to the refugee problem was the inescapable need to bomb
enemy-held villages on the fringes of Saigon and occasionally to attack hostile
strongpoints within the capital itself. These strikes, in turn, caused a reorien-
tation of the psychological warfare effort during Tet and mini-Tet. The Air
Force and Army transport and liaison planes that normally tried to induce
enemy soldiers to defect now had to give first priority to warning noncom-
batants of impending attack. This important activity did not, however, absorb
all their time, for even during the spring offensive, crews continued to drop
leaflets and make loudspeaker broadcasts urging civilians and enemy troops to
rally behind the Saigon government.
Fighter-bombers and psychological warfare craft were not the aircraft in
action around Saigon during this offensive. Reconnaissance planes again photo-
graphed possible enemy concentrations threatening the city and completed a
photo mosaic to help ground commanders plan for the future security of the cap-
ital. As they had during the Tet battles, observation planes carrying forward air
controllers, flareships, and AC–47 gunships helped defend Saigon by night.
Since Khe Sanh was now secure — and would not be abandoned until June —
General Westmoreland began using B–52s against targets within twenty-four
miles of the city. From May 5, when the mini-Tet fighting had erupted, until
June 21, when the last embers of the spring offensive were extinguished, almost
a thousand of the bombers hit targets on the approaches to Saigon.62
By late May, with the worst of the springtime fighting ended and Saigon
secure, at least temporarily, General Momyer took up General Westmoreland’s
complaint about the lack of coordination between the airborne rocket watch and
ground units patrolling during darkness. Although Westmoreland had specif-
ically mentioned the AC–47s, Momyer limited his response to the A–37s being
dispatched with a forward air controller on board, withdrawing permission for
them to respond instantly to a rocket or mortar attack. He allowed the AC–47s
to operate as before.63
This response did not satisfy General Weyand, the U.S. officer responsible
for defending the Saigon area. Pointing to the “heavy concentration of ground
forces . . . and the large number of night ambushes, both static and moving,”
within rocket range of Tan Son Nhut and Bien Hoa, he warned that poorly co-
ordinated air attacks, whether by helicopters or gunships could prove tragic. He
therefore asked General Momyer to prohibit the rocket watch from engaging
targets without obtaining specific clearance from commanders on the ground.64
Westmoreland decided that Weyand’s concern for the safety of ground
troops was justified, and the rocket watch lost its freedom of action, effective
72
May 30. General Momyer, however, considered this a temporary restriction and
urged Westmoreland to reconsider, pointing out that placing restrictions on the
rocket watch exposed “two of the largest bases in Vietnam, with 18,000 people
and $500 million of equipment to additional rocket fire.”65
The decision not only proved permanent, but apparently yielded unforeseen
benefits. Captured documents later revealed that during the spring of 1968 the
Viet Cong sometimes employed rocket or mortar attacks to provoke air strikes
and counterbattery barrages that would cause civilian casualties, destroy prop-
erty, create new refugees, and generally discredit U.S. and South Vietnamese
claims of concern for the welfare of ordinary citizens. Since pinpointing firing
positions from the air at night had proved so difficult, the time lost in coordi-
nating with ground forces made little practical difference. Indeed, the restric-
tions imposed on the rocket watch may have worked to the enemy’s disadvan-
tage by preventing the collateral damage he desired.66
Subject to the new restrictions, Air Force forward air controllers continued
to maintain the rocket watch, exercising sole responsibility for first one and then
two of four corridors radiating outward from the capital. Instead of directing
immediate attacks on their own authority, they now reported sightings to both
an artillery center at Saigon and an airborne controller aloft in an Army heli-
copter. Moreover, they could not call in either air strikes or artillery without
permission from this airborne controller, an Army officer who answered to the
call sign Deadly and maintained contact with the duty officer at headquarters
of the Capital Military Assistance Command, the individual responsible for co-
ordinating air, artillery, and ground action. The Capital Military Assistance
Command, a component of General Weyand’s II Field Force, originated during
mini-Tet as a headquarters to oversee the defense of Saigon and neighboring
Gia Dinh.67
The airmen, whether Army or Air Force, who scanned the four corridors
around Saigon for rocket or mortar batteries, could take heart from the fact that
a series of rocket attacks — a hundred rockets for a hundred days — that enemy
propagandists had promised for the summer did not come to pass. The enemy
could have been exaggerating, of course, or such factors as ammunition caches
destroyed by U.S. forces may have undermined the plan.68 Indeed, the failure
of the Viet Cong to launch the vaunted rocket barrage may have marked the
beginning of what came to be interpreted as a North Vietnamese “concession”
in the interest of peace negotiations, a “tacit understanding” that the enemy
would refrain from attacking South Vietnam’s cities while the talks continued.69
Although General Weyand had expressed concern that the rocket watch, at-
tacking at night, might hit friendly troops, the most serious accident during the
spring offensive occurred in daylight. On June 2, a rocket fired by an Army hel-
icopter exploded in a cluster of South Vietnamese officials watching an attack
on a group of Viet Cong who had infiltrated Cholon, the capital’s Chinese quar-
ter. Seven persons died, including a brother-in-law of Vice President Ky.
73
The accident sent tremors through a Department of Defense already con-

cerned — thanks in part to the earlier statement that it was necessary to destroy
Ben Tre in order to save it — about the excessive, perhaps careless, use of fire-
power in urban fighting. Charles Sweet, a member of the U.S. mission at Sai-
gon, studied the attitudes of South Vietnamese civilians and concluded that
persons living in the capital and its suburbs resented the destruction caused by
their own troops and by the Americans in rooting out enemy infiltrators. Press
reports lent credence to Sweet’s research, alleging needless property damage in
and around the city. Secretary Clifford therefore asked General Wheeler to do
something, and this request resulted in a tightening of controls over urban air
strikes. The military assistance command stressed the existing rules of engage-
ment, which in general called for clearance from South Vietnamese authorities
and warning to civilians of impending attack, and advised the use of precise,
direct-fire weapons such as recoilless rifles before resorting to less accurate
ordnance, including aerial rockets and bombs.70
As part of the campaign to reduce casualties among noncombatants,
General Weyand, as commanding general, II Field Force, Vietnam, reserved the
responsibility to use air power and artillery in Saigon and its surroundings. In
practice, however, he delegated authority to the senior American adviser and the
South Vietnamese officer in command of the Military Region of Saigon. At the
end of August, the commanding general of the new Capital Military Assistance
Command, an American, assumed the mantle of responsibility for defending
Saigon that the field force commander had worn. No matter who exercised
authority over air and artillery, he obtained clearance from the appropriate
South Vietnamese official before unleashing these forms of destruction.71
74
Chapter Five
Above Highlands, Plain, and Delta
After Khe Sanh was secure, but before the A Shau Valley campaign ended,
the enemy launched his spring offensive, the so-called mini-Tet attacks. Typical
of the Vietnam conflict, the last of the A Shau fighting and repulse of the spring
offensive competed with still other actions for the resources available to Gen-
erals Westmoreland and Momyer. Throughout 1968, these two officers and their
successors, Generals Abrams and Brown, engaged in simultaneous operations
along the demilitarized zone, among the mountains in the tri-border area where
South Vietnam abuts Laos and Cambodia, on the coastal plain south of Da
Nang, and amid the maze of streams and embankments that scarred the rice
lands of the Mekong Delta. In each diverse region, the Seventh Air Force used
a variety of close combat and logistic support techniques and tactics in
performing the ground support function.
The tri-border fighting — a combination of aerial interdiction by tactical
fighters, massive bombardment by B–52s, artillery fire, and infantry assault —
resulted from intelligence obtained during Operation Vesuvius early in 1968.
Forward air controllers played a key role in gathering this information. After
detecting one short segment of road winding among the jungle-clad ridges, they
searched out the rest, spotting a few trucks, some elephants apparently being
used as beasts of burden, and signs of construction. “A couple of us,” one of the
pilots recalled, “had actually ventured into Cambodia to find out where the road
did go.” This violation of Cambodian airspace, which occurred before Oper-
ation Vesuvius began, revealed that the road discovered in South Vietnam con-
nected with a north-south route beyond the Cambodian border.1
The military assistance command became acutely interested in what obvi-
ously was an important avenue for the supply and reinforcement of hostile units
in South Vietnam. General Westmoreland’s headquarters arranged for Air Force
planes to photograph the area, sent Army and Air Force observation craft low
among the mountains, and dispatched long-range ground patrols into the region.
Interrogators questioned prisoners captured in the highlands and discovered that
some of them belonged to the North Vietnamese 325th Division, last located in
the hills around Khe Sanh.
75
The surge in road building, along with the presence of this veteran division,
raised the possibility of an attack in South Vietnam’s central highlands, supplied
at least in part by cargo passing through Cambodia. Trucks could sustain such
an offensive by carrying men and war material over routes already cut through
southern Laos and the northeastern corner of Cambodia. If the North Vietnam-
ese and Viet Cong isolated the town of Kontum and pushed eastward, a vigor-
ous thrust could succeed in reaching the coast, thus isolating the northern pro-
vinces from the rest of South Vietnam. To forestall this calamity, General West-
moreland called on air power to interdict enemy traffic on key roads in western
Kontum Province, while American ground forces advanced toward the border.2
Seventh Air Force tactical fighters, together with B–52s of the Strategic Air
Command, received the mission of disrupting traffic on two road systems within
South Vietnam that would carry the men and munitions necessary to launch an
eastward drive. One network ran roughly parallel to Route 512 toward Ben Het;
the other followed the Plei Trap Valley, west of Kontum city and generally par-
allel to the Cambodian border. Beginning in the first week of April, the aircraft
attacked bridges and similar choke points, truck parks, and supply dumps along
both road nets, using high-explosive bombs, mines, and, on occasion, tear gas.3
In a typical attempt at interdiction, Seventh Air Force planners consulted
aerial photographs, reports from forward air controllers, and other intelligence
to isolate several choke points along a specific segment of road. One such point
began as the route passed between two hills, continued across a bridge, bent
around another hill, and passed beside the foot of a towering cliff. Another
consisted of a section of highway that crossed a spring-fed marsh where ground
water quickly oozed into even shallow craters blasted in the road surface. At
one or more places within a choke point, aircraft cut the road with bombs and
scattered gravel mines — high-explosive pellets that could inflict painful minor
wounds — to discourage repair crews. Once established, the interdiction point
required continuing surveillance, so airmen could again cut the road when a
break was mended.4
The Seventh Air Force twice experimented with tear gas to replace or rein-
force the gravel mines. Lockheed C–130 transports dropped 256 drums of gas
on one choke point and 192 on another. Almost all the containers plunged
through the jungle canopy, burst, and released a non-toxic cloud that clung to
the ground. The effects of the gas defied precise measurement, largely because
aerial cameras could not penetrate the trees and discover when road repairs
began or the pace of construction.5
Aerial interdiction of the tri-border region, reinforced at times by fire from
175-mm guns, continued from April 7 until June 22. At the outset, finding tar-
gets proved difficult, for the highlands were poorly charted and one ridge line
looked like another. To further complicate matters, intelligence officers tried to
piece together traces of camouflaged roads by linking segments revealed in
aerial photos or glimpsed from the sky through gaps in the jungle. As the for-
76
ward air controllers became more familiar with the region, their proficiency
improved, enabling them to locate an increasing number of targets for strike
pilots and to furnish intelligence specialists with a greater quantity of sound
information.
Of the three basic interdiction weapons — tactical fighters, B–52s, and artil-
lery, the tactical fighter seemed the deadliest, at least in the judgment of one Air
Force forward air controller. This type of plane, if skillfully flown, could des-
troy a bridge no more than a dozen feet long or blast a crater in a road barely
wide enough for a single truck. To score a direct hit on so small a target might
require ten or more tries, but it could be done. Not so with the B–52s, whose
sprawling bomb pattern had proved excellent for ripping away jungle to reveal
potential targets or for battering truck parks, bivouacs, or storage areas. The
spread of bombs from even one of these huge aircraft might crater a narrow,
twisting road, but to do so required extremely good luck. Artillery, this same
airman declared, lacked the accuracy at ranges beyond twenty kilometers to
score more than an occasional hit on a road junction or similar target.6
Unlike the men on board the high-flying B–52s, forward air controllers and
fighter-bomber crews had to run a gantlet of fire from automatic weapons and
light antiaircraft guns. An Army officer, paying tribute to the airborne con-
trollers supporting the brigade he commanded, said they “proved tremendous,”
braving fire from the ground that was “about as intense” as he would “care to
fly in, in any aircraft.” The North Vietnamese shot down one F–105, but the
pilot ejected and was rescued by an Army helicopter carrying the commander
of the very battalion he had been supporting.7
The interdiction campaign served as prelude to an advance westward from
Dak To by a brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, reinforced by elements of the
101st Airborne Division. As the main force surged ahead, one battalion would
make a helicopter assault near the border, a move designed to prevent the North
Vietnamese from finding refuge in Cambodia. Besides maintaining pressure on
the road net during the offensive, air power hammered troop concentrations as
the enemy massed his forces to meet the threat.8
The infantrymen surged forward on May 27, encountering feeble resistance,
a result, said one forward air controller, of the devastating B–52 bombardment
that supported the attack. This officer, Maj. Eugene Carnahan, said that the big
bombers appeared in such rapid succession that he and his fellow controllers
could not assess the results of one strike before they had to get out of the way
of the next. He recalled flying over a vast area, ten or more kilometers square,
“where the triple canopy jungle had been turned into desert,” and bomb craters
had “changed the course of small creeks and streams.”9
Col. Joseph E. Fix, whose reinforced brigade was making the attack, ex-
pressed delight with the work of the B–52s. When the enemy chose to fight, the
brigade commander arranged for the bombers to attack by day or night, under
radar control, as close as 1,500 meters to his own troops. The raids, he believed,
77
Bombing on this section of the Ho Chi Minh Trail has removed

the forest cover and destroyed trucks parked alongside the road.
were a “horrendous psychological weapon,” not unlike the nuclear attacks on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One moment, he recalled, everything was peaceful
and serene, “and all of a sudden all hell erupts.” Putting himself in the place of
a North Vietnamese soldier, Colonel Fix reasoned that “to live under this threat
must be a fantastic psychological problem,” especially for those who had sur-
vived a raid and seen “the destruction wrought by these strikes that come with-
out warning.”10
To exploit the psychological impact of this bombardment, Air Force and
Army planes scattered some two million leaflets and reinforced the printed word
with propaganda broadcasts from airborne loudspeakers. While only three of the
enemy surrendered, each of them numbered B–52 strikes among the reasons for
their defection.11
Although Colonel Fix welcomed B–52 bombardment and the psychological
impact it apparently had, he realized that thunderous explosions did not always
result in gruesome slaughter. All too often he had seen enemy riflemen emerge
from shelter and fight to the death after having undergone an earth-shaking artil-
lery barrage comparable to a B–52 strike. He simply did not know how many
enemy troops the B–52s had killed or maimed, for no bomb damage assessment
was possible after 61 percent of the bombings. In other cases, the reports were
limited to events visible from the air, principally explosions and fires. Only
once did his advancing troops arrive on the scene in time to obtain first-hand
evidence.12
78
In terms of effort, if not necessarily results, the three-month bombing cam-

paign west of Kontum City marked the second mightiest aerial endeavor of the
war to that time, surpassed only by the bombing around Khe Sanh earlier in
1968. Some 1,300 tactical fighter strikes dropped almost two tons of bombs
each, and 233 B–52 strikes took place, each involving from one to three of the
bombers. In spite of this aerial bombardment, the attacking infantry could not
be certain that the 325th Division had not escaped intact into Cambodia. Twice
Colonel Fix prepared to fly a battalion westward to establish a blocking position
near the border, thus placing a stopper in the open bottle, and twice the enemy
attacked at Dak Pek to the north, forcing him to cancel the planned move in case
the unit was needed there. As a result, the escape route remained open.13
This massive bombardment could not be duplicated in IV Corps, where the
potential for disaster from a misdirected bomb or shell was perhaps the greatest
in all of South Vietnam. Some eight million people lived within the 16,000-
square-mile IV Corps operating area, which extended from the Plain of Reeds
to the southernmost tip of the Ca Mau peninsula. This area contained one-fourth
of South Vietnam’s land mass and about half the nation’s total population.
The IV Corps tactical zone included the delta formed as the Bassac and
Mekong Rivers emptied into the sea. A huge rice crop grew in the deposited silt,
a crop valuable to both the Saigon government and the enemy. Because so much
of the delta was irrigated paddy land, the people clustered along rivers, canals,
and the area’s one hard-surfaced road, further increasing the likelihood of civil-
ian casualties as some 80,000 Viet Cong troops and political agitators sought
to merge with the general populace.14 The large B–52s seldom attacked in the
delta “because it was just too crowded.”15
When 1968 began, a special force of infantry, transported on shallow-draft
landing vessels, harried the enemy along the waterways that laced the delta.
These soldiers, a brigade of the 9th Infantry Division, lived on Navy landing
ships designed to carry tanks, but converted into floating barracks, and em-
barked in landing craft to storm enemy strongholds. The naval flotilla that con-
ducted these operations had its own ammunition, supply, and repair vessels, as
well as artillery barges and a variety of powered fire-support craft. Mobility
remained the watchword through the early months of 1968, as this river force,
independent insofar as possible from its advance base at Dong Tam, churned the
muddy rivers and canals in pursuit of an elusive foe.16
The so-called Mobile Riverine Force tried to isolate enemy detachments
and destroy them before they could vanish among the peasantry. After one ele-
ment of the force lured the Viet Cong into battle, another swarmed ashore to cut
the enemy’s avenues of retreat, while helicopter gunships sought to cover any
gaps through which the communists might escape. To make the best possible
use of tactical fighters in rapidly moving combat, the brigade relied on air liai-
son parties that maintained radio contact between units slogging through the
delta mud and the forward air controllers assigned to support them.17
79
South Vietnamese troops taking part in an operation in the Mekong Delta.

From four to six forward air controllers directed air strikes, called down
artillery, and performed reconnaissance for the amphibious brigade. Various
Army officers had contrasting opinions about the contribution made by the air-
borne controllers. Whereas one stated flatly that the controllers were “damned
fine . . . willing to go out of their way to help you,”18 another, whose command
post had been hit by an errant napalm canister, insisted that the controllers of
1968 and 1969 were less skillful than their predecessors of three years earlier,
who “would come in at tree top level and guide the jets in beautifully.” The new
breed, this Army officer declared, seemed unwilling to “come in below 1,500
feet.”19 He neglected to mention, however, that antiaircraft fire had grown infin-
itely more dangerous during the intervening time.
A similar lack of unanimity characterized estimates by Army officers of the
value of the air strikes, usually few in number, launched in support of each
day’s operations. One officer complained, for instance, that “we make lots of
lakes out there in the paddies,”20 but one of his colleagues pointed out that this
apparently wasteful area bombing served to detonate mines and booby traps. In
such areas, he conceded, “it must look as though we are just making holes in the
paddies, but if those strikes . . . save some grunt’s leg, then the strike has been
worthwhile.”21
Valuable as such preparatory bombing might be, the soldier wading through
knee-deep ooze or treading warily along an embankment needed air power most
when the Viet Cong opened fire from the concealment of some tree line. “For
on-the-spot, immediate response,” declared an Army staff officer, “I’d rather
have air than artillery any time. It’s much more accurate than artillery, too — if
the first round isn’t on target, the second one and the following ones are.”22
80
When the riflemen ran into unexpected trouble, their battalion commander
had the air liaison party contact the forward air controller, who immediately
radioed the direct air support center responsible for assisting the river force —
beginning in 1968, IV Direct Air Support Center at Can Tho did this job. The
center responded by either launching aircraft, occasionally from Binh Thuy but
usually from Bien Hoa, or diverting fighters already aloft. Response time varied
from fifteen minutes, if the flight was in the air near the target and could report
promptly to the forward air controller; to thirty minutes, if the planes took off
from Bien Hoa; or to perhaps forty-five minutes, if the strike originated at some
more distant base like Nha Trang.23
As during Operation Pegasus in the north, preplanned air strikes scheduled
on the previous day served as the principal source of aircraft diverted to meet
emergencies in the delta. Instead of grouping most scheduled missions early in
the assault, the 9th Infantry Division sought to arrange the preplanned strikes —
those requested by brigade headquarters before 11:00 a.m. of the day before the
operation — to “get a good time spread on air strikes coming into the area.” A
target that seemed vital the day before might vanish with the dawn, and if such
was the case, the assigned aircraft would be available if a firefight should erupt.
Ideally, these flights would arrive on station four times during the day, either
attacking the planned target or, if it had disappeared or diminished in impor-
tance, remaining available as long as they could. If the fighter-bombers ran low
on fuel before the river force needed them, they might hit suspected minefields,
storage bunkers, or other targets located by intelligence.24
A key element in the intelligence network was the forward air controller,
who enjoyed great success in detecting enemy movement by day. Prisoner inter-
rogation, captured documents, and intercepted radio broadcasts revealed infor-
mation about Viet Cong activity, and the river force could employ a variety of
electronic devices to penetrate darkness or other concealment. Army aircraft
fitted with infrared equipment, side-looking radar, or light-intensifying night
observation devices searched the delta terrain. Army helicopters fitted with
“people sniffers” — sensors capable of detecting odors given off by the human
body — patrolled the region. Outposts on the ground maintained radar surveil-
lance over segments of the flooded plain, and Army or Navy technicians mon-
itored signals from acoustic and seismic sensors capable of detecting movement
on routes the enemy might use.25
Although ground fighting sometimes broke out at night, generating calls for
emergency air support, Air Force units normally saw little action between dusk
and dawn. Forward air controllers occasionally tried, with scant success, to
conduct surveillance during darkness. As one pilot conceded, “We’ve tried it,
but we can’t see anything.”26 Frequently, AC–47 gunships intervened in the
delta by night, usually against Viet Cong gunners firing upon Binh Thuy Air
Base. Radar controllers on the ground sometimes directed tactical fighters in
nighttime strikes on targets located by piecing together intelligence data.27
81
During 1968, the mission of the river force changed, even as infantry
strength increased from three to seven American battalions. Instead of roving
the delta as before, the command at mid-year undertook the pacification of Kien
Hoa Province, lying between the northernmost and southernmost forks of the
Mekong. Concentrating on this single province meant that operations normally
started from one of four permanent anchorages, using a limited number of
waterways. As a result, the Viet Cong could more easily set up ambushes. Since
the landing craft had become more vulnerable, the force made greater use of
helicopters, both to suppress hostile fire and, where terrain and vegetation
permitted, to land troops.28
By year’s end, South Vietnamese troops had begun training with the river
force, and South Vietnamese airmen were bombing and strafing in support of
these units and the American infantry as well. An Air Force liaison officer with
the Army division characterized the South Vietnamese pilots as “very accurate
bombers,” though American forward air controllers had difficulty with them
because of the language barrier.29 Another liaison officer echoed this assess-
ment, acknowledging South Vietnamese skill, but declaring, “I still prefer to
call in U.S. fighters for support of troops in contact [with the enemy]. We use
the same terms and the FAC is always certain that he and the jocks [fighter
pilots] are on the same wavelength.”30
The river force reached its peak strength as 1968 came to an end. Ahead lay
the withdrawal of American forces and the substitution of South Vietnamese.
Within the delta, emphasis shifted from pacification to the interdiction of sup-
plies moving by river and canal from the Parrot’s Beak into South Vietnam.31
Not every operation in IV Corps during 1968 involved air strikes in support
of landing craft butting their way along the muddy streams that laced the fertile
rice lands. Near the Cambodian border, the terrain rose sharply, and here, in the
so-called Seven Mountains of Chau Doc Province, a parachute assault took
place. On November 17, 1968, Air Force C–130s dropped South Vietnamese
paratroops some six miles southwest of the village of Tri Ton. The drop zone
lay at the base of an enemy-held mountain, where B–52s, Air Force fighters,
artillery, and army helicopters had pummeled the Viet Cong weapons emplaced
there.32
The drop proved a trickier operation than anticipated. Clouds settled over
Nha Trang Air Base, where the troops were loading, and also concealed naviga-
tional checkpoints over much of the route to the target. The change in weather
came too late for preparation of an instrument flight plan. As a result, the
C–130s took off early and improvised a convoluted course, seeking canyons
through the clouds. The transports did not emerge from the overcast until they
were approaching a fork of the Mekong, which they followed inland through
clear skies until they made their turn for Tri Ton. Because the drop zone was so
small and difficult to identify, each transport had to make two passes just to be
sure, increasing the risk of enemy fire, which damaged two planes.
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As Army helicopters released smoke to blind hostile gunners, the C–130s

roared past the mountain, dropping the first troops well away from a tree line
at the edge of the zone. Word soon came from the ground, however, that the
men were landing in a marsh, where their heavy loads might trap them in pools
of water, some deep enough to drown a person. The next group, therefore,
dropped near the trees, running the lesser risk that the parachutes would become
entangled among the branches.33
Besides the parachute troops, South Vietnamese infantry and irregular
forces took part in the attack, advancing by land. General Abrams’ headquarters
reported that the operation, which lasted twelve days, killed more than a hun-
dred of the enemy. In addition, the South Vietnamese got credit for capturing
some ninety Viet Cong guerrillas and arresting half-again as many persons
suspected of supporting the insurgents.34
Throughout South Vietnam, air power played a variety of roles. Depending
on the weather, geography, and hostile activity within a certain region, these
might include close air support of friendly troops, defoliation, reconnaissance,
the delivery of troops and supplies, interdiction of roads and waterways, and the
bombing of bases and supply depots. Aircraft, moreover, flew these missions
over dense forest, open rice paddies, mountain wilderness, and densely popu-
lated regions. Nowhere, however, did aviation do more than in the defense of
the isolated outposts established by U.S. Army Special Forces.
Since 1965, Special Forces detachments had operated a series of border
outposts from Khe Sanh and Lang Vei in the north, past the tri-border area, the
Fishhook and Parrot’s Beak, beyond the Plain of Reeds, to the Ca Mau penin-
sula. At each camp, the Americans trained and organized local inhabitants,
whether lowland South Vietnamese, members of one of the mountain tribes, or
persons of Cambodian ancestry, to become “hunters of the Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese Army,” ambushing infiltration groups, raiding bases, and locating
enemy concentrations for attack by air or ground forces. Except for an occa-
sional foray into Laos or Cambodia, these hunters seldom ventured far from the
villages where their families lived, each protected by a fort that served as an
operating base.35
Typical of the larger Special Forces camps was Duc Lap, near the Cam-
bodian border southwest of Ban Me Thuot. The garrison built the strongpoint
on two small hills, emplacing machineguns and recoilless rifles and encircling
the perimeter with barbed wire. Behind the wire entanglement, the defenders
dug a trench, constructed bunkers, and set up claymore mines — weapons fired
by remote control that spewed lethal fragments to the front. The light infantry
companies organized for the defense of Duc Lap also had some 81-mm mortars
and one 105-mm howitzer to engage targets screened by the nearby hills. If an
attack penetrated the wire and overran the outer defenses, the mountain tribes-
men and their U.S. advisers had an inner perimeter of trenches and bunkers or,
if necessary, could retreat to a final redoubt on one of the hills.36
83
Duc Lap Special Forces camp.

At about 1:15 on the morning of August 23, the North Vietnamese attacked
Duc Lap, bypassing or frightening off the ambush parties posted along the
approaches to the camp. After some five hours, the Special Forces commander,
1st Lt. William J. Harp, ordered one platoon of mountain tribesmen to counter-
attack, but this advance did not get beyond the camp’s main gate. While shells
burst among the defenders, the enemy overran the airstrip and broke through the
outer perimeter of the camp itself.37
With Duc Lap’s survival at stake, an AC–47 gunship, patrolling nearby to
deal with just such an emergency, appeared overhead shortly after the fighting
began, and Air Force tactical fighters, directed against targets on the ground by
forward air controllers, joined the action after daybreak. During the morning,
the enemy scored a hit on an attacking F–100C flown by 1st Lt. Julius Thurn,
one of the recently mobilized Air National Guard pilots, who ejected safely. His
parachute caught the attention of the Duc Lap Special Forces detachment, and
eight of its members, plus two tribesmen, piled into a pair of 3/4-ton trucks and
roared out of camp, past astonished North Vietnamese soldiers crouching on
either side of the road. The rescuers found Lieutenant Thurn, who leveled his
pistol at them before he realized they were friends, and brought him back unhurt
to camp. Handed an automatic rifle, the pilot shared for three hours the dangers
of infantry combat before a helicopter returned him to Tuy Hoa Air Base.38
Early attempts to land reinforcements near the besieged outpost ended in
failure, and not until August 25 could mountain tribesmen flown by Army heli-
copter from Nha Trang and Pleiku fight their way from the landing zones into
84
An Air Force C–7 landing at Duc Lap Special Forces Camp.

the camp. Until these reinforcements arrived, napalm, aerial bombs, and strafing
helped Harp’s men hold out, even though the North Vietnamese overran part of
the compound. On one occasion, a forward air controller broke up an attack by
diving into a barrage of automatic weapons fire to launch marking rockets,
tricking the North Vietnamese into seeking cover and keeping them pinned
down until fighter-bombers could carry out a strike. Later, aerial attacks against
enemy-held bunkers and trenches inside the camp perimeter cleared the way for
a final drive that routed the surviving North Vietnamese at dusk on the 25th.39
Throughout the struggle for Duc Lap, the irregular forces defending it
depended on supplies delivered by air. Army helicopter crews flew 18 missions
85
into the camp, sometimes carrying their cargo in nets slung beneath Boeing
CH–47s. Air Force C–7 transports made eight supply drops, parachuting water,
ammunition, rations, and medicine to the embattled garrison.40
Air power also came to the rescue of Thuong Duc, a similar camp located
at the base of the western highlands in Quang Nam Province. This fort came
under attack on September 28, about a month after the fight at Duc Lap. Here,
too, the North Vietnamese struck in the early morning darkness, overrunning the
outposts manned by irregular troops, firing into the camp itself, and seizing the
airfield and most of the nearby village. The battle remained deadlocked until
1:00 p.m., when a forward air controller directed four sorties against the cap-
tured outposts, in preparation for a successful counterattack. The force that
advanced from the main camp found grisly proof of the effectiveness of the air
strikes. Scattered about one outpost were parts of eight to ten bodies, while
similar remains indicated that about twenty persons died at another. By dusk,
some forty fighter-bombers had hit targets in enemy-held territory.41
Night found the enemy in control of most of the high ground around the
camp. To help keep him at bay, a Marine airborne controller flying an airplane
fitted with a radar transponder established an aerial checkpoint over the battle-
field. Grumman A–6 Intruders, normally flown by Marines on nighttime armed
reconnaissance missions over Laos or southern North Vietnam, homed on this
beacon and then followed instructions from Marine radar operators on the
ground to bomb the North Vietnamese without endangering friendly forces.42
Along with the Marine A–6s, Air Force AC–47 gunships took part in the
nighttime defense of Thuong Duc. Because of its long endurance, devastating
firepower, and night vision scope, the AC–47, nicknamed Spooky, proved a
formidable instrument for defending special forces camps. At Thuong Duc on
the night of September 29, for example, the Spooky on station fired 113,000
rounds from its three multi-barrel machineguns.43
Air strikes proved essential in expelling the enemy holding out in the
village, fighting from new concrete-walled houses, many of them built by the
families of Thuong Duc’s defenders. On September 28, after the South Viet-
namese district chief reported that all noncombatants had departed, a force of
irregulars attacked the village but became pinned down in the marketplace
because their supporting 106-mm recoilless rifles could not penetrate the sturdy
buildings nearby. An Army Special Forces officer called for air strikes that
annihilated both the structures and the troops that had fortified them. In the
vicinity of the marketplace, the advancing irregulars found 40 to 50 bodies, with
other corpses half-buried in collapsed trenches or houses.
Shortly afterward, a forward air controller called in F–4s against a sus-
pected mortar position across a river from the camp. Dust from the first bombs
had barely settled when yellow smoke billowed upward, a signal sometimes
used to indicate the presence of friendly troops. The ruse failed, however, since
the controller had received word that neither Americans nor South Vietnamese
86
had crossed the stream. Again and again, fighter-bombers swept low over the
target, and frantic messages crackled over a captured North Vietnamese radio
being monitored by members of the Thuong Duc Special Forces detachment.
The radio traffic indicated that American bombs had fallen squarely upon a
North Vietnamese unit, wounding a high-ranking officer and causing momen-
tary panic.44
The struggle for Thuong Duc lasted until the morning of September 30,
when a mobile strike force, landed from Army helicopters the previous day,
helped drive off the North Vietnamese. The aerial firepower unleashed in close
proximity to the camp had proved overwhelming. Besides the nighttime activity
of the slowly circling AC–47s and the more modern AC–130A with its side-
firing 20-mm guns, the enemy had to contend each night with as many as ten
radar-directed A–6 strikes. In addition, B–52s bombed suspected troop concen-
trations some distance from the battlefield.45 No wonder that a Special Forces
officer declared, “Air saved the camp. There is no doubt about it.”46
The successful defense of Thuong Duc led to the launching on October 6,
of a combined U.S. Marine-South Vietnamese attack that overcame fierce oppo-
sition to clear the hills around the base. The drive encountered stubborn
resistance from the outset, even though B–52s had battered areas where the
enemy was believed to be massing. When the North Vietnamese beat back a
Marine battalion, Air Force planes sought to blast a path through the defenses,
dropping bombs filled with an explosive gas resembling propane that seeped
into foxholes and underground bunkers before detonating. At night, an AC–130
took over, strafing the ridges in the Marine zone. Rather than have an O–2A
circling in the dark, the direct air support center responsible for this area added
a forward air controller to the gunship crew, enabling him to use the night
vision scope and the other sensors on board to direct its fire.47
Despite these Air Force contributions, Marines flew and directed most of
the air strikes conducted in support of the advance during its first six days. On
October 12, however, when the attackers collided with an entrenched North
Vietnamese regiment, bad weather had grounded the Marine airborne control-
lers who normally patrolled overhead. At about noon on that day, the direct air
support center handling aerial activity in this portion of I Corps received word
from Army officers advising the South Vietnamese forces that the enemy had
checked the assault in a narrow valley north of Thuong Duc. Air Force officers
at the support center chose an experienced forward air controller, who took off
under poor conditions, hoping to find better weather over the battlefield. After
a flight of just fifteen minutes, he arrived over the battlefield and found that
visibility was adequate for air strikes to aid the Marines and South Vietnamese
below.
From the battlefield came a call for a helicopter to evacuate wounded. The
controller relayed the request and when the helicopters arrived, he fired his
rockets as though marking a target for fighter-bombers. The enemy immediately
87
took cover and could not fire accurately as the wounded were borne away. After
helping meet this emergency, the forward air controller helped direct air strikes
until dusk, leaving only when necessary to refuel and take on marking rockets.
Among the first strike aircraft on the scene were Marine A–4s, highly maneu-
verable attack planes ideally suited to bombing targets within the confines of the
valley. A Marine airborne controller arrived late in the afternoon to help locate
the enemy and suspend artillery fire while aerial attacks were taking place.
Handling a flight of South Vietnamese A–1s, whose pilots spoke no Eng-
lish, posed the most difficult problem the Air Force forward air controller faced
that day. An Army adviser with the South Vietnamese troops on the ground im-
provised a solution, however. He repeated messages from the Air Force officer
to an English-speaking South Vietnamese, who translated the instructions and
radioed them to his countrymen circling above the valley. Bombs from the A–1s
helped break North Vietnamese resistance, enabling the advance to proceed.48
The AC–130A gunship, the prototype of which saw action over Thuong
Duc and the hills nearby, was one of several new weapons used in South Viet-
nam during 1968, as the Air Force carried out the function of developing
equipment, preparing doctrine for its employment, and training men in its
operation. To locate targets concealed by darkness, the new plane carried a
variety of sensors, including an infrared detector and a night observation scope.
While normally firing its 20-mm cannon and 7.62-mm machineguns on trucks
traveling the roads of southern Laos, the AC–130A and its even more heavily
armed successors could help meet emergencies in South Vietnam.49
Another type of gunship, the AC–119G, arrived at Nha Trang during the
final days of 1968. Reservists mobilized after the Tet offensive flew this con-
verted Fairchild transport, which was intended as a replacement for the AC–47.
Armed with 7.62-mm multi-barrel machineguns and mounting a night observa-
tion device, this twin-engine plane lacked the speed, ceiling, firepower, and
sensors to attack highway traffic in heavily defended southern Laos. A better-
armed variant, the AC–119K, carried an infrared detector and had two pod-
mounted jet engines that improved performance, enabling it to patrol the Ho Chi
Minh Trail and other target areas.50
The Fairchild AC–123, intended for night attacks against the road net of
southern Laos, underwent combat testing over the Mekong Delta. Another con-
verted transport like the AC–47, AC–119, and AC–130, this plane featured an
ignition detector to pick up electromagnetic impulses from gasoline-powered
trucks, along with low-light-level television, infrared gear, and a laser range
finder. After locating a target, the AC–123 salvoed fragmentation bombs from
dispensers stowed in the cargo compartment. The aircraft arrived in South Viet-
nam late in 1968 and, as in the case of the AC–119G, testing continued into the
next year.51
Two other night attack aircraft underwent testing in South Vietnam during
1968. The Tropic Moon I was an A–1E that relied on low-light-level television
88
The night observation device on an AC–119.

to locate its targets. Because the camera required straight and level flight,
preferably at an altitude of about 2,500 feet, Tropic Moon I could not search
areas protected by concentrations of light antiaircraft guns. In spite of its
vulnerability, the modified A–1 flew some armed reconnaissance missions near
Khe Sanh, during the defense of that base.
The Tropic Moon II was a Martin B–57B that sought out targets using tele-
vision and an infrared sensor. A laser beam measured the range, and an on-
board computer calculated a bomb-release point based on speed, altitude, and
type of ordnance. During the tests, which began in December 1967, one of the
three planes accidentally bombed a police post in the delta, but Tropic Moon II
nevertheless saw emergency use in the vicinity of Khe Sanh and underwent fur-
ther testing in southern Laos. Over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, however, the aircraft
showed no more than marginal value in night attack.52
Few of the bombs introduced into Southeast Asia during 1968 yielded
immediate benefit within South Vietnam, valuable though they may have been
against targets in the North or on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos. The
bombs filled with explosive gas, known as fuel-air munitions and used in the
fighting around Thuong Duc, conferred an advantage against bunkers and other
fortifications, and the massive 10,000-pound high-explosive bombs parachuted
from C–130s effectively blasted helicopter landing zones amid dense jungle.
The laser-guided bomb, which made its debut in 1968 against caves, fords, and
bridges in southern Laos, saw only limited use in South Vietnam. Rockeye, used
over the North by the Navy and Marine Corps, though not yet adopted by the
Air Force, was a cylindrical canister that popped open to scatter 247 bomblets,
each carrying a .39-pound shaped charge capable of blasting through some
89
seven inches of armor plate. Rockeye later would prove deadly in suppressing
antiaircraft fire during fighter strikes throughout Southeast Asia.53
A new observation plane, the twin-turboprop North American Rockwell
OV–10 Bronco, promised to have a marked impact on the air war over South
Vietnam. The aircraft was designed for visual reconnaissance, especially by
forward air controllers, the mission of some 85 percent of the 150,000-odd tac-
tical reconnaissance sorties flown in 1968. To forward air controllers, this two-
place aircraft offered a number of advantages. It was faster and featured better
visibility than either the O–1 or O–2A, had better radio equipment, mounted
four machineguns, and could carry bombs and both target-marking and high-
explosive rockets. Armor protection exceeded that in the O–2A, which had been
an improvement over the O–1. Of the three, only the OV–10 had self-sealing
fuel tanks. Although the best of its type thus far, the new plane lacked the
endurance of the O–2A — four hours in the air compared to six — and exhibited
other flaws, among them poor cockpit ventilation, a severe drawback in the heat
and humidity of South Vietnam.54
Support of ground troops, as the statistics on fixed-wing operational sorties
clearly indicated, tended at this time to monopolize the energies of the Seventh
Air Force. The command, however, also provided fighters for the aerial defense
of South Vietnam, maintained radar surveillance to warn of attack, and operated
a computerized control center that would direct the interceptors to attack the
enemy. During the spring of 1968, even as the mini-Tet offensive was failing,
North Vietnam presented a challenge to the air defense system.
American and South Vietnamese observers posted near the southern edge
of the demilitarized zone began reporting helicopters dodging by night among
the hills and valleys in that region. After dusk on June 15, sightings became so
numerous that the Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center at Tan Son
Nhut, having made sure that no U.S. air traffic was in the area, sent F–4 fighters
from Da Nang to investigate. A confused melee erupted at the eastern shoulder
of the demilitarized zone and in adjacent coastal waters: the F–4s reported firing
rockets at Soviet-built helicopters, the cruiser USS Boston reported a rocket
attack by a North Vietnamese fighter, and about an hour later rockets and gun-
fire, described as from a helicopter, sank a Navy motor patrol boat, though all
on board escaped. Certain they had been fired on by North Vietnamese — and
were not accidentally in the path of rockets from the F–4s — the naval units
involved did not report the incident to the Seventh Air Force control center,
which knew only that the F–4 crews had reported attacking helicopters.
After dark on the 16th, word reached Tan Son Nhut that enemy helicopters
had returned to the demilitarized zone, and F–4s again intercepted. The Air
Force fighter crews reported a successful night’s work. One fired a pair of
rockets that, according to an observer on the ground, scored a direct hit on a
helicopter that sent fiery debris tumbling earthward from the victim. Another
Phantom sighted three helicopters on the ground and dropped six 500-pound
90
An OV–10 Bronco, with machineguns and rocket pods under the fuselage.
bombs that started three fires. A third F–4 crew encountered an airborne heli-
copter and fired a missile that, according to witnesses aboard a KC–135 tanker
flying nearby, scored an apparently mortal hit.
After this encouraging beginning on the night of June 16, the air battle
turned chaotic shortly after midnight. Two missiles launched from an F–4 deto-
nated close to the Boston, but caused no casualties and only superficial damage.
Less fortunate was the Australian cruiser Hobart, struck by a pair of missiles
that killed two and wounded seven. Another missile, fired by an F–4 at what the
crew thought was a helicopter, exploded harmlessly near an U.S. destroyer. This
time, the source of fire could not possibly have been North Vietnamese, and the
control center issued a warning that on future patrols, fighter crews should have
the helicopter in sight before firing. Relying solely on radar returns had proved
too dangerous.55
Besides resulting in this emergency restriction, the accidents brought about
closer coordination between aerial activity over the eastern part of the demil-
itarized zone and naval patrols. The misdirected rockets also led to a test of F–4
radar against slow, low-flying targets like helicopters. Following instructions
from a radar controller at Da Nang, an F–4 had no trouble intercepting the test
helicopter, but the weapon systems officer in the fighter found that on his radar
scope the return from the helicopter looked exactly like the image of one of the
patrol boats on the water nearby. The Da Nang controller also coached a second
aircraft participating in the test, a Cessna A–37, into position to intercept, but
the crew lacked airborne radar for engaging a target by night.56
As the summer wore on, observers and radar operators continued to detect
North Vietnamese helicopter activity in the demilitarized zone at night, but ef-
forts to confirm the presence of these intruders rarely succeeded. Since airborne
91
radar had proved unreliable, the Air Force Weapons Laboratory began a some-
what bizarre effort that was sponsored by the Office of Director, Defense
Research and Engineering, in conjunction with Dr. McMillan, science adviser
to General Abrams.
A team from the weapons laboratory set up a night observation device, a
laser range finder, and video taping equipment near a battery of eight-inch
howitzers at Con Thien, a Marine outpost south of the demilitarized zone. After
spotting a helicopter with the observation device, Air Force technicians used the
laser to determine the range and calculate when the target would pass through
the trajectory of shells fired by the battery and timed to explode after traveling
25,000 feet. If the helicopter’s projected flight path and the point of explosion
seemed likely to coincide, the gunners opened fire. The airmen used low-light-
level television to tape the results, and on one occasion, bursting shells appeared
to have destroyed a helicopter. A fire glowed afterward in the darkness, and on
the next morning a reconnaissance pilot saw an oil slick drifting offshore. This
possible kill marked the high point of the short-lived project.57
Meanwhile, the Convair F–102 interceptors assigned to defend South
Vietnam against air attack were about to depart. The danger from bombers
seemed to be diminishing, and this obsolete fighter-interceptor could not fly
slow enough to deal with helicopters. First to go was the F–102 detachment at
Bien Hoa, which departed in September 1968 for the Philippines. McDonnell
Douglas F–4Es Phantoms, with a multi-barrel cannon installed in the air frame
instead of mounted in a pod as in the D series, took the place of the older
F–102s. Because the F–4Es arrived so slowly, the last F–102 did not leave the
country until late 1969. Afterward, responsibility for aerial interception rested
on four Air Force F–4Es at Da Nang and a pair of Marine F–4s at Chu Lai.58
Such were representative techniques, typical operations, and new equip-
ment of Air Force units fighting in South Vietnam during 1968. The year also
saw the approval of an expansion of the authority exercised by the Seventh Air
Force commander, who doubled as deputy for air operations on the military as-
sistance command staff. General Momyer gained acceptance of the tenet of Air
Force doctrine that held an Air Force officer should exercise control over all
tactical aviation, whether Air Force or Marine Corps, to take full advantage of
the inherent flexibility and striking power of this form of air power.
92
Chapter Six
Testing the Single Manager Concept
When North Vietnamese troops were massing around Khe Sanh in early
January 1968, the arrangements governing tactical air strikes in I Corps had
endured for almost three years. The first contingent of Marines had scarcely
established itself at Da Nang in 1965 when General Westmoreland proposed
that his deputy for air operations, Lt. Gen. Joseph H. Moore, assume control of
the Marine tactical combat squadrons. Such a move would not only reflect Air
Force doctrine, which promised greater flexibility and economy through central-
ized control, but also follow a Korean War precedent. During that conflict, a
Marine aircraft wing had functioned, insofar as communications proved reliable,
as a task force under the “coordination control” of an Air Force officer, Lt. Gen.
Earle E. Partridge, who commanded the Fifth Air Force. The Korean example
did not prevail, however. The Commander in Chief, Pacific, Admiral Sharp,
denied Westmoreland’s request, insisting on coordination between Air Force
and Marine Corps rather than subordination of Marines to airmen.
Thanks to Sharp’s decision and the composition of forces in the I Corps
tactical zone, the Commanding General, III Marine Amphibious Force, could
employ Marine Corps aircraft, artillery, and infantry as components of a unified
air-ground team. At first, Marines had been the dominant American force in I
Corps, with the Army supplying mainly artillery battalions, but this balance
began to change late in 1967, when the Army’s Task Force Oregon arrived in
the region. In mid-January 1968, Marine airmen normally flew strikes for
Marine infantry, and Air Force squadrons assisted the task force, now desig-
nated the Americal Division. Such an apportionment of the aerial effort
remained feasible only as long as the Marine Corps and Army fought in separate
portions of I Corps. Additional Army battalions would soon be coming, how-
ever, to fight alongside the Marines. This change provided the occasion for
General Westmoreland to try once again to obtain Admiral Sharp’s approval to
place all U.S. fighter-bomber, attack, and tactical reconnaissance squadrons
based in South Vietnam, whether Marine or Air Force, under the authority of
his deputy for air operations, General Momyer. Other factors influenced West-
moreland, including a lack of confidence in the leadership of III Marine Am-
93
phibious Force and Momyer’s insistent advocacy of the Air Force doctrine of
centralized control.1
In again recommending that an Air Force officer exercise what amounted
to operational control over Vietnam-based Marine aviation, Westmoreland en-
dorsed Air Force doctrine, as presented by Momyer. General Momyer argued
the Air Force position that a central authority could best take advantage of the
speed and versatility of air power, shifting strike aircraft to critical areas without
deferring to the Marine Corps view that, as elements of an integrated air-ground
team, Marine airmen should support Marine infantry. Momyer insisted that Air
Force doctrine on this point should prevail; indeed, he told General Chaisson,
the Marine in charge of General Westmoreland’s combat operations center, that
he saw no need to have two air arms, Air Force and Marine, fighting the war in
South Vietnam. More important, Momyer enjoyed Westmoreland’s confidence,
deservedly so, since he was, as even those who disagreed with him acknowl-
edged, “a very competent commander . . . a convincing man [who] knew his
stuff and knew how to present his stuff . . . ”2
Along with the existence of an Air Force doctrine on the subject and the
presence of a forceful spokesman to enunciate it, the changed composition of
the American ground forces fighting in I Corps helped convince General West-
moreland that centralization was necessary. During 1967, the entire length of
the I Corps tactical zone had separated Marines in the north from soldiers to the
south, so that Air Force planes had been able to support Army battalions with-
out running afoul of Marine aircraft assisting Marines on the ground. As 1968
began, Westmoreland could anticipate the introduction of additional Army
troops that would cooperate closely with the Marines. By the end of January, a
second Army division, General Tolson’s air cavalry, would be assigned to I
Corps and come under General Cushman’s operational control for the projected
advance to Khe Sanh. Still another major Army unit, the 101st Airborne Divi-
sion, was to reach I Corps in February, with the result that soldiers came to
outnumber Marines by two to one in this tactical zone. As the U.S. forces
inevitably intermingled, the need to use air power efficiently in a constricted
space seemed to preclude a division of labor in which Marine aviation sup-
ported Marines and soldiers looked to the Air Force for help.3
While Momyer cited the shifting balance of I Corps forces in his campaign
“to get air responsibilities straightened out as we had them in . . . Korea,”4
Westmoreland was losing confidence in the leadership and tactics of the
Marines fighting in the northern provinces. Although his dissatisfaction focused
on staff work and ground combat, he became convinced that Marine aviation
could not meet the needs of the Army battalions coming under Cushman’s oper-
ational control.5 To some extent, Westmoreland’s attitude reflected the fact that
the Marine Corps, on the basis of its experience in World War II and Korea, had
not anticipated that one of its commanders would assume responsibility for so
large an Army contingent. Tailored to support a comparatively small amphib-
94
ious force, Maj. Gen. Norman J. Anderson’s aircraft wing could not suddenly
expand to cope with the Army influx. At best, the wing could make sorties in
excess of Marine needs available to the attached Army units and rely on the Air
Force to continue its support of these newly arrived battalions.6
Lacking full confidence in the leadership of III Marine Amphibious Force,
Westmoreland sought to tighten his control over ground activity in I Corps.
Since responsibilities elsewhere prevented his personally directing operations
in the northern provinces, he decided to set up a headquarters echelon at Phu
Bai, southeast of Hue. This so-called “MACV [Military Assistance Command,
Vietnam] Forward” came into being on February 3, 1968. On the 12th his prin-
cipal deputy, General Abrams, left Saigon to take over the new headquarters.7
The matter of tactical aviation could not be resolved so easily, however, for
Admiral Sharp had to approve any change in the policy adopted in 1965.
The effort to persuade Sharp, however difficult it might be, seemed essen-
tial. Air Force doctrine, effectively championed by General Momyer, and
doubts about the ability of the Marines to support Army forces might not in
themselves have resulted in a renewed effort to bring Marine Corps aviation
under the Air Force officer’s control, but these factors coincided with the threat
to Khe Sanh. General Westmoreland was convinced that the enemy intended to
storm this base in quest of a victory to rival the triumph over the French at Dien
Bien Phu. Determined to crush the North Vietnamese massing in the hills
around Khe Sanh, he heeded General Momyer’s warning that, “The control of
the air is getting so complex that we could fail to apply our air power in a timely
manner if the enemy should launch an attack tomorrow.”8
Such were the arguments for centralization. Before Admiral Sharp con-
firmed or denied Westmoreland’s selection of Momyer to control all tactical
combat aviation based in South Vietnam, Sharp would weigh this case against
the arguments for retaining the status quo. Opponents could cite the importance
of aviation to a Marine air-ground team in which Marine pilots, trained in close
support, compensated for a lack of artillery by providing a reliable source of
firepower that the ground commander could incorporate in his tactical plans and
depend upon in an emergency. This reliance on aviation reflected the realities
of amphibious warfare, the unique mission of the Marine Corps, for during the
first, critical hours of assault landing, helicopters and landing craft imposed
restrictions on the weight and type of weapons that could be brought ashore. To
wary Marines, a break-up of the air-ground team not only would blunt their or-
ganization’s combat edge, but might well imperil the amphibious mission and
the future of the Corps itself.9
Apparently sensitive to both the tactical needs of the Marine Corps and the
organization’s concern for its future, Admiral Sharp proved reluctant to endorse
Westmoreland’s January 1968 proposal for centralization. At Sharp’s urging,
Generals Momyer, Anderson, and Cushman drew up an agreement that gave
Khe Sanh’s defenders, most of them Marines, first call on Marine aviation for
95
strikes close to the base. Air Force tactical fighters hit the more distant targets,
with any surplus sorties of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing placed at Momyer’s
disposal.10
Although the arrangement enabled Momyer to position an airborne battle-
field command and control center in the skies over Khe Sanh to serve as strike
coordinating agency, he did not receive the authority over Marine aviation that
both he and Westmoreland wanted. Two separate air wars continued fighting in
the northern provinces of South Vietnam: the Marines primarily supporting the
Marines on the ground and the Air Force essentially supporting the Army. In the
aftermath of the Tet offensive, with Marines and soldiers now fighting side-by-
side in the same operations, this duplication of effort seemed intolerable, and
Westmoreland tried once again to give Momyer unified control over tactical
combat aviation, both Air Force and Marine.11
This time Admiral Sharp agreed. “I didn’t think the single manager concept
was necessary,” he later explained, “as long as the Marines were the only troops
in I Corps,” but with three Army divisions in place, the compromise method of
control had not worked to General Westmoreland’s satisfaction, and “it got to
a point where a single manager got to be a reasonable thing.”12 As a result, on
March 8, 1968, General Momyer received “mission direction” over the attack,
fighter-bomber, and reconnaissance planes of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing.
Although mission direction had no accepted definition, it seemed at first to
possess the main elements of operational control. In approving Westmoreland’s
proposal to give Momyer de facto operational control, Sharp insisted on two
points: first, Marine requests for immediate strikes would not have to be pro-
cessed by the Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center at Tan Son Nhut;
and, second, the Marines could present their complaints and suggestions for im-
provement not only to General Westmoreland but directly to Sharp himself.13
Mission direction seemed merely a euphemism for operational control and
embraced several command functions, among them the composition of forces,
the assignment of tasks, the designation of objectives, and the authoritative dir-
ection necessary to accomplish the mission.14 Although mission direction dealt
mainly with attack sorties, which indicated a functional approach rather than the
organizational one generally used in establishing operational control, the inter-
nal cohesiveness of the air-ground team could not help but be affected, for the
new arrangement imposed outside control over the response by Marine airmen
to requests by Marines on the ground.
In spite of the March decision, the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing retained its
identity as the aviation component of General Cushman’s III Marine Amphib-
ious Force, thus preserving — in General Westmoreland’s opinion, at least —
the integrity of the Marine air-ground team. However, the functioning of the
team changed, for Marine squadrons would not react as before in providing a
battalion commander with the air support he requested. This support continued
to take the form of preplanned and immediate strikes, terms used by both the
96
Marine Corps and Air Force, but the words now took on an Air Force interpre-
tation.
For the Marines, amphibious troops lacking in organic artillery, the pre-
planned strikes requested in advance of an operation had normally been inte-
grated with available artillery and other supporting weapons into a precisely
timed plan. To meet battlefield emergencies, the prescribed purpose of immed-
iate strikes, the Marines kept a number of aircraft on airborne or ground alert,
planes flown by men thoroughly familiar with the area of operation. Marines,
in short, were used to planning and executing missions precisely as requested
by the commander on the ground, and they boasted that their method was “user
oriented,” designed to meet the needs of the man with the rifle, an orientation
forced upon them by their lack of artillery, especially the heavier types.
In contrast, Air Force planners looked upon preplanned strikes both as a
means of meeting requirements predicted by the battalion commander a day or
more in advance and as a source of aircraft to be diverted for immediate strikes
in case of emergency. For these reasons, a day’s operations order issued by an
Air Force headquarters sought to group strikes according to the timing of
actions on the ground, while at the same time ensuring a fairly steady flow of
aircraft into an area so that planes would be available throughout the day for
immediate strikes. To make certain that fighter-bombers would be on hand as
needed, unified management required that preplanned strikes be arranged
further in advance — a minimum of about thirty-six hours instead of twenty. As
the Pegasus operation in April would demonstrate, the percentage of preplanned
strikes actually delivered tended to be somewhat low, since many of these
scheduled sorties would be diverted to immediate strikes against new and
dangerous targets.
Unlike the Marine Corps, the Air Force preferred to keep as few aircraft as
possible on alert, relying instead upon planes diverted from previously assigned
targets to conduct immediate strikes. This policy reflected the fact that the
volume of air power available throughout South Vietnam was limited; since
speed and flexibility compensated for the lack of numbers, aircraft had to be
kept active, shifting from lower priority targets to mass at points of greatest
danger, and not allowed to remain idle, waiting in one part of the country for a
threat that might never arise.
Along with the underlying philosophy, the mechanics of obtaining air sup-
port also changed, though the ultimate goal remained the focusing of air power
where it most was needed. Formerly the nerve center for Marine aviation, the
direct air support center at Da Nang lost its preeminence, becoming an ex-
tension of Momyer’s Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center. Marines
would join the Seventh Air Force organization at Tan Son Nhut to help prepare
the daily strike order, while Air Force officers — as well as a few South Viet-
namese airmen — received assignments to the Da Nang facility. Within I Corps
a second direct air support center, subordinate to the one at Da Nang, assumed
97
responsibility for processing strikes requested by elements of Provisional Corps,

Vietnam — the headquarters for all Army units under the operational control of
Cushman’s amphibious force. In effect, the loss of autonomy by I Direct Air
Support Center meant that the schedule of preplanned strikes, but not requests
for immediate strikes, would have to pass through another level of review, the
Tactical Air Control Center, albeit one where Marines now served.15
About three weeks elapsed before every element of the new single manager
system established on March 8 began functioning. On March 10, the Seventh
Air Force first used its tactical air control system, including the airborne
battlefield command and control center, to assist Marine aviators responding to
calls for immediate strikes. The Marines assigned to the new V Direct Air
Support Center, serving Lt. Gen. William B. Rosson’s provisional corps, and
to the Tactical Air Control Center at Tan Son Nhut began arriving on March 21.
The Tactical Air Control Center produced the fragmentary order or “frag,” so
named because a rigid format permitted fragmentary content with no sacrifice
of meaning. The first frag — the daily operations order specifying aircraft,
timing, ordnance, and targets for all of South Vietnam — that embraced Marine
aviation covered missions flown on March 22, but the hurriedly formed Marine-
Air Force team at Tan Son Nhut could not produce a truly integrated frag order
until about April 1.16 In the meantime, the direct air support center created for
Provisional Corps, Vietnam, had encountered similar delays, complicated by the
need for exclusive communications circuits linking it to the Army divisions and
to General Cushman’s headquarters. Enough men and equipment became avail-
able, however, to permit a limited operation to begin on March 21.17
When Operation Pegasus got underway on April 1, the new procedures for
arranging air strikes had gone into effect. To obtain scheduled strikes, a bat-
talion commander or South Vietnamese province chief met a specified deadline
in submitting his requests to the brigade or regimental headquarters. There, a
tactical operations center or fire support coordination center accepted the lists,
assigned a priority to each proposed strike, and forwarded the compilation to
division headquarters, where a similar process took place. From division, the
proposal went to corps or amphibious force, where officers in the tactical oper-
ations center conferred with members of the direct air support center in deter-
mining the precedence of the various missions. Next the slate traveled to Saigon
for review by Westmoreland’s tactical air support element, where Marines also
now served. This agency studied lists from all over South Vietnam, singling out
areas of emphasis (such as the Pegasus operating zone) before turning the re-
quests over to General Momyer’s Tactical Air Control Center for preparation
of the day’s frag order.
As Admiral Sharp had insisted, the Tactical Air Control Center could not
veto immediate strikes; instead it played a purely supportive role, helping to
marshal air power to meet emergencies. The tactical air control party of the
battalion or other unit that had run into trouble called for an immediate strike
98
by contacting the appropriate direct air support center, sometimes by means of

a forward air controller. Since the Marines had, in effect, an extension of this
center in the division headquarters, either the 1st or 3d Marine Division or III
Marine Amphibious Corps might divert a scheduled strike to deal with the
threat. If no aircraft were available in the immediate vicinity, the Marines could
call on V Direct Air Support Center and, if that agency could not help, on the
Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center, which could divert any aircraft
within range of the embattled unit, regardless of corps boundaries. The Tan Son
Nhut center might also grant permission for the Marines to launch an aircraft,
“scrambling” it to deal with the threat.18
Such was the basic form of unified management that took shape during the
last three weeks of March. Besides fearing the impact of these procedures on the
future of the air-ground team and the Corps itself, Marine leaders considered the
new method slower and less responsive than the one it replaced. They charged
that centralization had increased by sixteen to thirty hours the time required to
process preplannned strikes. Nor did they believe that a plane diverted to an
immediate strike was as likely to be carrying suitable munitions as one that had
been on airborne or ground alert to attack a specific kind of target. These
Marines intended to take full advantage of Westmoreland’s promise to review
the system in thirty days, and they also planned to argue their case before
President Johnson and his defense advisers.19
While the Marines honed their arguments for the first of the monthly evalu-
ations Westmoreland had promised, which was scheduled for the end of April,
Gen. Leonard F. Chapman, Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps, launched an
offensive in Washington, trying to persuade the Joint Chiefs of Staff to undo
what Westmoreland had done. By the end of March, the Joint Chiefs had dis-
cussed the selection of a single manager for Vietnam-based tactical combat
aviation, but had not reached a decision. According to General Wheeler, the
chairman, his colleagues had been unable to find a satisfactory answer to the
key question, “What caused General Westmoreland to feel that the arrangement
in I Corps needed changing?”20
General Momyer, whom Westmoreland sent to Washington to explain uni-
fied management, offered an answer to this question, an explanation based on
two considerations: the need to use air power efficiently; and the introduction
of Army divisions into I Corps, formerly a Marine operating area. After out-
lining the new procedures and the conditions that had brought them about,
Momyer repeated the presentation for the President, who, according to General
Chapman, had vowed that nothing would be done to hurt the battlefield Marine.
The session with Momyer, Wheeler believed, laid to rest the Chief Executive’s
fears for the man in the foxhole and dissuaded him from intervening on behalf
of the Marine Corps.21
Although unable to enlist the President as an active ally, General Chapman
continued to campaign within the Joint Chiefs of Staff against single manage-
99
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, Commander, U.S. Military

Assistance Command, Vietnam (left), and Lt. Gen. William
W. Momyer, Commander, Seventh Air Force (right).
ment and the threat it seemed to pose to the Marine Corps. The Joint Chiefs,
however, could not reach a consensus; they neither sustained Chapman’s objec-
tions nor formally approved the Westmoreland policy. General Wheeler never-
theless felt confident that the Secretary of Defense — or his deputy secretary,
Paul Nitze, who had become executive agent for this matter — ultimately would
accept his position, a compromise that combined endorsement of Westmore-
land’s decision — the legitimate exercise of a senior commander’s authority
over the resources at his disposal — with assurances that the arrangement did
not set a “precedent governing the future assignment of Marine Corps air units
or as affecting the Marine concept of the air/ground team.”22 As Wheeler was
drawing up a formal recommendation to this effect for the deputy secretary,
time came for General Westmoreland’s first evaluation of unified management,
giving the Marines another opportunity to present their case.
From his III Marine Amphibious Force headquarters, General Cushman
sent General Westmoreland two assessments in rapid succession, one covering
the period March 22 to April 21 and the other focusing upon the month of April.
Both expressed dissatisfaction with the new procedures, charging that they were
less responsive than those they replaced. Although the second report conceded
that the average reaction time had improved late in April, Cushman insisted that
this greater responsiveness resulted from the diversion of aircraft from pre-
planned strikes, which in Marine Corps tactics formed part of a unified scheme
of fire support. Because of the balance in Marine Corps operations among artil-
lery, other supporting weapons, and preplanned air, Cushman warned that addi-
tional Marine aircraft sometimes had to take off and replace the ones diverted
100
Adm. U. S. Grant Sharp, Commander in Chief, Pacific (left),

and Lt. Gen. Robert E. Cushman, Jr., Commander,
III Marine Amphibious Force (right)
to immediate targets. Admittedly, the Marines had sometimes diverted strikes
under their old management system, though they tried to avoid the practice,
relying instead on aircraft on airborne or ground alert. When the diversion of
preplanned sorties proved unavoidable, General Cushman maintained that his
fellow Marines had shown “greater discretion” than did the Seventh Air Force
Tactical Air Control Center because they were “completely cognizant of . . . the
effect of the divert on the ground action.”23 Besides the diversion of air strikes,
the Marines in South Vietnam complained about excessive paperwork and the
incompatibility of Air Force and Marine Corps doctrine.24
After conferring with Cushman and Momyer about the substance of these
two reports, General Westmoreland thought he detected in both parties “a depth
of introspection” that boded well for the future of unified management.25 The
Seventh Air Force, for instance, conceded that requests for preplanned strikes
were taking too long to process — thirty-six to fifty hours from request by bat-
talion commander to actual execution. Although blaming the delays in part on
unrealistic deadlines arbitrarily imposed by ground commanders, Momyer’s
headquarters agreed to unclog the congested administrative channels. Seventh
Air Force offered, for example, to begin providing just the applicable portion
of the frag to each corps tactical zone instead of issuing copies of an order that
covered the entire country.26
Interpreting the Seventh Air Force’s offer as a sign of cooperation, General
Westmoreland sent a team of six officers to Hawaii to advise Admiral Sharp of
accomplishments and problems during the month of April. The group included
Maj. Gen. Gordon F. Blood and Col. DeVol Brett of the Seventh Air Force and
101
two Marines, Major General Anderson of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing and
Col. Clement C. Chamberlain. The delegation met with Sharp on May 10 and
found him far from satisfied with Seventh Air Force’s concessions.27
According to Maj. Gen. Walter T. Kerwin, Jr., Westmoreland’s chief of
staff and the head of the group that flew to Hawaii, Sharp wanted to see the
latest Air Force proposals in writing and to have the Marines comment upon
them. “Admiral Sharp,” Kerwin reported, “indicated that he feels we have not
yet come up with the solution to the problem and is not convinced that the cor-
rective measures will be satisfactory.” The principal change Sharp suggested
was the allocation to General Cushman of a specific number of sorties, which
his headquarters could use for preplanned strikes.28
The Seventh Air Force staff and Westmoreland’s tactical air support ele-
ment immediately set about drafting procedures designed to satisfy Admiral
Sharp’s objections.29 The revisions, endorsed by General Momyer, called for
reprogramming the Tactical Air Control Center computer to produce a basic
weekly operations order that would be supplemented by a simplified daily frag
containing only the data needed by a specific recipient. The new weekly frag
served as a vehicle for the key reform inspired by the Hawaii meeting — the
allocation of sorties among corps tactical zones, rather than among specific
operations. Each week, the Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center
would earmark a certain number of sorties for each tactical zone, listing the
ordnance load and time of availability. The nature of the ground operations
within the corps area, and the requests these operations generated, would
determine the actual targets these aircraft would attack.
Momyer also streamlined the administrative procedures for drawing up the
weekly or daily strike schedules. One change relieved battalion commanders
of the need to obtain formal approval from brigade or regiment when request-
ing preplanned air strikes; silence at the higher headquarters now implied
consent. Another change allowed the tactical air support element at Westmore-
land’s headquarters to deal directly with Provisional Corps, Vietnam, although
the III Marine Amphibious Force retained final authority over the diversion of
preplanned sorties to the Army corps, over which Cushman exercised opera-
tional control.
Under this modification of unified management, Cushman now received
an allocation equalling 70 percent of the preplanned sorties, both Air Force and
Marine, normally flown in I Corps in the weekly frag. His headquarters appor-
tioned this total between I and V Direct Air Support Centers, so that Marine
and Army commanders both had a definite volume of air power on which they
could depend. If a major operation loomed on the horizon, battalion com-
manders might call for additional preplanned strikes, their requests moving
forward through the tactical operations center or fire support coordination
center and, if approved at the various levels, to the tactical air support element
and tactical air support center for inclusion in a daily frag.30
102
General Momyer agreed to a further adjustment to the single manager sys-

tem that resolved another issue raised by Admiral Sharp during the discussions
in Hawaii. Sharp pointed out at the May meeting that Army helicopter gun-
ships, not subject to the single manager, did many of the same jobs as Marine
Corps fighter-bombers or attack aircraft and asked that this factor influence the
apportionment of sorties. Since General Cushman’s Marines could not muster
the helicopter gunship armada available to General Tolson’s air cavalry, a new
revision to the management system permitted the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing to
reserve up to 10 percent of its available tactical aircraft for escorting troop-
carrying or supply helicopters and suppressing fire from enemy gunners.31
The changes inspired by Admiral Sharp ensured that mission direction, as
yet undefined, meant something less than operational control. Even as he was
narrowing the scope of mission direction, he accepted the justification for uni-
fied management, the principle that air power had to go wherever it could do
the most good, and he agreed that the changes now endorsed by General
Momyer would meet the objections raised at the Hawaii meeting and help
tactical aviation realize its true flexibility. Sharp, however, did not with a
single decision resolve all the details of single management, for the modified
system would have to undergo its own thirty-day evaluation during June.32
Air Force and Marine Corps commands were nevertheless making progress
toward unified control, a point that General Wheeler stressed as the Joint
Chiefs of Staff continued their discussion of the subject. In contrast to the
chairman, who highlighted the accomplishments, General Chapman empha-
sized the defects that had appeared during the first month of operation. In the
hope of resolving the split between the Marine Corps view, generally sup-
ported by the Army and Navy, and Westmoreland’s position, which Wheeler
accepted and the Air Force heartily endorsed, Wheeler pointed out that the re-
sponsible commanders were cooperating to correct the very failings that Chap-
man had noted.
Although the Joint Chiefs could not agree, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Nitze found Wheeler’s logic persuasive. On May 15, as the latest modifications
to the system were beginning to take shape in South Vietnam, Nitze adopted
the course of action Wheeler had been advocating for several weeks. In brief,
the deputy secretary upheld Westmoreland’s right, as the commander on the
scene, to centralize the management of tactical aviation, denied that such a
move established a precedent governing the status of Marine aviation in future
conflicts, and urged a return to normal as soon as circumstances would
permit.33
As Momyer’s staff was responding to Sharp’s call to meet Marine Corps
objections to unified management and Chapman was trying unsuccessfully to
rally the Joint Chiefs against this practice, a battle that Momyer called “the real
test of the validity of the single management system” broke out in South Viet-
nam’s western highlands.34 The enemy hurled the challenge during an attack at
103
the Kham Duc Special Forces camp. Within seventy-two hours, air power rein-
forced, helped defend, and finally evacuated this outpost, located southwest of
Da Nang, near the border with Laos.
The Kham Duc attack began with an assault on a forward operating base at
nearby Ngok Tavak. Early on the morning of May 10, North Vietnamese gun-
ners shelled the outposts scattered along the ridges overlooking the old French
fort at the heart of Ngok Tavak’s defenses. Out of the darkness came a group of
men, shouting that they were friends, causing the defenders to hold their fire.
The newcomers suddenly began throwing grenades and firing automatic rifles
and used satchel charges to blast a path through the protective barbed wire. By
the time an Air Force AC–47 arrived overhead, the mountain tribesmen man-
ning the fort itself had withdrawn to the command bunker, joining their Special
Forces advisers, three Australians, and the surviving members of a Marine
Corps howitzer detachment posted at Ngok Tavak. The gunship fired into the
perimeter, concentrating on a 105-mm howitzer revetment that the attackers had
overrun and converted into a strongpoint. Joined in about an hour by a flareship,
the AC–47 remained in action until dawn, when helicopter gunships, tactical
fighters, and a forward air controller took over.
Although air strikes kept the enemy at bay throughout the morning, the
plight of Ngok Tavak’s defenders worsened by the hour. Two of four Marine
CH–46 helicopters bringing in reinforcements were disabled after landing and
abandoned, and when a smaller helicopter took off after picking up wounded,
at least two of the irregulars clung to the landing skids, but each lost his hold
and from high above the jungle fell to his death. Cut off from further reinforce-
ment and sustained solely by air power, the command fought its way out of the
base, found refuge on a hilltop across the Dak Se River from Ngok Tavak, and
hacked out a landing zone for rescue helicopters.35
As Ngok Tavak was being abandoned, reinforcements began arriving at
Kham Duc, some five miles to the northeast. As soon as he realized the threat
to the main camp and its forward operating base, General Cushman on his own
initiative dispatched four rifle companies, an artillery battery, and a company
of engineers, all from the Americal Division, an Army unit under his opera-
tional control. At mid-morning on May 10, Air Force C–130s began flying this
group, commanded by Lt. Col. Robert B. Nelson, into Kham Duc. When West-
moreland learned that Cushman had decided to reinforce, he counseled caution,
suggesting that General Cushman discuss possible alternatives with him or his
deputy, General Abrams. If necessary, the Army and Marine Corps leaders
might confer to weigh further reinforcement against evacuation and the
substitution of massed B–52 strikes for the firepower of infantry and artillery.36
With further reinforcement of Nelson’s Kham Duc task force a possibility,
an Air Force ground control team accompanied the first contingent to land. The
team’s three members — Maj. John W. Gallagher, TSgt. Morton J. Freedman,
and Sgt. James D. Lundie — were to control airlift traffic, making sure that
104
planes did not attempt to land unless the runway was clear, that soldiers were
at hand to unload cargo, and that any departing passengers were ready to board.
Major Gallagher and his men stepped from a C–130 late in the afternoon of the
10th, as the day’s airlift was coming to an end.37
Since Gallagher’s team dealt exclusively with air transport, someone else
had to link Nelson’s headquarters with the forward air controllers directing
strikes in the jungle-covered hills around Kham Duc. Lt. Col. Reece B. Black
volunteered for the job, arranging for an O–1 pilot to fly him into the base after
dark on May 10, when enemy observers could not see to call down mortar fire.
The light plane settled safely on the blacked-out airstrip, and Black emerged to
search out Nelson’s command post. The battalion staff, Black later reported,
was so pleased to have an airman on hand to help coordinate attacks on the
mortar sites that one of its members gave him an air mattress — “quite a prized
possession” — so he could rest for the battle that seemed sure to come.38
Colonel Black, who remained at Kham Duc for twelve hours, and Capt.
Willard C. Johnson, his replacement, proved well worth the investment of an air
mattress. Until the battle neared its climax, they radioed information to between
two and five Air Force forward air controllers on station day and night. On a
typical day, a forward air controller arrived before dawn, found an AC–47
finishing its nighttime chores, and checked in with the Air Force officer at the
Kham Duc command post, receiving Colonel Nelson’s instructions as relayed
by Black or Johnson. The controller might direct his first tactical fighter strikes
by flare light, until the transport providing the illumination departed with the
approach of sunrise. After two hours on station, time enough for perhaps a half-
dozen flights of fighter-bombers to make their passes, another forward air
controller took over.39
Besides the flareships and gunships, the forward air controllers and the
tactical fighters they directed, B–52s also came to the aid of Kham Duc’s
defenders. Following the evacuation of Ngok Tavak, General Westmoreland’s
staff arranged for III Marine Amphibious Force to select five B–52 target boxes
in the enemy-held jungle, including one that embraced the abandoned camp. On
May 11, radar controllers on the ground radioed new headings to a total of thirty
bombers, diverteing them to boxes at Ngok Tavak and its environs.40
Even as Nelson’s force was joining the locally recruited irregulars in
defending Kham Duc, Westmoreland weighed “the pros and cons of reinforcing
Kham Duc or, alternatively, evacuating it.” He decided to withdraw, using “tac-
tical air and B–52 firepower in an attempt to punish the enemy massed around
the place to the maximum.” General Abrams, who also favored evacuation, flew
to Da Nang, where he discovered that General Cushman had reached the same
decision. The pull-out would begin the following day, May 12.41
At 6:05 a.m., Momyer received word to start the evacuation. Radar-directed
fighter-bombers had been attacking the approaches to the camp throughout the
night, but reports from Major Gallagher, relayed from the airlift control center,
105
indicated that the North Vietnamese had begun closing the vise. To handle tac-
tical air power over Kham Duc, Momyer dispatched an airborne battlefield
command and control center, a C–130 fitted out with communications and data
processing equipment that enabled the airmen on board to keep track of the
available strike aircraft, matching them with targets appropriate to the ord-
nance they carried, as well as recording the reported results of the attacks.
While this converted transport was still en route, the Tactical Air Control
Center began shifting fighter-bombers from preplanned targets in Laos,
southern North Vietnam, or elsewhere in South Vietnam, directing the planes
to check in with the airborne battlefield command and control center, which
handed off its first flight to the forward air controllers at about 9:20 a.m.42
Until the airborne battlefield command and control center appeared, for-
ward air controllers handled the arriving strike aircraft. At sunrise, fog and low
clouds settled over Kham Duc, but one of the controllers, Capt. Herbert J.
Spier, who had directed strikes on the previous day, knew the lay of the land.
Following instructions from Captain Johnson at the command post beside the
airfield, Spier guided fighter-bombers over the invisible targets and told the
pilots when to release their bombs. Below, Johnson adjusted the strikes, even
though he sometimes could not see the explosions and had to rely on sound
alone to determine corrections. The overcast, however, had begun breaking up
when the specially equipped C–130 arrived.43
In planning the withdrawal, the Marine headquarters at Da Nang had pro-
posed four additional B–52 target boxes located three or more kilometers from
the camp. The first of these came under attack at 8:35 a.m., when six of the
planes released their bombs. All sixty B–52 sorties scheduled for the day were
diverted to the defense of Kham Duc, with some 6,000 bombs dropped and the
impact area gradually moved within 500 yards of the runway, as the enemy
kept pressure on the shrinking perimeter.44
Army helicopters launched the evacuation, but one of the first CH–47s to
arrive at Kham Duc was shot down, crashing at the edge of the runway. The
airborne battlefield command and control center, which had no direct radio
contact with the Army helicopters, remained unaware of the beginnings of the
withdrawal. Officers of the Army’s l4th Combat Aviation Battalion took
charge, orbiting the battlefield throughout the day, relaying instructions to the
incoming helicopters from Nelson’s headquarters and from the forward air
controllers.45
The appearance late in the day of Marine helicopters complicated the con-
trol problem. Hurriedly briefed on conditions at Kham Duc, the crews arrived
low on fuel; indeed, some of them had to leave and refuel before receiving
clearance to land at the airstrip. The craft that did pick up troops usually
sustained damage from small arms fire or mortar fragments. Marine 1st Lt. S.
T. Summerman, at the controls of the fourth helicopter in his flight to land at
Kham Duc, had his craft hit by enemy gunners and, in his opinion, might well
106
have been shot down, except that “Air Force F–100s suppressed the fire tre-
mendously with napalm.”46 Another Marine, unable to land because he ran low
on fuel, complained that “there was no control between fighters and heli-
copters,” though forward air controllers did provide a communication channel
that soon became overcrowded. He also cited a “lack of liaison . . . between
Army [and] Marine Corps,” probably alluding to the sketchy information he
had received before taking off for Kham Duc.47
Ironically, control would have been worse except for the accuracy of North
Vietnamese gunners. A shell tore away the right wing tip of an O–2A flown by
Capt. Philip R. Smothermon, who made a forced landing and taxied to the edge
of the runway to avoid blocking the Air Force transports that had already
begun arriving to pick up troops. He found an abandoned Air Force radio,
borrowed some months before by the Special Forces contingent to call for
strikes on the roads and trails west of Kham Duc. Since the set worked, he
radioed the direct air support center, which told him to stay at the camp, by
order of General Momyer, and act as air liaison officer, replacing Captain
Johnson, who had just departed after spending some twenty-four hours at the
command post.
The discovery of the radio enabled Smothermon to contact Americal Divi-
sion headquarters as well as the direct air support center, the airlift control
element at Da Nang, the forward air controllers overhead, and the airborne
battlefield command and control center. In addition to helping Nelson select
targets to keep the North Vietnamese at bay, he advised him when transports
would land so that the designated evacuees would be ready to board. He also
relayed messages between Nelson and Maj. Gen. Samuel W. Koster, the
division commander, when the Army transmitter at Kham Duc failed.48
At about 10:30 a.m., Air Force transports joined the Army and Marine
Corps helicopters in evacuating troops and noncombatants, when two C–130s
and a C–123, hurriedly diverted from other tasks, began circling high over the
besieged camp. First to land was a C–130, piloted by Lt. Col. Daryl D. Cole,
which touched down amid bursting mortar shells, blew a tire, and sustained a
tear in a wing fuel tank. As soon as Cole’s loadmaster lowered the ramp, mem-
bers of the families of Kham Duc’s irregular forces swarmed on board the
plane, preventing the crew from unloading cargo intended for the defenders.
Colonel Cole tried to take off, but had to abandon the attempt because the
shredded tire prevented the heavily loaded transport from gathering enough
speed to become airborne. Taxiing off the runway, he had his crew clear the
refugees from the cargo compartment, unload the plane, and try, unsuccess-
fully, to cut away the ruined tire. With mortar bursts drawing progressively
nearer, Cole decided to attempt another takeoff with an almost empty airplane.
After two perilous hours on the ground, he headed onto the runway, keeping
one engine shut down to prevent its heat from igniting the fuel leaking from the
hole in the nearby tank. Before beginning his takeoff run, he started the engine
107
and watched to see that the wing did not catch fire. An examination after he
landed revealed that bullets and shell fragments had torn some eighty-five
holes in the metal skin of the aircraft.
On board Cole’s plane were just four passengers: Captain Johnson, who
had replaced Colonel Black as air liaison officer, and the three members of
Major Gallagher’s control team. In the confusion of the evacuation, Gallagher,
himself a C–130 pilot, heard that all transport missions had been canceled, a
report that seemed plausible in view of what had befallen Cole’s aircraft. Since
most of the team’s equipment had been destroyed by a mortar shell and one of
the members, Sergeant Lundie, had broken his hand, Gallagher and his men
clambered inside for the dangerous takeoff.49
While Cole’s crew struggled to get rid of the blown tire, the only C–123
to evacuate people landed and picked up forty-four Army engineers and
twenty-one dependents of members of the irregular force based at Kham Duc,
pushing the number evacuated, mostly by helicopter, beyond 200, but not yet
one-eighth of the garrison, its dependents, and its Army reinforcements.50
The second C–130, flown by Maj. Bernard L. Bucher, landed at about 3:30
p.m. At least 150 wives and children of the local tribesmen crowded on board
the transport, which thundered into the sky only to come under fire from a pair
of .50-caliber gun mounted on a hillside nearby. Fatally damaged by the bar-
rage, Major Bucher’s transport crashed and exploded about a mile from the end
of the runway, killing all on board. A forward air controller had seen muzzle
flashes and called in air strikes, though too late to save Bucher, his crew, and
his passengers.51
Lt. Col. William Boyd, Jr., who was approaching Kham Duc as Bucher’s
plane exploded, made a steep descent, passing through a torrent of small-arms
fire before flaring out to land. The wheels had not yet touched, however, when
a mortar shell burst on the runway ahead of the plane, forcing Boyd to pull up
and go around a second time, again braving enemy fire as he landed to pick up
about a hundred persons. As the C–130 gathered speed for the takeoff, bullets
punctured the metal fuselage, but caused no injury to passengers or crew and
only minor damage to the aircraft.52
Looking down on Kham Duc from the C–130 piloted by Lt. Col. John
Delmore, the flight engineer, TSgt. John K. McCall, saw “something out of a
John Wayne movie,” with helicopters making rocket runs and F–4s bombing.
Boyd’s transport lunged down the runway, straining to become airborne and
clear the way for Delmore’s plane, already in its steep descent toward Kham
Duc. At an altitude of about 300 feet, McCall heard a sound “like sledge-
hammers, like someone banging on the aircraft.” The loadmaster, SSgt. Dave
Chesser, suddenly decided to go aft to the cargo compartment to prepare to
open the doors and lower the ramp. “And he no sooner left,” the flight engineer
recalled, “than right where his head was, there was a six-inch hole in the
airplane.”
108
Both Delmore and his copilot, Capt. Joseph Donohue, struggled to hold the
wings level as the plane settled onto an airstrip littered with brass cartridge
casings and shell fragments. Tires burst and the cargo craft veered out of con-
trol, crashing into a wrecked helicopter. The crew ran from the disabled trans-
port and hid behind some barrels. Drawing their .38-caliber pistols, they
waited, feeling, according to McCall, like “little kids going out with the big
kids, because of the AK–47s [Soviet-built automatic rifles] all around us going
off.” Six men came running toward Delmore’s crew, and the sight of blond hair
under one of the helmets assured the airmen that these were not the enemy.
Except for the navigator, Capt. Robert Lake, who found room on one of the last
C–130s out of Kham Duc, the members of Delmore’s crew departed by
helicopter.53
Two more C–130s picked up troops at Kham Duc on the afternoon of May
12. Lt. Col. Franklin Montgomery brought his plane in and out of the airstrip
without sustaining a single hit and carried away another 150 persons. Last to
land was Maj. James L. Wallace, who reversed propellers, dropped the ramp
and opened the cargo doors, then turned about to take off in the direction from
which he had landed. Irregular troops bolted for the plane, ignoring the now
idling propellers, and knocked down a woman and baby trying to board.
Luckily one of Wallace’s crewmen saw the plight of the two and helped mother
and child into the crowded aircraft. Next came the rear guard, some two dozen
Americans, including Captain Smothermon, who had been serving as air
liaison officer since his crash landing earlier in the day.54
As Wallace took off, another C–130 was approaching the abandoned base,
its mission to land men rather than evacuate them. On board were the three
members of Gallagher’s ground control team who had been under the impres-
sion that no more transports would land at Kham Duc when they left earlier in
the afternoon on Cole’s C–130. Discovering that the team had departed, Brig.
Gen. Burl W. McLaughlin, the 834th Air Division commander, ordered them
to return. They stepped onto the Kham Duc airstrip for the second time that day
at about 4:20 p.m. from a C–130 piloted by Maj. Jay Van Cleeff. As it took off,
Gallagher and the others went first to the Special Forces camp and then to
Colonel Nelson’s command post. Both were deserted. Realizing that they were
alone and that death or capture could be minutes away, they took a radio from
their survival kit and began signalling for help.55
Major Van Cleeff’s C–130 was climbing away from the outpost when he
heard a radio message stating that Kham Duc had been abandoned and granting
the circling fighter-bombers permission to attack and destroy the crippled air-
craft that littered the runway — Smothermon’s O–2A, Delmore’s C–130, one
large helicopter, and a helicopter gunship. Van Cleeff broke in, warning the
control agencies that he had just landed three persons who would have to be
picked up. The rescue became the responsibility of Lt. Col. Alfred J. Jeannotte,
Jr., whose C–123K was next on call.
109
Jeannotte made the usual steep approach, escorted by fighter-bombers to

pin down the North Vietnamese closing in on the runway. The plane touched
down safely, but the crew could not see the three men, who had scrambled from
a ditch and were waving their arms. Unable to reverse his propellers, for to do
so would have automatically shut down the two jet auxiliary engines, the pilot
applied maximum power, and the transport leapt into the air again. As he
banked, he caught sight of the team on the ground below, but a glance at his fuel
gauge revealed that he could not make another fast approach and full-power
takeoff. The task of saving the three men devolved upon the next transport in
sequence, a C–123K flown by Lt. Col. Joe M. Jackson.56
Colonel Jackson had started out that morning on an evaluation flight, a
periodic check of proficiency, during which Maj. Jesse W. “Bill” Campbell, in
the copilot seat, served as examiner. When orders came to head for Kham Duc
and stand by to aid in the evacuation, Campbell declared the evaluation over,
congratulated Jackson on passing, and settled in as copilot. Over the base,
Jackson again demonstrated his flying skill, beginning with the steepest possible
descent to foil enemy gunners.
When Jackson’s transport plunged toward them and they realized that a
second rescue attempt was underway, Gallagher, Lundie, and Freedman left the
protection of a ditch, determined they would not be missed this time. They were
on their feet and waving as the plane touched down and began rolling in their
direction. About a hundred yards from the men, who were running toward their
rescuers, Jackson braked and turned the C–123K. He applied power for the take-
off while his crew hauled the team members on board. A 122-mm rocket struck
nearby, but skidded to a stop without exploding. Bunkers on either side of the
airstrip spewed small-arms fire, and burning ammunition detonated, showering
metal fragments on the airfield, but Colonel Jackson managed to guide the plane
safely into the air. The rescue earned him the Medal of Honor; Major Campbell
received the Air Force Cross; the flight engineer, TSgt. Edward M. Trejo, and
the loadmaster, SSgt. Manson Grubbs, were awarded the Silver Star.57
As the adventures of Major Gallagher’s control team demonstrated, con-
fusion had abounded at Kham Duc, though perhaps no more so than in most bat-
les. After all, the evacuation had succeeded, with Air Force transports carrying
away about 700 persons, with helicopters — Army and Marine Corps combined —
removing roughly the same number. Dependents of the irregular soldiers posed
a serious problem, since no complete tally of their numbers existed. Several
hundred found places on board the Air Force cargo planes, 150 or more died in
the crash of Major Bucher’s C–130, and perhaps 200 hid in the forest to emerge
when the fighting had died away. Many of the irregular soldiers joined their
families, and several hundred remained unaccounted for the day after the battle.
American casualties on the ground at Ngok Tavak and Kham Duc totaled
twenty-five killed and about four times that number wounded. The toll in air-
craft proved high: one C–130 was shot down, with all on board killed; another
110
Lt. Col. Joe M. Jackson received

the Medal of Honor for his
rescue mission at Kham Duc.
crashed on landing, but without loss of life; an O–2A was damaged beyond re-
pair, though the pilot, Captain Smothermon, survived; an Air Force A–1E was
downed, but the pilot was rescued; and five helicopters were destroyed, three
Marine and two Army.58
Many of the difficulties encountered at Kham Duc dealt with the exchange
of information among different communications systems. One radio net handled
tactical fighters, another Air Force transports, and still others served the heli-
copters and linked the Army battalion at the base with division headquarters.
Equipment failure or heavy traffic at the points where these networks inter-
sected could, at a critical moment, isolate a commander or an entire phase of the
operation. Such problems, however, probably proved no more severe at Kham
Duc than in similar operations elsewhere. Indeed, breakdowns were few, and the
efforts of resourceful individuals — including Captain Smothermon, working
with the radio he found — kept communication channels open despite the occas-
ional failure.59
Despite the absence of overall centralization of control, two unified man-
agement systems functioned as intended throughout the action. The airlift con-
trol center marshaled Air Force transports in time to play a key part in the evac-
uation, and the system controlling tactical fighters succeeded in concentrating
air power at the critical point. Indeed, General Momyer’s various control eche-
lons launched or diverted to Kham Duc 120 Air Force fighter-bombers based
in both South Vietnam and Thailand. Only 16 Marine aircraft, all of them A–4s,
appeared over the battlefield, which lay in far southwestern I Corps. The other
tactical aircraft that took part, two from the Navy and a half-dozen South Viet-
namese, were not subject to unified management. An Air Force C–130 airborne
battlefield command and control center, a key element in the new control net-
work, brought all the fighter-bomber activity into focus.60
111
Although General Momyer hailed the Kham Duc evacuation as a vindica-

tion of unified control of tactical combat aviation, he apparently was referring
more to the principle involved than to the details of the system then in effect
and its specific accomplishments. During the action, comparatively few Marine
Corps tactical aircraft took part, and the Air Force fighters from Thailand, the
South Vietnamese participation, and the pair of Navy sorties would have been
as readily available without the March directive. Moreover, single management,
as exercised at Kham Duc, was even then undergoing revisions that would limit
the authority of the Seventh Air Force commander over Marine Corps tactical
aviation. The changes already underway would lead to others and culminate in
a narrow interpretation of mission direction as something different from and
less sweeping than operational control.
112
Chapter Seven
Unified Management takes a Final Form
Single management, as tested at Kham Duc, had not yet undergone the
changes wanted by Admiral Sharp, the Commander in Chief, Pacific, and fash-
ioned by General Momyer. Not until May 30, a month after the end of the eval-
uation period that had lead to their adoption, did the modifications go into ef-
fect. The Tactical Air Control Center began preparing both daily and weekly
frags, specifying the preplanned missions in a degree of detail tailored to the
needs of the recipient. Within I Corps, the recipient was, in effect, the com-
manding general of III Marine Amphibious Force, since his I Direct Air Support
Center received all preplanned sorties allocated for the tactical zone and then
released an appropriate number to V Direct Air Support Center for Army opera-
tions. The revised management system also made available to the Marines a
block of sorties for helicopter escort, and the procedure for immediate requests
now functioned more swiftly because approval by intermediate headquarters —
brigade or regiment — was taken for granted in the absence of a specific state-
ment to the contrary.1
Would the new weekly frag and the streamlined administrative procedures
prove satisfactory to General Cushman? Would the Marine Corps accept this
less rigorous form of unified management in exchange for Deputy Secretary of
Defense Nitze’s assurances concerning the future of the air-ground team? No,
Marine Corps leaders believed that too much was at stake both tactically and in
terms of the survival of their organization. Before May had ended, Lt. Gen. Vic-
tor H. Krulak, commander of the Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, pointed out what
he considered a “loophole” in Nitze’s decision to have command arrangements
return to normal as quickly as possible. Krulak suggested that because the
military situation had returned to normal once the Khe Sanh garrison had pre-
vailed, an immediate revival of the old system of command, with the III Marine
Amphibious Force reasserting control of its aircraft wing, though making a cer-
tain percentage of the sorties available to Seventh Air Force for missions in the
northern provinces, should occur.2
General Chapman sought to convert General Krulak’s idea into a formal
proposal for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He suggested that the Marines in South
113
Vietnam receive unrestricted control over 70 percent of their weekly sorties.

The Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center no longer would specify
times or ordnance for these sorties, and the Marines would, in effect, prepare a
weekly operations order of their own. If the Joint Chiefs endorsed General
Chapman’s idea, the III Marine Amphibious Force would again be able to treat
the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing — 70 percent of its sorties, at any rate — like any
other organic supporting arm. In presenting his plan, Chapman described the
authorization of what amounted to a Marine Corps frag order as a transitional
move away from centralization and toward the return to the Marines of opera-
tional control over their aircraft. As a concession to Westmoreland’s policy of
centralized management, he would leave 30 percent of the wing’s tactical sor-
ties under the control of the single manager during the period of transition.3
At the end of June, in assessing the first month’s experience with the pro-
cedures as modified to meet Sharp’s objections, Cushman recommended the
same solution as Chapman. “The modified system,” Cushman conceded, “is an
improvement, a step forward from the cumbersome system implemented on 20
March,” but in his opinion centralization continued to “harbor deficiencies.” All
too often, he complained, the rapidly changing tactical situation forced Marine
battalion commanders to request additional preplanned sorties not listed in the
weekly frag; obtaining approval caused no problem, but the change imposed an
unanticipated burden on pilots, mechanics, and planners as they changed ord-
nance loads and otherwise prepared for the new targets.4
In spite of the need for adjustments of this type, the 1st Marine Aircraft
Wing enjoyed a great measure of autonomy under the modified single manager
procedures that went into effect on May 31. Assigned a sortie rate of 1.2 per air-
craft, General Anderson’s wing held out two F–4s for air defense, leaving 188
planes available for tactical missions. These could fly 225 sorties in a single
day, but 48 sorties were earmarked for alert status, reducing the total to 177.
The Marines also retained another 18 sorties for helicopter escort or for the gen-
eral support of ground troops, if not needed in the escort role. Of the 225 sorties
normally flown each day, 66 thus remained under Marine control, available for
either escort or emergencies, while 111 were allocated in the weekly frag for
preplanned strikes to be carried out during that period. The daily frag listed 48
Marine Corps sorties, 16 of them scheduled against targets in Laos or southern
North Vietnam. Fighter-bombers assigned to preplanned strikes on a given day
could, of course, be diverted to immediate attacks.5
Despite the increased number of sorties under Marine control, General
Momyer and his Seventh Air Force staff disputed the claim that the recent
changes had undermined the principle of unified control or justified further con-
cession to the Marine Corps’ point of view. In the critical matter of immediate
strikes, rather than the preplanned variety authorized in the weekly operations
order, Momyer maintained that the Tactical Air Control Center, which func-
tioned as the executive arm of the single manager, knew “where the flights are
114
Gen. Leonard F. Chapman, Jr., Commandant of the Marine

Corps, (left) and Lt. Gen. Victor H. Krulak, Commander
of the Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (right).
going and when.” As a result, the control mechanism, especially the airborne
battlefield command and control center, found it comparatively easy to concen-
trate air power, as at Kham Duc, or to divert tactical fighters into holding
patterns to permit B–52 strikes or facilitate the passage of transport planes.6
Far from providing a precedent for decentralization, these Air Force officers
insisted, the weekly frag, whatever its exact contents, remained an allocation
from the central manager to his agent, a distribution that could be varied accord-
ing to anticipated need. General Cushman’s tactical zone was making full use
of its weekly slate of sorties — indeed, it absorbed some 50 percent of all tac-
tical sorties flown in South Vietnam — but some new threat might arise else-
where and the approaches to Saigon or the western highlands become the deci-
sive battlefield. As circumstances changed, the single manager could shift his
strength to meet the current threat, something he could not do as easily if the
Marines again controlled the bulk of their aviation.7
This Air Force insistence on flexibility could not help but clash with the
Marine Corps treatment of air power as simply another supporting weapon or-
ganic to the air-ground team. According to the findings of a panel appointed by
General Westmoreland to examine the controversy, the Marines “will never em-
brace the single manager concept because of the implicit threat it poses to the
Marine air-ground principle.” Accordingly, the panel concluded, not even “con-
tinued modification of the system” would make centralized control “more palat-
able to them.”
Aware of the incompatibility of Air Force and Marine doctrine, Westmore-
land’s study group nevertheless concluded that some form of unified manage-
115
ment was essential for the Vietnam conflict, in which a limited number of air-
craft had to wage war throughout a comparatively large area. On the other hand,
the inquiry found some justification in the recurring Marine Corps complaint
that the Seventh Air Force system of highly centralized management is “more
oriented toward the producer than it is to the customer.” The four members of
the study group, one an Air Force officer but none a Marine, suggested that over
the years the bone and muscle required to exercise centralized control had
become layered with fat in the form of “control echelons, increased mission
standardization, increased administrative burden.” The periodic review and
resulting modification of the management system adopted in March seemed,
however, to have removed much of that excess, bringing about, according to
this panel, procedures that the Marines could endure, though never endorse.8
This favorable assessment received General Westmoreland’s prompt en-
dorsement. On the verge of departing from South Vietnam to become Army
Chief of Staff, he pronounced as successful the arrangement he had cham-
pioned. The “modified preplanned support procedures now in operation,” he
declared, formed “the most effective system” of management to satisfy the
demands of the Vietnam War.9
Admiral Sharp, who would soon retire, did not share General Westmore-
land’s enthusiasm, and word reached Saigon that he now endorsed the recom-
mendation of Generals Cushman and Chapman that Marine aviation be re-
turned, in almost its entirety, to Marine control. However, General Abrams, the
new commander of the military assistance command, accepted Westmoreland’s
view and declared that the system launched by Westmoreland “was working
well and should continue . . . and that he was damned if he would give an inch
on this issue.”10
Meanwhile, Adm. John S. McCain, Jr., had taken over the Pacific
Command. Lt. Gen. Henry W. Buse, Jr., the new commander of the Fleet
Marine Force, Pacific, urged McCain to endorse the views Admiral Sharp had
recently expressed and to discuss the return, on a trial basis, of fixed-wing
assets used in I Corps Tactical Zone with General Abrams.11 When he visited
Saigon, however, McCain found that General Abrams bristled at the suggestion
of further tinkering with centralized management, and the plan to restore Marine
Corps control expired early in August, though Generals Buse, Cushman, and
Chapman persisted for several weeks in trying to revive it.12
During the first week of September, Admiral McCain confirmed the control
arrangements set up by General Westmoreland and modified at Admiral Sharp’s
insistence. He reviewed the arguments for and against centralization, talking
with General Chapman and Adm. Thomas W. Moorer, the Chief of Naval Oper-
ations, as well as with General Abrams, concluding that further evaluations,
conducted monthly since April, would be fruitless. McCain concluded that the
single manager system had so improved that it now was “providing for the best
overall use of tactical air.” In large measure, he based his decision on reports of
116
the effectiveness of air power, not merely in I Corps, but throughout all of South
Vietnam. Army commanders, whose combat battalions outnumbered the Mar-
ines four-to-one, seemed all but unanimous in declaring that they now received
better air support than ever before. Only the Marines claimed to be worse off
under single management, and in McCain’s opinion, they would never endorse
the system, since a mechanism they did not fully control could never be as
responsive as one they did.13
Between the beginning of June and Admiral McCain’s final evaluation,
additional minor changes had occurred. A third direct air support center began
functioning in I Corps, this one at Camp Horn, the site of III Marine Amphib-
ious Force headquarters. The Horn Direct Air Support Center, commanded by
an Air Force officer, began operation on August 10, receiving the weekly and
daily slates of preplanned strikes for I Corps and apportioning them between the
I and V Direct Air Support Centers. The new agency helped allocate strikes be-
tween Cushman’s amphibious force and Rosson’s provisional corps, a responsi-
bility that Cushman had assumed at the end of May.
In addition, General Brown, as single manager, relaxed his control to permit
the Marines to experiment with a daytime airborne alert, provided the wing had
aircraft to spare after meeting all its commitments. During the day, beginning
on August 5, a Marine fighter-bomber or attack plane went on alert, standing by
in its revetment. If not scrambled within a half-hour, the alert aircraft took off,
flew to an assigned station, and orbited there for some forty-five minutes, while
another aircraft took its place on the tarmac. If not used that time for an
immediate strike, the plane on airborne alert attacked some previously selected
target. By August 28, these alert aircraft had demonstrated a reaction time of
fifteen minutes or less, compared to roughly thirty minutes for most other im-
mediate strikes. This method of alert resulted in attacks on 464 emergency tar-
gets, such as enemy artillery or infantry engaging friendly troops, and upon
twenty-eight objectives derived from intelligence reports, among them infil-
tration routes or possible assembly areas. The Marines, however, paid for this
prompt response in the coin of increased maintenance, additional fuel burned,
and sometimes wasted effort against targets that could have been destroyed
almost as promptly by a plane diverted from another mission or launched from
ground alert.14
The frequent use of helicopters in I Corps, whether by Marines or Army air
cavalrymen, created a demand for up-to-date aerial photographs of possible
landing zones. These pictures had to be taken, processed, interpreted, and in the
hands of helicopter crews within six hours. General Cushman sought to meet the
demand by asking permission to launch photo missions as needed, but General
Abrams chose to ensure speed by having the amphibious force headquarters tel-
ephone his tactical air support element, which would obtain concurrence from
the appropriate duty officer at the Tactical Air Control Center and immediately
notify the Marine organization.15
117
Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, Commander, U.S. Military

Assistance Command, Vietnam (left), and Gen. George S.
Brown, Commander, Seventh Air Force (right).
As the method of centralizing control over tactical aviation was thus taking
final shape, an operation occurred that seemed to renew Marine Corps hopes of
circumventing, if not reversing, this policy. The source of hope for Marines and
concern to the Air Force was Operation Thor, a seven-day attack that pitted air
power, naval gunfire, and artillery against some 450 artillery and antiaircraft
positions within the eastern segment of the demilitarized zone and the adjacent
portion of North Vietnam, a total area of roughly thirty-five square miles.
Undertaken in response to a request from the 3d Marine Division to neutral-
ize the enemy guns that raked the unit from within that area, Thor consisted of
three phases. During the first, which began on July 1 and lasted two days, the
Seventh Air Force commander exercised control, as tactical aircraft and B–52s
battered targets selected by intelligence specialists. Taking advantage of the
resulting curtain of explosives, Marine and Army artillery units moved into
position for the next part of the operation. During the second phase, also lasting
two days, General Cushman — through his agent, General Rosson of the provis-
ional corps — exercised operational control over an aerial and artillery bom-
bardment that had as its primary goal the silencing of North Vietnamese antiair-
craft batteries and coastal defense guns to permit low-altitude reconnaissance
flights and inshore naval bombardment during the next phase. Rosson continued
serving as Cushman’s agent in the third and final phase, in which air strikes,
artillery, and naval gunfire destroyed antiaircraft, surface-to-air missile, and
artillery sites, whether occupied or not, throughout the operating area.16
In making a transition from the first to the second phase, planners simply
moved the forward bomb line — the line beyond which air strikes no longer
118
need be coordinated with the ground commander — to the farthest limit of the
operating area, so that General Rosson’s headquarters had to receive notice of
all aerial attacks in phases two and three. An airborne battlefield command and
control center, on station during the first phase, continued to serve as the prin-
cipal coordinating agency, since the overall artillery commander for Operation
Thor had agreed to cease fire at its request, unless the guns were delivering
counterbattery fire. This temporary arrangement, necessary because the con-
stricted battle area increased the danger that tactical fighters might fly into the
path of friendly artillery fire, ended with Operation Thor.17
The savage bombardment of Thor targets seemed, at first glance, to have
overwhelmed the North Vietnamese artillery, though once again effort was
more easily measured than results. Some 8,000 tons of aerial bombs and 41,000
shells, ranging in size from 105-mm artillery projectiles to eight-inch shells
from Navy cruisers, shook the earth. Enemy gunners all but ceased their bom-
bardment of Marine outposts and their harassment of the supply line along the
Cua Viet River, firing tens of rounds when they formerly had fired hundreds.
American warships, moreover, had been able during the final phase to steam
within 5,000 yards of shore and blast the silent coastal guns.18
Despite this evidence of success, intelligence analysts could not provide
specific proof of damage inflicted upon the enemy, a shortcoming typical of the
war in Southeast Asia. Air Force photo interpreters, for instance, listed over
1,000 artillery or antiaircraft positions destroyed, but the overwhelming
majority must have been unoccupied, since these same specialists could verify
the destruction of fewer than a hundred guns. Whatever destruction the bombs
and shells actually inflicted, the effect proved transitory, for by the end of
September hostile gunners, silent after Thor, had returned to action.19
Citing the revived threat, Cushman sought permission “to plan and conduct
future Thor-type operations under the ground commander’s control and, if
necessary, using only his available resources.” In these undertakings, he insis-
ted, “fire support planning and coordination must be continuous and responsible
to the ground commander.” In justifying the supremacy of the commander on
the ground, Cushman called attention to the Seventh Air Force intelligence
analysis during Operation Thor, arguing that its obvious vagueness proved that
the information he received — based on visual sightings by airborne controllers,
artillery forward observers, and reconnaissance helicopters — surpassed in
accuracy and timeliness the photographic evidence on which the Seventh Air
Force commander, General Brown, seemed to rely. For this reason, Cushman
argued, he was better able than Brown to inflict real damage on the enemy in the
vicinity of the demilitarized zone, a contention buttressed by provisional corps
estimates that counterbattery artillery fire and naval gunfire had accounted for
two-thirds of the enemy gun positions listed as destroyed during Thor.20
Cushman’s argument rested, however, on a shaky premise, for the human
eye could be just as fallible as the camera. If this weakness in logic were ig-
119
nored and the plan adopted, General Cushman or his executive agent would
have coordinated air with artillery and other supporting weapons through a fire
support coordination center similar to that operated by the Khe Sanh garrison.
The Cushman proposal relegated the airborne battlefield command and control
center to the kind of subsidiary role it had played during much of the fighting
around that Marine Corps base. The Marines, in effect, could use as many sor-
ties as they wished from their aircraft wing in the renewed Thor attacks. Once
again, there would be two air wars, one fought by Marines in support of Mar-
ines and the other waged in support of Rosson’s soldiers by the Air Force and
whatever aircraft the Marines could spare.21
General Brown chose to ignore the contention that Marine sources of infor-
mation were better than his own as he marshaled a case against this attempt to
turn back the clock. He warned that General Cushman’s proposed method of
control would interfere with the aerial interdiction effort underway in southern
North Vietnam. This campaign embraced the proposed Thor area but extended
far beyond it; operations included not only tactical air strikes but also aerial
refueling, search and rescue, psychological warfare, and electronic counter-
measures — elements of air combat not amenable to control from a fire support
coordination center at a division headquarters.22
In his defense of the current form of unified management, Brown reminded
Abrams that Cushman had asked to launch future Thor operations using his own
available resources. “If by ‘his available resources’ is meant artillery,” said
Brown, “then it would not be appropriate for me to comment. But if [Cushman]
intends tac [tactical] air including the 1st Marine Air[craft] Wing, then I can’t
agree.” To employ Marine aviation in this fashion would not only violate the
procedures Nitze had ratified for the Vietnam War, but also commit the squad-
rons to an “inefficient and wasteful effort” that could “result in placing the lives
of airmen at needless risk through the lack of adequate and effective control.”
If there were another Thor — and that seemed to depend upon North Vietnam’s
reaction to the latest U.S. cease-fire initiative — the Marines could nominate
targets for the weekly and daily slates and single out others for immediate
strikes, in short, making full use of the existing system instead of trying to
circumvent it.
A proposed ban on all air and naval bombardment of North Vietnam over-
shadowed both Cushman’s plan to repeat Operation Thor under his command
and Brown’s defense of the single manager. President Johnson’s advisers had
recommended offering such a bombing halt in exchange for three concessions
by the North Vietnamese. The Hanoi regime would have to respect the demil-
itarized zone, thus easing Cushman’s concerns and removing the need for other
Thor operations; refrain from attacking South Vietnamese cities; and accept the
government of South Vietnam as a party to truce negotiations. The Paris talks,
begun in May, had become mired in procedural questions, the most important
of which seemed to be South Vietnamese participation. A bombing halt ap-
120
peared to offer a means of resolving this issue and obtaining the other as-
surances of North Vietnamese cooperation, assuming, of course, that the com-
munists would agree.23
Since May, however, Hanoi’s spokesmen had insisted that the United States
stop the bombing “unconditionally” and refused even to consider offering for-
mal concessions in return. Now, as 1968 wore on, signs appeared that North
Vietnam would agree to negotiate with the South, provided that the bombing
came to an end and the reality of Hanoi’s making such a concession were some-
how camouflaged. President Johnson consulted General Abrams and Ambassa-
dor Bunker, who agreed that to halt the bombing would prove militarily and
politically acceptable. President Thieu of South Vietnam gave his approval,
which he later tried to disavow, provided that the United States stood ready to
renew the air attacks if Hanoi intensified the war.
To resolve the question of participation by the Thieu government, the North
Vietnamese accepted an “our side, your side” formula. A group representing the
Viet Cong, though not formally recognized as a separate party to the negotia-
tions, would accompany the Hanoi delegation, and Saigon’s representatives
would participate in similar fashion beside the Americans. The other conces-
sions the United States wanted from Hanoi — to spare South Vietnamese cities
and to respect the demilitarized zone — remained subjects of fragile, tacit
“understandings.” For example, the fact that Viet Cong rockets rarely exploded
in the cities of the South as the year progressed seemed to reinforce the notion
that an unwritten agreement caused the enemy to refrain from attacking.24
On November 1, not quite one week before the Presidential election that
pitted Republican Richard M. Nixon against incumbent Vice President Hubert
H. Humphrey, the bombing halt went into effect. South Vietnamese second
thoughts, however, delayed the beginning of the expanded negotiations until the
end of the month. In the meantime, the United States took certain military pre-
cautions, such as invoking another of the supposed tacit understandings with
Hanoi to fly continued aerial reconnaissance missions over parts of North Viet-
nam. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also discussed the responses appropriate to North
Vietnamese violations of the demilitarized zone, reactions that varied from air
strikes or shelling to ground combat, depending upon the severity of Hanoi’s
provocations.25
Once the bombing halt took effect, General Abrams and his staff attempted
to revise the directive governing the control of tactical air power to reflect the
changes that had taken place since the spring of 1965.26 Marine Corps objec-
tions surfaced immediately. General Cushman declared that he could not agree
to such an undertaking, since it “would constitute a precedent for centralized
control of air resources under any and all combat conditions” and make per-
manent that which secretary Nitze had recognized as temporary.27 The effort to
bring the 1965 directive up to date languished for another eighteen months.
Revised directive or none, unified management remained in effect, though
121
undergoing subtle refinement by the Marine Corps and Air Force officers re-
sponsible for carrying out the underlying concept. These adjustments reflected
the changing uses of air power. In April 1968, the first full month in which the
Seventh Air Force commander exercised mission direction over the Marines, 55
percent of the 32,000 attack sorties flown in Southeast Asia, including 60 per-
cent of the 18,000 Air Force attack sorties, struck targets in South Vietnam. A
comparable ratio prevailed during June of that year — the first full month the
modified single manager system functioned — with 64 percent of all attack sor-
ties and 70 percent of the Air Force contribution directed against the enemy in
South Vietnam. By June 1970, however, only 48 percent of all attack sorties and
38 percent of those flown by the Air Force had a direct effect on the battle in the
South; the remainder hit troop concentrations or supply lines in Cambodia,
where the fighting had recently spread, or in Laos.28
Although the distribution of strikes between targets had changed, one of the
arguments for unified management remained valid after two years. Army and
Marine Corps units continued to fight side by side in the I Corps tactical zone.
Their total strength had declined, however. The 1st Cavalry Division (Air-
mobile) moved southward to the vicinity of the capital in the fall of 1968, and
by the end of 1969, the 3d Marine Division was gone from South Vietnam. An
Army mechanized brigade, dispatched from the United States following the Tet
offensive, remained in the northern provinces, its presence serving to justify
continuation of centralized control over tactical air strikes.29
Since General Momyer became single manager in March 1968, the number
of American troops fighting the war had peaked and begun to decline. Begin-
ning about the time of the bombing halt, the tide of violence in South Vietnam
had in general ebbed, despite occasional flare-ups, enabling the United States
to reduce its authorized strength in the country from a maximum of 549,000
early in 1969 to 434,000 in the spring of 1970. This decline in strength repre-
sented one aspect of what President Nixon called Vietnamization — training and
equipping the South Vietnamese to take over the war as American ground forces
withdrew. During this period of reductions in manpower, Marine Corps strength
underwent an even sharper decline, from an authorized 82,000 to a mere 43,000.
The Marine Corps reduction of roughly 47 percent affected aviation as well as
the ground elements of the amphibious force.30
At about this same time, a budget crisis arose, surfacing early in 1970 and
threatening to challenge the practices of unified control. As single manager,
General Brown faced the task of cutting costs by reducing sorties and saving
munitions. The cost-cutting suggestions he received included a proposal to re-
place some preplanned strikes with fighter-bombers on ground or airborne alert
that might engage targets as necessary. This he could not do, except on a limited
scale, for, as he pointed out, the ability to divert preplanned sorties to immediate
targets provided him the flexibility needed to use air power both economically
and effectively.31
122
As part of its share of the general withdrawal and cost cutting, the Marine
Corps slashed the number of aviation squadrons based in South Vietnam and
subject to centralized management. By mid-1970, the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing
could muster only eighty-nine strike aircraft — three F–4, two A–6, and one
A–4 squadrons, compared to five F–4, two A–6 and four A–4 squadrons in late
1968. Because of the persisting lull in the fighting within South Vietnam, the
Tactical Air Control Center at Tan Son Nhut no longer expected more than one
daily sortie from each Marine aircraft. Of these eighty-nine sorties, the Marines
on a typical day retained sixteen for such missions as flak suppression at heli-
copter landing zones or precision bombing with the aid of radar beacons em-
placed on the ground. In apportioning the other seventy-three, the Tactical Air
Control Center might send thirteen on missions into Laos, allocate just thirty-six
for preplanned strikes in South Vietnam, and return twenty-four to the Marines
as alert aircraft to use as they chose. As a result of this typical apportionment,
the Marines exercised unrestricted control over forty of the eighty-nine sorties,
employed thirty-six for preplanned strikes in I Corps, and could generate addi-
tional sorties beyond the required one per day per aircraft — usually between
nine and twenty-seven — for other targets of their choosing.
Marine Corps aerial autonomy, which had increased gradually during a time
of reinforcement and heavy fighting, accelerated as the number of squadrons
dwindled and the battlefield remained comparatively calm. At the beginning of
April 1968, for example, the Marines had total control over just those sorties in
excess of a ratio per aircraft fixed by the Tactical Air Control Center. An air-
craft representing one of these surplus sorties might stand by on alert, but before
launching it, the Marines had to consult the Tactical Air Control Center. After
two months, however, the Marines gained control of enough sorties to escort
helicopter assaults plus any surplus the aircraft wing might generate beyond the
requirements in the frag. Now, after more than two years under an Air Force
manager, the Marines possessed outright control of roughly 40 percent the daily
sorties levied upon them, plus the extra 10 to 30 percent that the wing could
launch in addition to the required number. Preplanned sorties, listed by time and
bomb load in a weekly frag and turned over to the Marines, declined in volume,
reflecting a lack of ground action. In the summer of 1970, these scheduled
missions might require less than 40 percent of a day’s nominal maximum of
sorties.32 Such was the type of arrangement that, according to Marine Lt. Gen.
Keith B. McCutcheon, “evolved over a long period of time . . . a lot of it due to
gentlemen’s agreements between on-the-scene commanders.”33
Events sometimes might strain this understanding, for an occasional foul-up
was bound to occur among the different air and ground units operating in the
northern provinces. In the summer of 1970, for instance, XXIV Corps, com-
manded at the time by Army Lt. Gen. James W. Sutherland, Jr., relied on the 1st
Marine Aircraft Wing to drop bombs and napalm on a ridge near the Thuong
Duc Special Forces camp, along which South Vietnamese infantry planned to
123
advance. Within twenty-four hours of the impending attack, General Suther-

land’s headquarters advised Seventh Air Force of the number of preplanned tac-
tical sorties — 16 by A–6s, 28 by F–4s, and 12 by A–4s — the Marines intended
to fly, assuring General Brown that the strikes would not affect the overall
weekly schedule, and asking only that the daily frag for June 15, the day of the
operation, use Marine Corps planes in the afternoon when the South Vietnamese
attacked. Marine helicopters also would figure in the operation, dropping con-
tainers of incendiary jelly much as Air Force transports had done two years
earlier on “Napalm Sunday,” in an attempt to silence the Viet Cong batteries
firing on Bien Hoa Air Base.34
Postponed until the morning of June 16, the attack proved a spectacular suc-
cess. South Vietnamese troops advanced swiftly after napalm had burned away
the natural concealment, killing ten of the enemy, and high explosive had bat-
tered the defenses. Unfortunately, the single manager for tactical aviation knew
nothing of the action until it was over. Despite the twelve-hour delay, the initial
message from General Sutherland’s headquarters, advising of the Marine Corps
sorties on the afternoon of the 15th, had not yet reached Brown when the battle
came to an end. Since the sorties had come out of the number available to the
1st Marine Aircraft Wing, General Brown merely reminded the corps com-
mander to obtain approval for any adjustment of the aerial effort.35
In actual fact, no divergence from plans issued by the Tactical Air Control
Center had taken place — which explains why Brown responded with only the
gentlest reminder — principally because of the freedom of action now exercised
by Maj. Gen. William G. Thrash’s 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. On his own init-
iative, Thrash had revised his air support plan so that it required no adjustment
of the operations order issued for that day. Instead of the fifty-six fighter or
attack sorties that Sutherland had sought, Thrash used no more than eight, well
within the number under his control, and relied on CH–53D helicopters, which
were exempt from unified management, to drench the ridge with more than a
hundred tons of napalm.36
Brown saw no harm in allowing the Marines greater latitude within a man-
agerial set-up that had been functioning to his satisfaction since he took over as
Seventh Air Force commander from General Momyer in August 1968. “I sort
of looked the other way on a lot of things the Marines did,” he conceded, con-
sidering it folly to revive the controversy at this time. He was confident that “if
things ever got hot anywhere and we needed the resources,” the 1st Marine Air-
craft Wing would come through, prodded if necessary by General Abrams, a
firm believer in unified management. During these comparatively quiet times,
Brown showed himself to be more interested in maintaining the precedent estab-
lished by Momyer than in rigidly enforcing every detail of Air Force doctrine.
The existence of a single manager, “ought to be pointed out by every airman
down the line,” General Brown maintained, though they should not “go out of
their way in peacetime to rub someone’s nose in it.”37
124
Some Marine leaders realized that a precedent had apparently been set, re-
gardless of the assurances given by Nitze in May 1968. In any event, General
McCutcheon, an aviator who had taken command of III Marine Amphibious
Force, now tried to clarify the limits of the Vietnam management system, in the
event it should be applied in the future. During July 1970, as General Brown’s
tour of duty drew to an end, McCutcheon sought to capitalize upon the military
assistance command’s latest attempt to revise the 1965 directive governing the
control of tactical aviation to reflect the principle of unified management.
Rather than oppose the project as a threat to the future of the air-ground team,
General McCutcheon decided to cooperate in order to “establish beyond a doubt
that the Marine Corps team remains intact and retains operational control over
its air component.” Since General Brown seemed “more or less happy with the
way things were going and wasn’t anxious to change the status quo,” the Mar-
ines hoped to interpret mission direction, which had escaped definition since its
introduction in March 1968, strictly in terms of the centralized management
procedures that had evolved in the intervening twenty-eight months.38
When completed, the revised directive specified that the III Marine Am-
phibious Force commander normally exercised operational control over Marine
aviation, with the Seventh Air Force commander, as deputy for air on the staff
of the military assistance command, serving as coordinating authority for all
United States/Free World Military Assistance Forces and South Vietnamese Air
Force in the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam area of responsibility. To
carry out the duties of single manager, the coordinating authority exercised mis-
sion direction over Marine Corps strike and reconnaissance aircraft. The Mar-
ines, under this arrangement, released to the single manager “those strike and
reconnaissance assets required for mission direction,” while exercising control
over those aircraft needed for missions peculiar to the Marine Corps, such as
landing-zone preparation or helicopter escort, and retaining authority to launch
immediate strikes. In the event of a major emergency, such as the fight for Khe
Sanh, the Seventh Air Force commander would assume operational control over
those Marine Corps aviation units selected by the commander of the military
assistance command.39
In effect, Generals Brown and McCutcheon had agreed that mission direc-
tion referred exclusively to the authority delegated to one commander to assign
specific aerial tasks to another in carrying out a previously assigned basic
mission. “In other words,” said McCutcheon, “COMUSMACV [Commander,
U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam] assigned CG III MAF a basic
mission to conduct offensive air support and COMUSMACV delegated to his
Deputy for Air the authority to task CG III MAF for specific missions on a daily
and weekly basis.” The directive thus limited mission direction to the assign-
ment of tasks, one of the four elements of operational control, and excluded the
other three — composition of subordinate forces, designation of objectives, and
the issuance of directives to accomplish the mission.40
125
Looking back on the evolution of the control mechanism for tactical combat
aviation in South Vietnam, General McCutcheon acknowledged, “There is no
doubt about whether single management was an overall improvement as far as
MACV as a whole was concerned. It was.” Some form of centralization was es-
sential, he conceded, for “there was no denying that, when three Army divisions
were assigned to I Corps, a higher degree of coordination and cooperation was
necessary.” Through trial and error, evaluation and adjustment, and concessions
by the commanders involved, a form of unified control emerged that, in Mc-
Cutcheon’s opinion, satisfied the needs of the Army and Air Force while being
acceptable to the Marine Corps.41
Even General Cushman, who had fought the appointment of a single mana-
ger, eventually took a more benign view of the arrangement, at least in the form
agreed on by Generals Brown and McCutcheon. Although still convinced that
the system adopted in 1968 had gone too far, giving an Air Force officer auth-
ority over Marine Corps aviation that closely approximated operational control,
the former commander of III Marine Amphibious Force now acknowledged that
centralization had not brought disaster. Because of “some revisions in the sys-
tem,” unified management “gave the Army, I would say, better and more res-
ponsive air support than they had and didn’t hurt the Marines.”
General Cushman further indicated that he could “truthfully say no Marine
was ever killed for lack of air support.” He again maintained that modifications
to the original single manager procedures led to success. Thanks to the weekly
allocation of preplanned sorties and the increasing freedom to retain aircraft for
immediate strikes, “we still had Marine aircraft supporting Marine forces,” and
as a result “it came out all right in the end.” He considered unified management
potentially dangerous, however, both to the future of the Corps and to its im-
mediate tactical effectiveness. He therefore warned that, in view of what he con-
sidered a narrow escape from operational control by the Air Force, Marines
should continue to oppose “the basic philosophy” of centralized direction.42
The single manager issue subsided with the passage of time, not because
Air Force and Marine Corps doctrine had somehow merged but for other rea-
sons. New commanders — Generals Abrams, Brown, and McCutcheon — had
taken over, and the intensity of the fighting eased. There were no Khe Sanhs in
1969 or 1970 — nor a Tet offensive — to raise the threat of massive losses and
sharpen doctrinal differences among the leaders concerning the control of tac-
tical aviation.
In addition, an American withdrawal had begun in earnest. During his last
year in office, President Johnson had outlined a strategy that looked to eventual
reductions in American strength, fewer American casualties, and greater South
Vietnamese participation in the fighting. The timing and degree of disengage-
ment, as well as the means of enlarging South Vietnam’s combat role, now be-
came the principal concerns of President Nixon, who launched his administra-
tion by attempting to formulate his own policy for Southeast Asia.
126
Chapter Eight
Secret Bombing and Troop Withdrawals
After taking office in January 1969, President Nixon began setting up a

more formal arrangement for determining national security policy. By rejecting
President Johnson’s less rigid approach — which included a weekly luncheon
with selected military and civilian policy makers — Nixon sounded the knell for
a number of ad hoc coordinating or planning groups, among them the White
House intelligence function presided over by General Ginsburgh at the time of
the Tet offensive and the siege of Khe Sanh.1
He had scarcely begun his revision of the policy-making machinery, when
he encountered a problem requiring a degree of secrecy that led him to circum-
vent the channels of authority he was creating. What should he do about Cam-
bodia, its supply lines and bases? One day after his inauguration, President
Nixon asked General Wheeler for a study on “the feasibility and utility of
quarantining Cambodia against the receipt of supplies and equipment for . . . the
North Vietnamese forces operating in and from Cambodia against South Viet-
nam.”2 The Joint Chiefs of Staff, however, showed scant enthusiasm for a
blockade of this sort, envisioned by the President as mainly a naval venture.
They recommended instead an attempt to persuade Prince Sihanouk to allow air
and ground attacks against bases and supply routes in sparsely inhabited parts
of Cambodia. These actions, in conjunction with continued strikes against the
logistics complex in southern Laos, seemed likely to achieve the purposes of a
quarantine, though a supplementary naval blockade might prove necessary.3
Soon after he had submitted his contribution to the Chiefs’ proposal, Gen-
eral Abrams offered an idea that was less ambitious in scope, but nevertheless
fired the imagination of the President. Abrams advocated B–52 strikes against
the Central Office for South Vietnam, a communist headquarters believed lo-
cated in the Fishhook region of Cambodia, which directed enemy activity in
South Vietnam. Nixon ordered the suggestion veiled in secrecy and asked
Abrams for further details. The President feared that civilian casualties would
result from such an attack, but Abrams assured him that few, if any, Cam-
bodians had access to this most sensitive installation or to the nearby bivouac
areas and supply dumps.4
127
The suggestion to bomb targets in Cambodia remained in limbo until late

February, when enemy gunners fired several rockets into Saigon — a violation
of one of those “understandings” that had accompanied the bombing halt — and
hit other targets, mostly military bases, throughout Vietnam. President Nixon,
then meeting with government leaders in western Europe, apparently interpreted
the widespread shelling, though light in comparison to the previous year’s Tet
attacks, as a deliberate North Vietnamese challenge to test his own courage and
the nation’s commitment to the struggle. He therefore approved the bombing of
bases and headquarters installations in Cambodia, only to cancel the operation
almost immediately, when doubt surfaced about the wisdom of extending the
war westward. The President chose to delay the bombing until he could consult
his most trusted advisers and allay concerns that the bombing of Cambodia
might ignite public demonstrations that could disrupt his European tour.5
Whatever the political impact, purely military reasons justified prompt
retaliation for the shelling of urban targets in South Vietnam, or so Abrams
argued. In launching these latest attacks, he insisted, the enemy had again
demonstrated “his complete reliance on the exploitation of base areas in Cam-
bodia and Laos from which he supports and projects his military actions.” In
other words, the rockets that exploded in Saigon and the gunners who fired
them had more than likely passed through eastern Cambodia. As a counterblow,
Abrams proposed limited air attacks on North Vietnam, as well as thrusts
against the supply net in southern Laos and the Cambodian bases, a far more
ambitious plan than his earlier call for B–52 strikes on the enemy headquarters
in Cambodia.6
The President’s decision to seek advice imposed a delay that, in effect,
overruled both his original decision to bomb the Central Office for South Viet-
nam and also the expanded plan offered by Abrams. General Wheeler pointed
out that the retaliation had to be prompt or the link between provocation and
reaction would disappear. By early March, the North Vietnamese might not
interpret U.S. bombings or ground attacks as punishment for an attack some two
weeks earlier. Wheeler therefore recommended that the United States ignore the
February incident and instead respond promptly to the next attack on a major
South Vietnamese city.7
Moreover, one form of retaliation advocated by General Abrams had been
ruled out in advance by Nixon’s civilian advisers. As long as their counsel
prevailed, there would be no air strikes against the North, however attractive
such measures might be from a purely military standpoint. “No one in the ad-
ministration,” said Dr. Henry Kissinger, the President’s Special Assistant for
National Security Affairs, “could anticipate a resumption of the bombing of the
North with anything but distaste. . . . None of us had the stomach for the domes-
tic outburst we knew the renewed bombing would provoke — even if it were the
direct result of North Vietnamese betrayal of the understandings that had led to
the bombing halt.” With punitive bombing of North Vietnam ruled out because
128
of its likely impact on American public opinion and an invasion of Laos a vio-
lation of longstanding policy, Nixon and his key counselors fixed their attention
on the Cambodian bases.8
Besides avoiding the public uproar that the renewed bombing of the North
seemed sure to provoke, raids on the Cambodian installations afforded unique
military and diplomatic advantages. The strikes, according to General Abrams,
would hit the very bases that enabled the enemy to wage war in South Vietnam,
thus restricting hostile activity and reducing American casualties. Resolute
action in Cambodia, moreover, would offer proof of American firmness that
might pay dividends at the negotiating table in Paris.9
Nor was the bombing at all certain to harm the improving relations between
the United States and Cambodia. Prince Sihanouk, after all, seemed to have
been hinting, since the Bowles mission of January 1968, that he would not
object to the bombing of North Vietnamese bases in his country, provided that
Cambodian citizens were not endangered and the aerial attacks were carried out
in secrecy.10
For almost three weeks the President waited, reviewing arguments for and
against the bombing of Cambodia. Secretary of State William P. Rogers report-
edly opposed the attacks because he feared a possibly adverse impact on the
Paris talks. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird favored the raids but doubted
that they could be conducted in secrecy. Dr. Kissinger believed the strikes
would be worthwhile even though North Vietnam might react by increasing the
tempo of the war in the South, the Soviet Union or Cambodia might object, and
a segment of the American public might protest the action. After receiving
reports that on March 14 hostile rockets had again exploded in Saigon, the
President launched Operation Menu, the bombing of the Cambodian bases. The
first mission, nicknamed Operation Breakfast, took place on March 18, when
fifty-nine of sixty scheduled B–52s hit targets near the Fishhook, touching off
more than seventy secondary explosions visible high in the night sky.11
Strict secrecy concealed every aspect of the Menu bombing. Concerned
about possible domestic opposition as well as diplomatic complications over-
seas, the President confided in only a few advisers, and not all of them knew
every detail of the operation. By summer, five members of Congress — Senators
John Stennis and Richard Russell and Representatives Mendel Rivers, Gerald
Ford, and Leslie Arends — had received information about the raids. All held
important positions. Arends and Ford were leaders of the Republican minority;
the other three were Democratic members of committees dealing with the armed
services or government appropriations. A few other members of these commit-
tees learned of the attacks from Secretary Laird.12
Throughout the Menu raids, the procedures for requesting, approving, re-
porting, and assessing strikes remained shrouded in secrecy. When feasible, en-
coded messages traveled over secure means of transmission, so that only those
persons directly involved in the operation and fully aware of its sensitive status
129
received information on the attacks. If the use of routine message traffic proved
unavoidable, the true nature and location of the target was concealed.
The first Breakfast mission, carried out by 59 of some 3,800 B–52 sorties
flown during the Menu campaign, began like all subsequent attacks with two re-
quests from General Abrams. One request, traveling through normal commun-
ications channels, proposed an attack on a target in South Vietnam located near
the Cambodian border. After the usual review, this mission was approved and
given a time over target and an identifying title. Meanwhile, Abrams was using
a special communications link to call for a raid inside Cambodia. After review
by Admiral McCain, the Menu request went to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who
gave their approval only after reviewing the accompanying evidence that no
Cambodian noncombatants lived near the target. They then referred the request
to Secretary Laird, who might consult President Nixon if the timing or location
of the attack seemed especially sensitive.
After receiving the Defense Secretary’s approval, the Joint Chiefs of Staff
alerted Gen. Bruce K. Holloway, Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command,
who used secure communications circuits to contact Lt. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem,
II, commander of the 3d Air Division on Guam. General Gillem planned and
launched the strike, preserving secrecy by concealing it with the mission iden-
tifier and time already assigned the nearby target in South Vietnam. Gillem’s
planners plotted a course that would bring the bombers near the cover target,
which became an alternate that could be struck in case of bad weather or equip-
ment failure, but led to the real one across the border.
Menu missions took place at night, with Combat Skyspot radar directing the
release of bombs and surveillance radar monitoring the flight. Therefore, special
precautions were necessary to prevent members of aircrews or radar teams from
compromising a secret operation. The 3d Air Division (soon to be redesignated
Eighth Air Force) briefed the bomber crews as though the attack would occur
in South Vietnam. Only the pilot and navigator knew for certain that their plane
had crossed the border into Cambodia, and they were trusted to keep silent.
Radar operators on the ground, whether they gave the signal to release the
bombs or kept watch over flights near the border, knew that the targets lay in-
side Cambodia. As a result, a representative from the Strategic Air Command
advance echelon visited the Skyspot radar site directing the mission and gave
the operator the information necessary to bomb the Menu target. Similarly, an
officer from Seventh Air Force headquarters went to the ground control inter-
cept radar site that would track the mission and warned the technicians not to
alert the bombers as the planes neared the border, the usual practice to prevent
violation of Cambodian airspace.
Reporting Menu activity required similar security measures. Radar surveil-
lance teams on the ground did not record the border violation, and the Combat
Skyspot strike controllers destroyed their calculations of the impact point inside
Cambodia, submitting instead a summary showing flight patterns the B–52s
130
Combat Skyspot installation at Da Lat, South Vietnam.

would have followed to hit the cover target. A routine message reported the
hours flown, fuel burned, and bombs dropped, while secure channels carried a
report of the actual strike, including an initial assessment of damage done,
usually in the form of a tally of secondary explosions. This dual reporting main-
tained secrecy while at the same time providing logistics and personnel special-
ists the information they needed to replace air crews or aircraft and replenish
stocks of fuel and munitions.13
As was true of most B–52 strikes against enemy base camps, regardless of
location, damage proved difficult to estimate. The presence of cloud cover, for
example, not only prevented the bomber crews from seeing secondary explo-
sions, but also might hamper the use of helicopters to land American-led South
Vietnamese reconnaissance patrols in the area. Nevertheless, crew reports of
detonations touched off by their bombs remained a normal source of intelli-
gence, as did probes by troops, though General Abrams considered the recon-
naissance teams more valuable in determining that no Cambodians lived near
the target than in evaluating strike results. Ordinary post-strike photographic
reconnaissance by RF–4Cs or RF–101s was out of the question because the film
passed through too many hands in the processing and interpretation, increasing
the likelihood of a leak in security. Throughout most of the Menu bombing,
high-altitude photography by U–2s seemed unnecessary, since the destruction
amid the concealing jungle did not show up well on the high-resolution film.
The most reliable sources of information were pictures and visual sightings by
crews of Air Force observation planes dispatched over Cambodia by General
Abrams’ Studies and Observations Group. The low-flying airmen brought back
131
an estimated 70 percent of the Menu bomb damage assessment, reporting move-

ment by troops or vehicles, abandoned or collapsed bunkers, and the condition
of roads or trails.14
By the end of April 1969, President Nixon told General Wheeler of his
“great satisfaction” with the early Menu strikes against targets near the Fish-
hook and in the region where the territories of Laos, South Vietnam, and Cam-
bodia converge.15 The attacks did not, however, deter a North Vietnamese and
Viet Cong offensive in May, near the anniversary of the 1968 mini-Tet uprising,
which it resembled in its lack of intensity. Nonetheless, General Abrams re-
mained pleased with what the strikes in Cambodia had accomplished. Besides
relieving pressure on Special Forces camps located in South Vietnam’s western
highlands, the raids seemed to have forced the enemy to invest time and man-
power in dispersing supplies and constructing blast-resistant storage bunkers.16
Just one week after the first Menu attack, Jack Walsh of United Press Inter-
national reported that General Abrams was seeking permission to bomb the
enemy sanctuaries in Cambodia.17 Surprisingly, this important story languished
for more than a month until William Beecher of the New York Times reported
that raids on “Viet Cong and North Vietnamese supply dumps and base camps
in Cambodia” had begun “in recent weeks.”18 Although President Nixon became
concerned over these two stories and the threat they posed to the secrecy sur-
rounding Menu activity, he insisted that the attacks continue.19
Actually, Nixon need not have worried. Possibly put off the track by the
lack of reaction from military leaders and civilian authorities, the press failed
to pursue the matter. As it turned out, more than four years elapsed from the
first Menu bombing in 1969 until Maj. Hal Knight, a former Air Force officer,
told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1973 that, while serving at a
Combat Skyspot radar site, he had destroyed records of strikes in Cambodia and
substituted reports of attacks on cover targets in South Vietnam.20
Nixon insisted upon secrecy to avoid the kind of crisis that would certainly
have arisen if Prince Sihanouk had felt compelled to acknowledge the bombing.
Had the Cambodian ruler publicly endorsed Menu, North Vietnam might have
decided to punish him by extending its control deep into the kingdom; had he
demanded that the raids stop, the gradual accommodation between the United
States and Cambodia would have been destroyed, to the benefit of the North
Vietnamese. As long as secrecy prevailed, the Prince could maintain the appear-
ance of neutrality, the North Vietnamese need not extend their control deeper
into the kingdom, and the United States could continue an apparently successful
aerial campaign that endangered few noncombatants. For those officials who
had approved the Menu bombing, the most surprising aspect of the entire opera-
tion was North Vietnam’s silence concerning the attacks. Hanoi did not de-
nounce the raids for propaganda purposes and, according to Kissinger, did not
raise the matter during formal or secret truce negotiations. Apparently the
enemy preferred Cambodia’s nominal neutrality to acknowledging the presence
132
of North Vietnamese troops in that country and possibly risking a deeper

military involvement there.21
In terms of American relations with Cambodia, secrecy paid dividends.
Prince Sihanouk could dismiss the occasional press report by denying that Cam-
bodian lives or property were being endangered by American air strikes. He was
able, therefore, to renew formal contact with the United States declaring that he
was responding to American expressions of respect for Cambodian indepen-
dence, sovereignty, neutrality, and territorial integrity. To celebrate the res-
toration of diplomatic ties, which occurred on July 2, 1969, with the arrival in
Phnom Penh of an American charge’ d’affaires, Senator Mike Mansfield visited
the Cambodian capital in August. Sihanouk used the occasion to pay tribute to
Mansfield and his colleagues who, according to the Prince, had resisted the
temptation to use force and thus helped restore friendship between the two na-
tions. The rapprochement begun with the Bowles visit had progressed smoothly
despite the bombing.22
The Menu bombing continued for fourteen months, as B–52s flew 3,875
sorties against six base areas, each of which bore a code name appropriate to a
menu. Once again, strategic bombers designed for intercontinental nuclear retal-
iation served as aerial artillery, harassing an unseen enemy and impeding his
movement. More than 100,000 tons of bombs fell on the six targets — Lunch
in the tri-border region; Snack, Dessert, Dinner, and Breakfast in and around the
Fishhook; and Supper, about a third of the way from the Fishhook to the tri-
border bases. From the first mission in March 1969 until the last in May 1970,
Air Force statistical summaries recorded all Menu strikes as being flown against
targets in South Vietnam. During this period, roughly one in five of the B–52
sorties listed for the South actually hit a target in Cambodia. The raids ended
with the invasion of the border sanctuaries in the spring of 1970, an offensive
directed against some of the same bases that the B–52s had been bombing.23
Cambodia, however, represented just one aspect of the Nixon administra-
tion’s attempt to shape a plan for extricating the United States from an unpop-
ular war. Indeed, President Nixon had benefitted during the Presidential cam-
paign from the belief he had a secret plan to end the war. For Kissinger, the
ideal method of liquidating the conflict would have been to sever the negotia-
ting tangle by proposing that communist and noncommunist compete peacefully
through free elections for control of South Vietnam. If the enemy should reject
such an offer, the United States would intensify the war, mining North Vietnam-
ese ports and bombing rail lines to cut off the flow of war materials into the
country and force the Hanoi regime to enter negotiations. This ideal solution did
not seem feasible, however, for Kissinger acknowledged that public opinion
was likely to balk at such drastic actions.24
The apparent willingness to rule out bombing of North Vietnam troubled
the Air Staff, who feared that the new administration had committed itself to
negotiating a settlement, considering resumption of the air war against the North
133
as a form of escalation rather than a means of retaliation. The staff believed that
renewed bombing might prove necessary if the enemy should break off the Paris
talks or intensify the war in the South. Nor did these Air Force officers share
Kissinger’s belief that the public had grown weary of the war; from an isolated
view in the Pentagon, it appeared that the American people would continue to
support the present level of fighting. Only the defeat of the Viet Cong, surely
not a contested election, could justify to the public the expenditure thus far of
$100 billion and the loss of 30,000 American lives.25
After examining courses of action during the transitional period between
election and inauguration, Kissinger, before launching the Nixon administration
onto Southeast Asia’s turbulent currents, asked the agencies waging the war to
answer specific questions on the progress made thus far, the problems re-
maining, and the reliability of the information upon which the judgments were
made. Not only did the estimates of success vary from one reporting agency to
another, the replies did not agree on such basic data as enemy strength in the
south, infiltration routes from North Vietnam, and the importance of Cambodia
in Hanoi’s plans.26 “The answers made clear,” wrote Kissinger in his memoirs,
“that there was no consensus as to facts, much less as to policy.”27
Nothing in Kissinger’s survey changed President Nixon’s plan to reduce
American participation in combat and negotiate a settlement of the war. With
the secret bombing in Cambodia serving as a shield, Nixon hoped to begin with-
drawing U.S. forces. Ideally, the rate of reduction would depend on increases
in South Vietnamese military might and progress in the Paris talks. The policy
of replacing U.S. troops with South Vietnamese had been foreshadowed in Pres-
ident Johnson’s address announcing the April 1968 bombing restrictions, and
his administration had begun improving South Vietnam’s armed forces. Presi-
dent Thieu, whose military establishment had acquired more men and improved
equipment since the Johnson speech, now agreed that a large number of Ameri-
cans could depart during 1969 without jeopardizing South Vietnam’s survival.
The withdrawal of perhaps 50,000 men, the Nixon administration hoped, would
for a time silence domestic criticism without affecting the military balance
between North and South.28
Shortly after President Thieu indicated that American troop reductions
would be acceptable to his government, Secretary Laird visited Saigon and dis-
covered that General Abrams and his staff were basing their plans for 1969 on
the assumption that the United States would not withdraw troops from South
Vietnam until North Vietnamese units had begun departing.29 General Brown,
Abrams’ deputy for air operations, adamantly opposed reductions in American
strength, arguing that withdrawals before June 1970 involved “greater risk than
advantage.” Money saved through troop withdrawals in the near term could, he
warned, require the eventual expenditure of American blood.30
Arguments like General Brown’s did not convince Secretary Laird that the
United States, considering its other military commitments, could maintain a
134
force of 500,000 men in South Vietnam. Even if such a course were feasible, it
might prove counterproductive, for the Secretary of Defense doubted that the
South Vietnamese would attempt to pacify the countryside while “our own
forces constitute so pervasive a presence.” As a result, Laird recommended
drafting plans to return 50,000 to 70,000 American troops from South Vietnam
during 1969.31
Designed to “enhance the vital interests of our country (particularly in
recognition of our world-wide military requirements), to stimulate increased
self-defense awareness and self-reliance by the Government of South Vietnam,
and to sustain the support of the American public,”32 the program of with-
drawing U.S. troops and turning the war over to the South Vietnamese at first
bore the label “de-Americanization.” Secretary Laird, however, objected to the
term because it emphasized the American departure without reflecting the in-
creasing importance of better trained and more formidably equipped South
Vietnamese combat forces. He therefore proposed “Vietnamization,” a scarcely
less awkward term, which promptly received Presidential approval.33
Faced with three alternatives — escalation of the war, abandonment of
South Vietnam, and Vietnamization — the Nixon administration had selected
the one that seemed likely to achieve an independent South Vietnam without
further alienating public opinion at home. Such a course entailed certain risks,
however. “Withdrawal of U.S. troops,” Kissinger warned the President, “could
become like salted peanuts to the American public: the more U.S. troops come
home, the more will be demanded.” Besides preventing the administration from
linking withdrawals to progress in negotiations at Paris and communist
inactivity in South Vietnam, snowballing departures might encourage Hanoi to
take advantage of the headlong retreat by attacking and possibly embarrassing
the United States.34
Because of the attendant dangers, U.S. military leaders sought assurance
that Nixon would not allow the withdrawals to become unmanageable. Air
Force General McConnell, serving as acting Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, in
General Wheeler’s absence, proposed three conditions essential to successful
Vietnamization. He told the National Security Council that the reductions
should not place the remaining American forces at a tactical disadvantage,
should not result in abandonment of equipment the South Vietnamese could not
use, and should not be completed until South Vietnamese units were able to take
over their nation’s defense.35
The decision made on the basis of views expressed at the Security Council
meeting reflected General McConnell’s concerns. Although Nixon did not
repeat McConnell’s three points, they apparently influenced him as he declared
that U.S. forces would not reduce pressure on the enemy except as a con-
sequence of a North Vietnamese withdrawal. The departure of U.S. forces and
transfer of responsibility to the South Vietnamese would, moreover, be carefully
controlled to avoid pulling out completely before Hanoi’s troops had done so.36
135
Kissinger then issued a directive that set in motion planning for the first
reduction in U.S. strength since 1963, during the advisory years, and for a cor-
responding transfer to the South Vietnamese of responsibility for combat opera-
tions. A large contingent was to depart on July 1, 1969, arming and training
South Vietnam’s forces would receive the “highest national priority” within the
Nixon administration, and the United States might revert to a purely advisory
and support role as early as December 31, 1970.37
For the Air Force, the initial withdrawals would involve four Air National
Guard squadrons mobilized after the capture of the Pueblo and sent to South
Vietnam in response to the Tet offensive, but now due for release from active
service. The replacement of these units had come under discussion even before
Kissinger formally launched the planning for Vietnamization. As early as Feb-
ruary 1969, the Air Staff had concluded that some reduction of Air Force
strength in Southeast Asia was all but inevitable in the near future and formed
a study group to address the subject.
The panel suggested the Air Force choose among four courses of action.
One possibility was to retain in the United States the four F–4 squadrons that
were scheduled to replace the departing Air National Guard F–100Cs when they
reverted to inactive service. Two other possibilities involved replacing the
National Guard units and either canceling plans to substitute four squadrons of
A–37s for two F–100D units that would leave South Vietnam in the spring of
1970 or simply withdrawing three F–105 squadrons from Thailand. Under a
fourth option, B–52 sorties might decline from 1,800 to 1,440 per month; the
F–4s and A–37s would deploy and the F–105s remain in place, enabling tactical
fighters to take up the slack left by the scaling back of B–52 operations.
Generals Brown at Seventh Air Force headquarters and Nazzaro at Pacific
Air Forces opposed any reduction of fighter strength in Southeast Asia. They
insisted they needed all the scheduled replacements, both F–4s and A–37s, to
maintain pressure on the enemy in South Vietnam and Laos while retaining the
ability to resume the bombing of North Vietnam, if necessary. Brown rejected
claims by Dr. Ivan Selin, acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems
Analysis, that only 20 percent of all tactical sorties in South Vietnam — for the
most part close air support and battlefield interdiction — benefitted troops in
contact with the enemy. Dr. Selin, Brown declared, failed to see the true contri-
bution of tactical aviation, for even strikes in southern Laos helped the man with
the rifle by delaying or destroying supplies destined for the battlefield.38
General Brown had little patience with the attempts of Dr. Selin and his
Department of Defense colleagues to measure the impact of tactical air power
solely in terms of strikes upon hostile forces actually exchanging fire with
Americans or South Vietnamese. General Abrams, Brown pointed out, used air
attacks as a kind of reconnaissance by fire. Troops advanced until they located
a confirmed or suspected defensive strongpoint then called for air strikes to
flush the enemy from cover. In some cases, the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong
136
The Cessna A–37 was a greatly modified model of the T–37 basic trainer,
with a strengthened fuselage and wings, hard points under the wings,
refueling capability, and an internal gun mounted in the nose.
were not present or fled immediately, so that the advancing unit did not make
actual contact with the enemy, and the air attack did not meet Dr. Selin’s
standard, even though it may have kept the advance moving and saved lives by
preventing a firefight from erupting.39
In fact, Nixon’s commitment to troop withdrawals, rather than Selin’s anal-
ysis, was becoming the principal determinant in establishing American aerial
strength in South Vietnam. Conversations with Secretary Laird and his deputy,
David Packard, convinced General McConnell that the Seventh Air Force would
lose two of twenty-three Vietnam-based tactical fighter squadrons. Faced with
the inevitable loss, the Air Force Chief of Staff formally proposed to the Joint
Chiefs of Staff that just two F–4 squadrons replace the four Air National Guard
units scheduled to return to the United States.
Of the Air Force commanders who commented on the McConnell proposal,
only General Momyer, now in charge of the Tactical Air Command, favored it.
He based his support on two assumptions: that the ban on the bombing of North
Vietnam would remain in effect; and that combat in the South would continue
to be relatively light, at least through the rainy season beginning in May.
Neither Generals Brown nor Nazzaro, however, retreated from their belief that
no squadrons could be spared, and Brown argued that the number of tactical air
strikes would actually have to increase during the rainy season because of the
effect of cloud cover on bombing accuracy.40
General Abrams shared the views of Brown and Nazzaro. When apprised
of the McConnell proposal, the Army officer declared that “regardless how we
phrase it, the net result . . . would be the unilateral reduction . . . of those all-
important U.S. capabilities on which our allies rely heavily and which give me
137
Departing troops board a commercial airliner at Da Nang.

the means and flexibility to deal with a constantly shifting threat.” Nor did
Abrams believe in trading “force improvement” — the acquisition of two squad-
rons of newer and deadlier aircraft — for “force reduction” — the loss of the
four F–100C squadrons. “There are battlefield situations,” he warned, “which
make the availability of tactical aircraft relatively more important than the
capability of the individual aircraft employed.”41
Although Admiral McCain endorsed the arguments offered by General
Abrams, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed that four, rather than two, squad-
rons of F–4s should replace the four squadrons of F–100Cs, Secretary Laird
inclined toward a two-squadron reduction, possibly in Thailand rather than
South Vietnam. Any suggestion to reduce the number of Thailand-based tactical
fighters alarmed Abrams, who pointed out that war planes based there could
concentrate on targets in southern Laos, where the greater weight of the aerial
effort was shifting, and still be able to help deal with any tactical emergency
that might arise in South Vietnam. Having heard from the commanders in-
volved, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reminded Laird that they considered a reduction
in fighter strength militarily unwise, adding however that if the Secretary of
Defense insisted on such an action for other than purely military reasons, the
reductions should take place in South Vietnam.42
While the question of tactical fighter reduction was debated, planning went
ahead for the withdrawal from South Vietnam of 25,000 troops — some 15,000
soldiers, almost 8,500 Marines, and the rest sailors. No airmen would leave
South Vietnam as part of this group. During a meeting with President Nixon at
Midway Island early in June, President Thieu endorsed the policy of Vietnam-
ization, agreeing that South Vietnamese forces could take over from departing
138
American combat units. Nixon then announced the 25,000-man withdrawal,

which was completed as scheduled by the end of August.43
The net loss of two Air Force tactical fighter squadrons became a part of a
second withdrawal, in the works since late March, when Abrams first addressed
the question of returning another 25,000-man contingent. During President
Nixon’s visit to Saigon late in July, Abrams advised against withdrawing more
than 25,000 men in this group, the second that would depart during 1969. The
President, however, was coming under pressure to increase that number. As
Kissinger later acknowledged, the return of some men tended to demoralize the
families of those who remained, and one reduction increased the desire for other
larger ones, proof of his “salted peanuts” analogy. When Nixon returned to the
United States from Saigon, he rejected the ceiling recommended by Abrams and
told Laird to increase the second contingent to 37,000, thus bringing the year’s
total to 62,000.44
Like General Abrams, the Joint Chiefs of Staff insisted that no more than
50,000 men be withdrawn during 1969 — the 25,000 who had departed that
summer and an equal number that would leave by the end of December. The
President, however, ignored this advice, as he had the views of Abrams, for he
was determined that the second reduction would be greater than the first. The
number finally decided on for group number two was 40,500 — 31,000 actually
withdrawn and 9,500 vacancies left unfilled, reducing authorized strength to
484,000. Although the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that so bold a move, a total
reduction of 65,500 during 1969, was “clearly without justification on military
grounds and beyond the threshold of prudent risk,” Nixon persisted, and the last
elements of the second contingent departed in mid-December.45
The Air Force share of the reduction was 2,541 officers and men, about 5
percent of the total, divided among five squadrons either withdrawn from South
Vietnam or not sent there as originally scheduled. The major units selected for
departure under the approved plan were two special operations squadrons and
a light bomber or tactical fighter unit. As anticipated, two squadrons of F–4Es,
formerly designated as replacements for two of the four Air National Guard
F–100C squadrons already recalled from Vietnam, did not join General Brown’s
Seventh Air Force.46 The absence of the Phantoms would, according to Brown,
“result in a small decrease in our sortie capability,” an acceptable impact given
the decline in ground combat within the country.47
During the final planning for this reduction of men and aircraft within
South Vietnam, a new economy drive heralded further cuts in aerial strength,
the full impact of which would not be felt until 1970, and limitations on sorties
by the forces that remained. Facing a growing budget deficit, President Nixon
in the summer of 1969 directed the various departments and agencies of govern-
ment to collaborate in reducing federal spending by an additional $3.5 billion
during the fiscal year that would begin on July 1, 1969. The share projected for
the Department of Defense amounted to $3 billion, a reduction of $1 billion by
139
each of the three services. This action, called Project 703, would affect Air
Force units throughout the world, including those fighting in Southeast Asia.48
As he searched for savings, General Brown hoped to concentrate the reduc-
tions in three kinds of missions; psychological warfare, defoliation, and the
admittedly important area of reconnaissance. He maintained that air power
could do infinitely more harm to the enemy by dropping high explosives than
by scattering leaflets or spraying herbicide, and he had become convinced that
sensor-laden gunships, aerial cameras, communications monitoring, and visual
sightings by forward air controllers and other pilots gave him “more reconnais-
sance that we really needed.” His experience in command of the Seventh Air
Force had persuaded him that the fighter-bomber and the transport comprised
the essential tools of tactical air power in South Vietnam.49
In the reductions, consolidations, and redesignations that he recommended
during the latter half of 1969, Brown tried with some success to put these views
into practice. The second redeployment, completed on December 15, included
the 5th Special Operations Squadron, a psychological warfare unit, which used
its C–47s and U–10 Helio Couriers to support Thai, South Vietnamese, and
South Korean air forces in Southeast Asia. The 4th Special Operations Squadron
also became inactive, after turning most of its AC–47 gunships over to Lao and
South Vietnamese airmen. To compensate for the loss, General Brown received
a squadron of AC–119Ks — the model with auxiliary jet engines — that arrived
in South Vietnam by year’s end. The 6th Special Operations Squadron passed
from the scene, transferring its A–1 Skyraiders to an Air Force wing based at
Nakhon Phanom, Thailand. In addition, General Brown accomplished another
of his goals, at least in part, by shifting a dozen UC–123s from spraying herbi-
cide to carrying troops and cargo, a mission that he considered more useful.
The manipulation of fighter and bomber resources verged on the Byzantine.
The 5th Tactical Bomber Squadron dispatched its Martin B–57s to the United
States, took over the A–37s assigned to an attack unit scheduled for movement
to South Vietnam, and became the 5th Attack Squadron. Similar legerdemain
converted the 90th Tactical Fighter Squadron into the 90th Attack Squadron,
also flying A–37s, though its F–100Ds were redistributed in South Vietnam
instead of being returned to the United States, as the bombers had been. The
510th Tactical Fighter Squadron was inactivated and its aircraft, too, were
divided among the F–100D units remaining in the country.
During 1969, therefore, the Seventh Air Force lost four Air National Guard
units, receiving two squadrons of F–4Es in their place, and also surrendered one
B–57 squadron with its aircraft and two F–100D units (though retaining the
fighter-bombers), while in effect gaining two A–37 squadrons. A psychological
warfare squadron disbanded, as did a second special operations unit that had
flown Douglas Skyraiders. One gunship squadron replaced another. The number
of airmen actually serving in South Vietnam had declined as projected in the
reduction plan, with the 2,500-man cut completed at about the end of the year.50
140
In General Brown’s key categories of fighter-bomber (or attack) and trans-

port, Air Force strength in South Vietnam now totaled 65 A–37s in the two
newly designated attack units and one special operations squadron; 123 F–4s
divided among eight squadrons, including two F–4E units; 187 F–100Ds in ten
squadrons; 67 C–123 transports, including those recently converted from herbi-
cide spraying; 64 C–130s; and 81 C–7s. Other aircraft not in Brown’s enumera-
tion of critical types included 91 O–1s, 231 O–2s — the most numerous type of
aircraft in South Vietnam at this time — and 83 OV–10s. During 1969, adjust-
ments resulting from losses, overhaul, replacement, and withdrawal had in-
creased the number of A–37s by 47 and F–4s by 24 but eliminated 66 F–100s.
The fleet of C–130s declined by 17, while C–7s increased by one, and the total
of cargo-carrying C–123s grew by virtue of the 12 planes converted from herbi-
cide duty. In the observation category, Seventh Air Force ended the year with
56 fewer O–1s, but 120 additional O–2s and 70 more OV–10s. The grand total
of the principal kinds of attack planes and fighter-bombers — A–37s, F–4s, and
F–100Ds — did not decline, for the number of smaller, less versatile A–37s
tripled, offsetting a 26-percent reduction in F–100s. In spite of the departure of
2,500 officers and airmen, the aggregate number of Air Force planes based in
South Vietnam actually increased by about 40 during the course of the year.51
Not all the changes during 1969 involved flying units. The 555th Civil
Engineer Squadron was deactivated at Cam Ranh Bay and its equipment redis-
tributed throughout the country. Also, the security police reserve at Phan Rang,
established as a result of the 1968 Tet offensive, began declining in strength.
The Air Force reduced that contingent by about 150 persons in December, the
first step toward inactivation, which took place early in 1971.52
Presidential concern over the war’s impact on the federal budget antedated
Project 703 and the cost reductions it foreshadowed; indeed, President Nixon
had inherited the problem from his predecessor. Even before President Johnson
left the White House, a reduction seemed likely in the number of combat sorties
flown in South Vietnam. This prospect did not dismay General Brown, who
questioned the value of leaflet dropping and other missions and was convinced
that “there is more air support of all types being provided U.S. forces in South
Vietnam than is needed.” He acknowledged, however, that such a view, which
implicitly questioned the effectiveness of B–52 attacks, would seem heretical
to Abrams, who was determined that the sorties by these bombers remain at
1,800 per month, the level established at the time of Tet and Khe Sanh.53
Even though the Tet battles had ended long ago and the encirclement of
Khe Sanh been broken, Abrams continued throughout 1968 to echo Westmore-
land’s enthusiasm for the B–52s, declaring that what he described as “central-
ized control” over the bombers provided the assistance command with “the
punching power of several ground divisions,” giving its commander a “means
of influencing the battle without a constant shift of troop units.”54 Far from
accepting the possibility of fewer B–52 sorties, he stated he could use even
141
The Cessna O–2 had two engines and hardpoints under the wings.
more, though he would settle for continuation of the existing rate until there was
“some major change in the tactical situation which warrants its reduction.”55
The Strategic Air Command could not share Abram’s enthusiasm, particu-
larly in the absence of solid proof that the B–52s were hurting the enemy. The
command lacked the bombers, crews, and maintenance men needed to fulfill its
commitment to the single integrated operations plan for nuclear war and at the
same time fly 1,800 sorties per month in Southeast Asia. Reducing the sortie
rate would prove difficult, however, for Abrams would not willingly accept
restraints upon a swift and powerful weapon unless convinced that the bombing
was not achieving worthwhile results.56 Before the Strategic Air Command
could begin marshaling arguments to challenge the military judgment of so
experienced a commander, financial considerations intervened.
The departing Johnson administration, troubled by the cost of B–52 opera-
tions in Southeast Asia, addressed the issue in December 1968. Secretary Nitze
suggested a variable sortie rate. Instead of requesting an inflexible 1,800 sorties
per month, Abrams might vary the number from 1,400 to 1,800, depending on
the tactical situation, provided that the annual total did not exceed 19,000, or a
monthly average of 1,650.57 This compromise, however, satisfied neither the
Strategic Air Command nor the military assistance command.
The Strategic Air Command staff pointed out that the Air Force would have
to retain in the western Pacific enough B–52s to fly the maximum of 1,800
sorties in any month. To effect worthwhile savings, planners would have to
divide the year into two segments, flying 1,400 sorties per month during the
rainy season from mid-March to mid-September, when the pace usually slowed,
and maintaining the higher rate for the rest of the year. Although dividing the
year in such a fashion could, to some extent, hamper tactical flexibility, the
policy would cut costs by reducing to 1,600 the average monthly sorties,
permitting the withdrawal of some men and bombers for half the year.58
Whereas the organization that flew the B–52 missions objected to the Nitze
proposal because it offered only the illusion of savings, Admiral McCain op-
142
posed the plan because it would produce fewer than the current 1,800 monthly
sorties. Like Abrams, he argued that troops in South Vietnam could use even
more B–52 strikes, declaring that commanders there proposed each day roughly
three times as many targets as were actually bombed.59
The Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsed the views of Abrams and McCain,
advising Secretary Laird that to reduce the B–52 sortie rate below 1,800 per
month would be “militarily inadvisable.” Financial pressure did not abate,
however, and after some two months in office, Laird realized that he could not
continue the existing rate beyond June 1969. He proposed to fix the monthly
number of B–52 sorties at 1,600 for the fiscal year ending on June 30, 1970,
even though this level of effort would cost more than had been budgeted.60
At this point, when Laird knew he had to act but had not yet done so, the
President’s call for a $3 billion cut in Department of Defense spending, the so-
called Project 703, exerted its effect on all sortie rates, tactical fighter as well
as bomber. Facing the necessity of cutting costs by about $1 billion, the Air
Force had no choice but to propose further limitations on aerial activity in
Southeast Asia, offering to reduce monthly B–52 sorties to 1,500, 100 fewer
than Laird had proposed, and tactical sorties by 4,000 to 14,000 each month.
After reviewing the Air Force recommendation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff op-
posed such cuts at a time when Marine aviation squadrons and Navy ships with
supporting guns would also be departing from Southeast Asia. General Wheeler,
the chairman, raised this objection with Secretary Laird and President Nixon,
but to no avail. While accepting the 14,000 tactical sorties, Laird cut the B–52
sorties to 1,400 monthly, twice the reduction offered by the Air Force. On Octo-
ber 2, 1969, the new rates went into effect, and the declining frequency of B–52
operations permitted a reduction in the aggregate number of the bombers based
in the western Pacific — on Guam, in Thailand, and on Okinawa — from 104
in January to 88 in December.61
During the debate over B–52 sorties, the tactics used by the big bombers
underwent revision. The 3d Air Division had adopted a practice of dispatching
two cells, each of three aircraft, against most targets in Southeast Asia. By the
end of 1968, however, the bombers were attacking relatively compact targets
in southern Laos, such as mountain passes or road junctions, where fewer planes
could obtain adequate coverage. As a result, General Brown suggested dividing
the usual six-plane missions so that each cell of three B–52s could attack a
different target. The Strategic Air Command endorsed the idea, and the 3d Air
Division began dispatching six bombers to a single initial point, where the two
cells separated so that Combat Skyspot radar operators could direct each against
one of two nearby targets. At first these so-called tandem tactics saw service
only in southern Laos, but during April 1969 the practice was authorized for
South Vietnam, as well.62
Besides making provision for more economical coverage of relatively com-
pact targets, the 3d Air Division adjusted the relationship of aircraft within the
143
cell to obtain a better bomb pattern within sprawling targets such as the base
camps attacked by the Menu strikes. Instead of following each other in trail, the
B–52s within a cell might now form an arrowhead so that the three tracks were
500 yards apart. However, this formation, adopted in January 1969, could never
be used where the wider lateral separation might bring bombs dangerously close
to friendly troops.63
Although tactics and formations changed and aerial activity declined, the
American public focused its interest during 1969 on the Nixon administration’s
withdrawal of ground troops from South Vietnam. This reduction in strength
failed to satisfy opponents of the war. Neither the initial 25,000-man withdrawal
nor the subsequent decision to reduce the U.S. force by an additional 40,500
men silenced the President’s critics in Congress. During September, even as the
air war was undergoing sharp reduction, Republican Senator Charles E. Goodell
from New York proposed enacting a law that would require the removal of all
U.S. forces from South Vietnam by the end of 1970,64 and Senator Mansfield
called for a cease-fire as the first step toward free elections in the South.65 The
President rejected these recommendations, telling a group of Marines back from
South Vietnam that “peace . . . will be due to the fact that Americans, when it
really counted, did not buckle and run away, but stood fast.”66
The halls of Congress did not provide the only forum for dissent. In mid-
October 1969, foes of the war staged rallies, prayer vigils, and processions
throughout the country. Although this so-called Moratorium Day drew crowds
varying from a few thousand in some cities to 100,000 in others, it brought no
announced change of policy, for Nixon insisted he would continue the gradual
withdrawal begun during the past summer, while working toward a negotiated
settlement of the conflict. Counterdemonstrations and declarations of support
encouraged Nixon to stand fast.67
The President and his supporters could not still the voices of protest,
however. An estimated quarter-million persons gathered at Washington, D.C.,
during November in a mobilization against the war. Senator Goodell and other
antiwar legislators addressed the throng, which offered vocal and occasionally
violent proof that the withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam was
gathering the kind of headlong momentum that Kissinger had feared.68
Against this backdrop of opposition to the war, the President had launched
B–52 attacks upon enemy bases in Cambodia, thus reducing the likelihood of
repetition of the 1968 Tet offensive as the United States reduced its own combat
forces and turned responsibility for the fighting over to the South Vietnamese.
The secret bombing and the highly publicized troop withdrawals formed ele-
ments of the President’s plan, a strategy that could not succeed unless South
Vietnam became strong enough to sustain itself and help pressure the North into
peace negotiations. As the withdrawal got underway, therefore, American air-
men continued to wage war in the South, while helping train and equip that
nation’s armed forces.
144
Chapter Nine
The Nature of the Air War, 1969
The Air Force throughout 1969 continued to devote most of its efforts
within South Vietnam to supporting the ground forces. Aviation, however, also
carried out a number of tasks that Air Force doctrine normally catalogued as
independent of the Army’s war. These functions of air power included the
making of maps and aerial charts, which received new emphasis during the
conflict. Maps of Southeast Asia tended to become unreliable as the fighting
moved farther from the areas charted by the French, whose cartographers had
focused on regions along the coast, near towns, or on rivers and main highways.
To remedy this failing, RF–4Cs photographed the poorly mapped terrain, using
signals from long-range radio aids to navigation (Loran) transmitters on the
ground to fix the exact location of checkpoints, such as a mountaintop or the
conflux of two streams. Technicians at the Aeronautical Charting and Informa-
tion Center at St. Louis, Missouri, transferred the control data to mosaics made
up of high-altitude photographs, thus recording a series of precise references to
be used in locating targets.
By mid-1971, this geographic information was being fed into a computer
at Tan Son Nhut Air Base. When asked for the location of a possible target,
operators could retrieve from the machine’s memory the Loran coordinates of
nearby checkpoints and then interpolate the location in question, a task that took
no more than forty-five minutes. Although aerial mapping remained a separate
function, doctrinally distinct from the support of ground forces, the Loran-
controlled photography had immediate benefits for airmen directing strikes to
assist troops. Specialists at Tan Son Nhut could print an arbitrary grid on photo-
graphs taken by the Loran-equipped RF–4Cs. Forward air controllers then used
this grid to locate targets and submitted the coordinates to Tan Son Nhut, where
the computer converted the information into Loran data for fighter-bombers
fitted out to use that navigation aid.1
Operation of the Military Airlift Command, a worldwide airline that car-
ried both passengers and cargo, proved important throughout the war in South-
east Asia. Having flown reinforcements into South Vietnam during the buildup
that followed the Tet offensive, the Military Airlift Command then brought
145
Tactical reconnaissance aircraft used in Southeast Asia, top to bottom: the

McDonnell RF–101, the McDonnell Douglas RF–4, and the Grumman OV–1.
home the troops that President Nixon withdrew from the country. During the
first reduction in the summer of 1969, the command’s Lockheed C–141s flew
more than 15,000 men from Bien Hoa to McChord Air Force Base, Washington,
by way of Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. The second withdrawal, ending in
mid-December, required that the command fly some 14,000 troops and thirty
tons of cargo to a variety of bases in the United States, using chartered commer-
cial aircraft, regularly scheduled military flights, and special airlift missions.2
146
The evacuation of the wounded from South Vietnam for medical treatment
elsewhere was another continuing activity of the Military Airlift Command.
Some of the planes engaged in this effort flew a polar route by way of Japan and
Alaska to bases on the east coast of the United States, while others crossed the
Pacific via Hawaii, and still others brought the wounded to hospitals in Japan
or the Philippines. The number of flights reached a peak in the summer of 1968,
with twenty-six dispatched each week from South Vietnam or Japan to the
United States and twenty-three from South Vietnam to Japan, some of the latter
stopping en route at Guam or in the Philippines. Each week a special burn flight
left Japan, carrying patients via Travis Air Force Base, California, to Kelly Air
Force Base, Texas, and the burn treatment center at nearby Wilford Hall Med-
ical Center. Despite the beginning of Vietnamization and the first troop with-
drawals, the Military Airlift Command scheduled forty-eight medical evacua-
tion flights each week during 1969, though the number declined afterward to
reflect further reductions in American combat strength3
In 1969, air power’s important contributions to success on the ground in
South Vietnam included 174,000 tactical reconnaissance sorties, both aerial
photography and radio direction finding, projects that involved Army aviation.
In the case of aerial photography, the Army, dissatisfied with Air Force efforts,
had developed its own equipment and techniques. The centralization of photo
processing and interpretation at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, the Army claimed,
slowed the distribution of intelligence to combat units. As early as 1966, Gen-
eral McConnell, Air Force Chief of Staff, attempted to meet these objections by
establishing photo processing centers at other bases in South Vietnam.
This measure of decentralization helped, as did the creation of an aerial
courier service to speed the processed and annotated photographs to ground
combat units, but the fact remained that the McDonnell RF–101C, in 1969
being withdrawn from active service, and the more modern RF–4C were ill-
suited to the kind of aerial photography that the Army usually wanted. Air Force
jets with their wide-angle cameras covered a vast area quickly, but ground
commanders tended to want detailed information on a hill mass or other small
objective or repeated coverage of a specific road or hamlet. Only a plane like
the Army’s Grumman OV–1 Mohawk, flying slowly at low altitude over the
target, could provide the desired information.4
General Brown, Seventh Air Force Commander, concluded that the attempt
to improve responsiveness had come too late. Although courier service and a
modicum of decentralization “might have been adequate back in 1947 or 1954,”
the changes had not come until “the Army had acquired aircraft, equipped them
with cameras, and gotten into the business.” The Air Force, he conceded, “had
neglected the thing for so long” that Army airmen “geared up to handle it them-
selves, and you couldn’t blame them.” The Army’s tactical reconnaissance force
may have contributed to Brown’s belief that the Air Force might be placing too
much emphasis on this function in the Southeast Asia conflict.5
147
A Military Airlift Command C–141 receives wounded.

In radio direction finding missions, the Army and Air Force cooperated
smoothly as they tried to locate radio transmitters broadcasting from North
Vietnamese or Viet Cong field headquarters. A coordinating committee at assis-
tance command headquarters parceled out requests among the various squad-
rons, but aircraft characteristics, rather than jointly agreed policy, determined
who would fly where. Only the Air Force SC–47Ds, almost sixty in number,
had the endurance for long patrols over Laos, western South Vietnam, or the
coastal waters off North Vietnam’s panhandle. Other missions, where time on
station was a lesser consideration, became the responsibility the Army’s Beech-
craft U–8s or U–21s.6
The air war in South Vietnam, of which these reconnaissance missions
formed so important a part, continued throughout 1969 to be fought mainly in
support of ground operations, with almost 85 percent of all fixed-wing opera-
tional sorties by Seventh Air Force planes contributing in one way or another
to success on the battlefield. Some 49 percent of these almost 590,000 sorties
involved the delivery of men and supplies by tactical airlift units operating
inside the country. Combat support, the loosely defined category that included
battlefield illumination, herbicide spraying, and psychological warfare, ac-
counted for about 4 percent of the total. Tactical reconnaissance, including
sorties by forward air controllers, made up 29 percent and attack sorties 16
percent.7
The total number of attack sorties flown in South Vietnam — and the Air
Force contribution, as well — had increased in the final months of 1968. This
change resulted from the bombing halt that had taken effect throughout North
Vietnam on November 1. Once the air strikes ended there, additional sorties
148
became available in South Vietnam and southern Laos. A large number of Air
Force planes formerly dispatched against targets in the North now helped in-
tensify the campaign to disrupt the movement of men and cargo over the Ho Chi
Minh Trail, the complex of roads, waterways, trails, dumps, and bases that
passed through Laos and sustained the enemy in South Vietnam. Indeed, about
as many Air Force planes were attacking in southern Laos at year’s end as were
battering the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong within the South.8 A similar divi-
sion of effort persisted into 1969, though the tempo of the air war slowed in
Laos when the southwest monsoon rains were falling there, and restrictions on
the number of tactical sorties — a result of budgetary considerations and the
withdrawal of U.S. forces — reduced the level of aerial activity in South Viet-
nam. The ever-changing demands of the ground war, as well as weather and
policy, affected Air Force operations, for, as General Brown pointed out, the
focus of the aerial effort could be “changed by a telephone call” to meet an
emergency.9
In 1969 the B–52s began attacking with greater frequency outside South
Vietnam. Of more than 20,000 sorties flown by the bombers during that year,
approximately two-thirds hit targets in the South; the remainder divided their
attention between Laos and Cambodia, with roughly two bombers attacking in
Laos for every one that took part in the secret raids inside Cambodia. By way
of comparison, the previous year’s ratio of B–52 sorties in South Vietnam to
those in Laos had been four to one, and the Menu strikes had not yet begun.
Wherever the B–52s attacked, they functioned in both years as long-range artil-
lery, usually attempting to disrupt the flow of men and material to the battlefield
by hitting supply dumps, troop bivouacs, truck parks, and the like.10
The budget-based ceiling imposed on tactical sorties during the fall of 1969
applied only to American aerial endeavors. Attack sorties flown by the South
Vietnamese air arm increased during the year as the early effects of Vietnamiza-
tion made themselves felt. The Royal Australian Air Force, meanwhile, sus-
tained its usual level of activity, flying an average of 231 sorties per month.11
Although Canberra bombers manned by New Zealanders and Australians
hit targets by day and occasionally by night throughout all of South Vietnam,
the planes did most of their bombing by daylight in the delta, where a task force
from Australia and New Zealand fought among the waterways and paddies. The
combination of an optical bombsight and precise navigational gear gave the
Canberra, upon which the American B–57 had been based, exceptional accuracy
from altitudes between 1,000 and 3,000 feet. Although under operational con-
trol of the Seventh Air Force, the Canberra squadron, based at Phan Rang, had
as its principal mission the support of troops from Australia and New Zealand.
Usually, as many as ten airmen from Australia or New Zealand served as
forward air controllers for the task force, directing strikes by the Canberras, by
American fighter-bombers, or by the sixteen helicopter gunships in an Austral-
ian squadron at Vung Tau. Whether incorporating air strikes in their operational
149
plan or calling for air strikes to meet an emergency, task force officers proved
reluctant, excessively so in the opinion of some American airmen, to call for
strafing or bombing in close proximity to their own troops. The Australians,
however, made extensive use of aerial reconnaissance, for example using Vung
Tau-based helicopters, fitted with a people sniffer, to detect enemy troops at
night for attack by artillery or air.
Besides the helicopters and light bombers, the Royal Australian Air Force
operated a squadron of a half-dozen de Havilland Caribou transports, essentially
the same aircraft as the U.S. Air Force C–7A. Although the Americans had inte-
grated the Caribou unit into a centralized airlift control system, they had
promised to give first consideration to the needs of the Australian task force in
assigning missions to the squadron. In general, the Australians and New Zea-
landers flying the Caribou did the same work as their American equivalents,
delivering cargo, carrying troops and occasionally dropping South Vietnamese
paratroopers, helping move refugee families, dispensing flares, and sometimes
bringing out sick or wounded from isolated camps or villages.12
Two other nations, Thailand and the Republic of Korea, had substantial
ground forces in South Vietnam, but made only minor contributions to the air
war. The South Koreans maintained a fleet of about two dozen miscellaneous
planes, used mainly on administrative missions. A pair of C–54s, the largest of
the group, sometimes flew wounded men back to South Korea.
Like their Australian counterparts, South Korean commanders made little
use of tactical aviation in close support of ground troops. Although aware of the
value of air strikes in suppressing enemy fire around a helicopter landing zone
or similar objective, the South Koreans seemed to distrust the accuracy of
fighter-bombers attacking close to their forces. Moreover, these troops main-
tained security among the villages between Qui Nhon and Phan Rang, a kind of
duty in which counterintelligence, the setting of ambushes, and aggressive
patrolling proved more effective than aerial attack.13
Thai combat leaders shared South Korean misgivings about bombing ac-
curacy and tended to call for immediate strikes only after troops had broken
contact and withdrawn some distance from the target. An innovation that helped
overcome this lack of confidence was the use, beginning in 1970, of Thai pilots
as forward air controllers. Normally, between five and ten officers, each on a
one-year tour of duty, flew O–2s provided by one of the Air Force tactical air
support squadrons. Instead of merely translating the conversation between an
American strike controller and a Thai commander on the ground, the Thai air-
man now dealt directly with his infantry comrades, obtaining clarification of
their situation and advising them of the ordnance available to help them. The
men on the ground could be confident that their requests were understood.
The Royal Thai Air Force had begun early in the war to send transport
crewmen to serve first with South Vietnamese squadrons and later in American
C–123K units. From just sixteen members, the contingent increased to a max-
150
imum of forty-five, with a one-year tour of duty remaining the rule. The exper-
ienced Thais considered themselves advisers, but to the South Vietnamese these
foreigners simply represented a source of replacements. In contrast, the Thai
pilots who had joined an American C–123K squadron received more suitable
recognition for their skills, becoming aircraft commanders or, if fluent enough
in English, pilot instructors.14
The types of aerial action undertaken by units from the United States and
other nations, the tactics they used, and in some cases the major battlefields
remained unchanged from the previous year. In 1969, the enemy again launched
a late winter offensive that included the bombardment of Saigon, a shelling that
killed twenty-two civilians, wounded twenty-eight, and contributed to President
Nixon’s decision to bomb the Cambodian bases in the Menu operation. This
time, however, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong conducted raids and
shelled objectives, instead of trying to seize towns and military installations as
they had attempted at Tet in 1968. Just fourteen major attacks took place in
early 1969, the most serious directed against Bien Hoa Air Base and the Army’s
depot and administrative center at nearby Long Binh.
A barrage that fell upon Bien Hoa in the early hours of February 23 des-
troyed two Air Force planes on the ground, damaged eight others, and served
to signal an abortive ground attack. Air Force security police, reinforced by U.S.
Army armored cavalry and aided by forward air controllers and Air Force gun-
ships, pounded the huts where the enemy appeared to be massing, and the antic-
ipated assault did not take place. On the morning of the 26th, however, two
North Vietnamese battalions tried to raid the base, but failed to breach the
perimeter defenses and instead entrenched themselves in nearby villages. After
loudspeaker broadcasts had urged the enemy to surrender and warned any civil-
ians still in their homes to flee, the South Vietnamese corps commander ap-
proved the destruction of the two communist-held villages. Air Force F–100s
and F–4s, directed by forward air controllers, joined South Vietnamese planes
and U.S. Army helicopter gunships in ending this particular threat to the base.
Enemy forces closing in on Long Binh encountered the same sort of resis-
tance that ended the danger to Bien Hoa. On the morning of February 23, local
security units blunted a ground attack launched in conjunction with an artillery
and rocket barrage. Later that day, tactical fighters helped rout a company of
Viet Cong and joined in an attack, successfully completed on the 25th, against
the fortified bunkers the enemy had used as an assembly area and supply point.
The strong defenses at Long Binh, manned in part by Thai troops, proved a sur-
prise to enemy soldiers, who had been assured that only clerks and typists
guarded the base.15
Although Bien Hoa, not far from Long Binh, was the only Air Force base
subjected to an infantry assault, shells, rockets, or small-arms fire struck Phan
Rang, Pleiku, Phu Cat, Da Nang, Cam Ranh Bay, and several lesser airfields
used by American airmen from the different services. The February attacks
151
killed four Americans, one of them a member of the Air Force, and destroyed
three Air Force planes — an O–1E at Dau Tieng and an F–100 and a U–10 at
Bien Hoa. The greatest loss of aircraft occurred among Army helicopters, nine
of which were destroyed on the airfield at Kontum.16
The attacks on Bien Hoa, Long Binh, Saigon, and the other towns or instal-
lations coincided with a renewal of pressure against the Special Forces camps
in the highlands along the western border of South Vietnam. In February 1969,
at the time of the late winter offensive, the North Vietnamese directed their fire
against the outpost at Ben Het, within howitzer range of Base Area 609 in Cam-
bodia, a hostile staging area soon to become a Menu target. From either side of
the Cambodian border, 100-mm guns commenced shelling the camp.
Faced with this threat, General Abrams invoked the rules of engagement
that permitted retaliation with tactical aircraft and artillery against hostile
gunners firing from Cambodian soil at American or South Vietnamese border
garrisons. Fighter-bombers attacked on February 24 and 25, destroying at least
one gun but failing to end the danger. Abrams wanted to use B–52s in defense
of Ben Het, but at this time, less than a month before the Menu operation began,
he could not obtain permission for the bombing, which might have alerted the
enemy to the raids that began in March. The shelling of Ben Het continued until
early March when the enemy advanced upon the camp, using Soviet-designed
amphibious light tanks in an unsuccessful attempt to overwhelm the defenders.
Confronted by heavier American armor and subjected to tactical air strikes, the
enemy broke off his attack. Essentially a probe of the defenses of the highlands,
rather than a serious attempt to overwhelm Ben Het, this North Vietnamese ef-
fort served mainly as the prelude to further action later in the year.17
While helping the South Vietnamese retain Ben Het as an outpost from
which to contest infiltration by way of Cambodia, General Abrams continued
the effort to impede the passage of North Vietnamese troops and cargo through
the A Shau Valley, relying exclusively on air power to accomplish this objec-
tive. In December 1968, some six weeks after the roads in southern Laos had
dried following the seasonal rains and traffic toward the A Shau Valley in-
creased, the Seventh Air Force sought to establish three interdiction points on
Route 548, over which men and cargo could travel the length of the valley.
Planners chose the usual kind of choke points where the road appeared vulner-
able to bombing and bypasses seemed difficult to construct. The northernmost
interdiction point embraced a stretch of highway that hugged a cliff, the central
point encompassed the narrowest part of the valley, and the southern one
covered a segment of road that followed the crest of a narrow ridge. Severing
the route at these three places marked just the first step, for the planning group
intended to harass repair crews and attack any truck convoys moving cargo from
one cut to another for transshipment to South Vietnam.
As single manager for tactical combat aviation, General Brown could call
upon the Marines to use the Grumman A–6, with airborne radar capable of
152
A Marine Corps Grumman A–6 at Chu Lai Marine Base.

tracking a truck. Army OV–1 Mohawks, though not under Brown’s control,
scanned the valley with side-looking airborne radar, alerting a patrolling A–6
to any traffic they detected so that the Marine airmen could use their radar to
lock onto and attack the target. Air Force forward air controllers and Combat
Skyspot radar directed other strikes in the valley.18
Although carefully thought out and diligently executed, the aerial inter-
diction plan could only fail, a victim as much of geography as of enemy re-
sourcefulness. Those who drafted it thought they had chosen the best possible
choke points, and initially they had, but within the valley a number of trails or
paths could be improved to accept truck traffic, forcing the planners to select
new interdiction sites to keep pace with an expanding road net. Despite ridges
and cliffs, the A Shau Valley, even at its narrowest, afforded room to maneuver
around the increasing number of cuts. In fact, North Vietnamese engineers dem-
onstrated they could construct a bypass overnight and move almost as quickly
to close a cut in the main road, working despite aerial harassment, delayed
action bombs, tear gas, and even mines.19 By the end of February, with road
traffic reaching a seasonal peak in adjacent parts of Laos, the valley again
became “a hot spot of enemy activity” that could be dealt with only on the
ground.20
The first attempt during 1969 to use ground forces to impede enemy move-
ment through the A Shau began late in January when the 9th Marines, in Opera-
tion Dewey Canyon, attacked toward the Laotian border and the entrance to the
valley. Whenever the skies above the battleground cleared, Marine airborne
controllers directed their fellow aviators against North Vietnamese artillery.
Unfortunately, clouds blanketed the northern A Shau about half the time, pro-
viding concealment that enabled the enemy to continue using the roads and
trails funneling into the valley. Unobserved Marine artillery fire, B–52 sorties
directed by Air Force Combat Skyspot radar, and fighter attacks controlled by
Marine Corps radar operators with the regiment could do little more than harass
the North Vietnamese.
153
The Air Force contributed in several ways to Dewey Canyon, which ended
in mid-March. Four times gunships went to the aid of Marine infantrymen under
attack by night, flare ships flew fourteen illumination missions, and the radio
relay aircraft linked the 9th Marines with higher headquarters.21 The B–52s
attempted for the most part to disrupt supply lines, but the Marines who later
advanced through one of the target boxes found that the enemy was making the
best of what must have been a harrowing experience. Lt. Col. George C. Fox,
a Marine battalion commander, reported that North Vietnamese engineers were
taking advantage of the destruction caused by the bombing, using downed trees
to corduroy roads and storing cargo in bomb craters.22
During Dewey Canyon, the leader of an element of Air Force F–105s lined
up on smoke from a forward air controller’s marking rocket and took aim on a
target that lay within a free-fire zone inside Laos. Before the two planes could
release their bombs, a radio message, relayed by the controller, warned that the
troops below were American. Even as he was breaking off the attack by his
F–105s, the leader protested that anyone on the ground in this part of Laos had
to be an enemy, but in this instance he was wrong. The commanding officer of
the 9th Marines, Col. Robert H. Barrow, had sent patrols beyond the border into
southern Laos, an action that his superiors approved, but word had not reached
the direct air support center or the Air Force squadrons flying missions in the
area. If the F–105 pilots were surprised, so, too, were the North Vietnamese, for
the probe resulted in the destruction of a large quantity of supplies cached along
a road inside Laos and awaiting shipment through the A Shau Valley.23
The second part of the ground interdiction effort, Operation Massachusetts
Striker, attacked the southern part of the A Shau. Once again, the action took the
form of a raid designed to disrupt traffic and destroy supplies rather than an
attempt to seal off the valley. On March 1, 1969, reinforced elements of an air-
borne brigade established the first of a planned series of fire support bases, so
that troops leapfrogging by helicopter could enjoy artillery as well as air support
as they advanced into the valley. Scarcely had this first outpost been completed
when clouds descended upon the A Shau, blinding Air Force forward air con-
trollers, forcing the attackers to rely upon radar controlled air strikes and
unobserved artillery fire, and delaying subsequent moves for about ten days.
Once the operations plan began unfolding in its successive stages, Air Force
C–130s dropped 10,000-pound bombs to blast helicopter landing zones on for-
ested hilltops. Army engineers enlarged two of these zones into artillery fire
support bases that functioned throughout the rest of the operation, which ended
on May 8, some 250 of the enemy killed, almost six tons of rice captured, and
several North Vietnamese trucks and other pieces of equipment destroyed.24
During Massachusetts Striker, the Air Force performed much as it had
during the previous year’s raids into the A Shau. Forward air controllers spent
more than 500 hours aloft, two-thirds of that time actually handling strike air-
craft. Attacks by some 500 fighters lashed the southern reaches of the valley
154
with three million pounds of munitions — incendiary weapons, high-explosive

bombs, and 20-mm shells.25
The third raid into the A Shau Valley during 1969, Operation Apache
Snow, began two days after Massachusetts Striker ended. The objective this
time was the central part of the valley, the area generally west of A Luoi and Ta
Bat, where Air Force forward air controllers had been reporting signs of recur-
ring truck traffic. This evidence, backed by statements from a captured North
Vietnamese soldier, convinced Army Capt. Robert Fredericks, intelligence
officer for the brigade scheduled to attack in this area, that a large supply depot
lay concealed on a ridge about five miles northwest of A Luoi, rather than on
the valley floor as previously believed. Capt. Albert W. Estes and other forward
air controllers working with this unit, the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division,
located the dump, nicknamed Warehouse 54. Strikes by tactical fighters and
B–52s, followed by a reconnaissance in force by troops landed from helicopters,
revealed a series of caches and defensive strongpoints extending from this ridge
south toward the border with Laos.26
Despite the preliminary fighting around Warehouse 54, the main assault on
the central A Shau Valley seemed to catch the enemy off guard, for opposition
proved light at the landing zones. Three American and two South Vietnamese
battalions touched down in areas cleared of scrub growth by 1,000-pound and
3,000-pound bombs fitted with fuse extenders to detonate just above the ground.
As the operation progressed, the fighting became more intense, and American
commanders soon realized that Ap Bia, a mountain about three miles southwest
of A Luoi, was the key to the North Vietnamese defenses. Not until May 12,
however, had the airborne forces secured the approaches and fought their way
into position to storm the redoubt.27
Ap Bia, which crested 937 meters above sea level, derived its importance
not from its height — other nearby peaks towered above it — but from the fact
that North Vietnamese troops had turned it into a fortress. When the American
commander decided that the enemy force entrenched there was too dangerous
to cordon off or somehow neutralize, the objective became the killing of North
Vietnamese rather than the capture of the height itself. The defenders had con-
structed two basic kinds of bunkers, built from logs and covered with sod, that
studded Ap Bia’s slopes. The smaller kind measured four feet on a side, had
eight to sixteen inches of overhead cover, and featured firing ports to the front
and two outside foxholes from which riflemen could fight off attacks from the
flanks or rear. The larger variety, measuring eight by ten feet with a roof one
foot thick, had firing positions at the front and an area at the rear for sleeping.
Instead of being cube-shaped, both types resembled pyramids, which made the
structures easier to camouflage and gave them greater resistance to explosions.28
So formidable were the fortifications of Ap Bia that the attackers had to
commit four battalions to a struggle that lasted until May 20. Of an estimated
700 to 800 North Vietnamese defenders, about 600 fought until killed in their
155
bunkers or foxholes, while only two surrendered. American losses on the hill
and its approaches numbered fifty-six killed and 420 wounded, even though air
strikes and artillery barrages had pounded the mountain. Because so many sol-
diers had been killed or wounded in what seemed like a meat-grinder operation,
the airborne troops nicknamed the objective Hamburger Hill, a title that caught
on with press and public.29
“Seldom in . . . . any . . . . battle,” concluded a report on the fighting, “had
TAC air been employed so massively as in the battle of Dong [Mount] Ap
Bia.”30 The assault force had been unable, however, to take advantage of the
numbing shock of B–52 strikes. Because preliminary aerial reconnaissance had
not revealed this strongpoint, the bombers made no strikes before Apache Snow
began, and once the airborne battalions had begun fighting their way to the
summit, the safety margin required for B–52 strikes no longer existed. At night,
AC–47s dropping flares and AC–119Gs fitted with searchlights illuminated the
mountainside and trained their multibarrel guns on the counterattacking North
Vietnamese. Besides the gunships, fighter-bombers made some 270 strikes,
dropping a million pounds of munitions, including delayed action bombs, which
could bury themselves among the timbers of a bunker roof before exploding,
and napalm, which burned away camouflage and could consume the oxygen
within the shelters. However, of some 600 North Vietnamese killed during the
fight for Ap Bia, only forty-seven could be listed as definitely killed by tactical
air strikes. In addition to the Air Force planes, Army helicopters took part in the
battle, conducting treetop reconnaissance, evacuating wounded, broadcasting
surrender appeals, and dropping tear gas among the fortifications.31
After the capture of Ap Bia, Operation Apache Snow continued until June
7, when the Americans and South Vietnamese withdrew from the A Shau Val-
ley, never to return, save for an ineffectual probe two years later. Hamburger
Hill joined Khe Sanh on the list of battlefields abandoned after a great invest-
ment in blood and effort. The A Shau Valley campaign of 1969 proved impor-
tant not because of any innovations in the use of air power, since there were
none, or because of the more than 700 enemy killed and the tons of supplies
destroyed. Hamburger Hill had its greatest impact on politics — and ultimately
on the conduct of the war — for a flurry of criticism soon erupted in Congress.32
When Senator Edward M. Kennedy learned of the struggle for the mountain
and the fact that American forces had promptly abandoned it, he condemned the
attack as “senseless and irresponsible.” To the Massachusetts Democrat, the
battle seemed a waste of lives to gain a temporary success that, because of the
withdrawal, could have no lasting effect on the course of the war. His Demo-
cratic colleague, Mike Mansfield of Montana, added that, though objectives like
Ap Bia are gained and lost many times, human lives are lost just once.33
Senator J. William Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat, asked to see the
specific directive under which General Abrams was fighting the war, in order
to determine whether actions like the Hamburger Hill fighting were indeed auth-
156
orized. On the Republican side, Dr. Kissinger suggested shifting the military
emphasis from sharing in the defense of South Vietnam, which recognized the
need for operations like those in the A Shau Valley, to preparing the South
Vietnamese to defend themselves, a change that would inevitably reduce Amer-
ican casualties. In short, Kissinger sought to neutralize the critics by stressing
the shift of responsibility to the South Vietnamese, a program begun by the
Johnson administration and accelerated when Nixon took office.34
The controversy stemming from the fight for Hamburger Hill and the
decision to redefine the Vietnam commitment in terms of training rather than
combat may well have been on President Nixon’s mind when he made a brief
visit to Saigon in July 1969. While there, he modified the instructions to
General Abrams to reflect Dr. Kissinger’s reaction to Senator Fulbright’s
request. Instead of the former goal of preserving South Vietnam from com-
munism, Nixon emphasized handing over to improved South Vietnamese forces
a progressively greater role in fighting the war, a policy that President Thieu
had already accepted. “Under the new orders,” Nixon explained to the American
public, “the primary mission of our troops is to enable South Vietnamese forces
to assume the full responsibility for the security of South Vietnam.”35
The battle for Hamburger Hill, which had prompted the President to an-
nounce this change in emphasis, represented but a single element in one of three
related efforts in the A Shau Valley and its northern approaches — by the 9th
Marines in the north; the 2d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division in the south; and
the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division at Ap Bia Mountain in the center. As
these were drawing to a close, the enemy again demonstrated his annoyance
with the Special Forces camps astride other infiltration routes.
During May 1969, coinciding with a spring offensive, North Vietnamese
tanks, infantry, and artillery again massed near Ben Het, which lay within ten
miles of the meeting point of the borders of South Vietnam, Cambodia, and
Laos. The portents of an impending attack on Ben Het lent urgency to the inter-
diction of roads and trails in the vicinity of the camp. Such a campaign had
begun in January with the establishment of an Air Force special interdiction
program, which permitted pilots to attack after obtaining clearance from only
the commander of the major ground unit in whose sector the target had ap-
peared. Clearance from the province chief was no longer necessary, for all non-
combatants were believed to have fled the region around Ben Het. The main
concern, therefore, was to avoid strikes on friendly patrols or outposts, and the
commander on the ground should know the locations of these.
By the end of June, intelligence indicated that motor traffic in the area had
declined some 90 percent, a reduction that Seventh Air Force analysts attributed
to air power alone, although seasonal rains probably helped impede movement.
This estimate of the impact of aerial interdiction may have been overly opti-
mistic, but the fact remained that enemy armor, now forced to travel over alter-
nate roads hacked through the jungle, did not again test Ben Het’s defenses.36
157
Fog persisted around Ben Het during mornings and thunderstorms drenched
the region each afternoon, conditions common at that time of year. With the
time that forward air controllers could work reduced, tactical strikes depended
heavily on radar control, essential for B–52 raids. During the year’s second
siege of Ben Het, B–52s enjoyed far greater freedom than before, bombing a
reported 140 targets on both sides of the Cambodian border. Menu attacks on
Base Area 609, Abrams believed, contributed directly to Ben Het’s survival.37
Targeting around Ben Het, especially for B–52 strikes in South Vietnamese
territory, became increasingly difficult as the siege wore on, for friendly out-
posts and patrols disappeared from the hills around the camp, depriving plan-
ners of a useful source of information. In anticipation of the U.S. withdrawals
planned for the summer, the region now formed part of the 24th Tactical Zone,
commanded by Col. Nguyen Ba Lien. Instead of probing North Vietnamese
positions menacing Ben Het and locating targets for air strikes, he pulled his
troops back into the camp itself or the nearby headquarters town of Dak To.
Because of his reliance on a passive defense, intelligence officers could not find
worthwhile targets for all the available B–52 sorties.38
By calling in his troops, the colonel yielded control of the ridges that over-
looked Ben Het. Hostile antiaircraft crews took advantage of the absence of any
threat on the ground and set up their weapons to cover the approaches to the air-
strip. At the beginning of June, the C–7As supplying the base could no longer
land to unload. Afterward, the transports either parachuted their cargo from
medium altitude or roared along the runway at an altitude of a few feet and re-
leased an extraction chute that snatched a heavily laden pallet through the rear
hatch. Even though they no longer landed, the cargo craft required an escort of
fighter-bombers to suppress enemy fire.
For much of the siege, a forward air controller met the approaching cargo
planes and shepherded them, spaced fifteen minutes apart, over the camp, while
two F–4s stood by to pounce on any antiaircraft battery the controller might
spot. In spite of these precautions, North Vietnamese gunners scored hits on six
C–7As and wounded three crewmen during the first three weeks of June. To
deal with the threat, mission planners increased the number of strike aircraft,
made sure that fighters and forward air controllers arrived a few minutes before
the transports, and adjusted the tactics used by the C–7As and their escorts.
Beginning on June 27, the direct air support center used the available infor-
mation — principally visual sightings by air crews, since the South Vietnamese
had ceased patrolling — to pinpoint gun positions along the approaches to Ben
Het. Forward air controllers marked these for attack by the flak suppression
escort of F–4s, and other fighter-bombers placed a smoke screen over part of the
valley, blinding some of the gunners without obscuring the camp itself or the
road that served as a reference point for incoming pilots. Flying in clusters of
three or more, within which the individual aircraft were about one minute apart,
the transports headed for Ben Het. Two A–1 Skyraiders and an observation
158
plane carrying a forward air controller accompanied each group to mark and
silence any antiaircraft gun that opened fire. The powerfully escorted and
irregularly timed clusters seemed to work — even though one-minute separation
prevailed within each cluster — for the enemy scored just one hit on the forty-
five C–7As sent to the camp after the change went into effect.39
The siege of Ben Het ended on July 2, when the North Vietnamese relaxed
their pressure after some 1,800 tactical sorties had been flown in defense of the
camp, one-third of them radar controlled. The Air Force had been responsible
for about 90 percent of these, the South Vietnamese about 8 percent, and the re-
mainder were divided between U.S. Navy and Australian airmen. Although the
use of cover targets to conceal Menu strikes complicated the bookkeeping, the
number of B–52 sorties in defense of Ben Het totaled about 800, with almost
150 targets attacked. Gunships, AC–47s and AC–119Gs, averaged not quite two
sorties each night, firing more than 500,000 rounds into the hills overlooking
the camp. Sorties by C–7s averaged four per day; these aircraft delivered more
than 200 tons of cargo during the battle.40
From Ben Het, the enemy turned his attention to Bu Prang and Duc Lap,
Special Forces encampments in southern II Corps, across the border from Base
Area 740, another of the Menu targets in Cambodia. The aerial onslaught in
defense of the two camps began late in October, and by mid-December, when
the enemy broke contact, Air Force tactical fighters had dropped 3,000 tons of
bombs and B–52s dropped five times that weight. This explosive deluge did not
produce immediate effects, however, so that for a time early in December an
even greater aerial effort seemed necessary.41
By December 1, General Abrams was seeking permission for the B–52s to
hit targets in an area west of Bu Prang that was claimed by both South Vietnam
and Cambodia. Although Ambassador Bunker endorsed the strikes, Secretary
of State Rogers opposed the plan, apparently out of concern that the bombing
would become public knowledge because of press interest in the fate of Bu
Prang and, once publicized, be interpreted as an endorsement of South Viet-
nam’s claims to the land. Rogers’ view did not prevail, for Secretary of Defense
Laird obtained Presidential approval to begin the bombing. In deference to the
concerns of the Secretary of State, Laird directed that Menu security procedures
conceal the raids. At least two night missions attacked the disputed territory, but
reconnaissance photos failed to reveal any damage or casualties.42
Although exerting less pressure than against Ben Het or even Bu Prang,
hostile forces conducted operations along other parts of South Vietnam’s border
with Cambodia. The mountains at the southern edge of Chau Doc Province, site
of an airborne raid in 1968, served as a dry-season operating base for the Viet
Cong and as a place of refuge during the southwest monsoons, when heavy rains
inundated the rice lands in the area. In July 1969, as the seasonal rains were fal-
ling, General Abrams established two free-fire zones encompassing the moun-
tains. He gave air power the task of demoralizing the troops encamped there and
159
Bu Prang Special Forces Camp.

forcing them out onto the flooded plain to escape the bombs. There, South Viet-
namese ambush parties guarded the earthen dikes upon which the enemy would
have to flee across the paddies.
An Air Force command post at the Chui Lang Special Forces camp directed
the operation, nicknamed Alpine. An Army intelligence officer suggested tar-
gets based on infrared and radar coverage by OV–1 Mohawks, reports from
agents, and activations of electronic sensors. The Air Force duty officer at the
camp selected the proposed strikes that he considered worthwhile and radioed
the IV Direct Air Support Center to arrange the sorties.
During the campaign, Air Force tactical aircraft executed some 300 strikes,
more than one-third of them in the first eight days. Rain and low-hanging clouds
spawned by the southwest monsoon impeded the efforts of forward air control-
lers, who directed no more than sixty strikes. Radar operators at Combat Sky-
spot sites handled the remaining tactical fighter missions plus thirty-six B–52
sorties. The big bombers had rarely hit targets in the densely populated IV
Corps, but in this instance the enemy occupied a redoubt isolated from friendly
or potentially friendly villages.
Since South Vietnamese troops did not probe the approaches to the Alpine
area until the rains abated in first week of August and made no attempt to seize
the mountain encampments, the assessment of results depended, as was so often
the case, on fragmentary reports by scouts and intelligence agents, who listed
some 350 Viet Cong soldiers and laborers killed. A patrol reported finding
another forty-one bodies, and interrogations of the few men captured in the
vicinity indicated that the aerial bombardment had hurt enemy morale. The
southwest monsoon season ended, however, with the base area firmly in Viet
Cong hands and its link with the depots in Cambodia still intact.43
160
Chapter Ten
Improving the South Vietnamese Air Force
While conducting combat operations like Alpine, the Air Force helped pre-
pare the South Vietnamese air arm to assume a greater share of responsibility
for fighting the war. In imposing restrictions on the bombing of North Vietnam
(in effect, placing a ceiling on U.S. participation in the conflict) President
Johnson set in motion an effort to strengthen South Vietnam’s armed forces. In
the spring of 1968, American planners converted the President’s policy into a
plan for improvement and modernization based on the assumption that the war
would continue with the U.S. role basically unchanged, although the South
Vietnamese would assume a larger role in the ground fighting as rapidly as
possible.
This so-called phase I plan preserved an existing imbalance in the compo-
sition of South Vietnam’s defense forces. Ground strength remained dispropor-
tionately large in comparison to the air and naval establishments, an acceptable
arrangement as long as the United States continued to exert its air and naval
might on behalf of its ally. Phase I called for the addition of just four UH–1H
helicopter squadrons to the twenty-squadron South Vietnamese Air Force. Be-
sides expanding by a total of 124 helicopters, the air arm would undergo a de-
gree of modernization: T–41 trainers replacing some of the older U–17s, four
H–34 squadrons converting to UH–1Hs, a C–47 transport squadron reequipping
with the AC–47 gunship, and three A–1 squadrons receiving jet-powered A–37s
in place of their propeller-driven Skyraiders. These changes increased by some
41 percent the authorized number of aircraft, but after the various increases and
substitutions, all but two of the additional aircraft were helicopters, but flown
by the U.S. Air Force to lend mobility to the South Vietnamese army.1
When the negotiations, to which President Johnson had committed the
country, produced a settlement, U.S. forces would withdraw, knocking away the
underpinning of the phase I force structure. A new plan was needed, one that
would enable South Vietnam to defend itself after a peace treaty, when the
opposition would consist of Viet Cong insurgents supplied from the North and
strengthened by any North Vietnamese regulars remaining behind after an
agreed withdrawal.
161
To deal largely on its own with this type of threat, similar to the conditions
that had existed before 1965, South Vietnam would require a better balance
among the armed forces. General Abrams therefore proposed enlarging the
nation’s air arm to forty squadrons — the existing twenty, the four to be added
under phase I, and sixteen others — all of which would be in service by July
1974. The latest additions formed the aerial component of a phase II plan aimed
at filling those gaps in the overall force structure that would appear as U.S. units
withdrew, leaving South Vietnam to cope with an insurrection supported from
abroad. Besides an additional five helicopter squadrons — for a total augmenta-
tion of nine — phase II called for three new squadrons of A–37s, four of trans-
ports (all but one flying C–123s), an AC–119G gunship unit, and three liaison
squadrons equipped with planes suitable for use by forward air controllers. The
new plan would double the current number of South Vietnamese squadrons,
more than double the total number of aircraft, and increase the authorized man-
ning from the present 17,000, beyond the 21,000 authorized for phase I, to a
new figure of 32,600.2
Abrams believed that these additions, plus the F–5 and A–37 strike aircraft
and CH–47 helicopters already scheduled for delivery, would enable the South
Vietnamese air arm to conduct operations in the Republic of Vietnam similar
to those conducted by the air forces of both the United States and South Viet-
nam in 1964 and 1965. The AC–47 and AC–119 gunship force were believed
sufficient for base defense and the support of ground operations, and by July
1974 the fighter arm would have achieved satisfactory strength and skill, even
though the F–5, the first of which had arrived in South Vietnam during 1965,
would have to double as strike fighter and interceptor. The planned number of
helicopters seemed adequate, moreover, to permit airmobile operations against
“insurgency activity.” The planned liaison units, which included forward air
controllers, and the transport squadrons did not have enough aircraft, however,
and General Abrams acknowledged that the proposed reconnaissance force, a
half-dozen RF–5s, could not cover an area the size of South Vietnam. The U.S.
Air Force would have to compensate somehow for these obvious weaknesses.3
Although the stronger air arm would improve the balance among South
Vietnam’s armed services, phase II could not bring about overall military self-
sufficiency, a point that Abrams conceded. In spite of this failing, Deputy Secre-
tary of Defense Paul Nitze approved the plan as suitable for existing conditions,
though pointing out that circumstances were certain to change. Indeed, Nitze
suggested the possible need for a plan to deal with a postwar insurgency less
violent and widespread than the fighting envisioned in phase II. Also, Abrams
warned that the President’s October 1968 decision to suspend air and naval
bombardment throughout the North might result in such rapid progress toward
a cease-fire that the phase II effort would have to be accelerated.4
After considering the points raised by Nitze and Abrams, the Joint Chiefs
of Staff on January 4, 1969, presented the outgoing administration a plan for
162
A South Vietnamese A–37.

changing the target date for completion of phase II from July 1974 to July 1972.
They next gave incoming President Nixon’s newly chosen advisers the kind of
plan for a diminished insurgency that former Deputy Secretary Nitze had re-
quested, though they recommended abandoning this proposal in favor of an ac-
celerated phase II, as suggested by General Abrams, for this seemed a more
prudent course than preparing exclusively for sporadic guerrilla warfare.5
When President Nixon entered the White House, he had Kissinger review
the progress being made in South Vietnam. The investigation, which took the
form of questions to the agencies responsible for waging the war, included an
examination of the status of the South Vietnamese armed forces. As was com-
mon during the Vietnam war, the experts disagreed. On the one hand, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, the Pacific Command, the Department of State, and the Military
Assistance Command, Vietnam, maintained that South Vietnam’s armed ser-
vices were making “reasonable progress” toward becoming “a self-sufficient
force able to hold its own against the VC [Viet Cong] threat.” On the other
hand, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of Secretary of Defense,
although acknowledging that the South Vietnamese military establishment had
grown in numbers and firepower, insisted that the nation’s armed forces had
made only “limited progress,” leaving many weaknesses uncorrected.6
Whatever their present failings, the South Vietnamese forces would have
to become more proficient and more aggressive, and do so quickly, if President
Nixon were to Vietnamize the war, reducing American casualties while main-
taining enough pressure on the enemy to prod him toward a negotiated settle-
ment. Instead of being concerned, as former Deputy Secretary Nitze had been,
about a postwar insurgency, Secretary of Defense Laird now emphasized a rapid
buildup of South Vietnamese strength so that sizeable American contingents
could leave Southeast Asia during 1969. Laird’s political experience in the
House of Representatives no doubt alerted him to the need for acceleration.
Dissension over the Vietnam war had, after all, divided the Democratic party’s
nominating convention at Chicago, triggered violence in the streets of that city,
and, if it had not helped Nixon at the polls, it had certainly handicapped his op-
163
ponent. Increasing domestic opposition to the war — which had opened gaping
cracks in the Democratic party’s coalition — served as a warning that a leisurely
buildup of South Vietnamese forces to take over the defense of their nation
would not be possible. Indeed, South Vietnam might have to accept greater
responsibility for waging the war before the North Vietnamese had withdrawn
entirely from the country. The United States, Laird believed, would have to act
immediately to strengthen the South Vietnamese armed forces so they could
begin replacing American combat units during the coming months. The kind of
acceleration that General Abrams had mentioned in November 1968 was
coming to pass, but the change resulted from political realities at home rather
than from progress at the Paris talks.7
In April 1969, the Department of Defense issued instructions to accelerate
the phase II improvement and modernization plan, as the Joint Chiefs of Staff
had proposed three months earlier. Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard
declared that, “Vietnamizing the war should have the highest priority.” He
warned, however, that the United States, besides providing the needed equip-
ment, would have to make sure that the South Vietnamese knew how to operate,
employ, and maintain it.8
The government of South Vietnam agreed to reduced American strength on
the battlefield in return for more and better weapons and appropriate training.
On June 8, 1969, not quite three weeks after the Hamburger Hill fighting, Presi-
dents Nixon and Thieu met on Midway Island and discussed both the with-
drawal of American troops and the arming and training of South Vietnamese to
take over a greater share of the fighting. Although the controversy surrounding
that battle lent immediacy to the topic of Vietnamization, the Nixon plan had
been in the works since January and could trace its antecedents back to the
Johnson administration.
Although amenable to the idea of Vietnamization, President Thieu had
ideas of his own about the kind of weapons his armed forces required. In ac-
ceding to an American reduction in strength, he offered a plan of his own for
modernizing the military services, asking for what the Joint Chiefs of Staff
termed “appreciable quantities of sophisticated and costly equipment,” in-
cluding F–4 fighters and C–130 transports. If South Vietnam received these air-
craft and the other weapons he sought, the nation would have the means to play
a more nearly decisive role in the struggle against the combined forces of North
Vietnam and the Viet Cong. Granted that this was the very objective that Nixon
sought, the Joint Chiefs did not believe it could be attained as rapidly or as
easily as President Thieu seemed to think, and certainly not by merely handing
the South Vietnamese deadlier but far more complex aircraft and other weapons.
To American eyes, Thieu appeared to be trying to move too fast. Compared
to their American counterparts, members of South Vietnam’s armed forces
seemed to lack the technical skills necessary to make effective use of the wea-
ponry the nation’s chief executive desired. Nor did the phase II plan, now to be
164
President Richard M. Nixon (left) and President Nguyen Van Thieu.

accelerated, envision the South Vietnamese promptly taking on the aggregate
strength of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. However desirable this might be
as an ultimate goal, the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not believe that mere weapons
could, “in view of such problems as leadership and desertion,” enable South
Vietnam to “take over major fighting responsibility against the current threat.”9
A review of the Thieu proposal by General Abrams resulted in a recommen-
dation that the United States turn down almost every request. The South Viet-
namese air arm would have to do without F–4s and C–130s, additional VC–47
transports for high-ranking officials, coastal surveillance aircraft, and a search
and rescue organization like that operated by the U.S. Air Force. Thieu’s
ambitious plan did, however, generate an additional $160 million in American
military aid to improve logistics support and also produced a decision to speed-
up previously authorized recruiting, adding some 4,000 men to the South Viet-
namese Air Force by June 1970.10
Although Secretary Laird accepted the views of General Abrams and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff on the kinds of equipment South Vietnam should receive,
he saw acceleration of the phase II effort as signaling a fundamental change of
purpose in the modernization project. “Earlier . . . modernization and improve-
ment programs,” he wrote, “were designed to provide a balanced and self-
sufficient . . . force capable of meeting insurgency requirements and were based
on the assumption that U.S., Allied, and North Vietnamese forces would with-
draw from South Vietnam. Now the object of Vietnamization is to transfer pro-
gressively to the Republic of Vietnam all aspects of the war, assuming current
levels of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces remain in the Republic of
Vietnam and assuming U.S. force deployments [back to the United States]
continue.”11
165
Throughout the rest of 1969, the United States pushed ahead with acceler-
ated phase II modernization and improvement. The U.S. Air Force Advisory
Group, headed by a brigadier general who reported to an Army officer on the
staff of the military assistance command, assumed responsibility for Viet-
namizing the air war. General Brown, the senior Air Force officer in Southeast
Asia, remained outside the formal advisory structure, at least in theory, for he
dealt with operations, whether as Seventh Air Force commander or as deputy
for air to General Abrams and single manager for tactical combat aviation. He
did not, according to the organization charts, serve as principal air adviser to the
South Vietnam’s armed forces; but in actual practice, he pointed out, “There
was never a major decision taken or action on the Vietnamese air force program
that I wasn’t a party to in my two years under General Abrams.” Whatever the
organizational diagrams might indicate, the Seventh Air Force commander was
“totally responsible, and the advisory group commander works for him.” Gen-
eral Brown harbored no doubts that “if there was a problem with the advisory
group, I was the guy that was responsible.”12
As to the mechanics of Vietnamization, General Brown expressed confi-
dence that new squadrons would take shape on time and improved equipment
would arrive on schedule. He warned, however, that a modernized and strength-
ened air arm would differ greatly from the combined American and South Viet-
namese air forces currently fighting the war. In the future, South Vietnam’s air-
men would have to rely on their own leaders and planners in wielding an aerial
weapon considerably less devastating than the American armada of strike and
support aircraft that had helped fight the battles of 1968 and 1969. If South
Vietnam were to survive, the United States, while reducing its own participation
in combat, would have to help reduce the communist threat to a level the South
Vietnamese could handle. This reduction, General Brown believed, would re-
quire more than purely military measures; economic reform and political devel-
opment were essential, better trained police had to create a climate of security,
and the Viet Cong leadership had to be ferreted out and destroyed.13
Since he was in overall charge of the entire assistance effort, General
Abrams, after consulting with General Brown, established priorities for the
South Vietnamese Air Force. Emphasis rested on the activation of helicopter
units and the training of pilots and technicians. The air arm was to recruit up to
the recently authorized level of 32,600 as rapidly as this increase could be
absorbed.14
The South Vietnamese tended to follow the American pattern in structuring
their armed forces, but the assignment of control over helicopters proved an
exception. Even though General Westmoreland had intended the machines pri-
marily for airmobile operations by South Vietnamese army troops, the heli-
copter squadrons formed a major component of South Vietnam’s air force. The
reasons for this decision remained unclear, though Brig. Gen. Kendall S.
Young, chief of the Air Force advisory group, believed that Vice President Ky,
166
a former commander of the air force, had influenced the choice. In any event,
U.S. Air Force advisers had to assume responsibility for teaching tactics that
their service did not use.15
The helicopter program, launched by General Westmoreland early in 1968,
had already resulted in the conversion of two squadrons from the old Sikorsky
H–34 to the Bell UH–1. Since the U.S. Air Force lacked experience in planning
and staging helicopter assault operations, the teams that trained the reequipped
units had to include Army airmen. The squadrons, both located in IV Corps,
made the transition from the kind of special operations that the U.S. Air Force
conducted, such as landing patrols or raiding parties, to airmobile combat, a
specialty of the U.S. Army. The change in mission went smoothly and increased
the mobility and striking power of South Vietnamese ground forces in that tac-
tical zone. The successful retraining of these two squadrons provided a pattern
for the conversion of four more H–34 units during phase I modernization, using
UH–1 helicopters shipped to South Vietnam for the U.S. Army, and the addition
of one CH–47 and four UH–1 squadrons in phase II.16
Coordination between South Vietnamese air and ground elements on the
use of helicopters broke down only rarely, but such a failure took place at Binh
Thuy on one occasion, when the base commander refused to allow army assault
troops onto his installation in time for unhurried and detailed planning of an air
assault. In general, Air Force advisory teams, with the help of officers made
available by the U.S. Army, succeeded in transferring American air assault con-
cepts and tactics to the South Vietnamese. For each specific operation, South
Vietnam’s air force made an appropriate number of gunship, transport, and
command helicopters available to the corps headquarters that was mounting the
attack. The corps tactical operations center, where the South Vietnamese air
service had representation, drew up an overall plan and handed it to the direct
air support center, which then issued orders to South Vietnamese helicopters
and fighter-bombers.17
Like General Westmoreland, General Abrams insisted that the primary mis-
sion of South Vietnam’s new UH–1 helicopters was to carry men and provide
firepower for airborne assault. Second priority, according to General Abrams,
went to medical evacuation. Any helicopters not needed for these activities
might deliver cargo to isolated installations or to tactical units.18
All potential mechanics and pilots, whether for helicopters or other aircraft,
had to have a basic understanding of English, for most of the operating and
technical manuals sent to South Vietnam were written in that language, and
most undergraduate pilot training took place in the United States. A technical
translation branch, established by the earliest U.S. advisers in 1955, attempted
to keep pace with a seemingly endless flood of publications. The hundred or so
South Vietnamese civilians employed by the branch became skillful enough to
translate a moderate-size manual in twenty-four hours. They eventually turned
out translations cheaper, an average of $400 per publication, as well as faster
167
A new South Vietnamese UH–1 helicopter at Binh Thuy Air Base.

than was possible in the United States, outperforming even a computerized sys-
tem devised for automated translation.19
Because students from all over the world crowded the Defense Language
Institute’s course in English, offered at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, the
military assistance command arranged for additional language classes at Saigon
and Nha Trang. Attending class in their own country spared young South Viet-
namese the cultural shock of being flown halfway around the world, deposited
in an alien society, and told to learn a difficult subject. By remaining in South
Vietnam, U.S. experts believed, the students would need less fluency in conver-
sational English, allowing them to concentrate on technical terms rather than on
placing an order at a McDonald’s and otherwise getting along in the midst of an
English-speaking populace.
Despite the attempt to teach English in South Vietnam, individuals chosen
for undergraduate pilot training in the United States often reached their destina-
tion without the necessary language skill. Although it avoided a clash of cul-
tures, training in South Vietnam allowed students to escape true immersion in
the English language, for they had easy access to friends, family, and even mer-
chants, who spoke only Vietnamese. To make up for this weakness, the lan-
guage institute at Lackland inaugurated a remedial course designed to help indi-
viduals acquire the minimum vocabulary necessary for flight instruction. In ad-
dition, the Air Force and Army were trying to reduce the minimum still further,
cutting away any linguistic frills that might remain.20
Although the corrective program and streamlined curriculum helped, profi-
ciency in English remained an obstacle that barred many candidates from spec-
ialized training. During the fiscal year ending in June 1969, some 650 South
168
Vietnamese began English language instruction, but roughly 30 percent failed.

Some received a second chance; others forfeited the opportunity to learn to fly
or to acquire a technical skill.21
The language barrier had to be overcome, for acceleration of phase II mod-
ernization depended upon intensive training, almost all of it given by American
instructors. The South Vietnamese Air Force had no cadre of veterans to pass
on what they had learned and guide the service through a period of rapid expan-
sion. Half the enlisted airmen had served a year or less, and more than half had
yet to complete basic or specialized training. Three of every four officers were
lieutenants, and some 25 percent were themselves undergoing instruction of one
sort or another.
The arguments in favor of teaching English in South Vietnam applied to
other subjects as well. A training center at Nha Trang Air Base operated six
schools with some 2,250 students in subjects that ranged from the duties of the
forward air controller to the repair of electronic equipment and included Eng-
lish. Another 1,000 South Vietnamese Air Force trainees were undergoing
instruction at operating wings during a typical period of 1969. At those bases
where American and South Vietnamese units served side by side, members of
the U.S. Air Force did the teaching. If the students had difficulty understanding
English, an interpreter translated the lessons, which dealt with such topics as
photo processing, civil engineering, base defense, fire fighting, weather fore-
casting, air traffic control, intelligence, and security.
Undergraduate pilot training did not take place in South Vietnam, though
refresher courses and transition instruction were available. Until the nation’s
security became more stable, combat rather than training received first priority.
Since the South Vietnamese armed forces seemed to be gaining the upper hand
in the vicinity of Nha Trang, U.S. Air Force advisers were working on a plan to
train liaison pilots for O–1 squadrons at that base, beginning in the spring of
1970. At about the same time, helicopter pilots would also begin receiving their
initial instruction in South Vietnam, probably at Vung Tau. Rather than agree
to interfere with the application of South Vietnamese air power, Seventh Air
Force headquarters flatly opposed a suggestion by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that
South Vietnam cut back on air operations, thus freeing pilots to serve as instruc-
tors. Nothing came of this proposal, which would have exchanged current com-
bat effectiveness for an easing of language problems and the possibility of an
increase in the number of aviators at some time in the future.22
The transfer to the South Vietnamese of the air bases at Nha Trang, Binh
Thuy, and Pleiku had begun when 1969 ended. The shift of Nha Trang enjoyed
the highest priority, and by mid-October, all U.S. Air Force flying units had
departed, leaving behind some 800 men to operate the base until the formal
transfer of authority scheduled for the summer of 1970. The South Vietnamese
flying units based there would form the 2d Air Division, supported by its own
maintenance and supply wing. At Binh Thuy, the establishment of South Viet-
169
A South Vietnamese O–1 near Da Nang.

namese liaison squadrons to operate there encountered delays, though the
change of status was expected to take place as planned late in 1970. An Air
Force A–1 squadron left Pleiku in December 1969, part of a realignment that
accompanied the year’s reduction in American troop strength, as did the base
rescue helicopters, but the airfield would not change hands until 1972, when it
was scheduled to become the third air base operated by the South Vietnamese.23
Responsibility for these bases included providing protection against both
shelling and ground attack. At Nha Trang, an Air Force advisory team chief
found the South Vietnamese cooperative and enthusiastic, taking over the defen-
sive perimeter, installing additional floodlights, and laying more barbed wire.24
In contrast, work lagged on the building of revetments for South Vietnamese
planes at Tan Son Nhut, among the last of six air bases that the Americans
would yield, apparently because of a belief that construction of these protective
structures would be a waste of time, since the United States would replace any
aircraft the enemy might destroy. Months of patient persuasion finally got the
revetment program moving again.25
The conversion of the South Vietnamese air logistics wing into a logistics
command capable of serving the needs of a larger, more modern air arm prom-
ised to be one of the more important developments during 1969. Besides as-
suming sole responsibility for base civil engineering, supply, and transportation,
the new command would handle the periodic inspection and repair of most air-
craft, overhaul jet and piston engines, repair and calibrate precision measuring
equipment used by maintenance crews, repair most avionics gear, and overhaul
ground equipment such as the power carts used in starting aircraft engines. Once
the command came of age, fewer pieces of equipment would have to be en-
trusted to contractors or shipped back to the United States for repair.26
Until the establishment of this command, the South Vietnamese had largely
ignored common U.S. Air Force practices. They had, said General Young, chief
of the Air Force advisory group, “been concentrating on really fighting as effec-
170
tively as they can”; now they would have to “start thinking more in terms of
managing those assets for the long pull — not kick the tire, light the fire, and go
off into the wild blue.” As a first step, General Young suggested, South Viet-
nam’s air force might begin scheduling individual aircraft with an eye toward
establishing regular maintenance cycles.27
Meanwhile, South Vietnamese fliers were learning to use the airplanes
made available to them under the successive improvement and modernization
plans. Completed during 1969 were the conversion of four H–34 helicopter
squadrons to the UH–1, the reequipping of one C–47 squadron with the AC–47
gunship, and the substitution of the A–37 for the A–1 in three attack units. Of
the year’s three projects, the transition from transport to gunship proved the
most demanding. Crashes that destroyed two planes and killed one crew mem-
ber marred the changeover. An investigation revealed that changed takeoff char-
acteristics resulting from installation of side-firing guns and related equipment,
a modification that increased weight and shifted the center of gravity rearward,
probably caused the accidents. The helicopter conversion, during which U.S.
Army aviators trained South Vietnamese instructors, who then helped their
countrymen make the transition to the UH–1, proved much smoother.28
The South Vietnamese also attained greater skill in the use of planes
already in the hands of operational squadrons. For example, although the pilots
assigned to fly the F–5 found the cockpit uncomfortably humid, and the shorter
men had to compensate for their lack of height by using seat cushions and
attaching wooden blocks to the control pedals, the plane and its pilots neverthe-
less performed dependably. More important, perhaps, mechanics of the South
Vietnamese Air Logistics Command conducted a successful corrosion control
program after cracks appeared in a panel on the upper surface of the wing of an
F–5.29
South Vietnam’s A–1s, three squadrons of which were converting to the
A–37, also required structural renovation during 1969. In this instance, how-
ever, South Vietnamese did not do the work; instead, members of an Air Force
Logistics Command field team and civilian mechanics under contract to main-
tain these planes repaired the wings of the Skyraiders. South Vietnamese did,
however, perform routine work on the A–1, and early in 1970, the outside help
ended, leaving them solely responsible for everything from changing tires to
periodic inspection and repair.30
The Fairchild C–119G, a twin-engine, twin-boom transport delivered to
South Vietnam in 1968, proved a headache to the nation’s air force. In the first
place, flight crews were scarce. Several members of the first operational outfit,
trained in the United States, received transfers to AC–47 gunships or even to
Air Vietnam commercial transports, and replacements were not readily avail-
able. The shortage, said Col. Harrison H. D. Heiberg, a U.S. Air Force adviser,
resulted from a “reluctance to qualify sufficient instructor pilots to conduct an
upgrade training program” for officers already qualified to fly the C–47. Hei-
171
The commander of the South Vietnamese Air Force 413th Transportation

Squadron accepts an Air Force C–119 at Tan Son Nhut Air Base.
berg attributed this situation to the fact that assignment as an instructor con-
ferred great prestige on the individual, causing South Vietnam’s senior airmen
to choose carefully, stressing “personal reliability and loyalty in addition to
flying skill.”31
Although the delays annoyed American advisers, the slow process of selec-
tion ultimately produced instructors and replacement crews for the C–119G; far
more serious were the maintenance problems attendant upon that aircraft. The
Wright R–3350 radial engines caused most of the trouble. They had functioned
reasonably well until the American advisory team handed the South Vietnamese
33d Wing and the Air Logistics Command full responsibility for operating and
maintaining the plane. The number of engine failures promptly soared, but U.S.
Air Force advisers correctly placed the blame on lack of experience with a com-
plicated powerplant. The Americans persuaded the South Vietnamese to treat
the elderly engines with care, paying particular attention to routine maintenance,
careful warmup, protection from dust, and close supervision of mechanics. With
these reforms, the average time between engine failures increased from 472
hours early in 1969 to 609 hours, roughly the same as in the U.S. Air Force, by
mid-year. When a serious breakdown did occur and the powerplant required
overhaul, it had to be sent to the United States where parts and skilled tech-
nicians were available, a time-consuming practice that hampered efforts to keep
an adequate number of spare engines on hand in Southeast Asia.32
During the latter half of 1969, the Air Force began transferring O–1Es to
the South Vietnamese as newer O–2s and OV–1Os replaced them, just one step
172
toward entrusting the entire tactical air control system to the South Vietnam-
ese.33 Because of the critical importance of air support in the ground war, the
United States had established and run a tactical air control system in which the
South Vietnamese played a minor role. Thus far, emphasis rested upon the
efficient use of tactical aviation rather than upon adapting the control network
to the needs and skills of the South Vietnamese. Yet, air power would remain
an indispensable weapon despite the American departure, and South Vietnam’s
air arm would require its own system for requesting, dispatching, and directing
air strikes. As a result, Air Force advisers established a control mechanism
modeled after the U.S. Air Force system and suitable for Vietnamization.34
The direct air request network, as the Vietnamized control system came to
be called, had three principal elements: the tactical air control party, the direct
air support center, and the Tactical Air Control Center. Grouped together in the
tactical air control party were the forward air controllers, various radio operators
and maintenance men, and the air liaison officer, who acted as air adviser to the
ground commander. Like his American counterpart, the South Vietnamese air
liaison officer served as focal point for all matters relating to air activities, from
close support to weather reports.
The direct air support center bore responsibility for fulfilling requests from
the tactical air control parties for air strikes, tactical reconnaissance, or emer-
gency airlift. Like the tactical air control parties, the centers would continue for
a time to be joint operations, with the American role diminishing as South Viet-
namese skills improved. Plans called for a direct air support center in conjunc-
tion with each South Vietnamese corps headquarters: I Direct Air Support Cen-
ter at Da Nang, II at Pleiku, III at Bien Hoa, and IV at Binh Thuy Air Base, near
the corps command post at Can Tho. Each of these centers would keep in con-
tact by radio, telephone, or teletype with the subordinate tactical air control
parties and with the Tactical Air Control Center at Tan Son Nhut.
The Tactical Air Control Center served as nerve center of the Vietnamized
system, just as it had with the U.S. prototype. In the tightly centralized
American model, this agency functioned as command post for strikes through-
out South Vietnam, establishing priorities among competing needs and issuing
daily and weekly operations orders in support of the war on the ground. South
Vietnamese officers began serving in each component of the center, creating a
parallel structure that could sustain the air war after the Americans left.35
Whether a tactical air control center of this type could be transplanted and
flourish remained open to question, for South Vietnam’s armed forces had not
yet accepted the concept of centralized control over tactical aviation. The corps
commander, though theoretically influenced by an air liaison officer, remained
supreme in his fiefdom and could use the direct air support center for his own
purposes, regardless of orders issued elsewhere. With these constraints, a single
control center that could shift planes across tactical zone boundaries as the
overall situation demanded was hard to imagine.
173
Whatever the fate of the Tactical Air Control Center, the South Vietnamese
Air Force would benefit from a control mechanism that would sort out requests,
though not necessarily respond to them as the Americans might have. Battalion,
regimental, and division commanders, assisted by their air liaison officers,
channeled requests into the corps headquarters. The direct air support center
would then respond with the aircraft available to it, after obtaining the necessary
strike approval from the corps commander (who might have an agenda of his
own) and the appropriate province chief.36
Progress toward Vietnamizing the tactical air control system proved swifter
in the IV Corps Tactical Zone, embracing the Mekong Delta, than elsewhere in
the country. The first step consisted of finding and training English-speaking
South Vietnamese to work alongside their American counterparts in the parallel
tactical air control structures called for in the Vietnamization plan. This went
smoothly enough, but the next step, actually transferring authority to these
South Vietnamese, proved difficult. Some U.S. Air Force officers refused to
yield the ultimate authority for controlling tactical aviation; they believed that
placing American airmen under South Vietnamese authority represented too
much of a gamble. New Air Force advisers took over in IV Corps in 1969,
however, and they forged ahead with Vietnamization. During that year, South
Vietnamese forward air controllers began directing strikes by American planes,
tactical air control parties and air liaison officers from South Vietnam’s air force
started handling strike requests for the South Vietnamese divisions that had
taken over from the departing American forces, and South Vietnamese airmen
commenced operating the local direct air support center, with the Americans
serving exclusively as advisers.37
The degree of South Vietnamese control over tactical air strikes in each of
the corps zones reflected the severity of the combat there. Control was greatest
in the comparative calm of IV Corps and least in II Corps, where the enemy was
exerting pressure on Special Forces camps in the highlands, and in I Corps
along the dangerous northern border. In both I and II Corps, South Vietnamese
had begun serving at only one of the two direct air support centers established
by the Americans in each of these zones, the scene of recurring savage fighting,
leaving the other center in exclusively American hands. The direct air support
center for III Corps, the only such organization in that tactical zone, had been
integrated by December 1969, so that progress there was faster than in the
northern zones but slower than in the delta.38
In Vietnamizing the tactical air control system, perhaps the hardest problem
facing American advisers proved to be finding suitable air liaison officers.
According to General Brown, the Seventh Air Force commander, the trouble
stemmed from the fact that South Vietnam’s air force enjoyed “an inferior status
in the force structure than does our Air Force.” If Seventh Air Force were to
assign an individual as air liaison to a U.S. Army brigade, he would have suit-
able rank — that of major or lieutenant colonel — and could, by doing his job
174
well, expect to gain the confidence of the unit commander. Such was not the
case in South Vietnam’s armed forces.39 Unlike the U.S. Air Force, the South
Vietnamese air arm tended to send junior officers, aerial observers rather than
pilots, to advise ground commanders on the employment of tactical aviation.
Nor could the air liaison officer expect much support from his superiors within
the least prestigious of South Vietnam’s armed services. Of four generals in the
organization, two were no longer on active duty — Vice President Ky and
General Loan, severely wounded during May 1968, while commanding the
national police. Also, air force officers assigned to South Vietnam’s Joint
General Staff remained few and their influence slight.40
To remedy the situation, U.S. Air Force advisers worked closely with South
Vietnamese air liaison officers, not only to perfect their skills but to persuade
ground commanders to listen to them. In an attempt to increase the credibility
of air liaison officers, the South Vietnamese Air Force agreed to assign addit-
ional pilots to this important job, selecting them from fighter, transport, liaison,
and helicopter units until 60 percent were fliers and the rest observers. The new
breed of air liaison officer would carry a suitable rank, be able to speak English
to communicate with the Americans, and serve a two-year tour in his job — or
so the South Vietnamese promised.
Aerial observers had also dominated the ranks of the forward air control-
lers, directing strikes from the second seat, while a pilot flew the plane. As in
the case of air liaison officers, U.S. Air Force advisers urged that pilots take
over the controller’s duties from the observers, and the South Vietnamese tried
to comply. Here, too, progress proved slow. Not only did pilots resent exchang-
ing the comforts of a permanent air base for a more primitive existence in the
field, but the chief of the air service, Gen. Tranh Van Minh, was himself an ob-
server rather than a pilot and was used to doing things the old way.
By early 1970, the American-sponsored reforms seemed to be taking hold,
with South Vietnamese pilots beginning to serve as forward air controllers and
air liaison officers. These men, together with their radio operators, formed the
tactical air control parties assigned to the major South Vietnamese ground units,
where they received a final indoctrination from American advisers. Comman-
ders in South Vietnam’s army were turning to the newly arrived liaison officers
to obtain air support, and the South Vietnamese were controlling and delivering
much of that support41.
Besides playing a greater role in controlling tactical aviation, the South
Vietnamese were becoming acquainted with methods of electronic surveillance.
Early in 1969, a deployable automatic relay terminal, or Dart, arrived at Pleiku,
where it was intended to function as a Spartan version of the infiltration surveil-
lance center at Nakhon Phanom, the facility that gathered, analyzed, and stored
data from electronic sensor fields emplaced to report nighttime truck traffic on
enemy supply routes passing through southern Laos. Initially, plans called for
incorporating the Dart into the tactical air control system, using it to keep
175
electronic watch over supply and infiltration routes leading from Cambodia. If
necessary, the terminal could be loaded into a cargo plane and flown to Thai-
land as temporary replacement for the more elaborate surveillance center at
Nakhon Phanom.42
General Brown, however, had no confidence in an electronic border surveil-
lance scheme based on Dart. Such an undertaking impressed him as “totally
impractical.” Sensors could sound false alarms, he pointed out, and the aerial
verification of signals was “complicated by mountainous terrain . . . over very
heavy jungle foliage.” Moreover, in the region where main infiltration routes
entered South Vietnam from Cambodia, “haze was prevalent at this time of year
[March] and cloud or fog can come in either monsoon period,” but were more
common during the southwest monsoons, usually lasting from May through
September.43
Whether for the reasons pointed out by the Seventh Air Force commander
or simply because of the great cost, no electronic barrier comparable to the
surveillance net across southern Laos took shape along the Cambodian border.
Instead of functioning as part of the tactical air control system, the Dart terminal
at Pleiku served as nerve center for sensor fields maintained by the U.S. Army
units responsible for security along the Cambodian border. Air Force technic-
ians monitoring the Dart equipment took note of likely targets for immediate air
attack and alerted III Direct Air Support Center at Bien Hoa, which at night
might divert a patrolling AC–47 to investigate. The division commander in
charge of this area of operation usually consulted the Dart record of sensor acti-
vations in planning artillery fire, and General Abrams’ headquarters might occa-
sionally use this information in requesting a B–52 strike.44
The sensor array reporting to Dart was far simpler than the Igloo White net-
work that signalled indications of enemy activity to a computer-equipped sur-
veillance center at Nakhon Phanom. For example, signals from the more com-
pact fields guarding access routes from Cambodia could be relayed as well from
a hilltop station as from the slowly circling Lockheed EC–121 used with Igloo
White. Instead of the computer memory and display panels at the Thailand facil-
ity, the Dart van featured equipment that recorded sensor activations on a roll
of paper for interpretation by the operator. Because of its simplicity, the deploy-
able automatic relay terminal became a candidate for Vietnamization, whereas
Igloo White did not.45
Beginning in April 1969, the military assistance command established a
school at Vung Tau to train South Vietnamese soldiers, sailors, and marines to
use sensor fields for detecting infiltration and providing local security. In
October 1969, Air Force advisers began offering similar instruction at Pleiku,
teaching a succession of classes, each numbering about twenty students, to
operate the Dart equipment. After a year, however, the course for South Viet-
namese airmen came to an end, for the assistance command decided to Viet-
namize an Army-developed terminal judged less complex than Dart.46
176
The decision to give the South Vietnamese the simpler of two possible
sensor arrays was typical of Vietnamization. In the words of General Young,
who headed the Air Force advisory effort during the latter months of 1969, “the
simpler we can keep it, the better.” He saw two principles governing the arming
of South Vietnam’s air force: “First, we are trying not to give them sophisti-
cated equipment unless it is absolutely necessary to the mission (and seldom do
we find that it is); second, we are trying to minimize the proliferation of equip-
ment,” settling upon a few basic types within each category, three kinds of tac-
tical transports, for example, out of five possibilities.47
The policy described by General Young did not, in the view of some U.S.
officials, reflect a lack of flying skill on the part of the South Vietnamese but
stemmed from logistical considerations. “They can fly our best aircraft now,”
said Curtis W. Tarr, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Manpower and Re-
serve Affairs), but “they will not be able to maintain them for several years;
they could not hope to overhaul them for a decade.”48
In spite of lingering problems of maintenance and logistics, the South Viet-
namese air arm had improved during 1969. In the last three months of the year,
it flew some 74,000 sorties of all kinds, compared with 55,000 for the first
quarter of that year.49 Indeed, all of the nation’s armed forces, and the South
Vietnamese economy as well, seemed to be growing stronger. Despite some 300
casualties in an average week’s fighting, South Vietnam’s military had taken up
the slack during the American troop withdrawals of 1969. The reduced partici-
pation by the United States in ground combat brought a decline in battle deaths
from 225 each week during January to a hundred per week at year’s end.50
Although the accelerated phase II improvement and modernization plan was
moving forward, Secretary Laird realized that continuing American departures
would require a further strengthening of South Vietnam’s armed forces. In mid-
November 1969, he directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to commence work on a
phase III plan designed to increase effectiveness “to the point where the govern-
ment of Vietnam can maintain current levels of security while the U.S. forces
are phased down first to a support force” by July 1, 1971 and then, by contin-
uing towards an advisory assistance group two years later.51
Unless carefully executed, any further acceleration of Vietnamization could
easily disrupt the South Vietnamese Air Force, already in the midst of an expan-
sion that would double its number of aircraft in two years and leave the organi-
zation in charge of its own tactical air control system. During the phase III
effort, South Vietnam’s airmen would face the same basic problems, though
greatly intensified, that they already were trying to solve. According to David
Packard, Secretary Laird’s principal deputy, the manpower needs of the air arm
would have to be measured against those of the other services and of South
Vietnamese society as a whole. Simplicity would have to remain a guiding prin-
cipal in selecting aircraft and other weapons for the country’s armed forces, and
“new and different approaches to the solution of the training problem” would
177
be necessary, especially when providing on-the-job instruction. “In developing

a new force structure . . . ,” Packard continued, “it is essential that we focus on
what the Vietnamese forces must have rather than [on] what . . . we are doing
that they could do.”52
Throughout phase III, assuming the Laird proposal went into effect, the Air
Force would continue to fly combat and support missions even as it prepared the
South Vietnamese to shoulder the entire burden of the air war. South Vietnam’s
rapidly expanding air arm had a number of weaknesses that defied easy correc-
tion. The most dangerous, in terms of its impact upon troop withdrawals, was
an inability to conduct the kind of systematic interdiction that would disrupt the
enemy’s attempts to infiltrate men and supplies for attacks on the scale of the
1968 Tet offensive. A blow of comparable violence, delivered in 1970 or 1971
after the American departures were well underway, could create havoc among
the forces remaining behind.53 Until the South Vietnamese Air Force attained
a capacity for interdiction, or the North Vietnamese bases in Cambodia and sup-
ply lines in southern Laos were somehow neutralized, U.S. air power would
have to help General Abrams with firepower to keep losses down.54
Like so many of the programs conducted in South Vietnam, the improve-
ment and modernization of the air arm proved difficult to measure. Numbers
were increasing, but the South Vietnamese Air Force could not yet conduct sus-
tained, independent action under centralized control. The language barrier thus
far remained largely intact, and concern existed that complex technology, intro-
duced too rapidly, might overwhelm the South Vietnamese. In North Vietnam,
however, Soviet-trained controllers operated an integrated air defense —
including radar, missiles, antiaircraft guns, and jet interceptors — all more
complex than any comparable equipment made available to America’s ally.
178
Chapter Eleven
Storming the Cambodian Bases
Operation Menu, the secret bombing of Cambodia, sought to forestall a

North Vietnamese offensive timed to take advantage of the American with-
drawal from the South; it continued into 1970 without measurable results. Since
the Menu B–52s performed the function of long-range heavy artillery, harrying
the enemy and trying to disrupt his activity, bomb damage proved difficult to
assess on the basis of evidence from aerial photographs and an occasional
ground patrol. Whatever loss or inconvenience the North Vietnamese suffered,
they maintained a stoic silence; on the other hand, they did not mount the kind
of attack in South Vietnam that President Nixon was attempting to discourage.1
Nor did Prince Sihanouk protest the secret attacks, apparently because he
hoped they would loosen North Vietnam’s grip on easternmost Cambodia.2 Fear
that the North Vietnamese would, in effect, annex this part of his country moved
Sihanouk, in the spring of 1969, to stop the flow of cargo through the port of
Sihanoukville to the base camps near the South Vietnamese border. In Septem-
ber of that year, while in Hanoi attending the funeral of Ho Chi Minh, Sihanouk
apparently obtained assurances that the North Vietnamese army would exercise
restraint and not extend its authority beyond the base areas it already controlled
and from which Cambodian officials, soldiers, and citizens had been excluded.
In return for this vague pledge, Cambodia’s ruler allowed weapons and other
supplies from North Vietnam to move once again through the port that bore his
name, but he kept close watch on events along the eastern border.3
Besides the threat from North Vietnam, Cambodia faced economic difficul-
ties that forced Sihanouk to broaden his government and include members op-
posed to his variant of socialism. Gen. Lon Nol became prime minister and min-
ister of defense, and another of the opposition, Sisouth Sirik Matak, accepted
the office of deputy prime minister. Although willing to heed the advice of these
two men on domestic and narrowly military topics, Sihanouk reserved for him-
self all matters of foreign relations, including the problem of the North Viet-
namese bases.
Unfortunately for Prince Sihanouk, this division of labor proved infeasible.
North Vietnamese forces along the border with South Vietnam demanded and
179
got a lion’s share of Cambodia’s rice crop, which otherwise could have been
sold overseas to obtain foreign credits for needed imports. The impact of the
base areas upon the domestic economy emboldened Sihanouk’s opposition to
try to eliminate the North Vietnamese presence, put an end to Cambodian
socialism, and restore prosperity to the nation by establishing their own form
of capitalism.
Even as the political storm was gathering, Sihanouk and his family left on
a journey that included a vacation in France and a visit to the Soviet Union. In
his absence, the prince’s enemies authorized an expansion of the army, issued
orders on March 13, 1970, for the North Vietnamese to leave the country, and
five days later deposed Sihanouk, who had led the nation for almost thirty years
as either hereditary monarch or constitutional chief of state. Lon Nol promptly
took charge of the government, seeking to capitalize on the resentment shared
by many Cambodians toward the intruders from North Vietnam, apparently
determined to provoke the armed clash that Sihanouk had carefully avoided.4
When the North Vietnamese ignored a forty-eight-hour deadline for aban-
doning their bases, Cambodian officers called on South Vietnamese comman-
ders on the opposite side of the border to help drive out the common foe. The
response took the form of an occasional artillery barrage or air strike, though
infantry sometimes probed the enemy bases in Cambodia. American forces were
prohibited from joining in this South Vietnamese activity, though they had per-
mission to cover gaps in defensive positions caused when South Vietnamese
troops abandoned assignments to take a hand in the Cambodian fighting.
American advisers, upon learning that a South Vietnamese commander had
decided to cooperate with the Cambodians, were to avoid crossing the border
and taking part in the action, but instead remain in South Vietnam after warning
the officer to avoid endangering noncombatants.5
Despite the prohibition against direct American involvement, the right of
self-defense, set forth in the rules of engagement, continued to apply if the
enemy fired from Cambodian soil at American or South Vietnamese troops
within South Vietnam. On March 24, roughly one week after the cross-border
skirmishing had started, just such an incident occurred in Kien Tuong Province,
south of the Parrot’s Beak. The senior American adviser to the South Viet-
namese unit under attack called for air strikes, and Seventh Air Force planes
silenced North Vietnamese batteries inside Cambodia.6
Lon Nol’s appeal to Cambodian nationalism, in effect pitting the pride of
the Khmer people against North Vietnamese firepower, held out the possibility
of either triumph or disaster for the United States. Taking advantage of the up-
rising against Sihanouk, invading South Vietnamese or American ground forces,
supported by air power, might ferret out military stockpiles unscathed by the
Menu raids, destroying or capturing food and munitions needed by North Viet-
namese and Viet Cong troops in South Vietnam. On the other hand, such an op-
eration, whatever its initial success, could commit the United States to the long-
180
Prince Norodom Sihanouk, after his ouster as leader of

Cambodia, visiting North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong.
term support of a Khmer army of dubious competence. To President Nixon,
however, opportunity seemed to outweigh danger, for he was confident he could
control the degree and duration of American participation. “Nixon,” Henry
Kissinger recalled, “from the first was for a more active policy.”7
By the morning of March 26, the President had presented General Wheeler,
who would continue until July 2 to serve as Joint Chiefs Chairman, with an
urgent requirement for a plan for ground action against the North Vietnamese
and Viet Cong logistics sanctuaries along the South Vietnamese/Cambodian
border. The plan would offer three options: an attack exclusively by South
Vietnamese forces, the course that Nixon favored; a joint undertaking by South
Vietnamese and American troops; or an exclusively American effort, the course
that the President considered least attractive. No more than two communist base
areas would be attacked, and the operation would begin only if the enemy
menaced Phnom Penh, threatening the survival of Lon Nol’s government.8
Sihanouk’s overthrow and Lon Nol’s defiance of North Vietnam had rekin-
dled General Abrams’ interest in neutralizing the Cambodian bases and he was
already sketching outline plans for a possible advance across the border. This
staff exercise produced objectives for both U.S. and South Vietnamese forces
and went forward for consideration by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The preferred
target was Base Area 352, located in the shank of the Fishhook and believed to
be the site of the Central Office for South Vietnam. If General Abrams could
not obtain permission to attack this jungle depot and the communist headquar-
ters, he hoped to deliver simultaneous blows against three other Base Areas: 367
and 706 in the Parrot’s Beak and 704 astride the Mekong and Bassac Rivers.9
As he had in considering the Menu bombing, Nixon relied on as few ad-
visers as possible. Not yet admitted to the inner council during discussions of
181
an invasion of Cambodia, Secretary of State Rogers was instructing Ambas-

sador Bunker at Saigon to dissuade President Thieu from sending South Viet-
namese units into Cambodia, even as President Nixon pondered military action
against the communist bases there. Cooperation between Thieu’s troops and
those of Lon Nol might, Rogers feared, convince opponents of the Vietnam War
that the United States was expanding the conflict and result in renewed antiwar
demonstrations.
The instructions from the Secretary of State to the embassy at Saigon re-
flected the official policy of the moment, based to some degree on the concerns
Rogers expressed. Even Dr. Kissinger, who favored intervention, realized that
South Vietnamese operations in Cambodia might provoke a North Vietnamese
response that would topple Lon Nol. Because the President’s interventionist
attitude had not yet become administration policy, Ambassador Bunker passed
along the concerns expressed by Secretary Rogers, even though Abrams had
advised him that preliminary planning was underway for attacks against the
bases. In persuading President Thieu to suspend activity in Cambodia, Bunker
indicated that the U.S. government was reviewing its policy and might decide
to encourage, or even take part in, the kind actions that the South Vietnamese
were being asked to abandon.10
As Bunker was gently cautioning Thieu, a group met at Abrams’ headquar-
ters to work out the details of the basic concept that Nixon had suggested, with
its three options involving either American troops, South Vietnamese forces, or
a combination of both. During a session on March 27, representatives of Gen-
eral Brown’s Seventh Air Force called attention to the lack of information on
military conditions in eastern Cambodia. The intelligence that was available
came from three main sources: the Vesuvius photography that antedated Opera-
tion Menu; the pictures taken by the Studies and Observations Group of the
military assistance command in conjunction with the Menu strikes; and the
reports of Salem House ground probes of the border region. The troops advan-
cing into Cambodia and the airmen supporting them would need precise and
timely intelligence to find and destroy the bases; and roads and trails in the
border area had to be pinpointed, if air power were to harry the enemy’s at-
tempts at withdrawal or reinforcement.
Planning went ahead, however, without provision for intensive aerial recon-
naissance, out of concern that the flights would disclose a sudden American
interest in the bases. The sessions at Saigon emphasized ground combat rather
than air power, preventing the Seventh Air Force from contributing to an inte-
grated plan that would have called for extensive aerial preparations for assaults
by infantry, armored, and airmobile units. Besides avoiding preliminary aerial
reconnaissance, planners postponed tactical air strikes until the morning of the
invasion, also to avoid alerting the enemy.11
The only air activity within Cambodia in preparation for the invasion would
consist of Menu bombing. Originally, Secretary of Defense Laird had offered
182
intensified B–52 raids as a substitute for an invasion, which he opposed, but the
President incorporated the raids into the invasion plan, endorsing the stepped-up
Menu attacks as a means of weakening the defenses of the Fishhook, a logical
objective of a cross-border assault. The Fishhook seemed especially attractive
not only because of the depots and headquarters installations located there but
also because the native populace apparently had fled or been expelled, thus re-
ducing the likelihood of casualties among noncombatants.
The effectiveness of the proposed preparatory bombing by B–52s remained
open to question. Coordination was tenuous at best between planners of the
Menu raids and those officers who were at work on the ground assault. More-
over, the staff had no body of past results from which to predict the impact of
future attacks; intelligence concerning the earlier Menu bombardment proved
far too sketchy for that purpose.12
The fact that Laird proposed using B–52s rather than assault troops against
the Fishhook reflected his desire to limit American involvement in Cambodia.
Indeed, the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State Rogers — who was now
participating in formal National Security Council deliberations about Cam-
bodia — seemed so unenthusiastic about invading the sanctuaries that Kissinger
characterized the behavior of both men as “bureaucratic foot dragging.” This
reluctance stemmed from their conviction that the use of American troops in
Cambodia was certain to intensify domestic opposition to the war. For the time
being, however, their fears proved groundless; the President unexpectedly
balked at sending American forces across the border.13
Since Nixon would not commit American units at this time, responsibility
for diverting pressure from Lon Nol’s ill-trained and poorly equipped forces fell
on the South Vietnamese. On April 1, Nixon agreed that President Thieu of
South Vietnam should resume attacks into enemy-held Cambodia, provided that
no American troops crossed the border, except to prevent the slaughter of a
South Vietnamese unit, and that precautions were taken to avoid killing or
injuring Cambodian civilians. Once unleashed, South Vietnam’s Joint General
Staff responded to a request from Lon Nol’s commanders by launching a three-
hour probe of Base Area 706, in the northern part of the Parrot’s Beak, using
infantry and armor. American advisers left their assigned units just before the
attack, and the South Vietnamese furnished their own air and artillery support.14
As April wore on, the South Vietnamese continued to do the fighting, with
Seventh Air Force remaining on the periphery of both the planning of future
combat in Cambodia and the conduct of operations already in progress. South
Vietnamese airmen assisted their country’s ground forces, with the Americans
offering only advice. Moreover, a proposed Seventh Air Force undertaking, an
expanded leaflet-dropping campaign to rally the populace behind Lon Nol, met
a veto at the hands of Secretary Laird, who feared that the effort would result
in his being branded an American puppet.15 The role of the Seventh Air Force
in preparing for a possible attack on the Fishhook remained nominal at best, in
183
part a result of the need to preserve the secrecy of the Menu bombing, now con-
sidered an overture for any thrust into Cambodia. “We are walking a tight rope,”
confessed General Abrams, “to maintain the security of Menu operations while
trying to satisfy planners’ requirements for aerial photos.”16
To provide planners with the information necessary for ground operations
against the Fishhook, Abrams turned to his Studies and Observations Group,
which had been dispatching American-led South Vietnamese patrols, some of
which included ethnic Cambodians, on reconnaissance missions within Cam-
bodia. Unfortunately, these Salem House probes, which might travel on foot or
in U.S. Air Force or South Vietnamese helicopters, had avoided Base Areas 352
and 353 since October 1969. By that time, American aircraft were scattering
antipersonnel mines on the South Vietnamese side of the border, thus impeding
movement on foot by both Salem House patrols and communist infiltrators.
Moreover, the defenses in the Fishhook had grown so strong as to inflict
unacceptable casualties on patrols trying to probe the two sites; indeed, had it
not been for the support of artillery and air strikes, the reconnaissance teams
could not even have approached the base areas.17
While Abrams grappled with the intelligence problem and the other aspects
of planning, the Nixon administration was trying to “navigate between giving
enough, quickly enough, to the Lon Nol government . . . to contribute to its self-
confidence as well as its capabilities, while on the other hand not doing so much
as to embolden the Cambodians to take excessively strong military actions.”18
A partial solution to this quandary lay in the thousands of Soviet-designed
AK–47 rifles and stocks of ammunition captured over the years and stored in
South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese, however, were consolidating their hold
over the border provinces of Cambodia, preventing shipment by road or river.
During April, therefore, five C–119Gs of the South Vietnamese Air Force,
planes ideally suited for the mission because of their convenient loading doors
and cavernous interiors, flew 2,500 rifles and 84,000 rounds of ammunition to
Phnom Penh.19 By the end of June, U.S. Air Force C–130s and South Vietnam-
ese C–47s had joined in a greatly expanded supply effort.20
Besides providing weapons and ammunition, the United States acceded to
a Cambodian request, first made in March, to jam pro-Sihanouk radio broad-
casts from Hanoi and Beijing. An Air Force EC–121, fitted out with transmitters
whose signals disrupted the communist broadcasts, carried out the mission.21
Despite the help received thus far from the Americans and South Vietnam-
ese, Lon Nol’s forces could not hold their own against the North Vietnamese,
let alone expel the enemy from the border provinces. While President Nixon
was visiting Hawaii to congratulate the three Apollo XIII astronauts, who had
returned safely despite an explosion on board their spacecraft, communist at-
tacks intensified throughout eastern Cambodia. Only the strongest of Lon Nol’s
outposts managed to hold out in the border region, and hostile forces were re-
ported within twenty miles of Phnom Penh. During the discussions in Washing-
184
Lon Nol, center, speaks to Cambodian troops in the field.

ton of a possible American incursion, Nixon had indicated that a genuine threat
to the Cambodian capital would justify such an action.22
The nighttime Menu bombing could not prevent the enemy from shifting
his forces, isolating garrisons loyal to Lon Nol, and closing in on the capital.
The secret raids, after all, were intended as a shield for the U.S. withdrawal
from South Vietnam, a purpose achieved by disrupting bivouacs or destroying
storage depots rather than by breaking sieges or impeding road traffic. General
Abrams therefore sought to supplement the B–52 attacks with strikes by tactical
fighters, better able than the huge bombers to hit troop columns or other com-
pact, moving targets. On April 18, he made such a request of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, which promptly approved the tactical air strikes.
The kind of security restrictions that concealed Menu enveloped the newly
authorized tactical air campaign, Operation Patio. All message traffic dealing
with Patio strikes traveled over secure circuits, and the information went only
to those directly involved in the undertaking. To preserve the cloak of secrecy,
Patio raids were described as strikes in Laos, just as the Menu attacks had used
cover targets in South Vietnam.23
Plans called for the Patio strikes to continue for thirty days, until the third
week of May, but the onset of a ground campaign in Cambodia caused an early
termination on May 4. At first the attacking aircraft hit targets in that portion of
northeastern Cambodia extending eight miles west of the border with South
Vietnam. On April 25, however, the Patio area was extended to a depth of
eighteen miles all along that boundary.24
Because of the confused situation along the border, where the enemy rap-
idly shifted his strength and Lon Nol’s troops reacted, General Abrams spec-
ified that all Patio attacks be directed by a forward air controller or by a Salem
House patrol. On April 24, a forward air controller spotted the first Patio target — a
185
column of 125 North Vietnamese wearing dark green uniforms, carrying packs,
and moving southward into the Fishhook — and called in six F–100Ds. The Air
Force tactical fighter pilots dropped antipersonnel and general purpose bombs,
strafed with 20-mm cannon, and claimed a hundred of the enemy killed.25
The original Patio operation, which totaled just 124 sorties, had run its
course when Secretary Laird approved a proposal to attack a North Vietnamese
truck park on the Kong River, a stream in Cambodia near the border with Laos,
well beyond the current limit of thirty kilometers established for American
activity in Cambodia. The operation order called for forty-eight fighter-bombers
to attack within an interval of twelve hours and for the strike to be listed as a
raid in Laos. On May 14, this special Patio bombing mission began, but after
thirty-two aircraft had blasted the installation, damage seemed so complete that
the remaining sixteen planes were diverted to other targets.26
Even as the secret Patio bombing campaign took shape, President Nixon
continued to follow his inclination toward decisive action against the commu-
nist sanctuaries in Cambodia, even though his advisers were far from unani-
mous in supporting such a course. “I think we need a bold move in Cambodia . . . ,”
he told Kissinger, “to show that we stand with Lon Nol.” Nixon believed that
the United States was entirely too concerned that its help for the new Khmer
government might spur the North Vietnamese into action. “Over and over again,
we fail to learn that Communists never need an excuse to come in . . . ,” he de-
clared, warning that “the only government in Cambodia in the last 25 years that
had the guts to take a pro-Western and pro-American stand is ready to fall.”27
Although determined to aid Lon Nol, Nixon was reluctant to commit Amer-
ican ground forces. As a result, the approved plan called for attacks by South
Vietnamese units against Base Areas 706 and 367, both located in the northern
jaw of the Parrot’s Beak, while U.S. Army battalions took over the border se-
curity mission as the assault troops advanced into Cambodia. Nixon wanted this
attack to begin about April 27, and the operation, called Toan Thang (Total
Victory) 43, got underway on the 29th.28
For President Nixon, the South Vietnamese offensive into the Parrot’s Beak
represented a definite political risk. With good reason, he told Admiral Moorer
and General Wheeler that failure would bring the sort of criticism that had be-
fallen John F. Kennedy in 1961 after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, when Castro’s com-
munist forces defeated an American-trained invasion army of Cuban exiles. He
was determined that there be no repetition of Kennedy’s embarrassment of
almost a decade before. Consequently, American advisers, even though they
could not accompany the South Vietnamese assault troops into Cambodia, had
to make sure the South Vietnamese developed an aggressive attitude, instilling
determination and boldness in any who might seem too cautious.29
Besides making preparations for the impending South Vietnamese advance
into Cambodia, American commanders in Southeast Asia conducted the secret
Menu and Patio air strikes and drew up contingency plans for an attack into the
186
Fishhook, using U.S. troops. A Fishhook operation, Admiral Moorer believed,

was becoming increasingly likely despite tenacious opposition on the part of
some Presidential advisers. Moorer, now serving as acting chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that “there is much opposition in Washington to
introducing even a single U.S. soldier into Cambodia,” but he believed that the
President might yet overrule these objections. Nixon, after all, had expressed
determination that the Cambodian bases be destroyed, using whatever force
might be necessary. According to Moorer, Nixon had said, “If we get caught
with our hand in the cookie jar, we must be sure we get the cookies.” Alluding
to a popular motion picture about Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., Nixon had urged
that Abrams imitate the aggressive Patton rather than Bernard Law Montgom-
ery, a British field marshal and World War II colleague of Patton with a reputa-
tion for caution.30
Admiral Moorer’s analysis proved correct. When the South Vietnamese
hesitated to attack in the vicinity of the Fishhook on the grounds that the bases
there posed a lesser threat than those in the Parrot’s Beak, President Nixon ap-
proved General Abrams’ plan for a combined operation involving the 1st Cav-
alry Division (Airmobile) and South Vietnam’s airborne division. B–52 strikes,
which ended shortly after midnight on the morning of the assault, and last-
minute artillery concentrations helped prepare the way for an advance into the
Fishhook on May 1, 1970.31
Initially named Operation Shoemaker after the task force commander, Brig.
Gen. Robert Shoemaker, the American drive into the Fishhook might well have
delighted Patton, with helicopters providing mobility and B–52s, fighter-
bombers, and tanks joining in battering the North Vietnamese defenders. “Truly
a majestic sight,” declared one participant, as eighty-seven helicopters in perfect
formation, along with tactical aircraft and gunships, inserted an entire brigade
within two hours. So devastating was the onslaught that the brigade from the 1st
Cavalry Division (Airmobile) came through the day all but unscathed, suffering
twelve wounded but none killed.32
As the combined South Vietnamese and American advance surged into the
Fishhook, President Nixon, on the evening of April 30, Washington time, ap-
peared on television to explain the need for “cleaning out the major North
Vietnamese and Viet Cong occupied territories — those sanctuaries which serve
as bases for attacks on both Cambodia . . . and forces in South Vietnam.” If Viet-
namization of the war and the withdrawal of American combat troops were to
continue, the communist bases had to be destroyed. “We take this action,” said
the President, “not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia but for
the purpose of ending the war in South Vietnam.” As a result, the attacking U.S.
troops would withdraw once the enemy had been driven from the border region
and his military stockpiles destroyed. “We will not,” Nixon vowed, “allow
American men by the thousand to be killed by an enemy from privileged sanctu-
aries.”33
187
Meanwhile, the Thieu government was asking the assistance command to

stop using the nickname Operation Shoemaker and adopt the title selected by
the South Vietnamese, Toan Thang 43. Since the armed forces of South Viet-
nam were making an important contribution to the Fishhook offensive, General
Abrams readily agreed. Doubt soon arose at Washington whether Toan Thang,
translated as Total Victory, reflected the objective of a limited incursion, but no
further change took place.34
Besides approving this thrust into the Fishhook, Nixon authorized other at-
tacks, to a depth of thirty kilometers, against North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
bases elsewhere in Cambodia’s border provinces. If possible, South Vietnamese
troops were to carry out the raids, with such American support as they might
need. Should an objective seem too difficult for the South Vietnamese alone, a
combined operation might be planned, though actual execution would require
approval by the President or Secretary Laird. Forces of the two nations launched
eleven major raids, beginning with Toan Thang 43 on April 29, an undertaking
the Americans joined on May 1, and lasting until July 22, when that longest-
lived of all the operations came to an end.35
The attacks against North Vietnam’s Cambodian sanctuaries rendered obso-
lete the elaborate security measures that had concealed the Menu and Patio air
operations. On May 4, the Joint Chiefs of Staff put an end to the secret Patio
reporting methods, which had veiled fighter activity in Cambodia since April.
The security practices reappeared, however, for the May 14 attack on the Kong
River truck park. This target, personally approved by Laird, qualified for strict
security because it lay beyond the thirty-kilometer line that Nixon had estab-
lished as the limit of American operations.36
American armored and airmobile units taking part in Toan Thang 43 had
scarcely crossed the border on May 1 when the Joint Chiefs began reviewing the
practice of creating cover targets for Menu strikes. As ground forces probed the
Fishhook and other border redoubts, the need for these security precautions
abated. The last of the secret Menu bombings took place on the night of May 26
in Base Area 609, which was not stormed during the 1970 incursion.37
The change in Menu security procedures came too slowly to avoid con-
fusion at Bangkok, Thailand, where, about one hour before President Nixon’s
speech announcing the incursion into Cambodia, the ambassador learned from
the local press that B–52s were taking off from U-Tapao Air Base to bomb the
Cambodian sanctuaries. These accounts provided the first word that Ambassa-
dor Leonard Unger had heard of air operations originating in Thailand against
targets in Cambodia. The absence of advance notice from Washington annoyed
Unger but not the Thai government, which apparently understood that the desire
for secrecy had ruled out prior consultation.38
Following the last-minute Menu strikes on May 1 that caught the attention
of Ambassador Unger, Seventh Air Force lent its striking power to the assault
into the Fishhook. On the first day, General Brown’s airmen supported
188
American and South Vietnamese units with 192 sorties by fighter-bombers, two
by gunships, and one by a flareship patrolling throughout the night. This flurry
marked the beginning of a rapidly expanding air campaign.39
Indeed, the aerial might and military power unleashed against the Fishhook
foreshadowed even more extensive ground action, assisted as always by air
power. President Nixon was determined to destroy the border sanctuaries and
eliminate the threat they posed to Vietnamization and the accompanying Amer-
ican withdrawal. He had, after all, asked Abrams about the need to attack other
bases outside the Parrot’s Beak and Fishhook and given Toan Thang 43 a top
priority. In calling for a hard-hitting imaginative offensive in Cambodia, he had
authorized planning for possible additional attacks, using either American or
South Vietnamese forces, singly or in combination. He suggested, moreover,
that the advancing columns might ultimately penetrate beyond the thirty-
kilometer limit established for Toan Thang 43.40
Because of the President’s attitude, the ground war expanded in scope and
increased in intensity, with aerial combat keeping pace. On May 5, a combined
American and South Vietnamese task force entered Base Area 702, west of
Kontum, South Vietnam, launching Operation Binh Tay (Tame the West) I. A
day later, South Vietnamese forces invaded Base Area 350, northeast of the
Fishhook, while American soldiers probed Base Areas 354, north of the Parrot’s
Beak, and 351, not far from the boundary between the II and III Corps Tactical
Zones. These three operations bore the designations Toan Thang 46, 44, and 45,
respectively. From the April 29 attack through the expanded fighting on May
6, American and South Vietnamese tactical aircraft flew 1,129 sorties into
Cambodia, striking targets within thirty kilometers of the South Vietnamese
border. Included among the fighter-bombers, flareships, and gunships were four
C–130 transports, each of which dropped a 15,000-pound bomb to clear landing
zones for helicopters assaulting the Fishhook and Base Area 354.41
Ground and aerial operations in Cambodia continued, and on May 9, a new
offensive started when a predominately South Vietnamese task force began
clearing the enemy from the banks of the Mekong River in Operation Cuu Long
(Mekong River) I. Besides driving communist boat traffic from the river, the
operation sought to clear the way for convoys carrying supplies to Phnom Penh.
Air operations during this Mekong offensive totaled some 1,900 sorties by mid-
May, not quite 6 percent by U.S. or South Vietnamese Air Force gunships and
almost all the others by fighter-bombers.42
After May 15, aerial activity within the thirty-kilometer zone prescribed by
President Nixon began to ebb, even though fighting continued on the ground.
Toan Thang 43, 44, 45, and 46 entered new phases, as did Binh Tay I and Cuu
Long I. In addition, South Vietnamese units, with a minimum of U.S. participa-
tion, launched three new efforts — Binh Tay II and III against Base Areas 701,
west of Pleiku, and 740, across the border from Ban Me Thuot, and Cuu Long
II, a thrust toward Takeo in Cambodia from Chau Doc Province, South Viet-
189
Flying through the smoke of previous strikes, an Air Force F–4

hits an enemy bunker complex in the Fishhook region of Cambodia.
nam. Despite a surge in air action late in May — the result of good weather, a
flurry of combat within Base Areas 350 and 351, and a South Vietnamese ad-
vance toward Kompong Trach in Cuu Long II — the decline continued as the
invasion of Cambodia drew to an end.43
As early as May 8, President Nixon assured Congress that the Cambodian
venture would be short-lived, with American soldiers leaving the country after
three to six weeks. At the beginning of June, he became more specific, prom-
ising the American people that the last U.S. combat troops would leave Cam-
bodia by the end of that month. Since more than half the force had departed
when he made the pledge, the military assistance command had no trouble in
carrying out his wishes. All American ground troops, including those serving
with Salem House teams, were out of Cambodia on schedule, but South Viet-
namese units continued to operate there.44
Begun on April 29 by the South Vietnamese, and a joint operation with the
Americans after May 1, Operation Toan Thang 43 ended on July 2, the first
incursion of the Cambodian campaign and the last completed. During Toan
Thang 43, assault troops penetrated Base Areas 354 and 706, overrunning both
those objectives, and South Vietnamese troops probed as far as the town of Prey
Veng, some fifty kilometers beyond the border, not quite twice the depth ap-
proved for American forces. During the three months that embraced the Toan
Thang, Binh Tay, and Cuu Long operations, six Seventh Air Force fighter
squadrons, with a minimum of reinforcement, flew all tactical missions in the
border area. Indeed, the only outside help received by General Brown’s half-
190
dozen squadrons consisted of three C–130 flareships shifted to Cam Ranh Bay
from Ubon, Thailand, and four A–1s moved from Nakhon Phanom, Thailand,
to Bien Hoa where they flew cover for rescue helicopters.
The incursion into Cambodia imposed new demands on Air Force fliers,
armorers, and maintenance men, but luckily this expansion of the conflict came
during a lull in the fighting in South Vietnam. Moreover, the comparative calm
in South Vietnam coincided with the approach of the rainy season in southern
Laos, which heralded a sharp decline in the volume of truck traffic detected on
the Ho Chi Minh Trail and, as a result, fewer targets for air attack. This combi-
nation of circumstances enabled General Brown’s planners to support the fight-
ing in Cambodia by boosting the daily utilization rate from .75 or .80 sorties per
aircraft to one sortie or more, depending upon the needs of the ground forces.
From May 6 through 12, for example, F–100s of the 3d Tactical Fighter Wing
managed 1.44 sorties per aircraft per day, dropping to .84 the following week.
The same organization flew .89 daily sorties with each of its A–37Bs during the
week ending April 28, reached a figure of 1.20 the following week, peaked by
May 12 at 1.38 sorties per aircraft per day, then declined to .98, still in excess
of the pre-incursion average.
This redirection of effort from South Vietnam and southern Laos to eastern-
most Cambodia complicated the work of planners at the tactical air control
center, who were responsible for committing air power when and where it was
needed. To accomplish this goal, they assigned Seventh Air Force fighter-
bombers to preplanned strikes in South Vietnam that otherwise would have been
carried out by South Vietnamese airmen. Whenever an emergency arose in
Cambodia, the control center diverted some of these Air Force fighters for
immediate strikes across the border. The South Vietnamese air crews thus freed
for preplanned strikes in Cambodia made a valuable contribution to the success
of the incursion, flying more than 300 sorties in the critical first week.45
Air support for the ten individual operations of the Cambodian offensive in
1970 represented an extension of the air war in South Vietnam. The direct air
support center at the corps headquarters nearest the scene of the fighting con-
trolled and coordinated aerial activity in that sector of Cambodia. As a result,
II Direct Air Support Center handled combat missions for the three Binh Tay
operations; III Direct Air Support Center for the four elements of the Toan
Thang series; and IV Direct Air Support Center for the three components of the
Cuu Long fighting. The basic rules of engagement followed in South Vietnam
applied in Cambodia, but interpretation was simpler during the incursion, if not
afterward, because the North Vietnamese had expelled the noncombatants from
the base areas, and the few Cambodian military units in the border region were
easily located.46
As in South Vietnam, forward air controllers linked troops on the ground
in Cambodia with the fighter-bombers assigned to support them. In this aspect
of the air war, Vietnamization paid dividends, for many South Vietnamese con-
191
trollers had qualified to direct strikes by American airmen and now did so over
Cambodia. South Vietnam’s aerial resources remained limited, however, and
U.S. Air Force forward air controllers and fighter pilots continued to come to
the aid of the embattled South Vietnamese throughout the incursion. Across the
border from Pleiku, Capt. James C. Weatherbee, an Air Force forward air
controller, received word from a tactical air control party that advancing South
Vietnamese had collided with a North Vietnamese strongpoint. Once the troops
below him had marked their position, Captain Weatherbee directed an F–4
against the enemy entrenchment farthest from the unit that had been pinned
down. He assigned a second Phantom to bomb and strafe the likeliest escape
route and then fired a series of rockets that marked a succession of impact areas
that brought American bombs progressively closer to the South Vietnamese
infantrymen. He thus succeeded in clearing the way for the attackers, while at
the same time harassing the most probable avenue of retreat open to the
defenders. Weatherbee’s application of aerial firepower killed eight of the
enemy manning the trenches and contributed not only to the capture of the
machinegun that had stalled the advance but also to the confiscation of military
supplies cached nearby.47
Light observation helicopters from the U.S. Army also performed as they
normally did in South Vietnam, locating and investigating gaps in the jungle
canopy to find targets for Air Force forward air controllers. On May 18, near Se
San, Cambodia, the Army scout helicopters alerted Air Force 1st Lt. Joseph
Faherty to a cluster of bunkers and huts on the jungle floor. Since no fighters
were immediately at hand, Faherty radioed the II Direct Air Support Center,
which launched two F–4s and a pair of F–100s. As soon as the fighters arrived,
Lieutenant Faherty had the helicopters mark the target, a task that brought them
low over the trees and attracted fire from the ground. The F–4s and F–100s then
attacked, silencing the guns and destroying the structures they guarded. Army
helicopter crews reported the strike had leveled twenty storage bunkers and
killed ten North Vietnamese.48
Throughout the Cambodian incursion, the enemy tried to conceal his
strongholds and supply depots from forward air controllers and the crews of
scout helicopters. In addition to regularly scheduled visual reconnaissance, U.S.
airmen used whatever devices were available to ferret out stockpiles and forti-
fications — airborne radio direction finding, infrared equipment, aerial cameras,
and even people sniffers. Finding camouflaged bunkers proved no less difficult
than determining the damage done them by aerial attack. Unless U.S. or South
Vietnamese troops promptly occupied the site of an air strike, or leisurely low-
altitude reconnaissance was possible, the only measure of destruction was the
number and size of the fires or secondary explosions touched off by the attack.49
To be really useful to the ground war in Cambodia, reconnaissance aircraft
like the RF–4 had to range beyond the thirty-kilometer limit imposed on the
American advance. Initially, these planes flew sixty nautical miles into Cam-
192
bodia, reconnoitering the roads and waterways in the northeastern part of Cam-
bodia to gauge enemy reaction to the invasion, but avoiding Phnom Penh and
its environs. The rules of engagement governing missions beyond the immed-
iate border region prohibited armed reconnaissance or fighters escorting recon-
naissance missions to prevent injury to noncombatants or unnecessary damage
to Cambodian property.50
Each day the aerial cameras recorded movement along rivers and highways,
and supplementary infrared detection missions took place each week. Specially
scheduled flights investigated areas of immediate interest, using whatever
equipment seemed suitable. The resulting intelligence revealed the general pat-
tern of North Vietnamese reaction to the incursion, disclosing heavy traffic
moving southward from Laos by road and water. Indeed, during the four weeks
beginning in mid-May, a daily average of 31 trucks and 116 boats or barges was
detected — convincing evidence that further aerial action was needed.51
Throughout this expanding reconnaissance effort, Air Force C–130s scat-
tered propaganda leaflets over Cambodia. At first the printed messages fell
among the border bases, urging the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong defenders
to lay down their weapons. Later, as the enemy regrouped to the west and began
attacking Khmer outposts, the air war expanded accordingly, and Air Force
psychological warfare specialists began using leaflets and loudspeaker broad-
casts to warn Cambodian noncombatants of strikes against targets nearby.52
Even as General Brown’s air crews were joining South Vietnamese airmen
in supporting the incursion, some U.S. Air Force planes bombed or strafed high-
ways and storage dumps in southern North Vietnam. Seventh Air Force planners
had been making preparations for these raids before receiving orders for the
advance into Cambodia, and General Wheeler, in announcing President Nixon’s
approval of the strikes in the North, issued instructions to coordinate this effort
with the Cambodian incursion. As a result, from May 1 through May 4, Air
Force and Navy planes struck a variety of targets along the road net that chan-
neled supplies through Mu Gia, Ban Karai, and Barthelemy Passes into Laos,
where the cargo might make its way westward to the Laotian plateau or south-
ward to Cambodia and South Vietnam.53
In his April 30 speech announcing the incursion into Cambodia, President
Nixon declared, “Tonight American and South Vietnamese units will attack the
headquarters for the entire Communist military operation in South Vietnam.”
With these words, the Central Office for South Vietnam, believed located within
the Fishhook “in blatant violation of Cambodia’s neutrality,”54 became fixed in
the mind of the American public as the key objective of Operation Toan Thang
43, a development that troubled General Wheeler. “As you know,” he told Ad-
miral McCain and General Abrams, “this has never been a principal objective,
and, indeed, I have been careful to point out to higher authority that it would
probably be sheer good luck if we were able to bag it as part of this operation.”
To avoid the bad publicity that seemed likely to result from failure to seize the
193
headquarters, Wheeler recommended educating the press to the true goal of the
invasion, the disruption of the enemy’s logistics network, while at the same time
following up any leads that might help pinpoint the headquarters.55
Frequently on the move, the Central Office for South Vietnam proved an
elusive target, evading both aerial bombardment and ground attack. A North
Vietnamese headquarters clerk captured in mid-May claimed that the organiza-
tion received twenty-four-hour warning of B–52 strikes and that, while he
served there, it had moved three times to escape approaching troops.56
Despite early failure to locate the central office and Wheeler’s emphasis on
logistical targets, Abrams continued searching for the headquarters that con-
trolled communist activity throughout South Vietnam. Late in May, intelligence
reports encouraged him to obtain temporary authority to attack sites as far as ten
kilometers beyond the thirty-kilometer operating zone that President Nixon had
established. To protect Cambodian civilians, General Wheeler insisted upon a
one-kilometer buffer, separating B–52 target boxes from inhabited villages.
Moreover, a forward air controller had to direct strikes by tactical fighters to
prevent potentially deadly errors.57
Even as he pursued the various intelligence leads, General Abrams tried
publicly to play down the importance of the Central Office for South Vietnam
as an objective of the Cambodian incursion. Still wary of the bad publicity that
could result from failure to destroy the headquarters, he continued to insist that
statements to the press deal exclusively with the campaign against the supply
depots and that reports on the search for the communist command post use se-
cure communications channels.58
Another probable headquarters site soon surfaced in the Fishhook, well
within the thirty-kilometer area of operations prescribed by the President, and
Abrams promptly alerted Brown to send Seventh Air Force fighter-bombers
against it. The B–52s battered two target boxes on May 21 and 23, followed by
ninety tactical fighters, directed by fourteen tactical air controllers, concen-
trating on the untouched areas between rows of bomb craters left by the B–52s.
A photo reconnaissance plane recorded the damage as best it could, and Seventh
Air Force fliers reported touching off ten secondary explosions and destroying
or damaging nineteen bunkers. Dense foliage and smoke from fires prevented
the kind of visual or photographic reconnaissance that might have verified dam-
age to — or even the presence of — the Central Office for South Vietnam.59
The fruitless search for the central office persisted through June. On the
21st, Abrams responded to fresh evidence by arranging to divert thirty-five
B–52s against another promising target in the Fishhook. The attack produced
thirty-seven secondary explosions, an indication that supplies were stored there,
but no proof that a headquarters occupied the site.60
Although the communist headquarters apparently survived bombing and
ground probes, the frequent moves necessary to survive almost certainly dis-
rupted its activities. As to the main purpose of the attacks into the base areas,
194
dislocation of the enemy logistics system, American and South Vietnamese

troops unearthed vast stores of weapons, ammunition, food, and other vital sup-
plies. A year of Menu bombing had not prevented the North Vietnamese from
filling their Cambodian depots to overflowing. The booty captured during the
invasion included some 25,000 individual and crew-served weapons, almost
eighty tons of food, more than fifty-five tons of medical supplies, and at least
fifteen million rounds of ammunition, varying from pistol bullets to artillery
shells. Some of the war material came from as far away as eastern Europe,
arriving by way of the Ho Chi Minh Trail or the port of Sihanoukville.61
For U.S. ground forces, the Cambodian campaign ended on June 29, in
keeping with President Nixon’s promise to have all these troops out of Cam-
bodia on July 1. South Vietnamese elements of the invasion force would remain
in Cambodia for another three weeks, however, and they could return if neces-
sary. President Thieu had authorized his principal commanders to advance as
far as forty kilometers beyond the border if requested to intervene by Lon Nol’s
Cambodian forces.62
What had the Cambodian invasion accomplished? According to Sir Robert
Thompson, a respected veteran of the successful British counterinsurgency ef-
fort in Malaya, the military effects were little short of spectacular. The inability
to channel cargo through Sihanoukville (renamed Kompong Som by the Lon
Nol government) and the destruction or capture of the stockpiles near the border
with South Vietnam forced the enemy to divert men and material to improve
and defend the supply lines passing through southern Laos and the northeastern
corner of Cambodia. Communist forces — whether North Vietnamese, Viet
Cong, or Khmer Rouge recruited inside Cambodia — had expended ammunition
and sustained casualties in resisting the cross-border attacks and would invest
additional men and supplies in an attempt to topple Lon Nol. The incursion, he
believed, had reduced to “negligible proportions for at least the next year” the
enemy threat in the III and IV Corps Tactical zones of South Vietnam.63
The incursion clearly helped facilitate the American withdrawal from the
Vietnam conflict, as the British specialist in counterinsurgency maintained. For
the Cambodians, however, the attack signaled disaster; the border crossings of
April and May 1970 inaugurated more than a decade of foreign conflict or civil
war, attended by famine, disease, and mass slaughter. William Shawcross, a
British journalist, has blamed the Nixon administration for these years of
violence and death. Although he concedes that North Vietnamese troops con-
trolled the border region when the Menu bombing and the invasion took place,
he argues that the President and his principal adviser, Henry Kissinger, should
have found some other solution to the threat posed by the hostile bases, a course
of action that would have enabled Cambodia to remain non-belligerent, it not
truly neutral. While condemning U.S. policy, Shawcross admits, “Any . . . ad-
ministration would have faced dreadful decisions from 1969 onward,” but in-
sists that alternatives to invasion did exist.
195
A small part of the vast amount of goods captured in Cambodia:

cases of ammunition (top) and 200-pound bags of rice.
Yet, to attribute all Cambodia’s suffering solely to decisions made or rati-
fied by President Nixon represents an oversimplification. Sihanouk, after all,
was walking a tight-rope, trying to preserve his kingdom by balancing conflict-
ing domestic groups and foreign pressures. He failed, although cleverly playing
off the United States against North Vietnam. He nevertheless fell victim to a
combination of his own carelessness, Lon Nol’s ambition, and the discipline of
Cambodian communists, who would embark on their own reign of terror after
the American bombs stopped falling.
Shawcross acknowledges that Sihanouk was in an impossible situation. The
Prince could not simultaneously accommodate his domestic enemies on the
political left and right. Moreover, the United States failed to understand his
196
motives in trying to maintain Cambodia’s independence and nominal neutrality

or to appreciate that as an active ally, Cambodia would require help that out-
weighed any military contribution it could make. Fascinated by the willingness
of the new Khmer government to defy Hanoi, President Nixon overestimated
Lon Nol’s competence (to some extent undermined by illness), his political fol-
lowing, and his military strength. The administration, moreover, knew almost
nothing of the zeal, discipline, and ruthlessness of the Khmer Rouge.64
In the United States, the Cambodian incursion heightened the opposition to
the war. News of the attack triggered widespread demonstrations by foes of the
war. On May 4, 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio, National Guardsmen
sent to maintain order fired into a rock-throwing crowd, killing four students.
Two of the dead were women, and one was a cadet in the university’s Reserve
Officer Training Corps. All were bystanders rather than participants in the dis-
turbance the guardsmen were trying to quell. These deaths inflamed antiwar
sentiment among college students, who shut down for varying periods most of
the nation’s campuses. Nor did the President ease tensions when he referred to
the student demonstrators as “bums,” contrasting them with the American
troops in Vietnam, whom he considered “the greatest.”65
The reaction, especially among students, to the Kent State killings per-
suaded the President to maintain tighter surveillance over the activities of per-
sons and groups opposed to the war. Rather than call upon the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, which the President blamed for failing to discover the sources
of information apparently leaked to the press about the Menu bombing and
other matters, Nixon turned to a young aide, Tom Charles Huston, who con-
cocted a patently unconstitutional scheme for domestic intelligence-gathering.66
According to H. R. Haldeman, one of the President’s trusted advisers, adoption
of the Huston plan, largely in response to the outbursts that followed the
shooting at Kent State, “marked a turning point for Nixon, a beginning of a
downhill slide” that led to illegal entries, misuse of campaign funds, impeach-
ment proceedings, and in August 1974, the President’s resignation.67
Even before the fatal shots rang out at Kent State, a group that had orga-
nized two major antiwar demonstrations during 1969 scheduled a protest for
Washington, D.C., to be held on May 9. President Nixon sought to reduce the
impact of this gathering, appealing for support directly to the public in his first
news conference since January. At this session, he emphasized the continuing
troop withdrawals from Vietnam, acknowledging that the protesters, too, “want
our boys home,” but insisting that the invasion of Cambodia would help achieve
that very goal by enabling him to bring back another 150,000 men during 1970.
He chose this moment to promise that “all Americans of all kinds, including ad-
visers, will be out of Cambodia by the end of June.”68
The demonstrations against the war scheduled for Washington took place
as planned, attracting between 75,000 and 100,000 persons, but producing little
in the way of confrontation or violence. In contrast, an antiwar rally held the
197
previous day, May 8, in New York City had triggered an attack on the protesters
by construction workers, a clash that resulted in injury to seventy persons, four
of them police trying to separate the combatants. The melee in New York City
inspired a demonstration in support of President Nixon and his Southeast Asia
policy held there on May 20, under sponsorship of the building-trades unions.
An estimated 100,000 pro-Nixon demonstrators attended the event.69
While crowds protested — or, less frequently, demonstrated approval of —
Presidential actions, Congress began considering legislation designed to ensure
an American withdrawal from Cambodia by July 1, 1970. Two senators, Repub-
lican John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky and Democrat Frank Church of Idaho,
offered an amendment to the foreign military sales act that, effective July 1,
would have cut off funds not only for the employment of ground forces or ad-
visers in Cambodia but also for the conduct of air operations in support of Cam-
bodian troops. On June 30, the Senate adopted a modified version of the
Cooper-Church resolution, but the House of Representatives would not agree.
To pass the military sales legislation, Congress shelved the Cooper-Church
proviso, though the act in its final form repealed the Tonkin Gulf resolution.
Adopted almost without dissent in 1964 in response to reports of attacks by
North Vietnamese patrol boats on American destroyers, the resolution had, in
effect, given the President a free hand in defining and punishing acts of aggres-
sion by North Vietnam.
Far from expiring, the Cooper-Church proposal surfaced again in December
and was incorporated in a defense appropriations bill for fiscal 1971. As a re-
sult, the amended act barred the introduction of combat troops or military ad-
visers into Cambodia or Laos, while ignoring the air war in both countries. The
legislative branch thus curbed Presidential initiative, but did not prevent him
from supplying Lon Nol’s army, providing it air support, or reacting with air
power against any Cambodia-based threat to the American forces not yet with-
drawn from South Vietnam.70
President Nixon’s Southeast Asia policy of Vietnamization and withdrawal
weathered the domestic storm caused by the Cambodian incursion. Continuing
troop withdrawals and the return from Cambodia of the American invasion
force enabled him to wage an air war there. As the tempest of May died away,
the burden of campaigning in Cambodia shifted from soldiers, most of them
draftees, to airmen serving voluntarily in an organization that sustained far
fewer losses than the Army’s combat arms. In the Cambodian fighting of 1970,
for instance, five Air Force crew members were killed, two others were
wounded, and one remained missing when the incursion ended — eight men —
roughly one-half of one percent of the total U.S. Army casualties during the
period.71 A comparison of casualties may well have contributed to the decision
to embark on the sustained aerial interdiction effort that began as American
ground units withdrew from Cambodia.
198
Chapter Twelve
From Incursion to Interdiction
Searching beyond the immediate area of the incursion into Cambodia,

photographic and visual reconnaissance disclosed that the North Vietnamese
were shifting their forces to contain the invaders from South Vietnam and at the
same time trying to topple Lon Nol’s government. Reacting to early reports of
hostile movement, the Joint Chiefs of Staff on May 16 suggested an aerial
interdiction campaign designed to impede travel by road and river throughout
northeastern Cambodia. General Brown’s Seventh Air Force staff outlined a
plan for attacking traffic in an area bounded by the South Vietnamese border,
the Laotian border, a line 200 meters west of the Mekong River, and Cambodian
Route 13, a highway leading from Kratie southeastward past the town of Snoul.
After coordination with Cambodian authorities, air strikes began on May 30, six
days after the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued their formal directive to carry out the
Seventh Air Force plan.1
As approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the interdiction campaign, offic-
ially christened Freedom Deal on June 6,2 pitted tactical aircraft against “enemy
activities” in northeastern Cambodia “as necessary to protect U.S. forces in the
Republic of Vietnam.” Aerial interdiction, in effect, extended into Cambodia
the attempts to disrupt traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos. With-
in northeastern Cambodia, as in southern Laos, B–52 bombers could use their
striking power in the interdiction effort, provided that the impact area lay at
least one kilometer from inhabited villages or three kilometers from friendly
troops. The safety zone for military units was greater because they tended to
move about, while villagers were expected to remain close to home.3
These safety margins formed one part of a set of rules of engagement de-
signed to prevent bombing accidents in Cambodia. During the drafting of these
rules, General Abrams managed to avoid the precedent established in Laos,
where the U.S. Ambassador might veto targets because of adverse political
consequences. For air attacks in the Freedom Deal area of Cambodia, coordina-
tion took place exclusively among military headquarters — the U.S. Military
Assistance Command, the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff, and the Cam-
bodian armed forces.4
199
The operational precautions insisted upon in Cambodia differed little from

those enforced in South Vietnam. Cambodian authorities had to validate targets,
periodically reviewing those roads, areas, or waterways they had already certi-
fied as enemy-controlled and cleared of noncombatants. Airmen might attack
trucks travelling by night, the time favored by enemy drivers, or motorboats
moving at any time, even though the road or stream was known to carry civilian
traffic. After all, the peasants of eastern Cambodia rarely, if ever, used trucks
or powered boats. Before attempting to disrupt enemy movement on any high-
way or river used by local civilians, planners relied upon leaflets or loudspeaker
broadcasts to warn villagers of the danger, advising them in particular to avoid
travel after dark.
As in South Vietnam, a forward air controller directed most strikes, except
those by B–52s, for in Cambodia, too, the big bombers dropped their explosive
loads on signal from Combat Skyspot radar operators on the ground. Air Force
gunships, with their array of on-board sensors, along with F–4s and Marine
Corps A–6s fitted out for radar bombing, could also dispense with a forward air
controller. Only in special operating areas verified and reviewed by Cambodian
officers could tactical aircraft attack solely on the pilot’s initiative.
The existence of historic structures like the Angkor Wat, a temple complex
dating from the twelfth century, complicated the air war in Cambodia. Planners
and air crews exercised care to avoid damaging these buildings, insisting that
Cambodian officers approve nearby air attacks. To help protect national shrines,
civilian lives, and the safety of friendly troops fighting in Cambodia, English-
speaking Cambodian officers joined the Tactical Air Control Center at Tan Son
Nhut and the direct air support center at Pleiku. Cambodian airmen fluent in
English proved scarce, American pilots who spoke the Khmer language were
even fewer, and the Air Force soon was searching out American and South
Vietnamese forward air controllers fluent in French, the second language of
most educated Cambodians. These bilingual officers formed an essential link
in the air control system functioning in Cambodia.5
Despite the growing volume of road and river traffic within the Freedom
Deal area, profitable targets proved hard to find. The forest, of course, posed a
problem, but other handicaps may have resulted from the short tours of duty that
Air Force officers served in Southeast Asia. Sometimes changing assignments
during their year in the country, even field-grade officers might not learn a job
until they were about to leave it. Whatever the reason, Col. Malcolm E. Ryan
and Col. James H. Ahmann, two officers who helped plan the interdiction
campaign, maintained that some of their colleagues had all but ignored the
computerized intelligence available at Tan Son Nhut, apparently not realizing
the extent of recent reconnaissance coverage of Cambodia.6
Initially, the Cambodian liaison officers did not prove as helpful as
expected. After approving eight of the first twenty targets proposed, they
returned early in June to suggest designating much of Freedom Deal a special
200
A C–130 drops leaflets to warn villagers of an impending attack.

operating area to be bombed at will. Colonel Ryan and his fellow planners had
to remind the liaison group “that there were people around those areas and that
bombs kill people.” Afterward, the Cambodians grew “much more conservative
in their validation.”7
Already looking forward to possible extension of the air war west of the
Mekong, Seventh Air Force headquarters proposed using Freedom Deal inter-
diction as the basis for aerial reconnaissance beyond that river. Thus far, visual
reconnaissance by F–4s, OV–10s, and A–37s halted at the Mekong, a fact that
could not have escaped the enemy’s notice. Given the American tendency to
respect boundaries, whether geographic or political, the communists might not
expect these low-altitude flights to continue on into western Cambodia. Occa-
sional missions beyond the river not only could produce valuable intelligence
for future air attacks, but also might confuse the enemy, serving notice that the
region did not constitute a sanctuary.8 The Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed that
information was needed on enemy activity west of the Mekong and approved
unarmed aerial reconnaissance throughout the remainder of Cambodia. Only the
capital city, Phnom Penh, and its environs remained off limits for tactical recon-
naissance, ostensibly to prevent civilian casualties, though it is not clear how
unarmed aircraft could have caused death or injury among the local populace.9
Like reconnaissance, rescue activity expanded to keep pace with the exten-
sion of the air war. In mid-June, General Abrams expressed concern about the
fate of South Vietnamese air crews who might parachute or crash outside the
Freedom Deal area, for South Vietnam’s air arm had no organized rescue ser-
vice. By the end of the month, Air Force rescue units had received permission
to range over all of Cambodia to recover downed Americans and any South
Vietnamese who could not be reached by their own helicopters or ground pa-
201
trols. Late in July, moreover, Air Force helicopters began retrieving Cambodian
airmen who otherwise might not be saved.10
As the Freedom Deal strikes were beginning, a group of Cambodian troops
and civilians fled the town of Lomphat and sought refuge from the pursuing
enemy at Labansiek, where the South Vietnamese had sent a tactical air control
party to handle strikes in support of their own forces engaged in the Binh Tay
operations. South Vietnamese forward air controllers and fighter-bomber crews
combined to attack ambush sites along the road linking the two towns, but air
cover could not prevent the communists from inflicting “serious” losses on the
retreating column. For two weeks Labansiek held out, but on June 13 the South
Vietnamese withdrew their tactical air control party and called a halt to air
activity, since the Binh Tay forces had already departed. Left to fend for them-
selves were some ten thousand Cambodian soldiers and noncombatants, a total
divided between Labansiek and Ba Kev, just to the east.
American airmen replaced the South Vietnamese fliers who had been aiding
the embattled Cambodians. Flareships and AC–119K gunships appeared over-
head on the evening of the 13th, made radio contact with English-speaking
Cambodian officers on the ground, and commenced harrying North Vietnamese
concentrations on the outskirts of the two towns. Fighters joined in, attacking
visually by day or using Combat Skyspot radar at night, but fatigue and casual-
ties wore away the defenders until an evacuation seemed necessary if the sol-
diers and civilians were to survive.11 On June 23, Air Force C–7s and C–123s
evacuated some 7,000 persons, most of them members of soldiers’ families, and
the troops then abandoned Ba Kev and Labansiek, retreating under cover of
American aircraft and yielding northeastern Cambodia to the enemy.12
As the fighting at Labansiek and Ba Kev drew to an end, the Seventh Air
Force embarked upon Freedom Action, an air operation distinct from Freedom
Deal. Authorized by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on June 17, Freedom Action em-
powered General Abrams and his deputy for air, General Brown, to intervene
with tactical aviation in any battle, throughout the whole of Cambodia, where
a communist victory would pose a serious military or psychological threat to the
Lon Nol government. When necessary, B–52s could take part in Freedom Ac-
tion, just as in Freedom Deal. The principal beneficiaries of the new operation
were the defenders of Kompong Thom who, according to Lon Nol, were saved
from death or capture thanks to the efforts of American airmen. Freedom Action
ended on June 29, a mere ten days after the first strikes were flown. The short-
lived endeavor reflected uncertainty within the Nixon administration concerning
the nature and scope of aerial operations after American ground troops had
withdrawn from Cambodia.13
The Nixon administration had difficulty interpreting, in the light of military
realities in Cambodia, the President’s statement of June 3, which assured the
nation that “The only remaining American activity in Cambodia after July 1 will
be air missions to interdict the movement of enemy troops and materiel where
202
I find it necessary to protect the lives and security of our men in South Viet-
nam.”14 The policy seemed clear at first, for in conversations at his home in San
Clemente, California, Nixon told Laird and Abrams that aerial interdiction
would be permitted after July 1, but not close air support.15 The President, how-
ever, had scarcely affirmed this policy when he began modifying it.
As Laird reportedly said after the San Clemente talks, “since we are taking
all the heat on Cambodia, we might as well use our forces as effectively as pos-
sible,”16 a view the President apparently shared, despite his declaration limiting
aerial activity to interdiction. In any event, during conversations with Admiral
Moorer, Deputy Secretary of Defense Packard, and other of his advisers, Nixon
agreed to a broad interpretation of interdiction, though he insisted he did not
want American tactical air control parties accompanying South Vietnamese or
Cambodian units operating west of the border. The admiral came away from the
meeting convinced that “the President thinks Cambodia can be saved and that
it is worth the effort and risks we might run.”17 Indeed, the President’s remarks
to the acting chairman inspired the Joint Chiefs of Staff to launch Operation
Freedom Action.18
The President, however, adopted a policy that seemed, at first glance, far
less bold than his words, as Moorer understood them. After all, Nixon not only
retained the ban on close air support for South Vietnamese forces in Cambodia,
at this time finishing the Cuu Long series of operations, but promptly called a
halt to Freedom Action, thus forcing General Abrams to evaluate individually
each Cambodian request for attacks beyond the Freedom Deal boundary. In
practice, though, the restrictions proved more apparent than real. Close support
of South Vietnamese troops could be provided by their own airmen instead of
Americans, and General Abrams remained free to intervene with air power on
behalf of Cambodian troops in any emergency that he interpreted as threatening
the survival of the Lon Nol regime.19
The announced policy of flying interdiction missions only, within a speci-
fied area, proved a matter of appearance rather than substance, affecting book-
keeping instead of tactical employment. In the light of his discussion with Presi-
dent Nixon at San Clemente — and of Moorer’s account of his own talks with
the Chief Executive — Abrams assumed that he could rely on the Seventh Air
Force for close air support, as well as for interdiction, provided only that he did
not openly acknowledge any departure from the President’s announced policy.
As a result, close air support became aerial interdiction in the periodic reports
of action in Cambodia, and statistical compilations listed attack sorties, without
separating close air support from interdiction, a distinction still being made for
air operations in South Vietnam.20
As it had in reporting the strike against the Kong River truck park during
the incursion, the Seventh Air Force used secure means of communication to re-
port strikes outside the normal operating area, creating for accounting purposes
a cover target to be listed in routine reports. Not until February 1971, when the
203
Refugees from the eastern provinces of Cambodia

were airlifted to South Vietnam aboard Air Force C–7s.
same aircraft was reported downed at two different locations, did Department
of Defense planners become aware of the cover story. By that time, some 3,600
of the 8,000-odd sorties reported flown in an expanded interdiction zone had hit
targets which, at the time of attack, lay beyond the pale.21
Events proved Abrams correct in assuming that he could employ air power
as the situation required, provided only that he did so discreetly. The American
public failed to rally behind those Congressional leaders seeking to exert pres-
sure on the administration to enforce the announced limitations on air strikes in
Cambodia. Since Abrams did not face widespread political or public opposition,
he enjoyed great discretion in attacking targets. Aerial activity did not arouse
the kind of clamor that the recent incursion had, principally because ground ac-
tion, with larger forces that included many draftees, almost always produced a
longer and more demoralizing roster of American dead and wounded.
In January 1971, for example, the Nixon administration aroused little con-
cern, except on Capitol Hill, when it acknowledged an increase in the intensity
of the air war in Cambodia. Sixty-four Congressmen co-sponsored legislation
to cut off funds for combat support of any kind in that country, but the proposal
failed, as did an attempt to fix by law a date for the final American withdrawal
from the Vietnam conflict. However futile at the moment, these legislative ges-
tures served to warn of more serious clashes with Congress in the future on the
topic of military action in Southeast Asia.
To neutralize the opposition, administration officials quickly pointed out
that aerial involvement served a substitute for combat on the ground, not a pre-
lude to another invasion, an assurance that seemed to satisfy Congress and the
204
public. Jerry W. Friedheim, a deputy assistant secretary of defense for public

affairs, then declared that the President would apply in Cambodia whatever de-
gree of air power might be necessary to prevent attacks on American troops still
serving in South Vietnam, a point repeated late in January by Secretary of State
Rogers and reinforced during a February 1971 press conference by Nixon him-
self. Granted that a South Vietnamese offensive into Laos may have distracted
the attention of the American public at the time of the February meeting be-
tween the President and reporters, the safety of U.S. soldiers remaining in South
Vietnam seemed infinitely more important than the location of targets in Cam-
bodia or the precise nature of the strikes against them.22
Despite the President’s restrictions, therefore, General Brown, who would
serve until the end of August 1970 as the Seventh Air Force commander, as well
as deputy for air operations to General Abrams, continued to wage “the most
aggressive U.S. and VNAF air campaign in Cambodia which is feasible within
the limits of intelligence and control facilities available . . . . ” The Americans
might routinely employ flareships to meet emergencies anywhere in Cambodia,
continue dispatching rescue or reconnaissance missions throughout the entire
country, and, provided only that villagers were not endangered, call upon B–52s
to hit the enemy anywhere in Freedom Deal.23 Neither fighters nor bombers
could attack, however, until Cambodian authorities had verified the target, for
the original Freedom Deal rules of engagement remained in effect. As long as
he avoided populated settlements, General Abrams could direct B–52s and tac-
tical fighters into a Freedom Deal Extension — bounded on the north by Route
13, on the west by a line 200 meters beyond the Mekong River, on the south by
Route 7, and on the east by the South Vietnamese border. Although the far-
reaching Freedom Action authority no longer obtained, the general could also
attack beyond the boundary formed by the Mekong and Route 7, if he were sat-
isfied that a critically important town or military position was clearly in
jeopardy.24
General Abrams promptly invoked his authority to carry the war outside the
enlarged Freedom Deal region, approving air strikes in defense of Kompong
Thom, roughly seventy-five miles west of the Mekong, even as he attacked
Kompong Cham, at the far limit of the newly expanded operating area. Kom-
pong Thom stood astride the route used to bring rice from the Tonle Sap agri-
cultural basin to the capital city, Phnom Penh; Kompong Cham was a transpor-
tation hub for road and river traffic. In both instances, intelligence specialists
of the military assistance command and the Seventh Air Force confirmed the
seriousness of the communist threat, Cambodian officers approved the targets,
and Air Force forward air controllers in contact with troops on the ground
directed the actual strikes.25
The mere presence of hostile forces in an area did not guarantee that Ameri-
can air power would intervene. In July, for instance, Abrams turned down Cam-
bodian requests for aerial attacks around Battambang in the northwestern part
205
of the country and, for the time being, rejected proposed strikes on the Kirirom
Plateau, west of Phnom Penh. In contrast, the threat to Siem Riep, a town near
the northern shore of Tonle Sap, grew real enough to justify the use of Air Force
gunships as well as flareships. The Seventh Air Force also received permission
to attack enemy traffic on parts of Route 12, leading southward toward besieged
Kompong Thom.26
While he used air power to meet emergencies progressively farther from
South Vietnam’s western border, Abrams succeeded in expanding further the
already extended Freedom Deal interdiction zone. On July 21, the Seventh Air
Force had requested the further enlargement, citing the results of reconnaissance
flights over the proposed addition — south of Route 7, east of the Mekong,
north of Route 15, and including the entire Parrot’s Beak. Airmen had detected
troop movements and supply convoys throughout the region, ample justifica-
tion, it seemed, to enlarge the interdiction area.27 The Joint Chiefs of Staff,
however, elected to expand Freedom Deal less than half as far as the Seventh
Air Force desired. The revised boundary consisted of a combination of high-
ways and one stream — Routes 75, 155, 1543, and the Prek Kompong Spean —
that kept the interdiction operation just north of the Parrot’s Beak.28
This second expansion of Freedom Deal (actually an enlargement of the
first extension) could not check the advance of the North Vietnamese and Cam-
bodian Khmer Rouge forces. To deal with the worsening threat, General Brown
sought to push the boundary of the interdiction zone westward, almost to Siem
Riep, and southwest to the Gulf of Thailand. He also wanted approval to con-
duct the same intensive air operations in defense of Kompong Speu, Kompong
Chhnang, and Kampot that already were being flown at Kompong Thom and
Kompong Cham. Although unwilling to go so far, General Abrams, on his own
initiative, approved an extension that embraced Kompong Cham, Kompong
Thom, and Kompong Chhnang. This change, made on August 20, had the effect
of a Band-Aid when a tourniquet clearly was needed, so the Army general im-
mediately turned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a more radical adjustment of
Freedom Deal.29
Intelligence clearly revealed that streams, trails, and highways north of
Phnom Penh carried an increasing volume of supplies to communist forces in
action at Kompong Thom and elsewhere. Aircrews and Salem House patrols
reported seeing porters, bicycles, and ox carts bringing cargo into the country
from Laos. At transshipment points in the northern jungle, laborers transferred
this material onto trucks, which completed the journey using Route 12 and other
roads. Although most of the trucks moved in darkness, forward air controllers
used night observation devices to detect them, and infrared film verified the
activity. Because of this traffic, moving beyond range of South Vietnamese air-
craft based in South Vietnam, the Joint Chiefs of Staff allowed Abrams to push
the interdiction zone westward from the Mekong to a line originating where the
borders of Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand met and extending southward past
206
Phum Troun, Phum Ravieng, and Kompong Thom to Kompong Cham. This ex-
tension, called Freedom Deal Alpha, excluded the towns of Kompong Speu and
Kompong Chhnang.30
At the end of July, as Freedom Deal was in the process of expanding,
Abrams decided that intervention with American air power was necessary if
Lon Nol were to retain a foothold on the Kirirom Plateau. His first move, a five-
day air campaign, failed to blunt the communist thrust toward Route 4, linking
Phnom Penh and the port of Kompong Som. Following this setback, aerial
action continued into September, when communist forces at last drove Lon
Nol’s defenders from the plateau.31
Thus did the American interdiction effort evolve during 1970. At year’s
end, the normal operating area embraced the original Freedom Deal zone, the
two Freedom Deal extensions, and Freedom Deal Alpha; it stretched from Route
7 to the Laotian border and extended some seventy-five miles beyond the
Mekong.32 The expanded interdiction effort included attempts to mine streams
used to transport enemy cargo, continuing forays by Salem House teams, strikes
on supply lines, and, when necessary, close air support of Cambodian troops.
Early in June, Air Force planes began sowing magnetic mines in the Kong
and San Rivers. The planting of more than 1,600 mines, however, did little more
than inconvenience the enemy, who substituted wooden boats for metal-hulled,
powered craft until he could begin floating rafts made of steel drums down-
stream in a systematic mine-clearing effort. A similar attempt to mine the
Mekong, near its conflux with the Kong, proved no more successful.33
The Salem House area of operation expanded throughout 1970, much as
had the aerial interdiction zone. By the end of December, teams were patrolling
twenty to fifty kilometers into Cambodia from the Laotian border on the north
to the Gulf of Thailand. In addition, Abrams’ Studies and Observations Group
could insert the teams anywhere in the original Freedom Deal area, east of the
Mekong, to locate targets for air strikes. Because of President Nixon’s decision
to withdraw U.S. ground troops from Cambodia, no Americans accompanied
these cross-border patrols after July 1, but U.S. Air Force helicopters, escorted
by A–1s from Nakhon Phanom, flew some of the teams to their landing zones.
On certain roads and trails, the reconnaissance units planted electronic sensors
to detect movement and thus locate targets for artillery or air strikes.34
The 1970 aerial campaign in Cambodia demonstrated beyond doubt the
value of the armed forward air controller, flying the OV–10A Bronco or, less
frequently, the F–4 Phantom. The concept of arming the controllers had under-
gone testing in South Vietnam during 1969, and results there proved so encour-
aging that General Brown ordered all his Broncos fitted out with machine guns
and rocket launchers. Over Cambodia, armed forward air controllers attacked
targets, usually traffic on roads or rivers approved as strike zones by Cambodian
authorities, that seemed likely to vanish before fighter-bombers could be sum-
moned to the scene.35
207
Americans were not the only airmen flying combat missions over Cambo-
dia during the interdiction campaign. A few Cambodians saw action, along with
South Vietnamese. When Lon Nol sought to rally his nation and expel the North
Vietnamese, his air force consisted of just ninety-eight planes, with twenty-one
operational. Available for combat were nine North American T–28s, trainers
modified for counterinsurgency warfare, and a dozen MiG–17s, interceptors that
the Soviet Union had given the Sihanouk regime. The Khmer air arm could
muster about a hundred pilots, roughly half of them experienced enough to carry
out air strikes. Even fewer of these airmen had the combination of experience
and fluency in English that would enable them to act as forward air controllers
or members of tactical air control parties. Obviously, this force could not in the
near future make a major contribution to the air war.36
Despite these handicaps, Cambodian fliers did participate to some extent
in the fighting. Lack of Soviet-manufactured ammunition grounded the MiGs,
but by the end of summer, the few serviceable T–28s, supplemented by five
planes of the same type borrowed from the Royal Thai Air Force, enabled Lon
Nol’s pilots to average a dozen combat sorties per day, occasionally flying half-
again that many in an emergency. To circumvent the language barrier, French-
speaking U.S. Air Force and Cambodian officers worked together in approving
and controlling air strikes.37
Like its American counterpart, the South Vietnamese Air Force took part
in the attacks on the North Vietnamese sanctuaries and in the air campaign that
followed. From the beginning of the incursion until the end of 1970, the South
Vietnamese flew some 9,600 attack sorties in Cambodia, compared to 14,600
by American airmen.38 Besides flying interdiction missions, South Vietnam’s
air arm delivered close-in strikes for both Cambodian and South Vietnamese
troops and provided other assistance.
Examples of participation by South Vietnamese airmen included the relief
of Kompong Cham in mid-December 1970. Since summer, Lon Nol’s army
struggled to hold this town against a determined enemy. During the six weeks
beginning on November 1, with the Cambodian defenders barely holding on,
U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers flew 78 sorties, AC–119s flew 126, and B–52s
three. Throughout this crisis, South Vietnamese tactical aircraft contributed 426
combat sorties. Finally, on December 14, the South Vietnamese mounted an air
operation to replace the Khmer garrison with their own troops, using helicopters
to bring in an airborne infantry battalion and a battery of artillery.39
General Brown, who as commander of the Seventh Air Force had played
a key role in the improvement and modernization of South Vietnam’s air force,
looked upon the Cambodian campaign, especially the airlift to supply the force
landed by helicopter at Kompong Cham, as proof that the air arm was achieving
balance as well as acquiring skill. The fighter force had already demonstrated
its ability in South Vietnam; now, in Cambodia, transport crews had delivered
cargo by night, adjusting schedules to meet changing tactical and weather con-
208
An EC–121D on station over Southeast Asia.

ditions, experience that, in the general’s opinion, “was a great thing for them”
in terms of increased self-confidence.40
When operating in Cambodia, the South Vietnamese Air Force encountered
certain handicaps. Strike aircraft based at Da Nang and Nha Trang, for example,
consumed too much fuel en route to the interdiction area to remain there for
long. Bad weather or darkness impeded aerial combat, with only the AC–47
gunship able to fight effectively at night. Also, any South Vietnamese troops in
action received top priority for air strikes, regardless of the peril some Cambo-
dian unit might face. Finally, the shortage of trained South Vietnamese forward
air controllers persisted, and the O–1s and U–17s that they used could fly no
deeper than eighty miles into Cambodia without an unacceptable sacrifice in
time on station.41
Despite the impressive record compiled by South Vietnamese airmen, a
longstanding hatred at times disrupted cooperation between the governments of
Cambodia and South Vietnam. Though he clearly needed its help, Lon Nol
feared South Vietnam, for tens of thousands of ethnic Vietnamese living in
Cambodia had been objects of contempt and victims of oppression; and a South
Vietnamese army might yield to the temptation to redress this wrong. As a
result, Cambodian authorities were prompt to blame their allies of the moment
for looting and other crimes, not all of which were clearly the fault of South
Vietnamese troops.42
As the air war spread deeper into Cambodia and came to involve air crews
of nations other than the United States, coordination became a problem. An aer-
ial command post had to be found to replace the EC–47D that provided radio
relay, and Seventh Air Force headquarters proposed the return to Thailand of
four of the Lockheed EC–121s recently withdrawn from that country. The first
of the EC–121D radar platforms arrived at Korat Air Base, Thailand, on Sep-
tember 15 and flew its first mission on the following day. Plans called for the
209
planes to serve as airborne battlefield command and control centers until mod-
ified C–130s, the type that had performed this role over Khe Sanh in 1968,
became available. The airborne command centers, whether EC–121Ds or mod-
ified C–130s, would carry French-speaking controllers from the air forces of the
United States, Thailand, South Vietnam, and Cambodia, who would apportion
the available fighter-bombers among targets in Cambodia. To prevent the
enemy from eavesdropping, these officers would use comparatively simple code
equipment, not so secret or technologically advanced that the Air Force could
not share it with foreign airmen. The concept, however, never became reality.
Although the Cambodians agreed to place representatives on board the flying
command posts, the South Vietnamese relied on a control center established at
Phnom Penh’s Pochentong airport, and the Thai air force continued to use its
own center located at Battambang.43
Plans called for the eventual replacement of the airborne battlefield com-
mand and control center by an air operations coordination center at Pochentong
airdrome. Unfortunately, American participation in a center there would violate
President Nixon’s announced policy, soon to be confirmed by Congress, of
equipping rather than advising Cambodia’s armed forces. At times, however,
a fact-finding visit to investigate the use of American-supplied material might
become a vehicle for giving military advice, if not for routinely harmonizing
operations. On at least one occasion, the U.S. Ambassador at Phnom Penh,
Emory S. Swank, allowed an officer from Seventh Air Force headquarters to
help the Cambodian Air Force address problems of control and coordination. In
the sort of “low key” discussion specified by the diplomat, Lt. Col. Paul D.
Wagoner described the layout and functioning of a Pochentong command post,
its relationship to intelligence activities, and its communications needs. He
came away impressed with the attitude of the Cambodians he met — “They
want to fight the war their way, by themselves” — but he confessed that “It will
surprise me if the AOCC [air operations coordination center] works effectively
without U.S. influence . . . . I feel we must help them all we can.” By year’s end,
that help had not come, and the coordination center remained unfinished.44
Since the spring of 1970, American operations in Cambodia had changed
in nature, though the final goal remained the same. Ground attacks upon bases
that sustained enemy activity in South Vietnam gave way to an air campaign
also designed to save American lives in the South by exerting pressure on the
enemy in Cambodia. The aerial effort helped maintain the regime headed by
Lon Nol, so that the Cambodian armed forces could absorb the military supplies
that the United States was providing and resist the communist opposition. How-
ever, the ultimate goal of America’s Cambodian intervention remained to con-
tribute to the aerial shield behind which American troops could withdraw as
South Vietnamese forces gathered strength to replace them.
210
Chapter Thirteen
The Continued Growth of South

Vietnam’s Air Force
The American departures coincided, of course, with South Vietnam’s as-

sumption of greater responsibility for fighting the war. By January 1970, Viet-
namization of aerial combat was well underway, though some advisers preferred
to speak instead of an improvement and modernization program. This choice of
words tended to soothe those South Vietnamese who wanted a better and more
modern air arm, but feared that the Americans saw Vietnamization as simply a
way to rid themselves of responsibility for an unpopular conflict and go home.1
Whatever label the process might carry, Gen. Kendall Young’s Air Force
Advisory Group, Vietnam, was administering an accelerated effort to strengthen
South Vietnam’s air force. As the advisers forged ahead, Secretary of Defense
Laird, his staff, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff debated the merits of speeding the
Vietnamization program even more. Under discussion at Washington was the
so-called phase III effort, first proposed late the previous year and designed to
enable the South Vietnamese armed forces to maintain “current levels of secur-
ity” as the military assistance command diminished in strength and activity to
a mere advisory group. Phase III, however, with its estimated additional cost of
$980 million, ran hard aground on fiscal shoals.2
The same budget crisis that inspired Project 703 and the resulting man-
power cuts had also imposed limits on what the United States could do immed-
iately to improve President Thieu’s armed forces. Secretary Laird, a veteran of
the House of Representatives, believed that Congress would not vote supple-
mentary defense funds except in a dire emergency. New appropriations for
phase III seemed especially unlikely since the program, accelerated though it
was, could not dramatically reduce American participation in the Southeast Asia
conflict and result in new troop withdrawals. Addressing himself to the question
of again speeding up the improvement and modernization effort, the Secretary
of Defense warned that “all funding must come from within existing and fore-
seeable budget ceilings.” To step up the pace of Vietnamization would require
slowing the tempo of some other program administered by the Department of
Defense or the armed services.3
211
The Cambodian invasion, however, gave unexpected impetus to the mod-

ernization and improvement of South Vietnam’s armed forces. Although the
existing budget ceiling remained in effect, Secretary Laird was determined to
tap other departmental programs for the money necessary to take advantage of
the “new RVNAF [Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces] confidence born in the
recent cross-border operations” both to increase South Vietnamese participation
in the war and to hasten U.S. withdrawals. “It is abundantly clear . . . ,” he de-
clared, “that on completion of our operations [in Cambodia], we must accelerate
the RVNAF improvement and modernization program in every possible way.”4
Secretary Laird thus launched the Consolidated RVNAF Improvement and
Modernization Program, which intensified efforts already begun but did not
require new appropriations as the phase III scheme would have done. The con-
solidated program called for a South Vietnamese military establishment totaling
1.1 million in June 1973, with the air arm expanding to 46,998 officers and
men. During December 1970, however, the Air Force advisory group became
concerned that additional airmen, technicians, and medical professionals would
be needed as South Vietnamese replaced U.S. troops at air bases, logistics cen-
ters, command posts, and hospital facilities. South Vietnam’s Joint General
Staff agreed, increasing the projected strength of the air service to 52,171,5 but
even this number could not ensure the self-sufficiency of a Vietnamized air arm.
At best, the greater number of South Vietnamese airmen could help the other
expanded armed services to deal with the kind of communist threat that existed
in the spring of 1970, after the invasion of Cambodia.6
Authorized early in June, the consolidated plan imposed an added burden
on the Air Force advisory group, which already was carrying out the previous
year’s accelerated improvement and modernization scheme. General Young
complained about the lack of formal directives governing the acceleration that
began in 1969, declaring that “the only road map” consisted of “the minutes of
several meetings held during the initial development of the program.” To main-
tain control over unit activations, changes in equipment, and transfers of facil-
ities, Young’s staff established a system of “milestone dates” that enabled mon-
itors to chart progress, isolate problems, and predict the impact of delays. As
hectic in tempo as the plan it supplanted, the consolidated program of 1970 fur-
ther tested these management procedures.7
During 1970, Air Force headquarters gave formal recognition to the role
General Brown had been playing in carrying out plans to improve and modern-
ize South Vietnam’s air arm, in effect putting him in charge of all service-
funded assistance programs. The channel for managing these activities extended
from the Pentagon through Pacific Air Forces and Seventh Air Force to General
Young’s advisory group. General Brown, of course, would continue to coordi-
nate Air Force activity with the work of the other services, operating through
General Abrams’ headquarters.8
Under the consolidated improvement and modernization program, the South
212
Continued Growth of South Vietnam’s Air Force
Vietnamese Air Force expanded from twenty-two squadrons with 486 author-
ized aircraft in mid-summer 1970 to thirty squadrons with 706 planes at year’s
end. Two additional A–37 squadrons and one of A–1s (all originally scheduled
for activation in the summer of 1971) joined the air arm, as did four new squad-
rons of UH–1s and, some six months ahead of schedule, the first of two planned
CH–47 units.9 Moreover, the consolidated plan looked beyond these 1970 in-
creases to a force of thirty-seven squadrons by the end of June 1971, forty-five
squadrons a year later, and forty-nine by June 30, 1973. The final squadron,
eighteen Northrop F–5E interceptors, would arrive at the end of June 1974,
raising to 1,299 the authorized total of aircraft.10
In terms of squadrons, South Vietnam’s air arm expanded by almost 30
percent during 1970, while the number of aircraft increased by not quite 50
percent. Further expansion lay in the future as the consolidated improvement
and modernization program surged forward. As a result, throughout 1970 the
Air Force advisory group intensified its efforts to fashion the organizational
framework capable of sustaining an even bigger force. In doing so, General
Young and his fellow advisers struck a compromise between centralization, a
key principle of Air Force doctrine, and the diffusion of authority that the South
Vietnamese favored.
In two instances, centralization clearly prevailed. An Air Logistics Com-
mand began functioning at Bien Hoa, built on the foundation of the logistics
wing that had been stationed there, and a training center took shape at Nha
Trang. Also, the blueprint now existed for a unified aircraft control and warning
system, even though a South Vietnamese interceptor force would not arrive un-
til 1974. The tactical air control system, however, defied centralization, for
despite organizational charts to the contrary, the corps or military region com-
manders, operating through the local direct air support center, exerted control
over strikes in their areas.
Five air divisions, one in each military region and one in the Capital
Military District, formed the main components of the reorganized South Viet-
namese Air Force. The first, located at Da Nang, provided air support through-
out Military Region I (formerly called the I Corps Tactical Zone), with fighter-
bombers, helicopters, and observation or liaison squadrons assigned to either of
two tactical wings. The Second Air Division, its headquarters at Nha Trang,
covered Military Region II, operating one wing from Nha Trang and another
from Pleiku. Two other tactical wings, grouped at Bien Hoa to form the 3d Air
Division, bore responsibility for aerial operations in Military Region III, while
the 4th Air Division, its headquarters and one wing at Binh Thuy and a second
tactical wing at Soc Trang, used its A–37s, O–1s, U–17s, and UH–1 helicopters
throughout Military Region IV.11
Different from these four organizations, all of them functioning by Sep-
tember 1970, was the 5th Air Division, activated on New Year’s Day, 1971, at
Tan Son Nhut Air Base in the Capital Military District. Unlike the other four,
213
this newest air division did not did not support ground forces within a particular
region. Instead, it was an outgrowth of the 33d Wing, which flew transports,
gunships, and special mission aircraft everywhere in South Vietnam. Since so
many of the aircraft flown by this division — the AC–47, VC–47 executive
transport, and RC–47 — were variants of the basic Douglas C–47, the South
Vietnamese did not balk at centralizing disparate operations in one division.12
Despite impressive results in terms of squadrons, manpower, and aircraft,
the 1970 reorganization and expansion encountered serious obstacles in the
quest for suitable operating facilities and adequate family housing for the ex-
panded South Vietnamese Air Force. General Young’s advisory group tackled
the housing problem by establishing a pilot program for the construction of
model living quarters at each of six bases — Da Nang, Pleiku, Bien Hoa, Nha
Trang, Binh Thuy, and Tan Son Nhut. The basic structure was a rectangular
cinder-block building with ten family units opening onto a common courtyard
that did not exceed $600 per apartment in cost. Although U.S. airmen super-
vised the work, members of the South Vietnamese air arm mixed concrete, fash-
ioned the blocks, and put up the walls and roof. The models, finished during
May, helped persuade South Vietnamese authorities to embark on an ambitious
housing plan embracing seven bases (Soc Trang being the addition) and accom-
modating 2,400 families, a number soon increased to 4,900.13
The housing program undertaken by the South Vietnamese Air Force got
off to a slow start. Only at Da Nang were sand, lumber, and cement readily
available, and this, too, was the only base with adequate manpower for the task.
Except at Soc Trang, a former U.S. Army base with no Air Force materials, the
Seventh Air Force provided the necessary lumber whenever the South Viet-
namese ran short, a contribution that kept the project from losing momentum.
At year’s end, construction was moving ahead, though slowly.14
Progress also occurred in the Vietnamization of base defense. By the end
of December 1970, South Vietnamese Air Force security police had assumed
full responsibility for protecting Nha Trang, Binh Thuy, and Soc Trang. General
Young estimated that 85 percent of the authorized security force was either
organized in operational units or undergoing training. Recently assigned sentry
dog teams patrolled the perimeter defenses of Binh Thuy and Pleiku. Gradually
the South Vietnamese security police would replace their American counterparts
at all seven operating bases.15
In its plans for transferring facilities to the South Vietnamese, the U.S. Air
Force had given top priority to Nha Trang, tentatively scheduled for release
during the summer of 1970, with Binh Thuy and Pleiku, Da Nang, Bien Hoa,
and ultimately Tan Son Nhut to follow. As it turned out, no base used by the Air
Force came under exclusively South Vietnamese control in 1970; the only one
that changed hands during the year was Soc Trang, transferred in November by
the U.S. Army. The change of responsibility for Soc Trang encountered a num-
ber of obstacles, however, for the South Vietnamese lacked many of the skills
214
Robert C. Seamans, Secretary of the Air Force, shakes hands

with Gen. Cao Van Vien, head of the Vietnamese Joint General
Staff, during the transfer of Soc Trang Air Base to Vietnam.
essential for operating an airfield. Telephone service, electrical power, and
water pressure failed at times, until the Seventh Air Force, now commanded by
Gen. Lucius D. Clay, Jr., sent a team of civil engineers in December to spend
ninety days instructing and supervising their South Vietnamese counterparts.16
At Nha Trang, the transfer to South Vietnamese control bogged down at
mid-year. The 2d Air Division, created in June, could not move immediately
into its assigned buildings because the last U.S. Army units did not depart until
December. During a six-month transition, South Vietnamese air traffic con-
trollers and meteorologists, recent graduates of the training center located on the
base, took over the control tower and weather station. The most serious obstacle
to a rapid changeover proved to be the runway, undermined by water and deter-
iorating badly. Air Force engineers had to remove the disintegrating concrete
and resurface before the new tenants could conduct full-scale operations.17
Binh Thuy also suffered runway problems, but these were alleviated simply
by cutting drainage grooves in the surface to prevent the water from collecting
in pools. At this base, four other major construction projects, paid for with U.S.
Air Force military construction funds, ended early in 1970. Besides building a
headquarters for South Vietnam’s 4th Air Division and an operations building,
the Air Force invested almost $400,000 in a parking apron and aircraft revet-
ments. On the last day of February, South Vietnamese airmen took over the con-
trol tower, and when the year ended, completion of work on the runway seemed
215
the only major obstacle to an orderly transfer of Binh Thuy to South Vietnam’s
air force.18
Pleiku posed fewer problems than either Binh Thuy or Nha Trang. Plans for
entrusting the base to the South Vietnamese, completed by the end of March
1970, were being carried out at the close of the year. In contrast to these three,
Da Nang, Bien Hoa, and Tan Son Nhut remained, in General Young’s phrase,
“critical bases.”19
All three airfields in the critical category were undergoing intensive use by
the American squadrons that shared them with South Vietnamese units. Sus-
tained activity by two different air forces posed difficult problems. Col. Roy D.
Broadway, an Air Force adviser, pointed out, “There is a resistance on the part
of Americans and Vietnamese to share, just as there is a resistance on the part
of anyone to share with someone else.”20 The demands of war heightened the
effects of this natural friction, forcing American commanders to postpone legit-
imate needs of the South Vietnamese to avoid disruptions that might interfere
with air operations. At Da Nang, for instance, Air Force and Marine com-
manders could not jeopardize the effectiveness of their units by handing over
facilities to the South Vietnamese 1st Air Division. As a result, some 800 South
Vietnamese airmen had to sleep in hangars, shops, and offices because Amer-
ican airmen needed the barracks. The situation would not improve until the
Marine Corps and Air Force squadrons began leaving for the United States.21
To complicate the transition at Bien Hoa, two South Vietnamese organi-
zations — the 3d Air Division and the Air Logistics Command — competed for
space. They succeeded, however, in trading some buildings and sharing others
until the departure of a U.S. Air Force tactical air support squadron, late in the
process of Vietnamization, eased the congestion.22
The least progress occurred at Tan Son Nhut, the busiest of the jointly used
bases. Facilities there remained “critically short,” conceded Lt. Col. Jimmie R.
Osborne, an Air Force adviser, because the Americans were “not moving out as
fast as expected.” Despite the shortage of space, the South Vietnamese showed
great resourcefulness in utilizing whatever facilities and equipment became
available. Osborne credited them with, among other things, building their own
test stands for the AC–47’s multibarrel guns and refurbishing the maintenance
shops they had recently acquired.23
The transfer of facilities at Soc Trang and the other bases revealed a flaw
in the improvement and modernization program. South Vietnam’s air force did
not have trained civil engineers capable of patching taxiways, repairing elec-
trical and water systems, and performing the hundreds of other chores essential
to airfield operation. “At the beginning of the Vietnamization program,” said
General Young, “the primary goal was to turn over increasing combat sortie
responsibility” to South Vietnam’s Air Force, but while the South Vietnamese
were shouldering the weightier burden, their air service remained “highly de-
pendent on USAF support for base maintenance.” The advisory group realized
216
that “this deficiency was . . . a real hindrance to the future of Vietnamization”

and therefore revised training programs and assignment priorities to double the
number of civil engineers available by year’s end. Although the total rose from
roughly 500 to more than 1,000, the South Vietnamese Air Force needed about
1,600 officers and men in this specialty.24
To fulfill the need for civil engineers, South Vietnamese airmen underwent
English-language training that would enable them to learn the required skills by
receiving instruction from and working alongside Americans. To provide actual
engineering instruction, whether in the classroom or on the job, the advisory
group turned to the civilian contractors — Pacific Architects and Engineers,
Philco-Ford, and TransAsia — that helped provide essential services at Nha
Trang, Da Nang, Pleiku, and Binh Thuy. These firms organized and supervised
courses in which almost 800 South Vietnamese airmen were enrolled.25
The need to acquire some fluency in English before starting certain training
courses remained an obstacle to many potential South Vietnamese aviators or
technicians. Indeed, General Young came to conclude that it had been a mistake
to make proficiency in English the key to advanced training. “In retrospect,” he
suggested, “it would appear wiser to have trained U.S. instructors to speak Viet-
namese at the outset.” He therefore recommended that in any future advisory ef-
fort of this nature, it should be mandatory for all advisers to have learned the
language of the host country prior to their assignment.26
For the present, however, the Air Force advisory group was committed to
a training program that demanded skill in English on the part of the students and
required, though to a decreasing extent, instruction in the United States. During
the spring of 1970, fifty-five of every hundred men selected to learn English for
further training in the United States were failing the language course, almost
three times the anticipated failure rate. To ensure that an adequate number of
trainees would arrive in an orderly fashion for classes in the United States, the
advisory group sought to improve the academic atmosphere by shifting instruc-
tion from an armed forces language center to a smaller facility operated at Nha
Trang by the South Vietnamese Air Force. Reductions in the required language
proficiency helped ensure the arrival of candidates for helicopter training in the
United States, where they received additional schooling at the Defense Lan-
guage Institute before beginning flight instruction.27
The advisers tried to obtain full value from the investment in language
training. Graduates of language school, whose fluency had deteriorated from
lack of use, might take refresher training at Nha Trang that would qualify them
for technical training. English-speaking cadets who failed pilot training in the
United States now received assignments to courses in air traffic control, air in-
telligence, civic action, or other subjects taught in that language.28
The need to send South Vietnamese airmen outside the country for training
complicated efforts to speed the pace of improvement and modernization, and
too much time was lost in learning English and traveling. As a result, Young
217
and his staff scrutinized “literally every training requirement,” except under-
graduate pilot instruction programs in the United States, “to determine if there
was any way the requirements could be met by the establishment, either tempo-
rarily or permanently, of an in-country training capability.”29
During 1970, about 20,000 South Vietnamese Air Force students received
some kind of instruction inside South Vietnam. Since the Nha Trang training
center could not accommodate so many, satellite schools began at Bien Hoa and
Tan Son Nhut. In addition, training was available with American units, whether
from contractors or from servicemen, including Air Force mobile training teams
sent to South Vietnam to provide specific kinds of instruction. The growing
emphasis on training opportunities within the country produced more than
12,000 graduates during 1970 in a variety of skills and, in doing so, heralded
future reductions of up to 60 percent in annual training costs.30
On-the-job training provided by U.S. airmen expanded rapidly during 1970.
The number of South Vietnamese undergoing this form of instruction, now
called integrated training, increased from 800 in January to 1,500 in June, and
the subjects taught included such support specialties as fire protection, com-
munications, and civil engineering. In addition, the South Vietnamese air arm
strengthened its on-the-job training program, so that an average of some 700
students per month were receiving instruction in their own language from South
Vietnamese technicians trained in the United States.31
Because time was lost gathering trainees at instructional centers in South
Vietnam, the U.S. Air Force placed strong emphasis on mobile training teams
that toured the major bases throughout the country. At first, team members
helped polish the skills of South Vietnamese instructors, but afterwards the
Americans taught various subjects such as helicopter maintenance and the repair
of communications equipment. In carrying out their tasks, the mobile teams
introduced simplified job performance aids that employed schematic drawings
with step-by-step procedures written in Vietnamese. The eighteen teams that ar-
rived during 1970 made a valuable contribution to improvement and moderni-
zation; in fact, only one could be termed unsuccessful — an RF–5 team whose
members lacked experience with the camera installed in the plane.32
In a further attempt to save time, plans for the training of AC–119G crews
underwent modification to avoid long and expensive stays at air bases outside
South Vietnam. Tan Son Nhut became the focal point for training in this gun-
ship, as fifty South Vietnamese pilots, half of them experienced in the C–119G
transport and the others fresh from flight training in the United States, joined
recent graduates of navigator school in forming the nucleus of the AC–119G
crews. Flight mechanics and searchlight operators would learn their specialties
in the United States before teaming up with the pilots, copilots, and navigators
already training at Tan Son Nhut. Once brought together, each crew received a
final indoctrination, then reported to the Air Force’s 14th Special Operations
Wing for the last phase of gunship training — five routine combat missions.33
218
The South Vietnamese Air Force faced high costs and long delays in ob-
taining from schools overseas navigators for the reconnaissance, gunship, or
transport versions of the C–119G and C–47. To avoid reliance on courses taught
in English in the United States, the Air Force advisory group helped establish
at Tan Son Nhut a school in which American-trained South Vietnamese instruc-
tors taught the basic elements of navigation. The first of seven scheduled classes
began in June 1970.34
Some six weeks after navigator training commenced at Tan Son Nhut, fifty-
five South Vietnamese airmen started transition training from the CH–34 heli-
copter to the newer, larger CH–47. Maintenance men as well as flight crews
received instruction from members of U.S. Army helicopter units at the Phu Loi
camp north of Saigon. This training program produced South Vietnam’s first
CH–47 squadron, which was formally activated on September 30, 1970. Prep-
arations had already begun, moreover, to increase U.S. Air Force participation
in the creation of a second squadron.35
Certain kinds of training simply could not be given in South Vietnam.
Facilities did not yet exist for the 1,900 aviators (1,500 of them helicopter
pilots) who completed undergraduate pilot training in the United States during
the eighteen months ending in December 1970. Since travel outside South Viet-
nam was in this case unavoidable, the U.S. Air Force agreed to compress the
period of training in fixed-wing aircraft. The duration of the course was reduced
from forty-two weeks for all cadets to forty for future fighter pilots and thirty-
eight for those destined for transport squadrons. Besides future aviators, some
doctors and nurses could receive their specialized training only in the United
States. Except for these fledgling pilots, the doctors and nurses, and the com-
munications specialists trained for a time at Clark Air Base in the Philippines,
policy called for transplanting courses of instruction to South Vietnam.36
Although pilots of helicopters, fighters, or transports and their variants —
including gunships — learned to fly in the United States, training for liaison or
observation craft went forward in South Vietnam. This curriculum also under-
went time-saving revision. Formerly, after 299 hours of training on the ground
and 146 hours mastering the U–17 or the recently introduced Cessna T–41, the
new liaison pilot had reported to an O–1 unit for 50 hours of additional instruc-
tion. Unfortunately, the demands of combat usually forced the veteran fliers in
the unit, whose combat missions took precedence over training flights, to spread
the required instruction over three to five months. Beginning in September, the
same month that the first CH–47 helicopter squadron took shape, the South
Vietnamese Air Force demanded 110 hours in the T–41 and 35 to 70 hours in
the O–1, all of it acquired before the aspiring forward air controller left Nha
Trang. As a result, he arrived at his unit thoroughly familiar with the O–1 and
needing only an informal and comparatively brief combat indoctrination.37
South Vietnamese assumption of responsibility for tactical air control — a
process in which forward air controllers, trained in South Vietnam and flying
219
South Vietnamese students at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas.

newly acquired O–1s, played a key part — moved ahead during 1970. At mid-
year, the South Vietnamese Air Force had ninety O–1 and forty U–17 observa-
tion planes organized into five active squadrons and manned by 149 pilots and
135 observers, all of them deemed fully qualified for combat. Of these 284 for-
ward air controllers, 44 pilots and 42 observers had demonstrated sufficient
ability to control strikes by U.S. Air Force as well as South Vietnamese air-
craft.38
Successful control, however, remained limited in most instances to planned
strikes conducted in daylight. According to Army Brig. Gen. John H. Cushman,
acting commander of the Delta Military Assistance Command, the South Viet-
namese forward air controllers in that region did not fly at night or in bad
weather, ignored emergency requests to adjust artillery fire or carry out visual
reconnaissance, and responded slowly to requests for immediate air strikes,
though their work was adequate once they arrived on the scene.39 In Military
Region II, reported Army Lt. Gen. Arthur B. Collins, Jr., the effectiveness of the
South Vietnamese forward air controllers was “marginal,” primarily due to a
limited number of aircraft and crews, dependence for maintenance support on
the permanent base at Nha Trang, and reluctance to fly missions in poor weather
or during darkness.40 Similarly, in Military Region III, Lt. Gen. Michael S.
Davison, commander of II Field Force, Vietnam, declared that forward air con-
trol formed “the weak link in the tactical air control system chain,” largely
because South Vietnamese pilots lacked the initiative shown by Air Force con-
trollers in conducting visual reconnaissance.41
As the South Vietnamese forward air controllers increased in number,
though improving less rapidly in skill and dedication, more O–1s were entering
service. Consequently, the South Vietnamese Air Force tried to find a useful
220
A South Vietnamese cadet pilot at Nha Trang after his first solo flight.
role for the U–17, being supplanted by the Bird Dog as an observation plane and
by the T–41 as a trainer. A logical solution seemed to be reassignment of the
U–17 to psychological warfare duty, but here the plane proved of little value.
Its sixty-watt alternator could not provide power enough for a satisfactory loud-
speaker, and a mere handful of hundred-watt replacements were available.42
While South Vietnam’s inventory of observation craft was changing, Amer-
ican participation in the tactical air control network within Military Region IV
came to an end. After a formal ceremony held at Can Tho on August 31, 1970,
the South Vietnamese Air Force exercised complete authority, manning the IV
Direct Air Support Center and providing air liaison officers, tactical air control
parties, and forward air controllers. The only U.S. Air Force officers still as-
signed to the tactical air control mechanism in this military region were five
advisers serving temporarily with the South Vietnamese air liaison officers.43
Certain problems persisted after the transfer of responsibility in Military
Region IV. South Vietnamese forward air controllers, for example, tended to
flock together at Binh Thuy instead of operating from air strips nearer the scene
of combat. The forward airfields proved unattractive because they lacked not
only revetments for aircraft but also mess facilities and living quarters for the
crews that flew them. Nor was the South Vietnamese air arm yet appointing
experienced pilots to serve as air liaison officers. The job tended to go to non-
fliers, junior in rank, who impressed neither the forward air controllers nor the
ground commanders. Equipment as well as attitudes caused difficulty, for the
older O–1s still in use over the delta carried obsolete radios with limited range
and a restricted choice of channels.44
Increased cockpit time, such as South Vietnamese pilots were logging over
the delta, seemed to result in safer flying. The accident rate for 1970 throughout
221
all of South Vietnam declined by some 20 percent from the previous year, but
the lower ratio of 11.4 accidents per 100,000 flying hours remained roughly two
and one-half times the U.S. Air Force figure. The improvement during 1970
represented a sharp decline in accidents involving observation and utility air-
craft; fighter and helicopter pilots flew no more safely than they had the year
before.45
Although South Vietnamese flight proficiency appeared to be improving,
if unevenly, some senior U.S. Army officers had reservations about the combat
effectiveness of South Vietnam’s air arm. General Cushman, for example,
acknowledged that the South Vietnamese were “doing a reasonably effective job
and slowly getting better” but tempered his endorsement by warning that the
organization was “a long way from the standards of motivation, commitment
to mission, and dedication to support of the soldier on the ground” characteristic
of similar Air Force and Army units.46 Although Lt. Gen. James W. Sutherland
maintained that South Vietnamese airmen had “shown steady improvement” in
the northern provinces,47 General Collins gave South Vietnam’s air force an
overall rating of “marginal,” citing the inadequacies of its forward air con-
trollers, as well as its limited inventory of aircraft and its inability to fight at
night.48
Air Force advisers rendered more optimistic judgments, however, pointing
out that the fighter and attack squadrons had performed well during the Cam-
bodian fighting. Indeed, by year’s end, South Vietnamese airmen were flying
almost half the combined total of attack sorties in South Vietnam and Cam-
bodia.49 Progress, moreover, was being made toward early activation of more
A–1 and A–37 squadrons, although the A–37 was handicapped by a combat
radius of no more than 200 miles. A few F–5 pilots were undergoing training
in ground controlled aerial interception, and the air arm was increasing the
emphasis on nighttime operations.50
Although inability to fight at night or in bad weather remained the gravest
weakness of South Vietnamese fliers, training was beginning to produce encour-
aging results. By the autumn of 1970, some 56 percent of South Vietnam’s
fighter-bomber pilots had demonstrated the ability to deliver a night attack on
a target illuminated by a flareship. Also, the A–37s and A–1s were starting to
receive flare dispensers of their own so that nighttime operations were no longer
dependent on the few C–47s available to drop flares. Some strike pilots, flying
the A–1s or A–37s with the necessary radar transponder, learned to drop bombs
on signal from a Combat Skyspot operator on the ground, but this was a stopgap
aid to night attack, since the Strategic Air Command was not scheduled to hand
over the radar sets to the South Vietnamese.51
Despite the growing insistence on night flying, forward air controllers
logged fewer nighttime hours than the fighter pilots. This imbalance stemmed
at least in part from the fact that the U–17s and older O–1s being flown by the
South Vietnamese lacked adequate instrumentation and suitable cockpit lighting
222
for operating in darkness. To prepare the South Vietnamese forward air control-
lers for the better equipped O–1Es and Gs that were becoming available, Amer-
ican pilots were giving nighttime familiarization flights in the right-hand seat
of the O–2A.52
Strike pilots and forward air controllers were thus beginning to fight in
darkness, but the AC–47 remained South Vietnam’s most dependable weapon
for night combat. The gunship crews used a night-vision scope, but it was hand-
held, instead of pivoting on a stable mount. Advances had been made, but
greater strides were necessary if South Vietnamese airmen were to overcome
their reluctance, largely the result of inexperience and gaps in training, to fight
after dusk.53
Like the fighter squadrons, helicopter units revealed certain weaknesses
even as they were meeting the challenge of the 1970 Cambodian fighting. For
example, the helicopter force forfeited much of its mobility by relying exclu-
sively on fixed maintenance facilities instead of deploying mechanics to opera-
ting locations in the field. Also, the general inability to fly at night handicapped
medical evacuation, since casualties sometimes could not be picked up in day-
light from units closely engaged with the enemy.54
Perhaps the most successful aspect of the year’s helicopter program was the
rapid creation of a gunship force for assault operations, which usually took
place in daylight. A U.S. Air Force mobile training team arrived in South Viet-
nam on March 31 to begin teaching, in collaboration with Army aviators, the
tactical use of the UH–1 fitted out as a gunship. The South Vietnamese appar-
ently proved apt pupils, for on May 29, before the second class of thirty-two
students had graduated, South Vietnam’s air force mounted its first helicopter
assault. Eight troop-carrying UH–1s, another serving as a command post, and
three others equipped as gunships successfully landed a small force near Prey
Veng, Cambodia.55
The unusual status of the helicopter units, elements of the air arm but
serving the Army almost exclusively, continued to cause problems. Corps and
division commanders had come to expect the kind of support provided by a
massive American helicopter fleet, apparently forgetting that U.S. Army avia-
tors had roughly twenty times the number of these aircraft available to South
Vietnamese airmen. Even though the Vietnamized helicopter force would even-
tually exceed 500 craft, this final total would represent little more than one-sixth
of the Army’s 1970 fleet. Caught between increasing demand, as the republic’s
ground forces grew more active, and continuing U.S. withdrawals, which had
caused a reduction of almost 350 in General Abrams’ helicopter strength during
1970, South Vietnamese squadrons pushed their equipment harder, ignoring
scheduled maintenance so that as many aircraft as possible would be on the
flight line.56
Besides revealing strains within the helicopter program, the year’s events
exerted pressure on South Vietnamese transport units. Pilots of the old but still
223
South Vietnamese UH–1 helicopters loading troops for an air assault.

useful C–119s began training to fly the gunship version of that plane, and men
qualified in the C–47 were about to begin their transition to the newer C–123K,
with its auxiliary jet engines. Sparsely manned to begin with, the two existing
airlift squadrons had to carry out their usual duties while furnishing trainees for
the new gunships and transports. Because of the need for more transports, the
advisory group and the air arm’s headquarters drew up plans to hasten the acti-
vation of two C–123K squadrons, equipped with planes transferred from U.S.
Air Force units. The K models would commence operation by mid-1971, six
months ahead of schedule. Two squadrons of C–7s, also from U.S. Air Force
resources in South Vietnam, would round out the projected airlift force by July
1972.57
This planned airlift fleet did not satisfy Vice President Ky, who argued for
the addition of a squadron of C–130s. Secretary of the Air Force Robert C.
Seamans, Jr., visited South Vietnam in February 1970 and was impressed with
Ky’s reasoning. The Hercules transport, as Ky pointed out, could carry more
cargo than any of the types his nation would receive. A C–130, after all, had
five times the cargo capacity of a C–7 or roughly three times that of the C–123K
or C–119G. A study by the Air Force advisory group concluded that a combina-
tion of C–7s and C–130s could better meet the needs of the South Vietnamese
than the planned combination of C–123s and C–7s. The C–123s, however,
would soon become surplus to American needs and already were based in South
Vietnam. Ease of transfer provided, for the present, a decisive argument in favor
of the jet-augmented Fairchilds, and many months would pass before the South
Vietnamese Air Force finally received C–130s.58
The intelligence and reconnaissance aspects of Vietnamizing the air arm
made progress during 1970, but self-sufficiency in these specialties lay far in
224
the future. Although plans called for South Vietnamese technicians to establish
a photo exploitation center at Tan Son Nhut in April, the persons assigned to
train there did not receive security clearances in time. Not until May 2 did the
first contingent — thirty-six photo processors and eight photo interpreters —
begin training alongside their U.S. Air Force counterparts at the 12th Recon-
naissance Intelligence Technical Squadron. By the end of July, South Viet-
namese photo exploitation specialists had dispensed with the American instruc-
tors and begun operating on their own, and early in September an American-
administered proficiency test verified that South Vietnamese airmen could use
any piece of equipment found in the U.S. Air Force squadron.59
Meanwhile, South Vietnam’s air arm had received the first two of six RF–5
reconnaissance planes. In mid-August, South Vietnamese technicians at the
exploitation center processed and interpreted film from these aircraft, thus fore-
shadowing Vietnamization of this form of aerial reconnaissance. The remaining
four RF–5s arrived in time for the reconnaissance unit to begin functioning on
October 15. At year’s end, therefore, South Vietnam’s air service possessed the
nucleus of a tactical air intelligence operation.60
Absent from South Vietnam’s aerial intelligence array were certain special-
ized devices like the infrared sensors mounted on the latest U.S. Air Force gun-
ships or the radio-direction-finding gear in the EC–47. The Joint Chiefs of Staff
had suggested the early activation of an EC–47 squadron — handing over four
planes by July 1971, six more by July 1972, and the final ten by July 1973 —
instead of waiting to assign the entire complement of twenty aircraft during the
year ending on June 30, 1973, but nothing came of this plan. For the time being
at least, Generals Abrams, Clay, and Nazzaro agreed that to disrupt the current
training schedule to obtain EC–47 crews would interfere with the manning of
the C–123Ks, C–7s, and AC–119Gs.61
Although North Vietnamese airmen had not yet attacked targets in the
South, the Air Force advisory group was helping prepare the foundation for a
South Vietnamese air defense system. Eventually, F–5 interceptors, armed with
missiles and cannon, would take their place in South Vietnam’s aerial armada.
Until these aircraft arrived and radar operators learned to control them from the
ground, the South Vietnamese would practice with surveillance and traffic con-
trol radars which could provide warning of an aerial attack but were, at best,
marginally useful in directing interceptions.62
Even as it trained for air defense and other kinds of aerial warfare, the
South Vietnamese Air Force gained skill in maintenance and logistics manage-
ment. However, whether a member of the Air Force or a civilian employed by
a contractor like Lear Sigler, the American instructor teaching maintenance sub-
jects had to avoid becoming a crutch upon which the students could lean. Col.
J. R. Lilley urged his advisory team, which specialized in maintenance training,
“to show them how, and assist them, but to let them do the actual work them-
selves.”63
225
Americans, however, were not the only persons capable of teaching how to
maintain aircraft and related equipment. More than 200 South Vietnamese had
returned from schools in the United States fully qualified to teach the servicing
and repair of such complex items as jet and piston engines, radios, and aircraft
instruments. Unfortunately, in applying the lessons of the instructors, the freshly
trained South Vietnamese mechanics faced two handicaps. The first, a shortage
of shop space, which would be resolved as U.S. units vacated the air bases in
South Vietnam. The second, a tendency to replace rather than repair defective
components, could be corrected only through time, patient persuasion on the
part of the teachers, and a growing awareness of the importance of the job.64
South Vietnamese airmen were performing extensive maintenance on an
increasing variety of aircraft, though some work continued to be done outside
South Vietnam or by contractors in the country. The South Vietnamese UH–1
helicopters, for instance, underwent periodic inspection and repair in the United
States, and C–47s received the same treatment on Taiwan. Also, mechanics em-
ployed by Air Vietnam, a commercial carrier, strengthened the wings of some
A–1s to correct the ravages of corrosion.65
Army mechanics provided on-the-job training for the South Vietnamese air-
men responsible for keeping the recently acquired CH–47 helicopters in flying
condition, and the U.S. Air Force was training thirty-one of its technicians to
take over this instructional responsibility from the soldiers. As a result, an Air
Force team would instruct the maintenance specialists for the second CH–47
squadron, which was scheduled to be activated in the spring of 1971.66
Although maintenance and maintenance training showed signs of progress,
logistics management encountered an unexpected problem, that resulted from
the invasion of Cambodia. Early in that fighting, the C–119Gs had to be shifted
from logistics courier missions within South Vietnam to carry cargo across the
border. As a consequence, South Vietnamese commanders could no longer rely
on a one-day response to requests for critically needed parts or supplies, but an
Air Force C–123 from the 834th Air Division was available in an extreme emer-
gency to deliver the needed items.67
Perhaps the most promising logistics accomplishment of 1970 was the
South Vietnam Air Logistics Command’s automation of inventory control. In
December 1969, Gen. John D. Ryan, Air Force Chief of Staff, decided to make
a UNIVAC 1050-II computer available to the South Vietnamese Air Force. By
mid-summer, the Logistics Command had established computerized control
over its entire inventory and could match requests with existing stocks and
determine remaining supply levels. In addition, South Vietnamese computer
operators could screen items declared surplus by the Seventh Air Force and
identify those needed by the logistics command.68
However long the road that lay ahead, the South Vietnamese Air Force had
made discernible progress during 1970. The aircrews seemed well trained and
eager to carry out the orders of their leaders. Indeed, General Young believed
226
Maj. Gen. Tran Van Minh,

commander of the South
Vietnamese Air Force.
that Maj. Gen. Tran Van Minh, who commanded the air arm, possessed a com-
bination of “wisdom, patience, and leadership” that inspired among his subord-
inates “a profound respect for his abilities, almost bordering on a god-like rever-
ence.” As for the wing and squadron commanders who displayed this attitude
of near adoration, Young revised a poor first impression, formed by comparing
them to their American counterparts, and now considered them the best officers
available to the South Vietnamese Air Force.69
Even though they may well have been the best available, these South Viet-
namese commanders either lacked faith in their own ability or did not enjoy the
complete confidence of their air force’s headquarters, perhaps both. Whatever
the root cause, wing and squadron leaders tended to shift decision-making to
higher levels of command on matters clearly their own responsibility. The sit-
uation would not likely be corrected until junior officers gained greater exper-
ience and their seniors realized the necessity of delegating authority so the
younger men could mature professionally.70
In addition, the South Vietnamese had barely begun to appreciate the value
of frequent inspections for measuring progress. An officer’s periodic submis-
sion to another’s evaluation, or conducting such a review, seemed alien to a
military hierarchy in which performance, status, and self-esteem were tightly
intertwined. This attitude seemed to be a manifestation of what Young called
“the Oriental mind,” a code of behavior that emphasized patience and formal
courtesy in personal dealings and contrasted sharply with the “can do” spirit of
an American military given to making brusque on-the-spot corrections.71
Other handicaps facing the South Vietnamese, and not always understood
by American advisers, resulted from diet and physical stature. Lifting loaded
boxes or similar work that was simple enough for the average American could
prove too much for a comparatively frail South Vietnamese. If called upon to
227
perform such a task, a South Vietnamese might be reluctant to refuse, even

though he knew he would fail. His solution to such a dilemma might well be
simply to pretend not to understand, a reaction guaranteed to contribute to the
myth that all South Vietnamese were either stupid or lazy.72
Thus far, financial problems encountered by the government of South Viet-
nam had not impaired the expansion and re-equipping of the air arm, but the
future seemed uncertain. Although the 1970 budget for the air arm increased by
36 percent over 1969, a further increase of 44 percent for 1971 would have to
be reduced to 10 percent or less. Funds requested for training in fiscal 1971
would absorb about half the reduction, thus deferring the impact on day-to-day
operations until skilled individuals, already in short supply, became desperately
needed.
General Young offered several suggestions designed, the South Vietnamese
budget permitting, to improve training in their air force. First, if the air arm
were to achieve self-sufficiency, it would have to conduct its own undergrad-
uate pilot training. Second, South Vietnamese instructors would have to assume
complete responsibility for imparting technical skills, conducting both class-
room training and providing broad opportunities to learn on the job. Third,
South Vietnam’s air force would have to establish and enforce training stan-
dards so that an instructor at Nha Trang covered the same points as a person
teaching the identical subject at Tan Son Nhut. Once standardization had been
achieved, an airman could emerge from school, join an aviation unit, and
demonstrate a predictable level of skill.73
Although much remained to be done if the South Vietnamese Air Force
were to attain self-sufficiency, the organization had increased in size and
sharpened its collective skill. Equally important, the officers and men appeared
to be showing greater enthusiasm. To American eyes, they seemed more opti-
mistic about South Vietnam’s winning the war and surviving as a nation.74 Yet,
the possibility existed that improvement and modernization were proceeding on
so broad a front that progress was illusory, not real. The South Vietnamese Air
Force might be moving forward in many fields but achieving in too few the
mastery that would be needed when the American squadrons completed their
withdrawal.
228
Chapter Fourteen
Further Disengagement
While the consolidated improvement and modernization program took

shape, the fighting in South Vietnam continued. The Hanoi government entered
1970 under a leadership coalition that had emerged after the death of Ho Chi
Minh in the previous September. The eighty-one-year-old Ton Duc Thang, who
had taken over the ceremonial post of chief of state, and the others — Le Duan,
Pham Van Dong, and Vo Nguyen Giap — who shared control in the North had
not abandoned the ultimate goal of a Vietnam united under communist rule.1
As the new year began, supply lines passing through southern Laos and
from Sihanoukville through eastern Cambodia sustained communist military
activity in South Vietnam. The initiative still lay with the enemy. Although he
did not seem strong enough to repeat the Tet offensive of 1968, he could deploy
his forces for simultaneous attacks on a few key objectives, possibly in all four
military regions.
American intelligence felt that scattered attacks in South Vietnam were all
but inevitable, for North Vietnam had to challenge the Vietnamization program
and attempt to disrupt the apparently successful pacification of the countryside,
and the new rulers at Hanoi could not stand by while South Vietnam gathered
strength. On the other hand, it seemed unlikely in January 1970 that they could
take advantage of war weariness in the United States, since American forces
were pulling out, thus appeasing critics of the nation’s involvement in Southeast
Asia.2 Before North Vietnam launched the anticipated attacks, however, Presi-
dent Nixon carried the war into Cambodia, wiping out the logistics base for
widespread enemy activity but stirring up renewed antiwar activism.
The attack into Cambodia represented a logical extension of existing U.S.
policy. The invasion, after all, exerted additional pressure on a North Viet-
namese regime that had thus far resisted every attempt to force it to negotiate,
and fruitful bargaining remained Nixon’s principal objective. Even as he sought
peace through negotiation, the President embarked on Vietnamization, strength-
ening South Vietnamese forces to take over the war and permit the withdrawal
of U.S. troops, thus reducing casualties and depriving critics of their most
powerful issue. Initially, Nixon had hoped to adjust the rate of withdrawal to
229
reflect the level of enemy activity and the increasing competence of the South
Vietnamese, but the reduction in strength gathered momentum as the months
passed, assuming an existence of its own quite apart from events in South Viet-
nam or at the conference table in Paris.3
In January 1970, however, the Cambodian incursion lay some four months
in the future. Authorized American strength in South Vietnam stood at 484,000,
the result of a 65,000-man reduction during 1969. To help substitute firepower
for the combat troops who had departed, the Seventh Air Force could muster in
Southeast Asia a total of 672 fighter-bombers, attack planes, and gunships,
while the Navy operated 135 strike aircraft and the Marine Corps, 130. The im-
mediate problem facing President Nixon was how to honor a promise, made in
December 1969, to withdraw an additional 50,000 men from South Vietnam by
the middle of April. Tentative plans put the Air Force share of this reduction at
some 5,600 men, slightly in excess of 10 percent of the projected departures.
The possibility of another enemy offensive timed to coincide with the Tet holi-
day caused postponement of the departures until late February, but once begun,
the cuts proceeded swiftly despite the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk in March
and Lon Nol’s challenge to the North Vietnamese.4
The prospect of these Seventh Air Force reductions troubled General
Brown, for he stood to lose an entire fighter wing, three squadrons of fairly
modern F–4Cs based at Cam Ranh Bay. He maintained that commanders like
himself should be able in these circumstances to tailor their own forces, giving
up the least essential units, sacrificing numbers but retaining firepower. In the
case of the fighter wing, however, its numbers were few — less than 1,000 men
in the entire organization — but its firepower was both devastating and versa-
tile.5
Brown could not retain the F–4s, but to compensate in part for the sacrifice
of firepower, he received an AC–119K gunship unit, which lacked the versatil-
ity of the fighter-bombers. In addition, his Seventh Air Force at this time
sacrificed a tactical reconnaissance squadron that had flown RF–4Cs from Tan
Son Nhut Air Base. Also withdrawn by mid-April were several support units of
varying size and importance. The largest and probably the most useful of these
were two 400-man civil engineering squadrons, which maintained runways and
buildings at air bases, and a field maintenance unit of comparable size that made
routine repairs to aircraft. The departures in the spring of 1970, together with
routine transfers of individuals whose tours had ended, pared actual Air Force
strength in South Vietnam from 57,500 in January to 52,000 at the end of
April.6
During discussions of yet another withdrawal, a reduction below the April
figure of 434,000, two conflicting viewpoints emerged — one advocated by
Secretary Laird, the other by General Abrams and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The
Secretary of Defense wanted to continue bringing large numbers of troops home
from South Vietnam, aiming for a force level of roughly 260,000 by mid-1971,
230
a reduction of about 174,000 from the April 15 total. In suggesting such a

course, he cited political and fiscal reality — a disenchantment with the war that
seemed widespread even in the weeks before the Kent State killings, and an
acute budget crisis that had already brought on the Project 703 cuts in military
expenditures.7
The opposing view arose from military considerations — especially Lon
Nol’s defiance of North Vietnamese power — which, in General Abrams’ opin-
ion, “seldom, if ever, more clearly justified the maintenance of the strongest
U.S. posture in [South Vietnam].”8 The Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed with him,
insisting that withdrawals follow a “cut and try” principle, with a pause after
each reduction to determine the enemy’s reaction. The Chiefs warned that the
April 15 force level should remain firm for the time being and advised the ad-
ministration to avoid public commitment to a series of specific cuts stretching
far into the future.9
The decision rested, however, with President Nixon, who sought a compro-
mise between military and political considerations. On April 20, 1970, he told
the nation, “We have now reached a point where we can confidently move from
a period of ‘cut and try’ to a longer range program for the replacement of
Americans by South Vietnamese troops.” Yet, even as he rejected one piece of
advice from his Joint Chiefs, he accepted another, establishing a general goal
rather than listing an exact sequence of reductions. “I am . . . announcing,”
Nixon declared ten days before the Cambodian incursion, “plans for the
withdrawal of 150,000 American troops to be completed during the spring of
next year . . . .The timing and pace of these new withdrawals . . . will be deter-
mined by our best judgement of the current military and diplomatic situation.”10
According to Secretary Laird, the President had chosen to focus on just one
aspect of the total military and diplomatic situation — reported progress in Viet-
namization. The talks at Paris and enemy activity in South Vietnam might to
some degree influence the details of the withdrawal, but regardless of these fac-
tors the departures would continue as long as South Vietnamese forces were
improving, with as many as 60,000 American troops leaving the country by the
end of 1970. Such a plan had obvious drawbacks, however, from the military
point of view. Not only did it establish an interim goal in reaching the objective
the President had announced, it tended to divorce force levels from conditions
on the battlefield and concentrated 90,000 departures into the period from
January through May 1971, a time of year when the enemy had mounted Tet at-
tacks and spring offensives. In short, political considerations seemed to have
prevailed.11
Preoccupation with events in Cambodia apparently delayed the beginning
of detailed planning for this fourth withdrawal. Five days after the President’s
announcement, Admiral McCain was complaining that he had not “received any
guidance from Washington on the directed reduction.”12 Finally, late in May,
Secretary Laird issued instructions to “hold at the actual manpower levels that
231
existed on April 30, 1970,” until a plan could be devised. Because of the timing
of individual reassignments, this decision meant that the number of men on duty
in South Vietnam would remain slightly below the authorized 434,000.13
Even though the Cambodian campaign had already begun, President Nixon
remained determined to make the cuts he had promised. On June 3, as he re-
vealed that American ground troops would leave Cambodia at the end of the
month, he repeated his pledge to withdraw 150,000 men by the spring of 1971
and added that one-third of the total would depart by October 15. The increment
scheduled for the autumn of 1970 became phase IV in the program of troop re-
ductions already under way. At the San Clemente meetings, where he outlined
the aerial interdiction campaign that would begin in Cambodia after the U.S.
ground units pulled out, the President discussed the 50,000-man intermediate
withdrawal with Abrams, and Secretary Laird promptly issued instructions to
meet the October deadline. The Secretary of Defense deferred a decision on the
timing of the return of the remainder until funding levels had been decided for
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1971.14
Next came the task of deciding what Air Force units would leave South
Vietnam in phase IV. Concerned that he might lose two squadrons of F–4Ds —
“the only first-line weapon system we had over there” — General Brown lodged
a successful protest with the Air Force Chief of Staff, retaining the thirty-odd
fighters and use of the base, Phu Cat, from which they operated.15 He scarcely
had time to savor this victory when he learned, in June, that General Nazzaro,
assuming that Phu Cat was about to close, proposed to withdraw a detachment
of six F–4Ds recently shifted there from Cam Ranh Bay. Nazarro intended to
move the planes to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, where the detachment
would form part of the general war emergency force16, a proposed transfer that
Brown found puzzling. It was, he told Nazzaro, “inconceivable . . . that any con-
tingency force . . . be maintained at the expense of tactical air support of Amer-
ican ground forces in combat.”17 As a result, instead of to Clark, the planes went
to Korat in Thailand, from which they could fly missions in Southeast Asia.18
General Brown thus retained his F–4Ds, but the phase IV withdrawals
sharply reduced his fighter strength, which he considered the cutting edge of the
aerial weapon. Among the units to leave South Vietnam were six squadrons of
F–100Ds — the 355th, 306th, 307th, 308th, 309th, and 531st.19 Weighing the
comparative value of this plane and the newer F–4, General Brown concluded
that sending the F–100s to the United States was “a sensible thing to do.”20
When the previous reduction had ended — phase III, which reduced aggre-
gate manpower to 434,000 in the spring of 1970 — Seventh Air Force included
two A–37 squadrons in its fighter-bomber force. Now, one A–37B unit, the
recently redesignated 8th Attack Squadron, was going out of existence, turning
its aircraft over to the South Vietnamese. In addition, the 90th Attack Squadron,
a fighter outfit before receiving its A–37Bs in 1969, became the 90th Special
Operations Squadron and moved from Bien Hoa to Nha Trang. The loss of the
232
Airmen load 500-pound bombs on an F–4 at Phu Cat.

F–100s and transfer of the A–37s, changes that occurred after General Clay had
assumed command of Seventh Air Force, cut the number of Air Force tactical
fighter squadrons in South Vietnam from seventeen when phase III ended in
April 1970 to nine at year’s end.21
Nor were fighter squadrons the only units to inactivate, depart South Viet-
nam, or undergo redesignation. During the phase IV withdrawals, which ended
in mid-October 1970, the number of reconnaissance squadrons in South Viet-
nam declined from five to four and transport units from ten to eight, with the
number of C–130s dropping from seventy at the time of the incursion, peak
strength for the year, to a mere forty-six. All four of the tactical air support
squadrons, which furnished observation planes and forward air controllers sup-
porting the ground war, remained in South Vietnam throughout the period, but
the number of aircraft was reduced from 380 to 290, a change accomplished by
transferring O–2s to the Air National Guard and O–1s to the South Vietnamese.
From 1,100 in May 1970, the total number of Air Force planes in South Viet-
nam, excluding helicopters, declined to 855 in October when phase IV ended,
with the number of officers and airmen dropping from 52,000 to 44,000.22
In transferring O–2As to the Air National Guard, Seventh Air Force me-
chanics separated wings from fuselage and loaded these components into the
spacious cargo hold of the Douglas C–124 for the flight to the United States.
First sent to South Vietnam to ferry in French reinforcements at the time of the
Dien Bien Phu fighting, these slow, aging, piston-powered transports were
giving way to a massive new jet, the Lockheed C–5A. The new aircraft, called
the Galaxy, began service to Southeast Asia in July 1970 and would prove its
worth during the buildup of South Vietnamese forces after the 1972 North Viet-
namese invasion.23
233
The Air Force units eliminated during the phase IV redeployments included
the 12th Special Operations Squadron, which had been spraying herbicide from
its UC–123Ks. Since late 1969, enemy gunners had been scoring increasingly
frequent hits on the spray planes, preventing them from operating unescorted
in defended regions. Moreover, cuts in the Department of Defense budget had
raised questions about the value of this program, compared with other aspects
of the war effort. Although facing the prospect of a 30-percent fund reduction
for buying and spraying herbicide, General Abrams sought to retain a project
he considered militarily useful. He believed that spraying deprived the enemy
of concealment and food crops and that the most efficient means of application
was the UC–123. Without these planes, he would have to rely on helicopters,
which lacked the range to destroy crops in distant communist strongholds, or
hand-operated sprayers, effective only along roads or on the perimeter of fire
support bases and other installations.24
General Abrams endorsed spraying and wanted to keep the UC–123s, but
a new consideration doomed not only the spray planes but the entire herbicide
effort. In the spring of 1970, evidence appeared linking an ingredient of agent
orange, the herbicide most widely used in South Vietnam, to birth defects in
humans. The results of tests on laboratory animals persuaded Secretary Laird
to suspend use of this chemical compound. Still in use were agents white and
blue, but neither was as effective as orange against as wide a variety of vege-
tation. Ironically, agent blue, an arsenic-base compound, had caused misgivings
during earlier spraying, but it now proved less dangerous than orange, which
had formerly seemed as safe as it was effective. Because white and blue were
less versatile than orange, targets for defoliation dwindled rapidly, so that after
the ban, the UC–123s flew some 60 percent fewer missions than before.25
The slower pace of aerial spraying permitted the inactivation, on July 31,
1970, of the 12th Special Operations Squadron. Only eight of the unit’s spe-
cially modified spray planes remained in service, assigned to A Flight, 310th
Tactical Airlift Squadron, and just six of these could actually fly herbicide mis-
sions, mainly the destruction of crops that fed the Viet Cong, while the other
two dispensed insecticide as a public health measure. The flight undertook two
crop destruction missions during July, encountering intense and accurate fire
over both targets and sustaining eighty-nine hits on the spray aircraft that par-
ticipated. As a result, the UC–123s received a flak suppression escort that re-
duced the average number of hits to just one on each of the eleven subsequent
missions.26
In the summer of 1970, some six weeks before he left South Vietnam to
take over Air Force Systems Command, General Brown conferred with other
staff officers at assistance command headquarters concerning the employment
of A Flight and its UC–123s. He came away suspecting that “rather than comply
with the instructions of the Deputy Secretary of Defense [David Packard] to the
JCS to keep the use of herbicides to an absolute minimum, it is the intention of
234
A flight of UC–123s spraying defoliant over South Vietnam.

the MACV staff to increase herbicide operations.” Brown was never really con-
vinced of the military value of herbicide and urged Abrams’ chief of staff,
Army Maj. Gen. Elias Townsend, to “get those staff officers . . . in hand,” espe-
cially since agent orange had become so notorious.27
Whether or not Brown was correct in accusing them of deviousness, the
staff officers he referred to could do no more than prolong the herbicide pro-
gram into 1971. The prohibition against agent orange remained in effect, re-
ducing the effectiveness of the spraying to the point that no more than five of
the fifteen UC–123 missions scheduled each month were actually flown. Conse-
quently, the commander of the 834th Air Division, Brig. Gen. John H. Herring,
Jr., called for ending the program so he could remove the tanks and nozzles and
use the planes to train crews for the C–123s the South Vietnamese Air Force
was about to acquire. His logic proved irresistible. The herbicide mission flown
on January 7, 1971, turned out to be the last of its kind; three days later Deputy
Secretary Packard called a halt to crop destruction, ending Air Force aerial
spraying. The subsequent herbicide activity, which lasted into the spring, con-
sisted of spraying by hand or from helicopters to kill undergrowth and prevent
the enemy from finding concealment along roads or near military installations.28
The 50,000-man phase IV reduction, which occasioned the reassignment
of the UC–123s, had barely begun when Secretary Laird and the Joint Chiefs of
Staff tackled the problem of determining how the remainder of the promised
150,000-man adjustment should be handled. President Nixon had intended that
no more than 60,000 manpower spaces be eliminated between April and De-
235
Storage site in Gulfport, Mississippi, for herbicides removed from Vietnam.

cember 1970 — phase IV, which ended in mid-October, plus another 10,000
men by year’s end, a total acceptable to the Joint Chiefs and General Abrams.
Budgetary pressures, however, made it impossible to defer the major portion of
the promised 150,000-man cutback until 1971. Only a supplemental appropri-
ation could preserve Nixon’s original timetable — 60,000 by December 31 and
another 90,000 in the following spring — but Laird again made it clear to the
military leadership that the administration would not seek the additional money,
thus avoiding further Congressional criticism of Southeast Asia policy. As a
result, the Joint Chiefs of Staff felt compelled to endorse a plan that reversed the
President’s earlier schedule, withdrawing 90,000 by the end of 1970 and the
remaining 60,000 in the spring of 1971.29
The obviously reluctant endorsement of this plan to withdraw an additional
30,000 men by year’s end inspired Kissinger, acting perhaps for the record, to
protest that the uniformed leaders had allowed budgetary constraints to out-
weigh strategic considerations.30 The Chiefs then polled the commanders di-
recting the war and, in effect, acknowledged that they had moved too swiftly.
General Abrams described the original plan as “militarily . . . the only prudent
redeployment program” and the Joint Chiefs-approved alternative as “a compro-
mise . . . designed to accommodate imposed manpower and budget restraints.”31
Echoing Abrams’ words, Admiral McCain warned that “budgetary and man-
power limitations currently being experienced by the services” might well sever
the relationship between American troop withdrawals and the progress of Viet-
namization. Only if the administration were aware of this risk would he recom-
236
mend going ahead with the full reduction, the original 10,000 plus another
30,000 men.32 Obviously, Nixon was willing to accept the risk, which he con-
sidered less dangerous than a renewed policy debate in Congress, so the only
real question was which Air Force and other units would leave South Vietnam
between October 15 and December 31, as part of a fifth phase.
The Air Force contribution to phase V proved to be small, 600 manpower
spaces, including 100 unfilled vacancies. The largest element consisted of 245
members of the 45th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron. A detachment of this
unit, flying RF–101s out of Tan Son Nhut, was inactivated in November 1970,
as did the parent organization at Misawa, Japan. Since the squadron head-
quarters had been in Japan, the total number of reconnaissance squadrons in
South Vietnam remained unchanged at four, even though the aircraft declined
with the departure of sixteen RF–101s from Tan Son Nhut, the last of their type
in Southeast Asia. This change and the continuing transfer of O–1s to the South
Vietnamese caused the number of Air Force planes assigned in South Vietnam
to decrease by 36 to a year-end total of 819, while actual manpower strength
dropped to 43,053.33
Secretary of the Air Force Seamans pointed out that the withdrawals of
Seventh Air Force units had lacked balance during 1970. The number of fighter-
bomber squadrons fell from twenty in January to just nine in December, a 55-
percent cut, while the aggregate number of squadrons of all types dropped by
about one third. Seamans, however, endorsed the decision to keep a large num-
ber of engineers, communications specialists, and other technicians in South
Vietnam even though many of the strike units they supported had departed. The
“seeming anomaly,” he explained, stemmed from the policy of creating South
Vietnamese combat squadrons that could quickly take over from Seventh Air
Force fighter or attack units, while largely ignoring the necessary support base.
Until the emphasis in Vietnamization changed, and support caught up with com-
bat units, South Vietnam’s air arm would need U.S. Air Force electronics tech-
nicians and base maintenance and operations specialists.34
Besides taking up the slack for the departing Seventh Air Force fighter-
bombers, the South Vietnamese Air Force had to replace Marine aviation units
leaving Military Region I. The number of Marine Corps aircraft, both fixed- and
rotary-wing, declined by 50 percent during 1970 to slightly more than 200. The
Marine squadrons recalled from South Vietnam included one of CH–46D heli-
copters, two of F–4B fighter-bombers, and one of A–6A attack planes.35
Even as the Air Force units based in South Vietnam were giving up some
250 planes, those in Thailand underwent a similar retrenchment. In both coun-
tries, a principal motive for the cuts was to ease the budget crisis that had arisen
in 1969, but within a year, reductions become inextricably interwoven with
President Nixon’s efforts to turn the war over to a strengthened South Vietnam.
Although actions tied to Vietnamization and those inspired by the shortage of
funds tended to merge, as in the phaseout of the F–100s, the administration’s
237
monetary woes were usually manifested in withdrawals from Thailand, rather

than from South Vietnam, and in limitations on combat sorties.
The year 1970 had barely begun when Secretary Laird realized that finan-
cial pressures would force tactical sortie rates below the level of 14,000 per
month established the previous September. Since the Nixon administration had
decided against seeking supplemental appropriations, the aerial effort would
have to be scaled down. The Secretary of Defense complained that he stood
alone in seeking to save money by reducing sorties and, in consequence, the
consumption of fuel and munitions. Arrayed against him were General Abrams,
Admiral McCain, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of whom advocated contin-
uing the air war at the existing level.36
Actually, Secretary Laird had some uniformed allies, especially in the Air
Force. By the time senior Air Force leaders met early in 1970 at Ramey Air
Force Base, in Puerto Rico, the reality of the budget squeeze had taken hold. If
the financial ceiling remained firm, as Laird had vowed, the Air Force could not
sustain the air war at current levels without diverting money from needed mod-
ernization projects. Gen. John C. Meyer, the Vice Chief of Staff, told Generals
Brown and Nazzaro, “obviously, the Chief [General Ryan] is loathe to deny
you . . . any bedrock requirement for protecting your forces”; yet, in the event
of overemphasis on Southeast Asia, “we all know that vital Air Force modern-
ization and improvement programs will go down the drain.”37
General Brown understood the problem facing the Air Force Chief and of-
fered appropriate suggestions. “Were I in the Chief’s position,” said Brown, “I
would resist mortgaging [Air Force] futures to finance MACV/CINCPAC pro-
gram requirements, since [Air Force] modernization and force structure are of
greater importance to the nation, in my opinion.” As for the air war in South
Vietnam, Brown felt that his Seventh Air Force was adequate “for today’s war,”
though he could not judge whether it would be “too much for tomorrow — and
by how much.” At issue was the degree of risk that General Abrams would have
to take. “If dollars rule,” Brown declared, “then the U.S. must accept a bigger
risk.”38
The level of risk that the Nixon administration was willing to take came to
be symbolized by a number — 10,000 — the ceiling that Secretary Laird wanted
to impose on monthly sorties by Air Force tactical aircraft. Secretary Seamans
agreed that cuts in ammunition expenditure and fuel consumption, and therefore
in combat sorties, were essential if the Air Force was to have funds for projects
of greater value to national security — like nuclear deterrence — than the on-
going operations in Southeast Asia. Seamans found the reductions acceptable
in principle because he believed that improved weapons, such as the AC–130
gunship now attacking enemy road traffic in southern Laos, would enable the
Seventh Air Force to achieve the same level of destruction with fewer sorties.39
General Meyer went further than Secretary Seamans, declaring that reduc-
tions were possible not just in tactical sorties but in other air operations, as well.
238
Tactics adopted during the previous year for B–52s would, he maintained, en-
able 1,200 sorties to do the work of 1,400, for an expansion of tandem targeting
had created several areas within which bombers could be diverted to various
targets. Fewer U.S. troops, he further reasoned, would require fewer Air Force
airlift sorties, with South Vietnamese fliers taking over air transport just as they
were assuming responsibility for fighter-bomber activity. Meyer also argued
that aerial interdiction of supply lines within South Vietnam was accomplishing
so little that this category of tactical sortie could be cut back. Finally, he resur-
rected an argument, refuted earlier by General Brown, that strikes against a sus-
pected enemy presence, whether a defensive position or a bivouac, represented
a waste of bombs.40 The Vice Chief of Staff obviously did not share Brown’s
belief that attacks on suspected positions produced benefits in terms of haras-
sing the enemy or frustrating his plans, thus reducing friendly casualties.
Nor was General Meyer the only person to question once again the value
of bombing suspected locations of hostile forces. During discussions of the
10,000-per-month ceiling on tactical sorties, Dr. Kissinger nominated this cate-
gory of operations as a potential source of reductions,41 and a study produced
within the Air Force Directorate of Plans took a similar position. This document
criticized the “big war mentality” that resulted in an excessive use of air power,
especially against places the enemy was merely suspected of occupying.42
During 1969, General Brown had conceded that air power was being over-
used in reconnaissance, psychological warfare, and the application of herbi-
cides, even as he successfully defended the need for fighter-bombers capable of
attacking both known and suspected enemy concentrations. Facing the near cer-
tainty of a reduction in Seventh Air Force tactical sorties to 10,000 per month
for all of Southeast Asia, Brown warned against allowing the total number of
fighter-bomber squadrons in South Vietnam and Thailand, which had fallen to
twenty-nine after the departure of the F–4Cs from Cam Ranh Bay, to decline to
the projected low of just twenty-one. He urged the retention in Southeast Asia
of twenty-six squadrons, a force that could fly 10,000 sorties per month and
have the ability to surge beyond this level in case of emergency. Abrams backed
his deputy for air operations, but their arguments could not overcome pressures
to save money by withdrawing squadrons from South Vietnam and Thailand.43
By the end of 1970, the number of fighter-bomber squadrons had dwindled
not to twenty-one, but to eighteen, divided equally between South Vietnam and
Thailand. Recalled from the Thai air bases during the year were all the F–105
units except the one that flew the two-place Wild Weasels, aircraft that were
configured to detect radars controlling antiaircraft weapons and launch missiles
that homed on the source of the electronic transmissions. The eight other units
in Thailand operated F–4Ds or Es. Besides these nine, a recently arrived light
bomber squadron also operated from Thailand, using specially equipped B–57s
to locate and attack trucks traveling the roads of southern Laos.44
Although the administration during the spring of 1970 agreed on a monthly
239
The B–57G, designed for night interdiction, had forward looking radar,
low-light TV, infra-red sensors, and a laser range-finder installed in
the forward fuselage, but did not perform well in Southeast Asia.
ceiling of 10,000 Air Force tactical sorties in Southeast Asia, Nixon and Kis-
singer specified that the reductions not take effect until the end of July, one
month after U.S. troops had left Cambodia. As that time approached, a consen-
sus emerged that a maximum of 14,000 sorties was possible, taking into account
the budget and all the services capable of conducting tactical air strikes.45 This
monthly total was apportioned among the services, with the Air Force, as antic-
ipated, flying 10,000 sorties, down 4,000 from the previous authorization, the
Navy 2,700, and the Marine Corps 1,300. Secretary Laird specified that these
figures were ceilings, rather than objectives or averages, suggesting that units
in Southeast Asia fly fewer sorties in times of bad weather or enemy inactivity
and surge to the maximum number only when circumstances demanded. In ad-
dition, Seventh Air Force AC–130 gunships would fly no more than 1,000 sor-
ties each month against the Ho Chi Minh Trail; if increased truck traffic on the
roads of southern Laos required additional gunship patrols, the necessary sorties
could be borrowed from the tactical-fighter authorization.46
The President approved this plan on August 12, and almost immediately
Admiral McCain, General Abrams, and General Brown (succeeded on Septem-
ber 1 by General Clay), the three American commanders most closely involved,
began seeking permission to continue the practice of carrying over for future
use any tactical sorties authorized for a given month but not actually flown. In
July, the final month during which the Seventh Air Force had been authorized
14,000 tactical sorties, Brown’s airmen had flown just 9,000, and in August,
under the new rules announced for fiscal year 1971, they totaled just 8,700.
These three officers proposed the creation of a sortie bank where the excess — for
240
example, July’s 5,000 Air Force tactical sorties and August’s 1,300 — could be
deposited for subsequent withdrawal in time of emergency.47
This attempt to preserve flexibility in sortie allocation failed. The Air
Force, Marine Corps, and Navy continued to be authorized a total of 14,000 tac-
tical sorties per month, and, as Admiral Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, acknowledged, “the intent of the decision was to fly at an average as
close to 10,000 sorties as the military situation will permit, and not to exceed
14,000 in any one month.” In an emergency such as an invasion of Military
Region I, however, Moorer had Secretary Laird’s promise to cancel all sortie
limitations. As for the borrowing of tactical sorties by the gunship force, the
Secretary of Defense seemed to doubt that enough of these aircraft would be on
hand during fiscal 1971 to fly 1,000 sorties in a given month. The likeliest
source of additional aerial striking power would be an improved and expanded
South Vietnamese Air Force.48
As 1970 drew to a close, Secretary Laird and the Joint Chiefs were looking
ahead to a further reduction in tactical sorties during the fiscal year ending on
June 30, 1972. Laird proposed 8,325 fighter-bomber and 450 gunship sorties
each month, whereas the Chiefs held out for 10,000 by Air Force and Navy
tactical aircraft and 450 by Air Force gunships. Two factors complicated any
attempt to pare the current authorization — Marine aviation would complete its
withdrawal during fiscal 1971 and, as Secretary Seamans pointed out, opera-
tional South Vietnamese squadrons could not accelerate sortie rates while at the
same time providing cadres and instructors for the planned expansion. In these
circumstances, the Secretary of Defense tentatively endorsed a monthly total of
10,200 tactical sorties (7,500 by the Air Force and 2,700 by the Navy) plus 700
by Air Force gunships.49
Meanwhile, B–52 activity also underwent curtailment for reasons of econ-
omy, despite the greater organizational stature conferred upon the bomber force
based in the western Pacific. In April 1970, the 3d Air Division, with headquar-
ters on Guam, had become the Eighth Air Force, a designation transferred from
Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts. In moving from air division comman-
der to commander of an air force, General Gillem faced restrictions beyond
those that already had reduced the B–52 sortie rate from a peak of 1,800 per
month in 1968 to 1,600 in the summer of 1969 and 1,400 the following autumn.
Before further cuts in bomber sorties came to pass, however, Gillem’s force had
to be tailored to reflect the already reduced commitment.50
Since New Year’s Day, 1970, the Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Com-
mand, Gen. Bruce K. Holloway, had planned to recall twelve of the ninety
bombers in the western Pacific, together with some 1,100 men, thus accom-
plishing three goals. Such a move would reduce General Gillem’s force to a
level more consistent with an authorization of 1,400 sorties per month, cut costs
to help meet the Project 703 objective, and make additional B–52s available for
the nuclear war plan. Because repairs to the runway at U-Tapao prevented an
241
increase in operations from that base to take up the slack caused by the
projected withdrawal, only ten Guam-based bombers, rather than twelve, de-
parted for the United States. The move was completed on April 15, after the 3d
Air Division had become the Eighth Air Force.51
Throughout the remainder of the year, B–52 sorties diminished further,
yielding to the same budgetary pressures that had slashed Air Force tactical
sorties. As he had during the previous year’s cuts in bomber activity, Abrams
opposed the further reduction, declaring that “not only are further cuts in the
sortie rate imprudent . . . the current rate is inadequate.” Although conceding that
recent tactical innovations, such as substituting three-plane strikes for attacks
by formations of six B–52s, had enabled him “to more efficiently spend dwin-
dling resources,” he warned that three bombers simply were not “as effective
against a given specified target as would be six.”52
Despite Abram’s objections, a B–52 sortie rate of 1,000 per month, or 33
per day, went into effect on August 17, 1970, using a force reduced to sixty-
three bombers and seventy-seven crews. Each day, from its refurbished run-
ways, U-Tapao launched 30 sorties, calling upon the thirty-eight bombers and
forty-three crews based there. Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, with 10 B–52s and
fifteen crews, contributed the other three. Because of the long distance involved
and the resulting high fuel consumption, the fifteen bombers then based on
Guam no longer flew strikes in Southeast Asia. By the end of August, General
Holloway had succeeded in returning another sixteen B–52s to the United States
for reassignment to the nuclear strike force. A further transfer of seven bombers
became possible because the shorter distances flown from U-Tapao resulted in
more frequent sorties. During September, moreover, the last strikes took off
from Kadena, and the force based at U-Tapao, now forty-two bombers and fifty-
two crews, assumed responsibility for the required 33 sorties per day.53
Other economies in B–52 operation went into effect during 1970. Until
mid-September, planners had arbitrarily assigned combat air patrol and elec-
tronic countermeasures escort on the basis of whether the track of a planned
bombing mission passed north of sixteen degrees, thirty minutes, north latitude.
Careful study revealed, however, that only some 14 percent of the penetrations
of this airspace actually came within range of North Vietnamese interceptors or
radar-controlled antiaircraft weapons. As a result, each B–52 route that pene-
trated the danger zone now underwent an individual threat analysis, and the
escort, if needed at all, was tailored to deal with the likely defenses, whether
MiG fighters, surface-to-air missiles, or a combination of both. After three
weeks using the new method, planners discovered they had reduced by 150 the
number of escort sorties actually flown.54
The continuing reduction in tactical sorties, along with elimination of the
long B–52 flight from Guam to Southeast Asia and back, enabled the Strategic
Air Command to recall KC–135 tankers from Southeast Asia. The reductions
began in the last six months of 1969, with the stabilization of Air Force activity
242
in Southeast Asia at 1,400 sorties each month by B–52s and 14,000 by tactical
fighters. From eighty-five KC–135s in July 1969, the number dropped to sixty-
six at the end of the year. After an increase early in 1970 to seventy-one planes
and 115 crews, probably the result of the overlap between the arrival of replace-
ment squadrons and the last of the departures, the number diminished rapidly
to reflect the new levels of 1,000 B–52 and 10,000 Air Force fighter-bomber
sorties. As 1970 drew to a close, forty-eight KC–135s, manned by seventy-
seven crews, flew 43 sorties each day, most of them on aerial refueling mis-
sions, with a few devoted to radio relay or aerial reconnaissance.55
During this period of sortie reduction, the nature of tactical air operations
in South Vietnam remained unchanged, with some 83 percent of fixed-wing sor-
ties falling into categories — airlift, aerial attack, tactical reconnaissance, and
combat support — identified with the support of ground forces. The tempo of
the war within the country had slowed, however, as reflected by the overall de-
cline from the previous year in total sorties, in sorties supporting ground forces,
and in the sub-category of attack sorties.56
During 1970, a comparative calm descended on South Vietnam. The exten-
sion of the war into Cambodia shattered, at least temporarily, the logistics net-
work that sustained enemy operations in southern South Vietnam; and violent
weather in late October impeded military activity in the North. Three tropical
storms lashed the coast from Cam Ranh Bay northward. The first forced the
evacuation of all but the F–4Ds from Phu Cat and seemed headed for Da Nang,
when it abruptly changed course. The second, however, passed directly over Da
Nang, but did little harm. The third storm came ashore farther south, forcing the
evacuation of Cam Ranh Bay and causing wind damage and flooding there and
at Phu Cat. In every case, the destruction would have been worse, with probable
loss of life, had it not been for an Air Force-operated forecasting service, linked
to orbiting weather satellites, that General Westmoreland had established after
a violent typhoon struck South Vietnam in the fall of 1965.57
Ground combat during 1970 had been sporadic in northern and east central
South Vietnam even before the October storms struck. The North Vietnamese
improved the depots and bases along the access routes from southern Laos,
especially in the A Shau Valley, where they had to endure B–52 strikes and
other harassment, but not the combination of aerial interdiction, artillery
bombardment, and infantry assault of previous years. Communist troops initi-
ated skirmishes along the demilitarized zone and attacked fire support bases like
Ripcord and O’Reilly.58
The North Vietnamese lashed out first at Fire Support Base Ripcord. Since
its establishment in April 1970 by a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division
(Airmobile), this outpost had seen little action. On July 17, however, enemy
gunners opened fire, infantry began closing in, and after five days of increasing
pressure, the garrison withdrew by helicopter, as fighter-bombers attacked to
cover the move.59
243
At Ripcord air power had proved valuable; at Fire Support Base O’Reilly
it was decisive. Warning made the difference. A North Vietnamese lieutenant
surrendered in mid-August and told of an impending assault against O’Reilly.
Documents captured as far away as Da Nang described how Viet Cong through-
out the region were mobilizing for this effort, confirming the defector’s story.60
Alerted to the enemy’s plans, General Sutherland, in whose XXIV Corps
sector the base was located, obtained overpowering air support. For September
10, when the attack was expected, he received thirty preplanned tactical sorties
against suspected troop concentrations and mortar sites, two B–52 strikes, and
the promise of as many as twenty sorties by fighter-bombers diverted from other
targets to the defense of Fire Support Base O’Reilly. The first day’s tactical
strikes would, weather permitting, be directed by forward air controllers, but
predicted cloud cover seemed likely to force most of the fighter pilots to rely on
Combat Skyspot radar.61
The aerial onslaught of September 10 served as a preview of the violence
to come. Within eight days, B–52s carried out twenty-four strikes, dropping
more than 1,550 tons of bombs, while 194 fighter-bombers added almost 550
tons to the deluge. Air power claimed an impressive amount of destruction in
the bunkers and weapons’ positions the enemy built for his ill-fated attack, but
not even a rough estimate of the number killed was possible until late in the
fighting. Appropriately, just as a defector had enabled Sutherland to arrange in
advance for air strikes, a prisoner of war offered an insight into the results,
declaring that air power had killed two-thirds of the soldiers in his 300- to 400-
man battalion, and roughly 20 percent of the entire force marshalled for the
operation.62
As it had become his practice in recent years, the enemy maintained pres-
sure in 1970 on the special forces camps, now manned by South Vietnamese,
in the northeastern reaches of Military Region II. In April, North Vietnamese
forces threatened Dak Seang and Dak Pek. Almost 3,000 tactical fighter sorties
hit targets near these camps, and twenty-three B–52s bombed the enemy around
Dak Seang. Elsewhere in South Vietnam, the B–52s continued to serve as flying
artillery, hitting enemy concentrations from Tay Ninh Province northwest of
Saigon to the remote Seven Mountains redoubt in Military Region IV.63
Heavy fighting proved infrequent, but the combat that did erupt on the
ground remained confined to the border regions of South Vietnam. The Viet
Cong, however, continued to harass Seventh Air Force bases. Tan Son Nhut, a
prime target of the 1968 Tet offensive, was unscathed through 1970, whereas
three air bases not hit during the Tet battles of 1968 came under attack. These
were Phu Cat, shelled four times; Phan Rang, hit eleven times by rockets or
grenades; and Cam Ranh Bay, subjected to seven attacks.
The deadliest of the Phu Cat bombardments was the first, on February 1:
ten 122-mm rockets killed one airman, wounded fifteen others, and also injured
four soldiers. The body of one Viet Cong was discovered after the action. The
244
Fuel tanks at Cam Ranh Bay destroyed by rocket attacks in 1970.

subsequent shellings in May, October, and December wounded two men and
damaged a C–7, along with other military equipment.
Besides the rocket attacks at Phan Rang— which killed two, wounded nine,
and resulted in one injury indirectly related to the bombardment — Viet Cong
sappers hit the base twice. On May 3, several teams attacked in conjunction
with a mortar and rocket barrage, but the attempted penetration accomplished
little, even though shrapnel wounded one airman and caused minor damage to
Air Force facilities. Again, on the early morning of September 10, a handful of
Viet Cong attacked near the main gate, wounding one South Vietnamese civil-
ian and causing slight damage on the base.64
From the enemy’s point of view, the most productive of the attacks on air
installations occurred a few miles south of Cam Ranh Bay Air Base, when sap-
pers destroyed 460,000 gallons of aviation fuel at an Army storage area.65 The
enemy also directed sapper teams, as well as mortar and rocket barrages, against
the airfield itself. A total of nine Air Force men died in these attacks, while ten
airmen and two sailors suffered wounds. Ironically, the most determined as-
sault, an attempt on June 1 to break through a Navy-manned section of the base
perimeter, resulted in only two Americans wounded, but a comparatively feeble
rocket bombardment on December 1 killed three and wounded nine, when one
of the missiles exploded in the galley of an officers’ mess.66
Nha Trang, about fifteen nautical miles north of Cam Ranh Bay, underwent
just one attack, but the results proved spectacular. Eleven rockets hit the base,
wounding one man and igniting some 10,000 barrels of gasoline in a partially
filled tank. Shell fragments punctured another storage tank, but the diesel fuel
inside did not catch fire, and the leakage was limited to 3,000 gallons, not quite
10 percent of the contents. To replace the lost storage capacity, Seventh Air
245
Force delivered and erected a collapsible rubber bladder capable of holding

50,000 gallons of aviation fuel.67
Despite its comparatively exposed position, Pleiku airfield underwent only
two attacks, both by 122-mm rockets. The first, on May 19, destroyed one
EC–47, damaged two others, and an airman sprained his wrist diving for cover.
During the second, just one week later, two airmen suffered wounds and two
EC–47s, along with other equipment, sustained damage.
In the north, enemy gunners shelled Da Nang airfield five times, beginning
on April 8. As at Phu Cat, the first attack was the worst, killing one airman and
wounding six, while one Marine died and two were wounded. Four 140-mm
rockets leveled a Marine barracks and damaged Air Force communications
facilities. Other barrages in September, October, and December inflicted no Air
Force casualties.
Bien Hoa, hard hit by the Tet offensive two years earlier, was the target of
five attacks that killed two and wounded at least seventy-four. The bombard-
ments also inflicted severe material damage: a shelling on January 21 damaged
a C–123, a C–7, and a UH–1; and on February 27, rocket fragments tore into
three A–37s, two F–100s, and a C–7.68
Despite the recurring hit-and-run raids and the occasional battle, the Ameri-
can disengagement continued, and the armed forces of South Vietnam soon
launched their most ambitious offensive of the war. With a minimum of U.S.
assistance — mostly from air power, including helicopters, and long-range
artillery — an assault force would attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern
Laos, testing the success of Vietnamization and the wisdom of the withdrawals.
246
Chapter Fifteen
The South Vietnamese Invasion of Laos:

Operation Lam Son 719
Planning began in November 1970 for Operation Lam Son 719, a campaign
that tested not only the skills and tenacity of a particular South Vietnamese task
force and its leaders, but the entire concept of Vietnamization. Admiral Moorer,
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, started the process when he sought the
views of Admiral McCain, the Commander in Chief, Pacific, on major opera-
tions in Southeast Asia, including southern Laos, that might take place in the
first six months of 1971.1 McCain responded by suggesting two categories of
actions: those that “will probably take place” because they required no real de-
parture from existing policy (in other words, more of the same); and those that
“would be desirable but may or may not be attainable within the political and
time-limiting constraints.” McCain’s second category included a major offen-
sive against the Ho Chi Minh Trail that, he believed, would compel Prince Sou-
vanna Phouma, the ruler of Laos, to abandon the guise of neutrality and enter
the war openly, renouncing the American-sponsored Geneva Accords which al-
most a decade earlier had established a nominal truce between the government
and the communist insurgents.2
The idea of a South Vietnamese offensive sometime during the current dry
season, November 1970 to May 1971, appealed to Henry Kissinger, President
Nixon’s adviser on national security matters, who realized that such an opera-
tion could help safeguard the American ground troops still in South Vietnam by
forestalling a possible North Vietnamese thrust into the central highlands or
across the demilitarized zone. Kissinger believed that a South Vietnamese of-
fensive in Cambodia had better prospects of success than an assault against the
more heavily defended Ho Chi Minh Trail and recommended accordingly. Ad-
miral McCain, however, considered any attack in Cambodia subsidiary to a
thrust into Laos. Despite McCain’s insistence, the formidable defenses of the
trail caused Admiral Moorer to suggest the possibility of substituting Cambodia
for southern Laos as the main objective. Kissinger sought to resolve the differ-
ence of opinion — Cambodia, which he and Moorer favored, versus Laos, rec-
ommended by McCain — and sent one of his assistants, Brig. Gen. Alexander
247
M. Haig, Jr., to sound out General Abrams, the senior American commander in
South Vietnam, Ellsworth Bunker, the United States Ambassador to South Viet-
nam, and Nguyen Van Thieu, the South Vietnamese president. Haig reported
that the authorities in Saigon favored the bolder course, a South Vietnamese of-
fensive against the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the enemy’s main route for supplies and
reinforcements, rather than against the communist forces in Cambodia.3
Although an offensive into southern Laos promised immediate benefits by
protecting Vietnamization and the withdrawal of American ground forces, the
idea of attacking there was not new. It had originated with General Westmore-
land, General Abrams’ predecessor. Long before Westmoreland left South Viet-
nam in the summer of 1968 to become Army Chief of Staff — indeed, well be-
fore that years’s Tet offensive — the Ho Chi Minh Trail had evolved into a
major transportation artery. The expansion and extension of the network of
roads, paths, waterways, and pipelines presented a target that Westmoreland
could not ignore, and he proposed to attack it with American, South Viet-
namese, and possibly Thai troops. The alternatives he considered included a
thrust westward from Khe Sanh and the nearby village of Lang Vei against the
supply complex that since 1959 had grown up in the jungle-covered hills around
the abandoned Laotian village of Tchepone. He might also attack the trail from
the west, as well as from the east, or use helicopters to establish and maintain
strongpoints athwart it. The loss of Lang Vei and the subsequent decision to
abandon Khe Sanh, along with the adoption of a policy of Vietnamization and
withdrawal, caused Westmoreland and Abrams to shelve the concept, even
though Tchepone remained a tempting objective. In the spring of 1970, for
example, intelligence estimates indicated that as much as half the supplies
destined for the communist forces in South Vietnam passed over roads and
through transshipment points near the ruins of that village.
The invasion of Cambodia in April 1970 cut, at least temporarily, the
complementary supply line from the port of Sihanoukville to the depots near the
South Vietnamese border. By the summer of that year, therefore, the enemy
depended even more heavily upon cargo that traveled the Ho Chi Minh Trail
past Tchepone and into South Vietnam and Cambodia. American and South
Vietnamese leaders alike realized the value of a raid to disrupt traffic on the Ho
Chi Minh Trail and destroy the supplies, some of which would formerly have
arrived at Sihanoukville, that now filled the bunkers around Tchepone. Besides
arousing the interest of Admiral McCain in Hawaii and General Abrams in
Saigon, launching such an offensive during the 1970–71 dry season fired the
enthusiasm of Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan Lam, the South Vietnamese commander of
I Corps, who once told a Marine Corps adviser, Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Simmons,
that he had served in a French column attacking westward along Route 9 in the
war against the Viet Minh and hoped to launch the same kind of operation on
his own. Similarly, Gen. Cao Van Vien, Chairman of the South Vietnamese
Joint General Staff, had for a half-dozen years advocated a strategy that
248
South Vietnamese Invasion of Laos
included isolating the enemy in South Vietnam from his sources of supply and
reinforcement in the North.4
President Thieu accepted the concept of two more or less concurrent opera-
tions, a main offensive in southern Laos and a secondary effort in Cambodia.
During a conversation on December 7, 1970, he told Bunker and Abrams that
the Cambodian operation would serve mainly to relieve communist pressure on
the town of Kompong Cham, whereas the thrust into Laos would culminate in
the capture of Tchepone, some forty kilometers beyond the border, and the
destruction of supplies destined for both South Vietnam and Cambodia. After
the assault force had blown up or carried off the cargo stored near the village
and begun an orderly retreat, “stay-behinds and guerrillas” would for an unspec-
ified time harry the enemy movement down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.5
As President Thieu and Generals Vien and Lam realized, their troops would
have to strike before the northeast monsoon season ended in May 1971. After-
ward, when the prevailing winds swung around to blow from the southwest,
heavy rains would drench southern Laos, inhibiting air support and movement
on the ground. Moreover, to obtain the fullest advantage from any disruption of
traffic, South Vietnam needed to attack before the enemy further improved the
Ho Chi Minh Trail to handle with ease the additional volume of cargo that be-
fore the spring of 1970 had passed through Sihanoukville. Finally, an offensive
against an objective as formidable as Tchepone required substantial American
aid, but the United States was steadily withdrawing its forces. To wait an entire
year for the dry season of 1971–72, while American strength continued to ebb,
introduced the risk that essential support might no longer be available.6
The Americans also favored an offensive during the current dry season — an
attack in the spring of 1971 should create supply shortages felt twelve to eigh-
teen months later, when the last American combat troops would be leaving
South Vietnam — and they wanted the blow to fall in southern Laos. For them,
a raid on Tchepone had obvious advantages over further fighting in Cambodia,
since disruption of a key element in the North Vietnamese logistics complex
could neutralize any threat to the central highlands and at the same time force
the enemy to divert to the defense of the Ho Chi Minh Trail troops that might
be massing to attack across the demilitarized zone. Because Thieu had infor-
mally endorsed an advance against Tchepone, Kissinger reversed himself and
recommended that the United States emphasize the campaign in southern Laos,
assigning a lesser priority to any action in Cambodia, an apportionment of effort
that President Nixon approved.7
In December 1970, with almost six weeks of the present dry season already
gone, tactical planning began in South Vietnam for the raid on Tchepone and
for the secondary attacks against an enemy entrenched near the Chup plantation
in Cambodia. Because of its greater daring and complexity, the invasion of Laos
required the more thorough preparations, the earliest of them beginning on the
day after Thieu mentioned the possible operations to Bunker and Abrams.8 The
249
South Vietnamese chief executive intended to attack toward Tchepone in Febru-

ary, roughly midway through the period of dry weather, which increased the ur-
gency felt by American and South Vietnamese planners.
In conjunction with Vien, who headed South Vietnam’s Joint General Staff,
Abrams authorized a combined planning effort, but the staff sections of the U.S.
Military Assistance Command worked almost independently of the South Viet-
namese in producing an operational concept consisting of four distinct phases.
During the first phase, American forces would secure and prepare the roads,
airfields, and bases in South Vietnam needed to launch and sustain the advance
across the border. The next phase encompassed the drive into Laos and the cap-
ture of Tchepone. Phase III consisted of the destruction of the supplies stored
around the village, and in the fourth and final phase, the assault troops would
withdraw, either doubling back on their route of advance or attacking to the
southeast through a North Vietnamese base area on the approaches to the A
Shau Valley. Guerrillas would remain behind after the task force had withdrawn
and continue to disrupt supply lines in the vicinity of Tchepone. A related ele-
ment called for an advance from the west to threaten the town of Muong Phine
and impede North Vietnamese attempts to divert highway traffic around the
Tchepone salient.9
Because the Cooper-Church amendment prohibited the use of American
ground forces in Laos, the United States relied upon air support, plus long-range
artillery fire from inside South Vietnam, to provide the foundation upon which
the planned South Vietnamese operation rested. Although the South Vietnamese
Air Force could play a role in operations within the country or against lightly
defended portions of Cambodia, it lacked the numbers and appropriate types of
aircraft to overcome the antiaircraft defenses protecting Tchepone. The Viet-
namized air arm could not meet the demands of the proposed operation, but
General Abrams had Army helicopters and Air Force fighter-bombers and
B–52s to batter the defenders when the South Vietnamese task force began its
westward assault.10
Air Force analysts later complained that the military assistance command
had relied too heavily on the Army’s helicopter gunships, which lacked the
punch of Air Force fighter-bombers, but Army planners had reasons for the
choice other than a preference for using aircraft under the direct control of their
fellow soldiers. Weather strongly influenced the decision. In February and
March, the time chosen for the operation, cloud cover tended to prevail except
for a window of perhaps four to six hours at mid-day. Earlier in the morning and
later in the afternoon, the ceiling varied from 2,500 feet in the vicinity of Khe
Sanh to 1,000 feet in the mountains around Tchepone. The cloud cover would
handicap immediate strikes by fighter-bombers, though not the planned variety
that utilized radar control. Helicopters, in contrast, normally flew at these low
altitudes, hugging the nap of the earth more tightly than was possible for
conventional jet aircraft. The Army planners failed to realize that the clouds
250
An Air Force C–130 delivers cargo at Khe Sanh, the main

supply center for South Vietnam’s Lam Son 719 operation in Laos.
enveloping the mountaintops of southern Laos would force the helicopters into
valleys covered by deadly fire from light antiaircraft weapons and machineguns.
The over-reliance on helicopters for firepower also reflected the kind of targets,
lightly defended by antiaircraft fire, that the planners expected to engage —
mainly infantry, artillery, and thin-skinned vehicles. Those who drafted the plan
did not foresee either massed antiaircraft fire or heavily armored tanks best
destroyed by bombs or large rockets delivered from jet fighters.11
Planning moved forward at Saigon, cloaked as completely in secrecy as
possible in a city notorious for its disregard of even elementary security prac-
tices. To deceive an enemy who seemed to have agents everywhere, planners
resurrected a code name, Dewey Canyon, used in the spring of 1969 for a probe
of the northern approaches to the A Shau Valley. The Americans at first referred
to the entire Operation as Dewey Canyon II, thus suggesting a return to the site
of the 1969 fighting. Ultimately, however, the revived code name referred only
to Phase I, the preliminary activity by American troops in South Vietnam to
provide a launching platform for the attack westward. The South Vietnamese
chose Lam Son 719 to designate the thrust along Route 9 from the border to
Tchepone.12
The staff agencies of the military assistance command emphasized secrecy
as they devised the basic concept for Dewey Canyon II-Lam Son 719, often
engaging in informal discussions instead of preparing and exchanging written
comments that might somehow find their way into North Vietnamese hands.
The XXIV Corps, the U.S. Army tactical command in the northern provinces,
unveiled its basic plan on January 21, 1971, before a select audience that
251
included a few Air Force officers: General Clay, the Seventh Air Force com-
mander; Brig. Gen. John H. Herring, Jr., the commander of the 834th Air Divi-
sion and responsible for tactical airlift in South Vietnam; and a handful of their
staff officers.
Similar secrecy prevailed when representatives of the U.S. Military Assis-
tance Command and the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff briefed General
Lam, who would command the undertaking. Only a few of Lam’s staff officers
received invitations to the meeting at XXIV Corps headquarters. His chief of
operations, Col. Cao Khee Nhat, could not obtain access, even though he had
helped write the very plan under discussion.13
Because South Vietnamese officials had tended to disregard security during
previous operations, resulting in accurate speculation that circulated throughout
Saigon, Abrams tried to reach an accommodation with the press. He imposed
an embargo on the release of news of the attack, which would last until the
South Vietnamese made contact with the enemy, but he sought to take the sting
out of this action by arranging a briefing on January 29 to outline the impending
operation. The ban proved unenforceable, however, since foreign journalists,
who did not feel bound by the prohibition, had access to cable offices outside
South Vietnam but within a few flying hours of Saigon. Moreover, a number of
American reporters either advised their editors informally without actually
filing stories, reported the news embargo itself, or characterized as rumor the
talk of an imminent invasion of Laos; they tended, in short, to obey the letter of
the order though not its intent. Alerted by these various leaks, journalists in
Washington badgered administration officials, mostly without real knowledge
of the operation, until Dr. Kissinger saw the futility of the attempt at censorship,
which encouraged press speculation instead of suppressing it. Consequently, the
embargo lasted only until February 4, four days before the South Vietnamese
task force crossed the border.14
The commander of the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division, Maj. Gen.
Nguyen Duy Hinh complained of poor security. In his opinion, the embargo on
news, the attempt at compartmentalized planning, and the revival of an old code
name, Dewey Canyon, had accomplished nothing. When the attack came, Honh
said that the enemy “appeared not to be surprised at all; by contrast, he had been
prepared and was waiting for our forces to come in.”15
Meanwhile, the 834th Air Division stepped up to its assignments in Dewey
Canyon II and helped prepare for the launching of Lam Son 719. After receiving
10 additional C–130s, increasing their number to 58 and the total number of
transports to 186, the division established a control mechanism for delivering
troops and cargo to northernmost South Vietnam. General Herring decided to
direct the airlift activity from his control center at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, using
satellite control elements at Dong Ha, Quang Tri City, and Da Nang.
Although XXIV Corps, under Lt. Gen. James W. Sutherland, Jr., and Clay’s
Seventh Air Force produced detailed plans covering ground operations and tac-
252
tical air support, airlift planners encountered an unexpected obstacle. To meet

an invasion day of February 8, Herring’s staff had to complete its work during
the Tet holiday, but a number of South Vietnamese officers, kept unaware of the
impending attack for security reasons, went on leave and therefore could not
submit airlift requirements for mounting Lam Son 719. As a result, U.S. officers
decided among themselves the number of troops, the kinds of equipment, and
the amount of supplies that the 834th Air Division would deliver.
Despite the hurried and informal drafting of plans, Air Force transports got
the required men, weapons, and supplies into place for the attack toward Tche-
pone. Almost 600 sorties by C–130s and a dozen by C–123s delivered 12,000
troops (including the South Vietnamese 1st Airborne Division, performing as
infantry) and 4,600 tons of cargo to airfields in the northern provinces. All did
not go smoothly, however. The ground control approach radars at Dong Ha and
Quang Tri City broke down, and spare parts proved hard to find.16
Since American tactical aviation would play a critical role in Lam Son 719,
a centralized control mechanism seemed essential. During Dewey Canyon II,
the existing I Direct Air Support Center at Da Nang dealt adequately with re-
quests from tactical air control parties for strikes in support of the Army units
establishing control over the northwestern corner of South Vietnam. Once the
South Vietnamese forces crossed the border, however, they would rely on a re-
vived V Direct Air Support Center at Quang Tri City. Because of the ban
against American troops serving on the ground in Laos, Air Force tactical air
control parties could not accompany the advancing South Vietnamese, although
forward air controllers would be on station overhead. The Cooper-Church
amendment also forbade Army advisers from remaining with units with which
they had served.
Since Americans could not enter Laos and carry out their usual duties, Lam
decided to establish divisional tactical operations centers near Khe Sanh, where
Americans would be on hand to give advice and facilitate air support while
remaining on South Vietnamese soil. The decision clearly reflected the depen-
dence of South Vietnamese commanders on American advice, but it provided
a poor substitute for an American presence on the battlefield and, because of its
detachment from the fighting, complicated the coordination of tactical air sup-
port and helicopter operations with the action on the ground.
Except for the distance that the Air Force liaison officers remained from the
battlefield, the mechanics of air support during Lam Son 719 resembled those
for any comparable operation in South Vietnam. As always, air liaison officers
processed requests from ground units for air support and, during Lam Son 719,
passed the information to V Direct Air Support Center, which functioned as an
advance element of the Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center.
Air Force forward air controllers, accompanied by English-speaking South
Vietnamese, did the same work they had in South Vietnam, patrolling an as-
signed area, searching out targets, and directing air attacks. In an emergency,
253
the forward air controllers bypassed the divisional tactical operations centers
and sent requests for immediate strikes straight to V Direct Air Support Center,
which diverted or launched the necessary fighter-bombers. The aircraft that re-
sponded checked in with Hillsboro, the airborne battlefield command and con-
trol center that coordinated the employment of tactical air power over southern
Laos. Hillsboro controllers then handed off the fighter-bombers to the appropri-
ate forward air controller.
Once Operation Lam Son 719 encountered fierce resistance, one emergency
seemed to follow another, and V Direct Air Support Center tended to entrust re-
sponsibility for immediate strikes to the forward air controllers, though it con-
tinued to provide general instructions to them, assign them sectors, and fulfill
routine requests for planned strikes. The more frenzied the battle became, the
more frequently did forward air controllers change targets and divert aircraft,
deciding among themselves, or with the assistance of Hillsboro, where a partic-
ular flight should attack.17
Unless the forward air controllers, aided by the interpreters flying with
them, chose to intervene, a South Vietnamese commander inside Laos could not
be sure of rapid and reliable communication with the American airmen sup-
porting him. The normal channel for requesting air support passed through the
divisional tactical operations center in South Vietnam, miles from the battle-
ground. Gen. Du Quoc Dong, commander of the South Vietnamese airborne
division, pointed out this fact during the planning of Lam Son 719 and argued
that a commander should have exclusive control over the forward air controllers
supporting his unit, thus minimizing any conflict of priorities between airmen
and troops on the ground. Although he failed to gain the direct control that he
sought, the general did obtain a revision of the original plan that had called for
a controller to support both the airborne division and the ranger force. When the
airborne troops went into action, their commander did not have to share forward
air controllers with another unit, but he could only make requests of them,
rather than giving them orders.
Despite this partial success, General Dong remained unhappy with the pro-
cedures for getting air support. The South Vietnamese division commander
argued that the mechanism functioned too slowly, requiring up to thirty-six
hours for planned requests, and made it difficult to coordinate air strikes with
the other firepower available to a division commander, though the problem in
coordinating firepower resulted not from the forward air controllers but from
reliance on a tactical operations center remote from the fighting.18
Whereas the South Vietnamese general wanted his fellow division com-
manders to have greater control over the aircraft supporting their units, General
Clay could present a strong case for centralizing control of a complicated air
operation. At any time during the advance to Tchepone, a half-dozen forward
air controllers would be handling relays of fighter-bombers, while formations
of B–52s dropped bombs on or near the battlefield, and Air Force gunships
254
A South Vietnamese personnel carrier in Laos during Lam Son 719.

flying nearby attacked North Vietnamese trucks traveling the Ho Chi Minh Trail
by night. Swarms of Army helicopters would skim the ground, scouting,
strafing, and shifting men, supplies, and artillery from one objective to another.
All of this activity increased the danger of accidents, whether mid-air collisions
or the bombing of friendly troops, and underscored the importance of central-
ized control over at least the Air Force aircraft operating in the narrow corridor
between Khe Sanh and Tchepone.19
The 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile), rather than the XXIV Corps, con-
trolled the Army helicopters in Lam Son 719 and the few South Vietnamese
helicopters that participated in the operation. Procedures called for the com-
mander of a division or other major South Vietnamese unit to submit requests
for helicopters to the headquarters of the American airborne division, which
could respond immediately if aircraft were available. Only when it became
necessary to set priorities among competing requests did XXIV Corps intervene.
Although responsive to the needs of South Vietnamese commanders, the policy
in some cases permitted helicopters to move units without the knowledge of the
U.S. corps commander. A South Vietnamese officer, for instance, used U.S.
helicopters to shift an entire battalion before advising General Sutherland, who
bore the ultimate responsibility for providing long-range artillery fire.20
The South Vietnamese I Corps, besides setting up a logistics command to
forward the supplies that would sustain Lam Son 719, emplaced long-range
artillery to join the American batteries in firing concentrations in support of the
attack. The actual assault force consisted of a South Vietnamese Marine divi-
255
sion, the 1st Ranger Group, the reinforced 1st Infantry Division, the 1st Air-
borne Division fighting as infantry, and the 1st Armored Brigade, a total of
forty-two maneuver battalions, of which thirty-four were to cross the border.
While the tanks and armored personnel carriers of the armored brigade ad-
vanced along Route 9, American helicopters would leapfrog from one hilltop
to another and land troops to establish a succession of fire bases protecting the
armored column and the supply-laden trucks following behind it.21
The threat from North Vietnamese armored forces influenced the plans for
Lam Son 719, though, as events would prove, not to the extent it should have.
On the eve of the attack, intelligence reports credited North Vietnam with as
many as 200 Soviet-designed tanks, variants of either the T–54, which usually
mounted a 100-mm gun, or the PT–76, an amphibious vehicle less than half as
heavy as the T–54 and carrying a 76-mm weapon. Planners doubted, however,
that the enemy could mass this armor against the attack, a conclusion that ig-
nored the extensive and stoutly defended road net linking North Vietnam with
southern Laos. As a result, the South Vietnamese armored brigade relied on
light tanks, with 76-mm guns, since these vehicles, along with air strikes and
rocket launchers manned by the infantry, seemed adequate to deal with what-
ever armored threat the enemy might muster.22
Besides having to fire rockets at the tanks that might intervene during the
planned attack toward Tchepone, the helicopters would face an antiaircraft de-
fense more formidable than any encountered in South Vietnam. Guns defending
nearby segments of the Ho Chi Minh Trail could move rapidly — planners did
not realize how rapidly — to engage aircraft operating in the Tchepone salient.
In fact, by the time Lam Son 719 ended, Air Force fighter-bomber pilots would
report destroying more than a hundred antiaircraft weapons where dozens had
formerly stood guard. At the outset, Army airmen believed that by skimming
the treetops and using the cover of ridge lines or hill masses they could dart
about too rapidly for North Vietnamese gunners. At times, reliance on maneu-
verability and daring might be the only protection for the helicopter crews, who
flew below the overcast, attacking in weather that grounded the faster and less
vulnerable fighter-bombers which otherwise might have supported them. The
North Vietnamese, who had fought against the Army’s airmobile units since the
Ia Drang Valley campaign of 1965, developed tactics against helicopters; during
Lam Son 719, they rarely fired upon the craft in flight but waited in ambush at
a likely objective until the troop carriers descended, and then used every avail-
able weapon from rifles to 37-mm antiaircraft guns to place a barrier of fire
across the landing zone.
While helping plan the attack, representatives of the Seventh Air Force sug-
gested using B–52s to batter by night the chosen landing zones and the terrain
around them, following up after dawn with attacks by fighter-bombers and, if
the defenses warranted, by transports dropping 15,000-pound bombs improvised
to clear landing zones in dense forest. General Lam objected, however, to the
256
A Soviet-built PT–76 tank captured during Lam Son 719.

timing of the attacks. He wanted to seize an objective at first light, if possible,
so that the troops would have the entire day to prepare for the counterattack
certain to come after nightfall, and he willingly traded preparatory bombing for
the additional daylight. Not until Lam Son 719 began and helicopters met with
deadly fire did preparatory air strikes assume critical importance.
In suppressing the antiaircraft fire designed to isolate the South Vietnamese
fire bases, the laser-guided bomb proved the deadliest weapon in the Air Force
arsenal. The widely used cluster bomb units released individual bomblets cap-
able of killing or wounding members of gun crews, but they rarely destroyed the
weapon itself, as the laser-guided bomb might do. The unguided general pur-
pose high-explosive bomb achieved the poorest results, for it required a direct
hit to destroy a gun or kill a crew, accuracy rarely attainable because of
camouflage, natural concealment, and enemy fire.23
As the operational framework of Lam Son 719 took shape, President Nixon
had misgivings about the attack, but, after receiving assurances from General
Abrams that the operation would result in only a slight increase in American
casualties, on January 29, 1971, he approved it.24 The next day, Dewey Canyon
II got under way, as American troops advanced upon Khe Sanh, designated to
become the principal assembly area and supply base for Lam Son 719, and pre-
pared to open Route 9 beyond that base all the way to the border. The reoccu-
pation of the abandoned stronghold encountered little opposition and required
only routine air support; once there, however, the soldiers had to fill craters
from North Vietnamese shells and remove marine-planted minefields before
transports could land on the existing 3,900-foot runway. While they repaired the
257
damage, some of it inflicted during the siege in the spring of 1968, Army
engineers built a second runway atop the Khe Sanh plateau. On February 4, the
first C–130 touched down on the new 3,200-foot landing strip and promptly be-
came stuck in the mud, the wheels sinking a half-foot, even though the aircraft
carried a comparatively light load. To create a satisfactory surface, soldiers laid
aluminum matting over the new runway, and on February 15, transports began
regular flights into Khe Sanh. The old runway reopened by March 1, in time for
the latter part of Lam Son 719. To handle the frequent landings and departures,
the Air Force sent air traffic controllers from Clark Air Base in the Philippines
to assist the Army men operating the control tower at Khe Sanh.
From the time the South Vietnamese task force went into action on Febru-
ary 8 until March 27 when the operation ended, Air Force transports flew more
than 2,000 sorties in support of Lam Son 719, carrying 21,000 tons of cargo and
almost 14,000 passengers. More than 1,100 sorties ended at Khe Sanh; others
terminated at either Quang Tri City, Dong Ha, Phu Bai, or Da Nang.25
The massing of men and supplies for Lam Son 719 imposed demands on
strategic as well as tactical airlift. The Military Airlift Command’s Douglas
C–124s, Lockheed C–141s, and Douglas C–133s delivered bulky cargo across
the Pacific, their usual assignment, and sometimes within South Vietnam. To
release C–130s for tactical missions to Khe Sanh and elsewhere, some of the
larger and longer range transports took over routine cargo runs among airfields
like Tan Son Nhut, Cam Ranh Bay, and Da Nang and also flew emergency mis-
sions directly related to the invasion of Laos. In fifteen sorties, for instance, the
turboprop C–133s delivered four howitzers, two maintenance vans, and nine
light tanks needed by the Lam Son 719 task force.26
Laotian ruler Souvanna Phouma did not renounce the nation’s nominal neu-
trality as McCain had hoped, but instead protested the invasion, even though the
North Vietnamese had for years controlled the area from Tchepone eastward to
the border.27 Except for this diplomatic development and an ominous tactical
portent — the appearance of tanks, four attacked unsuccessfully by Army heli-
copters — all went well on the first day. As some 6,000 South Vietnamese ad-
vanced in sullen weather, spearheaded by the airborne division, American artil-
lery fired from positions in South Vietnam, but clouds hung so low over the
invasion corridor that some of the fighter-bombers scheduled to deliver planned
air strikes could not find their assigned targets.
Weather continued to hamper aerial activity for the next few days. On Feb-
ruary 10, for example, a force of rangers spotted three North Vietnamese tanks,
along with towed artillery, and requested air attacks, but cloud cover protected
the enemy. Air Force fighter-bombers appeared overhead but could not inter-
vene; since the jets attacked at a speed of about 350 knots, they needed a ceiling
of at least 3,000 feet above ground level to locate and engage a target, but the
overcast hovered too low. Army helicopters could have attacked with a ceiling
of only 1,000 feet, but the available craft did not have suitable armament.
258
Lam Son 719 moved rapidly forward during the first few days despite the
impact of weather on fighter operations. By February 12, the task force had ad-
vanced from the border to the intersection of Route 9, leading westward from
Khe Sanh to Tchepone, and Route 92, running generally north and south. At the
intersection of the two highways, the bombed-out village of Ban Dong, which
the Americans called A Luoi, became the site of a major base, and General
Lam’s troops established seven other large outposts to protect it, four of them
north of Route 9 — Ranger North and Ranger South, plus Fire Support Bases
30 and 31 — and three to the south — Hotel, Delta, and Brown.28
Strikes by B–52s dug huge craters in the wilderness during the first week
of fighting, February 4 through 11, and caused some secondary explosions. The
raids, however, could not prevent North Vietnamese resistance from stiffening
around the scattered fire support bases, as antiaircraft guns moved into position
to challenge American helicopters shuttling troops and cargo within the inva-
sion corridor. South Vietnamese troops succeeded in reconnoitering only about
10 percent of the target boxes the B–52s bombed, and, in those they actually
entered, bomb craters and shattered trees impeded movement and prevented ac-
curate damage assessment.
In spite of extensive American air support — which General Hinh of the
South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division placed at “500 to 800 sorties of air cav-
alry gunships” each day and “approximately 100 sorties of tactical bombers . . .
and a number of missions by B–52 strategic bombers” — the attack lost momen-
tum. As early as February 13, General Abrams became concerned that President
Thieu might settle for less than an advance to Tchepone and the destruction of
the supplies stored there.29
Abrams could think of a number of tactical considerations that might
persuade Thieu to curtail Lam Son 719, avoid Tchepone, and move directly to
the final phase, the withdrawal through the supply depots at the entrance to the
A Shau Valley. Perhaps, Abrams suggested, the South Vietnamese leader would
yield to “a sense of caution,” possibly inspired by the number of American
helicopters already lost to hostile fire, accidents, and mechanical breakdown,
even though, as the American general pointed out, more than half of the original
helicopter force remained undamaged, with replacements for the others readily
available within South Vietnam. Also, the triumvirate of Thieu, Vien, and Lam
might simply conclude that the bunkers lining the approaches to the A Shau
Valley contained a more valuable hoard of supplies than the region around
Tchepone.30
Thieu’s growing reluctance to push on reflected a combination of military
and political factors. Already the North Vietnamese exerted intense pressure
against the rangers manning two of the fire support bases northeast of Ban
Dong; if the entire screen of four outposts should collapse, the enemy could
easily pinch off and destroy any thrust toward Tchepone. By changing direction,
the president could preserve as much as possible of the Lam Son 719 task force
259
Army engineers lay runway matting at Khe Sanh in February 1971.

for future battles, especially the 1st Airborne Division which manned two of the
northern bases, and present an acceptably short casualty list to the South Viet-
namese people. Just as Nixon had worried about the possibility that American
losses in supporting the attack might further erode public acceptance of the war,
Thieu realized that massive South Vietnamese casualties could undermine his
nation’s resolve. According to Kissinger, the idea of shifting the axis of attack
southward from Ban Dong reflected Thieu’s determination that total casualties
should not exceed 3,000.31
To prod the South Vietnamese into action, Abrams conferred with Vien, the
Chairman of the Joint General Staff, at Saigon and urged that the task force
push on to Tchepone as swiftly as possible. On February 16, Vien arrived at the
I Corps command post at Dong Ha in South Vietnam, where he talked with Lam
and Sutherland. The three generals agreed to establish two landing zones south
of the Xepon River, emplace artillery there, and then land elements of the 1st
Infantry Division at Tchepone.
President Thieu, however, remained at best ambivalent about pushing
farther westward. During a meeting with Lam at Quang Tri City on February
19, the president raised the possibility of changing the main thrust of Operation
Lam Son 719, as Abrams had suspected. Thieu suggested that the task force turn
away from Tchepone and angle to the south, generally following Route 92, to
spend perhaps five days ferreting out supply caches along the main road leading
into the A Shau Valley. If the president decided to modify the operation in this
way, the weight of Lam Son 719 would fall not on Tchepone but on the entrance
to the A Shau Valley. Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese might seize the initia-
tive if the task force hunkered down too long in its fire support bases before
either turning south or continuing eastward.32
Whether the Lam Son 719 task force continued on to Tchepone as Abrams
and Sutherland wanted or turned southward, the American generals considered
260
it imperative that the troops keep moving. To pause in the vicinity of Ban Dong
gave the enemy a chance to reinforce with men, tanks, and antiaircraft guns and
attack the South Vietnamese in their present positions or ambush them when at
last they moved. Only a prompt and vigorous advance could keep the enemy off
balance. By failing to push on, preferably toward Tchepone, Lam invited
defeat.33
In spite of the risk, the task force remained in place for almost three weeks,
manning its fire support bases and using Route 9 as its main supply route. The
offensive spearhead hurled at Tchepone had become a defensive perimeter
extending from Ban Dong back to the South Vietnamese border. Although
troops fanned out to search for supply dumps in the hills overlooking Routes 9
and 92, they showed little aggressiveness in doing so. The patrols did not stray
far from the principal fire support bases and satellite landing zones and relied
on air strikes to destroy the supplies in any storage sites found. The bases
gradually became friendly islands in a hostile sea, as survival increasingly
depended upon air support. The B–52s showered bombs upon supply dumps
and troop concentrations, and fighter-bombers joined in attacking the North
Vietnamese. Forward air controllers patrolled the salient by day and night, and
after dark C–123 flareships and AC–119 and AC–130 gunships came to the aid
of the embattled South Vietnamese.34
On occasion, air and ground cooperated with spectacular results. On Feb-
ruary 24, for instance, two battalions of General Hinh’s 1st Infantry Division
arranged for a B–52 strike on their positions, then pulled back and allowed the
North Vietnamese to occupy them. After the bombs exploded among the enemy,
the two battalions counterattacked, encountering only sporadic resistance and
finding 159 bodies along with several abandoned weapons.35
As this small triumph by Hinh’s troops demonstrated, the B–52 could pro-
vide devastating firepower in defense of the bases. On February 21, while the
North Vietnamese closed in on the outposts northeast of Ban Dong, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff approved a surge in daily B–52 sorties from thirty to as many as
forty. To sustain this increased activity, the Strategic Air Command transferred
a fourteen-plane alert force from Guam to U-Tapao, where it remained through
the month of May. Because bombers based in Thailand had a much shorter
flight to the Tchepone area, they could carry out missions more frequently than
those flying from Guam. By shifting RC–135s, reconnaissance versions of the
tanker, to Kadena on Okinawa, the Strategic Air Command made room for the
additional B–52s at U-Tapao.36
General Abrams sought to direct some of the B–52s against troop concen-
trations and antiaircraft batteries that had appeared between two Special Arc
Light Operating Areas north of Tchepone. Since this target, unlike almost all the
others attacked in connection with Operation Lam Son 719, lay outside an area
approved for B–52 strikes by the American embassy at Vientiane, Abrams had
to consult the ambassador. Reports of prisoner of war camps in the vicinity per-
261
suaded Ambassador Godley to veto the proposed bombing. Abrams then asked
Admiral Moorer to intercede. Citing recent information acquired by the Central
Intelligence Agency indicating that the sites no longer housed captives, Moorer
won over Defense Secretary Laird and through him, Secretary of State Rogers.
As a result of this end run, Godley withdrew his opposition.37
From the beginning of Lam Son 719, B–52s routinely bombed North
Vietnamese troops 1,500 yards from friendly positions — close, indeed, but not
close enough to frustrate the enemy’s “hugging” tactics of infiltrating to within
a few hundred yards of the objective. The bombers also attacked bivouac areas
and storage sites miles from the nearest South Vietnamese outpost.
Requests for strikes close to friendly troops usually originated with the
division commander, while General Lam’s corps headquarters nominated the
more distant targets, including the helicopter landing zones selected for sched-
uled airmobile operations. A routine B–52 strike requested by General Lam’s
headquarters might require advance notice of from thirty-six to sixty hours, but
as little as three hours might be time enough to divert approaching B–52s to
meet an emergency. The commander who asked for a B–52 strike often did not
know the results of the attack; as was true during the first week of the offensive,
cloud cover hampered aerial photography and ground forces managed to enter
and search only about one target box in ten.
An increase in air strikes as Lam Son 719 continued — for example, 1,100
of some 1,850 B–52 sorties occurred after March 5 — reflected the intensifi-
cation of North Vietnamese counterattacks. Beginning in mid-February, fighter
pilots and forward air controllers reacted to the stiffening resistance with
increasingly frequent attacks on tanks menacing the invasion force. During the
last week of February, fighter-bombers battered armored vehicles, some of them
concealed in huts, south of Ban Dong and along the Route 9 corridor both east
and west of the village. Pilots reported destroying fifteen light and medium
tanks and damaging two others. Crews of AC–130 gunships claimed that their
aircraft, though mounting no weapon larger than a 40-mm gun, had knocked out
fourteen tanks. However accurate these claims might be, the increasing
frequency of sightings indicated increasing enemy pressure against the salient.38
Besides impeding the movement of enemy armor, fighter-bombers also
attacked, when weather permitted, those North Vietnamese trying to dislodge
South Vietnamese troops from the fire support bases. In defense of Fire Support
Base 31, on a hilltop north of Route 9, Air Force A–7s and F–4s took advantage
of improved weather to help hold at bay a force of tanks and infantry. On
February 25, the airmen reported breaking up one assault by dropping antiper-
sonnel and armor-piercing weapons and stopping another with napalm and
general-purpose bombs. At mid-afternoon, however, the aircraft broke off the
action, to, among other reasons, engage in a rescue mission; and by midnight
the North Vietnamese had overrun the objective, leaving only one of the four
northern outposts, Fire Support Base 30, still in South Vietnamese hands.39
262
In advancing on Ban Dong from the north, the enemy did his best to
neutralize American air power. Once he had massed enough armor and infantry,
he employed tactics that had served him well on other battlefields. North
Vietnamese troops encircled the fire support bases so tightly that B–52s could
not attack without endangering the defenders and set up automatic weapons and
light antiaircraft guns to place a barrier of fire over the base and thus prevent
helicopters from bringing in supplies and reinforcements or evacuating the
wounded. To neutralize the deadly fighter-bombers, the attackers waited until
weather or darkness prevented accurate bombing from low altitude and then
stormed the objective. As the days passed, the North Vietnamese grew stronger
and made increasingly proficient use of these tactics, at first against the rangers
and then against Fire Support Base 31. Beginning in the final days of February
and continuing into March, the enemy, according to an American adviser at the
tactical operations center of the South Vietnamese marines, simply “plucked
those bases like ripe grapes, one by one.”40
On at least one occasion, conflicting priorities between air and ground may
have contributed to the enemy’s plucking of the northern outposts. General
Hinh, the commander of the 1st Infantry Division, has attributed the loss of Fire
Support Base 31 on the night of February 25 to just such a conflict. According
to him, supporting aircraft ignored the danger to the base to go to the rescue of
a downed air crew, but weather and darkness, which would themselves have
forced a suspension of air strikes, also influenced the decision to let the troops
at the base fend for themselves.41
Air support of Fire Support Base 31 got off to a bad start on that fatal
February 25 when the first of the forward air controllers assigned to direct
strikes during daylight somehow received a map with the wrong coordinates for
his sector and arrived on station several hours late. As the afternoon wore on
and a thunderstorm drew near, the forward air controller then on duty, Capt.
Peter J. Ruppert, learned that antiaircraft fire had downed an F–4 nearby. With
dusk approaching and the storm threatening to put an end to air operations at
Fire Support Base 31, Ruppert finished a strike then in progress and headed for
the place where the fighter-bomber went down to help rescue his fellow airmen.
When he arrived, five other forward air controllers in OV–10s already circled
the site, along with several Air Force fighter-bombers and Army helicopters.
For a time, all the forward air controllers flying in the invasion corridor stood
by to aid in the rescue. After about half an hour, a flight of A–1s arrived from
Nakhon Phanom to coordinate the effort and suppress hostile fire. Ruppert then
succeeded in pointing out to the rescue commander the approximate place
where the aircraft had gone down, but rain, nightfall, and intense fire from the
ground soon put an end to the attempted recovery.
On the morning of February 26, after the North Vietnamese had over-
whelmed Fire Support Base 31, the rescue effort resumed, but recurring thun-
derstorms and persistent antiaircraft fire interfered. When Ruppert again arrived
263
on station at mid-day, recovery of the two downed airmen had an overriding pri-
ority. Once he spotted them, he diverted a flight of napalm-carrying fighter-
bombers to silence North Vietnamese fire until an Air Force helicopter could
pick them up, some twenty-four hours after they parachuted from their burning
F–4.42
While this rescue attempt was succeeding north of Route 9, antiaircraft fire
struck another F–4 during an air strike south of the highway. Shell fragments
severely wounded the pilot, 1st Lt. Robert Eisenbaisz, but another pilot riding
in the weapon systems officer’s seat, Capt. Maynard Ford, took over and flew
the aircraft back to Phu Cat, where he ejected both seats. He survived, but
Lieutenant Eisenbaisz had already died of his wounds.43
Despite the fighting north of Route 9, which had resulted in the loss of Fire
Support Base 31 and a growing threat to Fire Support Base 30, President Thieu
had not forgotten Tchepone and the importance that Abrams and Sutherland
attached to that way station on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Certainly as a result of
American pressure, though he may also have sought to divert the North Viet-
namese from the stalled task force which now clung to only one major fire sup-
port base north of Route 9, Thieu told Lam on February 28 to prepare to vault
from Ban Dong to the vicinity of Tchepone. The president’s instructions called
for Lam to relieve the airborne division, which had sustained numerous casual-
ties in the fighting around the northern outposts but remained intact as a fighting
unit, with the marines, who would use helicopters for a raid on Tchepone. Reli-
ance on the marines placed Lam in an awkward position. The commander of the
South Vietnamese Marine Corps had refused to participate in the planning of
Lam Son 719 and then entrusted tactical control to a senior colonel who took
orders from him rather than from Lam as corps and task force commander. The
marines, moreover, had never fought together as a division but separately as
brigades. Lam therefore hurried to Saigon, where he persuaded Thieu to allow
him to change the assignments of three of his divisions. Hinh’s 1st Infantry
Division, still on the defensive around Ban Dong and waiting to begin a pos-
sible advance toward the mouth of the A Shau Valley, would provide troops for
the descent upon Tchepone, the marines would take its place and constitute a
task force reserve, and the airborne troops would keep Route 9 open as the
avenue of supply and withdrawal. By now, South Vietnam had committed more
than 10,000 troops to the operation, which would reach a climax with the raid
on Tchepone, followed by an orderly retreat along Route 9 or across the ap-
proaches to the A Shau Valley.
Hinh’s soldiers would seize four objectives, each named after an actress
popular among Americans, the last of them within striking distance of the ob-
jective. Communist propagandists later seized upon this fact, charging that the
Americans had chosen the names, thus proving the South Vietnamese to be their
puppets. In fact, as General Hinh later explained, a South Vietnamese officer
had picked the names for the landing zones — Lolo for Gina Lollobrigida, Liz
264
for Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia for Sophia Loren, and Hope for Hope Lange —
because he wanted ones familiar to the Americans and easy for them to pro-
nounce. Although by no means proof that the South Vietnamese served as mere
puppets, the selection of names did indicate that they depended on American
helicopters, aircraft, and long-range artillery to support the capture of the
landing zones and of Tchepone itself. The raid, moreover, clearly represented
a concession to the Americans, for Thieu had put aside his concern about cas-
ualties and followed the advice of Abrams.44
On March 3, the same day that the task force abandoned Fire Support Base
30, the last northern outpost, helicopters from Khe Sanh began depositing
troops at Landing Zone Lolo. In spite of preparatory artillery fire and air attacks
with napalm and high explosive, the assault force encountered fierce opposition
at the objective. Forward air controllers directed a half-dozen F–4s against
targets designated by commanders on the ground but could not suppress the
hostile fire. Of the first twenty troop-carrying helicopters, North Vietnamese
gunners shot down one shortly after it took off from Khe Sanh, destroyed four
others at the landing zone, and damaged another eight as they touched down to
unload. The senior South Vietnamese officer suspended the operation for about
three hours to permit further air strikes by a total of fifty-two fighters or attack
aircraft, but when the helicopters reappeared early in the afternoon, enemy
artillery destroyed one on the landing zone. After a second pause, the assault
resumed; until dusk, helicopters darted into the clearing and out a few at a time,
as forward air controllers directed strikes against targets designated by the
command post at the landing zone. By nightfall, the South Vietnamese had cap-
tured Landing Zone Lolo, but the price of victory included forty-two helicopters
damaged by hostile fire and twenty-seven others destroyed, either shot down or
hit by mortar or artillery shells while on the ground.
Losses at the other objectives — Landing Zones Liz, Sophia, and Hope —
proved less severe; the toll of helicopters destroyed and damaged during these
three assaults totaled only a fifth of the number at Landing Zone Lolo. The
helicopters fared better during the last three landings because American advisers
back in South Vietnam insisted on a more savage aerial bombardment to sup-
press hostile fire. As a result, at Liz, Sophia, and Hope the helicopters did not
attempt to land troops until B–52s had bombed during the night, fighter-
bombers had attacked beginning early in the morning, and, if the defenses
seemed especially stubborn, at least one 15,000-pound bomb had blasted the
objective just before the troops arrived. In short, overwhelming firepower
replaced maneuverability as the key to a successful helicopter assault, and fire-
power enabled the South Vietnamese to complete the move that on March 6
brought them to Landing Zone Hope in the vicinity of Tchepone.45
After the South Vietnamese had reached Landing Zone Hope and begun
probing the storage sites around Tchepone, Generals Abrams and Sutherland
recommended the further reinforcement and exploitation of a salient that now
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extended all the way to the Ho Chi Minh Trail; indeed, Abrams declared that
one more South Vietnamese division and another month of fighting would win
a decisive victory. President Thieu rejected this advice, but he did so indirectly
by inviting the Americans to send a division of their own into Laos to fight
alongside the South Vietnamese, an action prohibited by the Cooper-Church
amendment. Even if the amendment had not existed, President Nixon would
surely have flinched from combat on the ground, increased American casualties,
and the prospect of renewed opposition to the war.
On March 9, the high command of Thieu, Vien, and Lam agreed that the
time had come to begin pulling out. They planned to withdraw the task force by
the end of the month, abandoning in succession the outposts that the task force
still occupied from Landing Zone Hope back to the border, and conducting an
orderly retreat along Route 9. The projected raid at the mouth of the A Shau
Valley would have to wait until mid-April at the earliest, while the task force
rested and regrouped after some two months of heavy fighting. Already, the
South Vietnamese had fought in bloody clashes, notably at the fire support
bases north of Route 9, that left some battalions too battered for further combat,
and the bloodshed might not have ended. Sustained bad weather could, for
example, deprive the task force of the air support needed to protect its flanks as
it snaked eastward along a single avenue of retreat. Without air strikes, the
column, already weakened by casualties, would be hard-pressed to fight its way
out of Laos against a reinforced enemy far stronger than it had encountered
during the initial advance.46
During the retreat, when flank security depended on holding the line of
outposts too widely separated for mutual fire support with infantry weapons, air
strikes could prove decisive, especially those by B–52s bombing in close prox-
imity to friendly troops. As a result, General Sutherland endorsed Lam’s request
to change Arc Light tactics — the methods used by B–52s to support the war in
the ground — by abandoning the established practice of having the bombers ap-
proach in trail when attacking within three kilometers of friendly forces. Lam
wanted the B–52s to remain in a three-aircraft cell and drop three parallel
strings of bombs when attacking as close as two kilometers to his troops. The
broader pattern of detonations, he and Sutherland believed, could kill or wound
more of the enemy and do a better job of demoralizing the survivors. The
Strategic Air Command considered the risk from friendly bombs too great,
however, and insisted that its B–52s attack in trail within the three-kilometer
safety zone. That rule remained in force, but in time of grave emergency, at
least one South Vietnamese commander called upon B–52s, flying in single file,
to drop bombs just 300 yards from his troops. To avoid the friendly bombs that
might stray from the predicted trajectory, he did as General Hinh had done on
February 24 and ordered his men to fall back shortly before the scheduled time
over target. As it turned out, only three misdirected air strikes took place during
Lam Son 719, none of them involving B–52s.47
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Although the B–52s released their bombs on signal from a Combat Skyspot
radar on the ground, most fighter-bombers, especially those diverted to respond
to emergencies, needed good weather for the pilot to acquire the target and
bomb accurately. Unfortunately, the weather turned bad in mid-March,
grounding the fighter-bombers and enabling the North Vietnamese to attack
Landing Zone Lolo, which the task force abandoned on the night of March 15-
16. Some of the defenders took advantage of radar directed strikes by B–52s
delivered within 500 yards of the embattled perimeter, escaped, and found
refuge on nearby high ground. Clearing skies after daybreak signaled the arrival
of fighter-bombers that pounded the North Vietnamese and enabled helicopters
to pick up the survivors of the fight for Landing Zone Lolo.
The capture of Landing Zone Lolo marked the beginning of the systematic
elimination of the remaining fire support bases along Route 9. Within three
days, from the approaches to Tchepone eastward to Ban Dong, isolated pockets
of South Vietnamese were trying to escape encirclement by an enemy using
tanks, some of them mounting flame throwers. Intense antiaircraft fire greeted
helicopters and fighter-bombers, and darkness or bad weather could interfere
with tactical air operations long enough for the North Vietnamese to overwhelm
the outnumbered defenders.48
267
At about the time the helicopters were retrieving the soldiers who had
escaped from Landing Zone Lolo, General Haig arrived at Quang Tri City to
announce, according to Sutherland, that “Washington would like to see the
ARVN [Army of the Republic of Vietnam] stay in Laos through April.”49
Although confident that American firepower, especially the B–52s, “had really
hurt the enemy in the Tchepone area,” Sutherland doubted that the operation
could continue that long. To remain in Laos, the task force would require not
just individual replacements but also fresh units, and the South Vietnamese
army had not planned to send in new brigades or divisions.50
By the time his brief visit ended, Haig realized that Washington had lost
touch with battlefield reality. Conversations with the key South Vietnamese
commanders changed his mind. “He believes,” reported Lt. Gen. Michael S.
Davison, commander of II Field Force, Vietnam, “that a serious debacle could
evolve in the absence of firm ARVN command and control and with the wea-
ther’s continued neutralization of air support.” Instead of urging an extension
of Lam Son 719, Haig reached what Davison described as a “tentative conclu-
sion that the time has come for an orderly close-out of the ground operations in
Laos.”51
Unfortunately, Haig’s conversion came too late. The enemy had grown so
strong that the Lam Son 719 task force could no longer effect an orderly close-
out of ground operations, as the American general urged. Since enemy tanks
were appearing in increasing numbers, the South Vietnamese armored brigade
might well provide the key to a successful withdrawal. On March 19, after aban-
doning Ban Dong, the brigade formed a column of tanks and armored personnel
carriers, some of the latter towing artillery pieces, and started eastward along
Route 9, with airborne soldiers assuming responsibility for securing the high
ground on either flank. The road-bound formation had barely started when the
enemy triggered an ambush that cost the brigade eighteen vehicles destroyed
either by hostile fire or by air strikes intended to keep them out of North
Vietnamese hands. Two days later, at a point just five miles inside Laos, the
North Vietnamese again struck from ambush, knocking out additional tanks and
armored personnel carriers and persuading Col. Nguyen Trong Luat, the brigade
commander, that it would be suicidal to continue down the vulnerable highway.
Abandoning much of its heavy equipment, the battered unit left Route 9 and
fled toward the border over a trail that unexpectedly came to a dead end at the
steep banks of the Xepon River. While the South Vietnamese struggled to im-
provise a defense, Soviet-supplied PT–76 light tanks and T–54 mediums closed
in for the kill.
On March 22, beneath a ceiling high enough to permit attacks by fighter-
bombers, some twenty North Vietnamese tanks drove boldly in daylight along
the route the South Vietnamese had taken. Weaving in and out among the
abandoned or destroyed light tanks and armored personnel carriers that littered
the highway, the armored vehicles turned onto the trail. The first pair of tanks,
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T–54s, closed to within five kilometers of the river before Air Force fighter-
bombers appeared overhead, carrying both napalm canisters and high-explosive
bombs fitted with brakes to improve accuracy and enable the low-flying aircraft
to avoid damage from the detonation. After two F–100s attacked but failed to
inflict any damage, a second pair of fighters disabled both tanks, though at the
cost of one F–100 shot down and its pilot killed. Subsequent air strikes des-
troyed two other T–54s, one already disabled by a land mine, and two PT–76s,
scattering the remaining tanks and enabling the South Vietnamese to dig in for
the night with their backs to the river. On the morning of March 23, the rem-
nants of the column began fording the stream, thanks in part to two bulldozers
flown in by Army helicopters to cut away portions of the bank.52
Within the collapsing salient, as the armored brigade began the withdrawal
that became a rout, North Vietnamese troops surrounded Fire Support Base
Delta south of Route 9 and east of Ban Dong. U.S. Army helicopters tried on
March 21 to evacuate the marines trapped there. Hoping to take advantage of
a fleeting break in weather, the rescuers took off without notifying the direct air
support center at Quang Tri City and arranging for fighter-bombers to meet
them at the objective. With only their own firepower, the helicopters could not
suppress the North Vietnamese weapons covering the outpost; hostile gunners
destroyed seven helicopters and damaged fifty others, putting an end to the
attempted evacuation.
On the morning of March 22, better weather enabled tactical fighters to hit
the North Vietnamese surrounding Fire Support Base Delta with the first of
forty sorties flown that day. Despite the air strikes, the enemy attacked, ten
flame-throwing tanks leading the way. Mines and infantry missiles disabled
three of the tanks and aircraft destroyed another, but the assault cracked the
perimeter and seized a portion of the objective. After dark, Air Force flareships
and gunships began circling the outpost; they arrived too late, however, for the
surviving marines had fled their position and were trying under cover of
darkness to make their way to Fire Support Base Hotel, on the south bank of the
Xepon River just west of the border, which remained in friendly hands. On the
morning of the 23d, a dozen fighters bombed the abandoned strongpoint to
harass the victors and destroy ammunition and equipment left behind.53
After exchanging fire with North Vietnamese patrols, and at times clashing
by accident with fellow marines also fleeing the enemy, many of the men from
Fire Support Base Delta succeeded in reaching Fire Support Base Hotel, where
army helicopters met them and flew them to an assembly area in South
Vietnam. Meanwhile, the commandant of the South Vietnamese Marine Corps,
Lt. Gen. Le Nguyen Khang, issued orders to abandon Fire Support Base Hotel
before the North Vietnamese could encircle and capture it. As if to underscore
the general’s concern, hostile armor reached the border south of Route 9, where
Air Force fighter-bombers and rocket-firing Army helicopters claimed the
destruction of ten tanks.54
269
As stragglers poured across the border, General Khang abandoned Fire

Support Base Hotel without consulting General Lam, the task force commander.
Next he ignored Lam’s orders to place a battalion atop Co Roc, a mountain near
Khe Sanh, to help establish a shield behind which the battered invasion force
could regroup. Not until two B–52 strikes had shaken the mountain and any
North Vietnamese who might have been there, did the marines cooperate,
allowing a reconnaissance company rather than an infantry battalion to board
helicopters and set up an outpost there.55
The raid on the approaches to the A Shau Valley, planned in conjunction
with Lam Son 719, no longer seemed feasible in its original form, but the South
Vietnamese still hoped to probe the logistics complex in that area, largely as a
gesture of defiance directed at the victorious North Vietnamese. Indeed, this
final phase of the operation attained a symbolic importance all out of proportion
to its military value. South Vietnamese troops had to raid the storage bunkers
at the mouth of the valley almost as a point of honor, but General Lam found it
difficult to pick an objective his troops could capture. He settled upon Muong
Nong, but on March 29, after repeated strikes by B–52s, a last-minute aerial
reconnaissance of the landing zone revealed antiaircraft defenses that, in
Sutherland’s opinion, would have inflicted “unacceptable loses in personnel and
equipment.” Lam therefore postponed the attack for two days and sought a more
realistic objective.56
The substitute objective lay on the very fringe of the base area that Lam
hoped to attack, some forty kilometers southwest of the intersection of Route
9 and the border. Again B–52s led the way, followed after dawn on March 31
by twenty-two fighter-bombers, but the preparatory bombing failed to suppress
North Vietnamese antiaircraft fire, forcing an hour’s postponement for addi-
tional strikes by tactical aircraft. Army helicopters arrived at 11:30 A.M. and
landed a 200-man raiding party that remained in the area until the next after-
noon when the helicopters returned. The South Vietnamese discovered that the
preliminary air strikes had killed eighty-five enemy soldiers, destroyed a fuel
dump, and collapsed a maze of tunnels that housed trucks. During its one night
at the objective, the raiding party heard vehicles approaching and alerted a
forward air controller who directed a strike credited with destroying five of
them.57
On April 6, helicopters screened by tactical fighters landed a similar force,
150-strong, at an objective just inside Laos, twenty-two kilometers south of the
ruins of the border village of Lang Vei. During the seven hours before the heli-
copters returned for them, the raiders encountered no opposition but discovered
fifteen bodies and twenty discarded weapons. These two raids, mere gestures
rather than serious attempts to hurt the enemy, marked the end of Lam Son
719.58
Even before the first of the two final raids, Sutherland had begun closing
down the supply base at Khe Sanh. Air Force cargo handlers left with their
270
equipment, and engineers took up the recently installed aluminum matting for
possible use elsewhere. The last American troops abandoned the base shortly
after the second raid.59 Meanwhile, retrenchment occurred throughout north-
western South Vietnam, as Air Force C–130s flew 195 sorties into Phu Bai and
Quang Tri City to retrieve 1,000 tons of cargo and redeploy almost 10,000
troops.60
Evaluation of the effect of Lam Son 719 began as the armored brigade was
extricating itself from Laos. On March 22, in a nationally televised interview
with Howard K. Smith of the American Broadcasting Company, President
Nixon declared that the operation had been an unqualified success. Referring to
television news broadcasts showing disorganized and demoralized South
Vietnamese soldiers, some of them clinging to the landing skids of American
helicopters in a desperate attempt to escape from Laos, Nixon insisted that men
in just four of the thirty-four battalions had behaved like this; all the other units,
he said, had remained steadfast in the face of the enemy. He further claimed that
the operation had reduced by 75 percent the volume of North Vietnamese truck
traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail south of Tchepone. As he had when defending
the previous year’s invasion of Cambodia, the Chief Executive emphasized the
link between Lam Son 719 and the continued withdrawal of American ground
forces. He argued that “the thousands of North Vietnamese who were casualties . . . ,
the hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition that was destroyed . . . , the
time that was bought . . . , all these things” greatly reduced “the risk to American
lives” by forestalling an offensive as the last American troops withdrew from
South Vietnam. That, he concluded, “is why the operation was worthwhile in
my opinion.”61
Although they insisted that a majority of the South Vietnamese battalions
had fought well, some American officers involved in Lam Son 719 conceded
that the invasion force had suffered serious losses. General Sutherland, for
example, acknowledged that the enemy had all but wiped out the armored
brigade, destroying or capturing 60 percent of the unit’s tanks and half of its
armored personnel carriers. Besides losing these 163 vehicles, the brigade failed
to bring back fifty-four 105-mm and twenty-eight 155-mm howitzers.62 Earlier
in the fighting, severe casualties had rendered four battalions — two ranger, one
infantry, and one airborne — “combat ineffective,” while another airborne bat-
talion possessed “doubtful” effectiveness because of inept leadership and poor
morale.63 Moreover, the Marine division exhibited what General Hinh described
as “problems of command and control,” inasmuch as the unit cooperated on its
own terms with the corps commander, General Lam, and did not necessarily
follow his orders. Although the marines fought well and, in Hinh’s opinion,
“retained unit integrity and cohesiveness,” they failed to hold Fire Support Base
Delta and yielded Fire Support Base Hotel after a brief fight.64
In his public assessment of the condition of the troops who had fought in
Lam Son 719, President Nixon obviously erred on the side of optimism; he also
271
accepted unrealistic reports by the military assistance command concerning the

impact of Lam Son 719 on North Vietnamese logistics. General Abrams at first
declared that the operation had, in effect, destroyed one entire station on the Ho
Chi Minh Trail, forcing the North Vietnamese to divert truck traffic westward
and use highways that Thai irregulars briefly threatened. Despite the thrust from
the east and pressure from the west, electronic sensors indicated that traffic
throughout southern Laos increased immediately after Lam Son 719.65 Although
the greater volume no doubt reflected a need to replace supplies consumed or
destroyed in the fighting around Tchepone, it also demonstrated an ability and
willingness to make good the loss and continue to prosecute the war in South
Vietnam and Cambodia. The invasion of southern Laos had disturbed the
logistics flow, surely disrupting any North Vietnamese plans for a major
offensive in the immediate future; it had not, however, reduced truck traffic by
75 percent as the President told Howard K. Smith.
After Lam Son 719 had ended, President Nixon declared that “the South
Vietnamese had demonstrated that without American advisers they could fight
effectively against the best troops North Vietnam could put in the field.”66
General Abrams, too, applauded the fighting ability of the South Vietnamese
during Lam Son 719, but he admitted that the Vietnamized armed forces could
not carry out so ambitious an undertaking on their own; they still required
American advice in both planning and execution, along with air support and
artillery fire.67 General Sutherland underscored the importance of American air
power, pointing out that the North Vietnamese suffered as grievously as they
had “principally because of TAC air and B–52 strikes.”68
The Seventh Air Force had conducted a deadly air campaign, though inter-
rupted by bad weather and beset by recurring emergencies. During Lam Son
719, Air Force tactical fighters flew more than 8,000 attack sorties, dropping
some 20,000 tons of bombs and napalm on targets within an area of just 550
square miles. To facilitate air strikes, each of the six forward air controllers on
duty at any time over the invasion corridor carried a “target bank,” a list of
known or suspected storage areas or troops concentrations against which the
controllers could direct an attack when they had no target with a higher priority.
Although the target bank proved of some value while the task force paused
around Ban Dong, the clashes on the ground became so furious and widespread,
and the threat from armor so dangerous, that forward air controllers seemed to
go from one emergency to another and rarely needed the list of stand-by targets.
Other aircraft joined the tactical fighters, and the forward air controllers that
directed them, in contributing to the aerial onslaught. Hercules transports drop-
ped twenty-five 15,000-pound bombs on proposed landing zones, and Air Force
gunships patrolled the roads by night. Thailand-based B–52s, flying more than
1,300 sorties, added some 32,000 tons of bombs.69
The South Vietnamese Air Force flew more than 5,500 sorties, most of
them by helicopters, essentially a token contribution. In contrast, U.S. Army
272
helicopter crews flew more than 160,000 sorties, almost thirty times as many,
computed on the same basis as the South Vietnamese tallied theirs. Clearly,
Lam Son 719 would have been impossible without U.S. helicopters.70
As happened so often in the Vietnam War, the effort in Lam Son 719
proved easier to measure than the results, for the statistics on enemy losses often
came from reports by airmen, attacking in poor visibility, and foot soldiers
fighting for their lives. Rarely did South Vietnamese troops capture objectives
or enter target boxes hit by B–52s to make a more accurate estimate of the
carnage. On the basis of the available evidence, the military assistance com-
mand claimed almost 20,000 North Vietnamese killed (a total that the South
Vietnamese high command reduced to 13,000) and sixty-one captured. The
death toll, according the General Abrams’ headquarters, included some 3,000
killed by tactical aircraft and 2,600 by B–52s. Of 106 tanks reported destroyed,
crews of American tactical fighters claimed seventy-four, but the military
assistance command accepted a toll of just 88 and credited the airmen with fifty-
nine.71
According to General Abrams’ headquarters, the U.S. Army lost 215 killed,
1,149 wounded, and thirty missing while capturing and defending the bases in
South Vietnam that sustained Lam Son 719 or flying helicopter missions in
Laos. Army aviation suffered nineteen killed, fifty-nine wounded, and eleven
missing; the other soldiers became casualties during Dewey Canyon II or in
sapper attacks and ambushes inside South Vietnam during Lam Son 719. In
keeping with the nature of the operation, which pitted a vast fleet of helicopters
against dangerous antiaircraft defenses, the Army also had the heaviest losses
in aircraft, 100 helicopters destroyed and 600 damaged.
The Seventh Air Force lost six aircraft to enemy fire, three F–4Ds, an
A–1H, an O–2A, and an F–100. Of the ten crewmen, two died, two were
missing and later declared dead, two suffered wounds but parachuted safely and
were recovered, and the three others sustained only minor injuries in ejecting
and also were rescued. The Navy lost an A–7 to 23-mm fire; a search and rescue
mission failed to locate the pilot.72
When the remnants of the South Vietnamese task force straggled back from
Laos, the commanders of the various units at first could only estimate their
casualties, and the numbers fluctuated as soldiers left behind in the retreat re-
joined their units. The final count exceeded 7,600 casualties, some 1,500 of
them killed, 5,500 wounded, and the rest missing.73 Assuming the validity of
Kissinger’s claim that Thieu intended to keep the total casualties below 3,000,
the South Vietnam had suffered more than twice the losses its president
believed the public could accept.
As Thieu had feared, the magnitude of the South Vietnamese losses,
especially when contrasted to the American casualty list, raised doubts about the
willingness of the United States to accept risks on behalf of an ally. The worst
of the losses had occurred after the president of South Vietnam yielded to
273
Abrams and Sutherland and pushed on from Ban Dong to Tchepone, but during
that critical period American ground troops had remained in their bases on the
South Vietnamese side of the border. Demonstrations broke out in South
Vietnam, as students in particular charged that Vietnamization simply meant
that the United States would fight to the last South Vietnamese. The protest
flared and rapidly subsided, but at least one journalist, Stanley Karnow,
believed he could detect a lingering distrust of Americans.74
What did Lam Son 719 accomplish? On the one hand, the loss of life
suffered by the North Vietnamese, though certainly less than the claim of
20,000 killed, and the destruction of supplies disrupted any plans the enemy
might have had for an invasion of South Vietnam during 1971. On the other, the
successful counterattack may have encouraged North Vietnam to make good its
losses as quickly as possible and again to test the mettle of the South Viet-
namese armed forces and the resolve of the United States to help them. Lam
Son 719, after all, had ended with the task force reeling in disorder back to its
starting point, a result that revealed flaws in the program of Vietnamization. On
the ground, General Lam’s soldiers had lacked medium tanks and antitank wea-
pons, deficiencies the United States would have to correct even as it replaced
the equipment destroyed or abandoned in Laos. In the air, Vietnamization had
failed thus far to produce a true striking force: the helicopter fleet did not have
the numbers, training, or experience to undertake an operation of the magnitude
of Lam Son 719; the transports could not deploy troops and cargo on the scale
of Dewey Canyon II; and the tactical aircraft could not overcome the kind of de-
fenses encountered between the border and Tchepone. Under current plans, the
South Vietnamese air arm would not receive the OV–10s used by forward air
controllers during the operation or the F–4s, A–7s, and F–100s that delivered
the actual strikes; nor would the United States make B–52s available to its ally.
Of the types of aircraft that bombed and strafed in support of the attack into
Laos, South Vietnam would receive only the A–1, which served mainly to sup-
press hostile fire during aerial rescues, but Vietnamization did not include a
rescue service.
Besides revealing failings in equipping the Vietnamized armed forces, Lam
Son 719 demonstrated the inability of most South Vietnamese commanders to
function without American advisers at their elbow. Suddenly on their own, the
leaders had difficulty applying American-taught doctrine in southern Laos. The
best of them seemed hesitant and unsure of themselves, while the worst proved
incompetent.
The South Vietnamese, however, launched other less ambitious operations
during 1971 that proved more successful. The armed forces of South Vietnam
may simply have overreached when they challenged the defenses of the Ho Chi
Minh Trail, or the weaker opposition in Cambodia and South Vietnam may have
masked the flaws in training and equipment so starkly revealed in southern
Laos. In either case, Vietnamization required a prompt and thorough overhaul.
274
Chapter Sixteen
Action in South Vietnam and Cambodia

1971
Although Operation Lam Son 719 in southern Laos assumed critical impor-
tance as a test of Vietnamization and a means of facilitating the American with-
drawal, fighting also took place in South Vietnam and Cambodia during 1971.
Even as the improved armed forces of South Vietnam assumed increasing re-
sponsibility for waging war, U.S. air, ground, and naval forces continued to see
action from the Mekong River in Cambodia to the demilitarized zone separating
the two Vietnams. Indeed, the American activity reflected in part the concern
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the greater participation by the South Viet-
namese in offensive action could actually increase the danger to the American
troops still in South Vietnam by relegating them to a purely defensive “guard-
type posture” that would make them easy prey for the highly mobile enemy. To
reduce the vulnerability of the remaining Americans, the Joint Chiefs, after
consultation with General Abrams, proposed, and Secretary of Defense Laird
approved, a strategy of “dynamic defense” that called for U.S. battalions to
probe beyond the immediate environs of their bases, cooperating with South
Vietnamese forces in attacks designed to keep the enemy off balance.
Vietnamization, withdrawal, and the new policy of dynamic defense com-
bined to reduce American casualties. During 1971, 1,380 U.S. soldiers, sailors,
marines, and airmen died in combat throughout Southeast Asia, 1,289 of them
in South Vietnam. The total number of battle deaths declined by 2,845 from
1970 and by more than 8,000 from 1969, when, in the aftermath of Hamburger
Hill, President Nixon had cautioned Abrams about excessive casualties.1
The reduction in battle deaths coincided with a decline in American
manpower serving in South Vietnam. In January 1971, the aggregate number
authorized for duty there stood at 344,000, but a series of withdrawals during
the year slashed that number by 205,000 to 139,000. In other words, the depar-
tures from South Vietnam snowballed so rapidly in 1971 that more Americans
left the country than remained on duty there when the year ended.2
Operations in Cambodia also continued throughout 1971, with the United
States hoping that the Lon Nol government would retain at least the territory it
275
held, about half of Cambodia, including the capital of Phnom Penh and its ap-
proaches, the rice-producing northwest, and the Mekong River supply line from
South Vietnam to Phnom Penh. “Our policy,” declared a summary of American
relations with Cambodia, “should be to capitalize on Cambodian nationalism,
support Cambodian neutrality, and promote . . . [the] self-sufficiency” of the
government.3 Unfortunately, Lon Nol had irrevocably forfeited his nation’s neu-
trality in 1970 by sending the ill-equipped and untrained Khmer army against
the North Vietnamese in eastern Cambodia. Nor had the United States found it
easy to correct the shortcomings of the troops he had impulsively committed
and convert them into a reliable instrument of Cambodian self-sufficiency.4
Indirectly, the same congressional resolution that prevented American
troops from serving on the ground in Laos also affected American participation
in the Cambodian fighting. During the invasion of Cambodia in the spring of
1970, Senators John Sherman Cooper and Frank Church introduced an amend-
ment to a foreign military sales bill that would have barred all American
soldiers and airmen from fighting there or serving as advisers. This measure
failed, largely because the U.S. assault force withdrew as the President had
promised. When the Cooper-Church amendment finally passed, attached to
different legislation, it ignored Cambodia and aerial warfare and applied only
to the introduction of ground forces into Thailand and Laos. Nevertheless,
Nixon, wary of needlessly antagonizing the Congress, refrained from estab-
lishing in the new Khmer Republic the kind of formal military advisory group
that already existed in Thailand and South Vietnam.5
Lacking the authorization to establish a full-fledged advisory group at
Phnom Penh, the U.S. military had to substitute an attaché office assigned to the
embassy and a military equipment distribution team that reported to Abrams in
Saigon. Authorized a total of 113 officers and men, the equipment team issued
the military gear supplied by the United States and helped train the Cambodians
to use it. Of the 60 persons initially assigned to the team, only 16 actually
served in Cambodia. By 1971 the organization reached its authorized strength,
with 50 persons operating out of Phnom Penh.6
Despite his concern over assigning American advisers to Cambodia, Presi-
dent Nixon permitted air strikes in the country. He continued, however, to insist
that reports list them as aerial interdiction and not as close air support. He had
ruled out this category of air strikes in 1970, perhaps inadvertently, but more
likely to avoid the impression that U.S. airmen supported U.S. ground forces
still fighting there. During 1971, aircraft of the United States, South Vietnam,
and the Khmer Republic operated over Cambodia. The United States sought to
combine these efforts under a grandly styled Allied Air Operations Coordi-
nating Center, but the effort failed largely because of Cambodian intransigence.
Events demonstrated, moreover, that South Vietnamese airmen would not run
risks to help the Cambodians, which left the air war largely in American hands.
Lon Nol had little choice but to rely on foreigners for air support, since his own
276
South Vietnam and Cambodia, 1971
Cambodians training in South Vietnam with South Vietnamese instructors.

army had scant confidence in a Khmer air arm that had barely begun rebuilding
after a Khmer Rouge rocket attack in January that destroyed almost the entire
inventory of hand-me-down Soviet MiGs and U.S. T–28s at Phnom Penh’s
Pochentong Airport.
At the urging of the United States, the allies in 1971 created an air coordi-
nating center that underwent a change of name and membership, lingered
through the following year, but accomplished little. Because the Americans
assigned to the center, unlike the air attaché and his staff or members of the
equipment distribution team, could not serve in Cambodia, the coordinating
agency set up shop at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam, an obvious
handicap since the location reminded the Cambodians of their debt to the hated
South Vietnamese. Target nominations went to Tan Son Nhut, where the center
granted or withheld endorsement before sending the slate to Phnom Penh for
final approval.
When this procedure broke down, more because of Cambodian recalci-
trance than the fragile radio link, the Seventh Air Force provided more reliable
communications with Phnom Penh and formed a Tripartite Deputies Working
Group, also at Tan Son Nhut. Once again, the organization’s title proved more
impressive than its accomplishments, for the group failed to achieve its objec-
tive of allaying hostility among the Asian allies and improving cooperation.7
The lack of Cambodian participation in the control agency affected the rules
of engagement under which the United States fought the air war. The Americans
expected Khmer officers at the appropriate level of command to review all
targets — roads, waterways, or tracts of jungle — to determine if the extent of
communist use or control justified aerial attack. This kind of review did not
always take place, however; and to prevent accidentally bombing or strafing
277
friendly troops or noncombatants in contested areas, the U.S. Air Force com-
mand and control agencies insisted that strike aircraft rely on radar or instruc-
tions from a forward air controller, preferably an American. U.S. planners, more
than the Cambodians, tried to avoid damaging cultural or religious shrines and
tried to issue a warning before attacking villages where civilians might suffer
injury. In an emergency, however, a pilot might respond immediately to a call
for help from a commander on the ground, hesitating only to make sure he had
identified the designated target. For air strikes planned in advance, when no
Cambodian stood by at the coordinating agency to pass judgment on an indi-
vidual target, the Americans had to rely on blanket validations embracing a
particular area. For example, the Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center
routinely approved plans to attack targets throughout communist-controlled
northeastern Cambodia and on roads or rivers normally used by the enemy else-
where in the country. For targets where noncombatants or friendly troops might
be endangered, a senior American officer in the military assistance command’s
directorate of operations reviewed the nomination and passed judgment.8
The friction among the Southeast Asian allies, which surfaced during the
attempt to establish a coordinating agency for tactical air operations, also
prevented the United States from developing close working relationships be-
tween the governments of the Khmer Republic, South Vietnam, Thailand, and
Laos.9 The Cambodians tended to hate all Vietnamese, whether from the South
or the North; consequently, when Lon Nol in the spring of 1970 stirred up the
masses against the northerners in their embassy and jungle enclaves, mobs be-
gan slaughtering anticommunist Vietnamese refugees, many of whom had lived
in Cambodia since the partition of Vietnam in 1954, in some villages killing
every adult male. The bodies of hundreds of Vietnamese bobbing in the Mekong
River greeted the South Vietnamese army when it crossed the border to attack
the communist bases. Most of the survivors fled Cambodia, increasing by per-
haps 200,000 the number of homeless the government of South Vietnam had to
assist.10
Toward Thailand, Cambodians felt suspicion rather than hatred, for Thai
rulers had once controlled the western portions of the Khmer Republic, just as
Cambodia formerly exerted authority over parts of Vietnam. Lon Nol and his
government experienced the concerns of a weak nation toward a stronger and
perhaps covetous neighbor. Cambodia, in short, wanted U.S. help rather than
aid from South Vietnam and Thailand, but the United States, as demonstrated
by its reluctance to establish a typical military assistance advisory group,
remained wary of repeating the sort of commitment it had made to South
Vietnam.
For the United States, the fighting in Cambodia represented an extension
of the war in the South, another means of gaining time for Vietnamization and
withdrawal by easing the pressure on the U.S. forces still in South Vietnam.
Moreover, the governments of South Vietnam and Thailand also looked on
278
Cambodia in terms of their own security, seeing the Khmer Republic as an

entanglement for North Vietnamese aggressors.11
In these circumstances, the United States, Cambodia, and South Vietnam
fought their own air wars in Khmer territory. In waging its air war, the United
States preserved the appearance of consultation with Cambodian authorities, as
it relied increasingly on B–52s to provide firepower capable of stopping the
advance of the Khmer Rouge, communist forces recruited from inside
Cambodia. Indeed, the bombing became a symbol of U.S. support as well as a
weapon of war. The Cambodian air force waged a feeble air campaign that
contrasted sharply with the army’s battles on the ground, most of which proved
savage, if often ineptly planned and fought. South Vietnamese airmen mainly
supported their nation’s ground forces in action across the border, although they
would sometimes respond to American urging and come to the aid of Lon Nol’s
troops.12
By mid-1971, six months after the disastrous rocket attack on Pochentong
airdrome, Cambodia had received U.S. T–28s, AC–47 gunships, and O–1s, but
it made poor use of the equipment. Admittedly, the O–1s intended for forward
air controllers had badly worn engines that increased fuel and oil consumption
and reduced range, and the T–28s also tottered at the edge of obsolescence, but
these two types and the AC–47 could have proved adequate in the absence of
aerial opposition or heavy antiaircraft fire. The fault seemed to lie with officers
who still lacked confidence in the airmen and proved reluctant to call upon
them. Since front-line Cambodian officers also mistrusted South Vietnamese
pilots, U.S. forward air controllers, whose numbers the policy of withdrawal
continued to reduce, directed a disproportionate share of close-in strikes. As
their number inexorably declined, the ill-equipped, inexperienced, and generally
distrusted Cambodian airmen had to assume increasing responsibility for direc-
ting air support.13
Lon Nol’s attack on the North Vietnamese in the spring of 1970 failed to
dislodge them from their Cambodian enclaves. His army, although sometimes
capable of fierce fighting and vicious atrocities, lacked the leadership, training,
and equipment to defeat the North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge. The
United States simply could not take over a new war as it tried to disengage from
an old one in South Vietnam, nor would President Nixon agree to a major
advisory effort. Nevertheless, American aid began arriving, administered by the
military equipment distribution team, but the new Khmer Republic faced a
difficult task in fighting to retain control of Phnom Penh, the surrounding
region, and the agricultural west.
The planners of Lam Son 719 gave some thought to an attack into Cam-
bodia, initially as a possible substitute for the foray into Laos and later as a
complementary operation. The offensive finally scheduled during the dry season
of 1970-71 called for elements of the South Vietnamese III Corps to attack in
an area extending from the town of Snoul generally southwestward past Tonle
279
Bet to the vicinity of Svay Rieng. The overall operation had three components.
In the center, troops would advance along Route 22 to the Cambodian border
and then seize and hold Route 7 westward to the town of Tonle Bet on the Me-
kong River, a distance of about forty miles. During this advance, the center
force would divert the enemy from Phnom Penh and interfere with infiltration
into South Vietnam by seizing the supply caches between Chup on Route 7 and
Dambe on Route 75. Meanwhile, the northern force would clear the triangular
region north of Route 7 bounded by the towns of Snoul, Mimot, and Kratie. In
the south, other South Vietnamese soldiers would conduct a similar sweep of
a region defined by Routes 1, 15, and 7, and the border with South Vietnam.
The ambitious operation got underway on February 4, just four days before the
Lam Son 719 task force started down the road toward Tchepone in Laos.14
On the southern flank, the South Vietnamese pushed slowly forward, but
despite the sluggish pace, they retained the initiative, forcing the North Viet-
namese to channel troops into this area who otherwise might have helped re-
open the routes of supply and reinforcement leading from the Ho Chi Minh
Trail into South Vietnam’s Military Region III. The attack could not, however,
dislodge the North Vietnamese from the base areas south of Route 7, and the
other elements of the offensive fared only a little better.15
By mid-March, the heaviest enemy resistance developed in the center
sector, around the Chup Rubber Plantation, probably because of the firmly
established North Vietnamese supply depots located there. During the early
fighting, B–52s and Air Force fighter-bombers, along with South Vietnamese
tactical aircraft, battered the enemy. Indeed, a B–52 attack near Dambe received
credit for killing 150 North Vietnamese. During daylight, strike aircraft tried to
suppress hostile fire so that helicopters could deliver supplies to the advancing
troops; when these attacks failed, the Army helicopters operated under cover of
darkness. Unfortunately, air power could not intervene to blast a path into the
plantation itself, for Lon Nol persisted in believing that the rubber trees
represented a resource his nation needed and objected strenuously to actions that
might destroy them. Both President Thieu and General Abrams respected his
wishes and spared Chup Plantation. The attack in the center reached Tonle Bet,
advanced beyond Dambe all the way to Chhlong, and received credit for killing
some 4,000 North Vietnamese or Khmer Rouge while destroying large
quantities of ammunition and fuel, but the plantation itself, a major base,
remained in communist hands.16
While the offensive was bypassing Chup Plantation, leaving in place an
unknown quantity of supplies shipped by way of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the
northern prong of the dry season offensive captured Snoul and moved into the
countryside. Heavy rains of the southwest monsoon season were approaching
when patrols discovered some supply caches near Snoul, destroyed them, and
stung the enemy, who reacted late in May by encircling the South Vietnamese
at Snoul. Air Force forward air controllers discovered the buildup around the
280
F–100s at Phan Rang prepare for a mission in 1971.

town and along the road that led there, but before air power could intervene, the
North Vietnamese attacked. Antiaircraft fire prevented South Vietnamese
C–119s from parachuting supplies into Snoul, and the relief column that started
up the road ran into an ambush. The result resembled the defeat of the Lam Son
719 task force, though on a lesser scale, since it involved only the one brigade
that attempted the rescue. Here, as in southern Laos, air strikes had to destroy
equipment abandoned by the fleeing South Vietnamese. A second column suc-
ceeded in reaching Snoul, but the perimeter there became a magnet for hostile
fire rather than a launching point for attacks on the logistics network.17
The main South Vietnamese thrust into Cambodia ended in frustration, and
a series of other actions in that country produced results varying from successful
to disastrous. For a time, success crowned the effort to keep traffic flowing over
Route 4, linking the port of Kompong Som with Phnom Penh, but strikes by the
U.S. Air Force, rather than aggressive action by South Vietnamese and Khmer
troops, forced the Cambodian communists to abandon blocking positions rather
than suffer appalling casualties in trying to hold them. According to American
officers attached to the embassy at Phnom Penh, an attack along the shore of the
Tonle Toch, a stream forming part of the Mekong watershed, provided Lon
Nol’s army with its greatest victory yet, and here, too, air power made a critical
contribution. Despite the onset of the seasonal rains, Air Force tactical fighters
averaged eighty sorties during each of four hard-fought days, and an AC–119
gunship cut down Khmer Rouge soldiers gathering supplies that Cambodian
C–47s had parachuted beyond friendly lines.
Disaster awaited, however, when Lon Nol chose the depths of the rainy
season to send one of his least competent generals to reopen the highway
leading northward from the capital city to the beleaguered town of Kompong
Thom. At a time when weather prevented accurate close air support, the North
Vietnamese sprung a trap as soon as the head of the column reached the
objective; flank security proved nonexistent, and the surprise so overwhelming
that most of the troops abandoned their weapons and fled.18
281
As demonstrated at Snoul and again at Kompong Thom, the North Viet-

namese had mastered the art of ambush, but even the best laid trap sometimes
failed. In September 1971, as a new dry season drew near, North Vietnamese
forces attacked the South Vietnamese defenders of Krek in Cambodia in the
hope of forcing them, or drawing their reinforcements, into an ambush prepared
on Route 22 just inside South Vietnam.19 While South Vietnamese airborne
troops conducted some aggressive patrolling, the garrison at Krek held its
ground and relied on artillery and air strikes to kill the enemy. Maj. Gen. Jack
J. Wagstaff, the commanding general of the Third Regional Assistance Com-
mand, reported that “the greatest number of casualties have been inflicted by
our B–52s, Tac Air, and gunships, with the ARVN operations limited to bomb
damage assessment after an area has been cleared by our firepower.” Without
air power, Wagstaff suggested, the South Vietnamese would have “inflicted
negligible damage on the enemy,” who surely could have driven them from the
fire support bases around Krek into the waiting trap.20
During the fighting around Krek, which lasted until mid-October, American
infantry advisers, assessing the operation from inside South Vietnam, con-
demned as “100 percent unsatisfactory,”21 the South Vietnamese CH–47 heli-
copter units carrying cargo into the besieged town. In contrast, the Air Force
advisers who hurried to the airfield at Tay Ninh, South Vietnam, from which the
craft operated, decided that the South Vietnamese simply had not understood
the U.S. Army’s scheduling procedures. Once the working relationship im-
proved between the Army advisers and the crews from the South Vietnamese
Air Force, the performance of the helicopters rapidly improved. As a result, sup-
plies delivered by the CH–47s sustained the outpost at Krek until a sufficiently
strong relief force had eliminated the threat to the overland route.22
Like Operation Lam Son 719 in Laos, the fighting in eastern Cambodia
revealed the dependence of the South Vietnamese on American support,
especially air power. If forced to rely exclusively on their own resources, the
armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam might well have withdrawn from
Cambodia, or so General Wagstaff believed. The Vietnamized air arm, for
instance, had shown weaknesses that did not appear in routine operations. The
fighter-bombers proved successful in strikes just across the border, but lacked
the range or the aerial refueling equipment needed for deep penetrations.
Moreover, the South Vietnamese Air Force, which operated the helicopter
squadrons, did not yet have enough large CH–47s, and it also needed modern
transports like the C–130. Finally, South Vietnam’s airmen possessed no
weapon even remotely comparable to the B–52 in administering massive doses
of firepower.23
Because the South Vietnamese had no C–130s, the 834th Air Division used
its own C–130s, temporarily assigned for duty in Southeast Asia, to drop sup-
plies to isolated South Vietnamese troops inside Cambodia, helping, for ex-
ample, to supply both Kompong Thom and the ill-fated relief force. Where the
282
C–130s could not go, either because of a tiny drop zone or murderous antiair-
craft defenses, U.S. Army CH–47s supplemented South Vietnamese helicopters
of the same kind. The U.S. C–130s also delivered badly needed fuel and muni-
tions to Pochentong Airport at Phnom Penh, taking over in November 1971
from the South Vietnamese who simply lacked the airlift capacity for the task.24
The question of the Army’s participation in Air Force interdiction efforts
arose briefly during January 1971 and promptly disappeared. Army helicopters
and helicopter gunships had been inserting and supporting reconnaissance teams
in Cambodia in keeping with the prevailing rules of engagement, and this activ-
ity continued. General Abrams, however, offered a proposal that seemed to in-
clude the helicopter gunships in an interdiction campaign against roads and
waterways used by both the North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia and the
Khmer Rouge. Lt. Gen. Arthur S. Collins, the senior Army officer in South
Vietnam’s Military Region II, suggested that tactical fighters, with their greater
range and speed, seemed better suited to the mission and opposed the sugges-
tion. Moreover, as Collins pointed out, the Seventh Air Force planned and con-
ducted aerial interdiction, and participation in the Air Force operation implied
a diversion of the Army helicopter force from its usual missions.
The arguments advanced by Collins proved unnecessary, once Abrams clar-
ified the reference to interdiction. He did not intend to place Army aircraft
under the operational control of the Seventh Air Force. Instead, he had two pur-
poses: first, to avoid accidents by making sure that Army officers in command
and control helicopters checked in when bringing their assigned aircraft into a
sector where an Air Force forward air controller directed air strikes; and,
second, to remind the Air Force to follow President Nixon’s wishes and report
its air strikes as interdiction, never as close air support.25
Checking in with the Air Force forward air controller proved especially
important late in January when American aerial firepower went to the aid of the
South Vietnamese trying to reopen Route 4 — the road between the port of
Kompong Som and the capital city — which the Khmer Rouge had temporarily
cut at Pich Nil Pass. Army helicopter light fire teams —each with a command
craft, two gunships, and two scout helicopters — took off from USS Cleveland,
a landing ship operating in Cambodian coastal waters, and joined Air Force
fighter-bombers in attacks at and near the pass. Besides supporting the success-
ful attempt to break through the pass, the three light fire teams strafed hostile
reinforcements, thus conducting battlefield interdiction despite the short range
of the helicopters they flew.26
The presence of noncombatants, friendly troops, and hostile forces on the
banks of the Mekong River posed special problems for aircraft patrolling the
waterway, a vital supply artery for the Lon Nol government. With the enemy
harassing traffic on Route 4 between the port of Kompong Som and Phnom
Penh, the river carried increasing quantities of fuel, rice, and other bulk cargo
not readily transportable by air.
283
By January 1971, the enemy began firing from the river banks at the con-
voys plying the stream. South Vietnamese or Khmer troops sometimes combed
the banks in search of the enemy, thus exposing themselves to misdirected air
strikes, which also might endanger innocent villagers. To protect noncomba-
tants and friendly troops while silencing the fire, modified rules of engagement
permitted helicopter gunships and fighter-bombers to attack, provided that a
forward air controller directed the strike. If the controller obtained permission
by radio from the commander of the convoy under attack, who had a Cam-
bodian officer at his side, and could identify the source of the fire, he could
launch an air strike immediately. If unable to contact the convoy commander
and his Khmer adviser, the forward air controller had to consult some other
Cambodian officer familiar with the location of villages and friendly troops in
area. When the air coordinating center functioned at Tan Son Nhut, one of the
Cambodian representatives normally reviewed such requests, but with the
failure of that agency, the Seventh Air Force for a time included a Cambodian
officer in the crew of the airborne battlefield command and control center
responsible for the Mekong. By year’s end, however, a Cambodian joined the
staff of the Tactical Air Control Center expressly to validate such targets. Under
this last arrangement, if the forward air controller could not obtain validation
by radio from the convoy, he had to treat the banks of the Mekong River like a
“no fire” zone and obtain permission from the Tactical Air Control Center
before launching an air strike.27
Circumstances forced the Americans to take over the task of providing
aerial protection for the convoys. The Khmer air arm could not do the job, and
the South Vietnamese had the reputation of disregarding the safety of Cambo-
dian noncombatants, possibly in reaction to the earlier killings by Cambodians
of ethnic Vietnamese. In the absence of a true coordinating agency, the Seventh
Air Force Tactical Air Control Center became the principal means for prevent-
ing accidental strikes on villagers or friendly troops by aircraft escorting the
Mekong convoys.28
After assuming responsibility for escorting the convoys, as formally
directed by General Abrams, the Seventh Air Force assigned forward air con-
trollers in O–2s or OV–10s to provide day and night coverage. The controllers
could call on any available Air Force fighter-bomber, gunship, or aircraft as-
signed specifically to escort duty. Beginning in mid-January 1971, a typical
escort consisted of an Air Force forward air controller, an Air Force AC–119
gunship, and an Army light fire team. While the Air Force and Army furnished
the air cover, the Navy assigned gunboats to travel with the convoy throughout
the increasingly dangerous passage from Saigon to Phnom Penh.29
The commander of the U.S. naval forces in South Vietnam, since he already
provided surface protection for Mekong shipping, sought to take part in the
aerial escort, as well. The Seventh Air Force at first opposed bringing Navy
aircraft into the operation, but Phnom Penh was growing more dependent on the
284
Mekong supply route, and the Air Force and Army aviation faced the possibility
of becoming overextended, as aerial commitments continued in a time of with-
drawal and dwindling resources. Consequently, General Abrams asked the Navy
to provide helicopters and OV–10s “within the framework of the established
USAF tactical air control system.” The naval aircraft, in response to his direc-
tive, formed an alert force based in South Vietnam that carried out daily opera-
tional orders issued by the Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center at Tan
Son Nhut. In an extreme emergency, when an Air Force forward air controller
on station over a convoy needed more firepower, he could contact the Navy de-
tachment directly and call for help.30 When escorting shipping, the naval avia-
tors followed the same rules of engagement as airmen of the other services.31
Beginning in February 1971, armed Navy helicopters regularly flew escort
missions over the Mekong River, but the Navy OV–10s saw little action until
September. During that month, the Seventh Air Force transferred to the South
Vietnamese the AC–119G gunships that had helped provide air cover for the
convoys. Despite lighter armament, the Navy OV–10s filled the gap until Viet-
namized AC–119Gs, with fully trained crews, could take over.32
Since the spring of 1970, when Lon Nol toppled Prince Sihanouk and the
Americans and South Vietnamese invaded the North Vietnamese bases in
eastern Cambodia, the territory under the nominal control of the Khmer Repub-
lic had shrunk steadily. Even as the fortunes of his government declined, Lon
Nol suffered a stroke in February 1971 that diminished his powers of concentra-
tion and decision, even though he would survive for another fourteen years.
When Lon Nol first made war on the North Vietnamese in Cambodia, his
armed forces numbered perhaps 36,000. A surge of enthusiasm to punish the
traditional enemy swelled the ranks to about 150,000 by the end of 1970 al-
though some of the soldiers almost certainly existed only on payrolls submitted
by commanders who then pocketed the money. Whatever the actual size of the
force, training and equipment could not keep pace. By December 1971, this
army exerted only intermittent control of Route 4, increasing the nation’s de-
pendence on the Mekong for the delivery of supplies. The occasional military
success, indeed the survival of the republic itself, depended upon U.S. air power
and the South Vietnamese troops fighting the communists inside Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge in the meantime had grown stronger, receiving the endorse-
ment of Prince Sihanouk, whose popularity increased as Cambodians realized
that, whatever his faults, he had kept the nation out of war.33
In short, U.S. aid to Cambodia had wrought no miracles. Nevertheless, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended expanding the armed forces of the Khmer
Republic during the year ending in June 1972 to 220,000, backed by a 143,000-
man paramilitary organization, at a cost to the United States of $325 to $350
million. So ambitious a program would require expansion of the Military Equip-
ment Delivery Team by an additional 629 officers and enlisted men; about 20
percent of the enlarged team would serve in Cambodia and the remainder in
285
South Vietnam, where the Cambodians would undergo most of their training.
David Packard, Secretary Laird’s principal deputy, suggested reworking the
proposal, since Congress seemed unlikely to approve more than the $200 mil-
lion for military assistance to Cambodia that the Department of Defense had
tentatively proposed for the year. Revisions followed, but Congress proved less
accommodating than Packard expected, voting only $180 million to aid Lon
Nol’s armed forces.34
The South Vietnamese offensives in southern Laos and Cambodia did not
prevent the enemy from launching attacks of his own in South Vietnam. In
Military Region I, embracing the northernmost provinces of South Vietnam, not
even Dewey Canyon II, the prelude to the attack toward Tchepone and the most
ambitious operation launched anywhere in South Vietnam during 1971, could
wrest the initiative from the North Vietnamese. Besides delivering rocket at-
tacks against Khe Sanh, while it served as the main base for Lam Son 719, the
enemy conducted a nighttime raid against another outpost in Quang Tri Pro-
vince, Fire Support Base Mary Ann. A 200-round mortar barrage, which in-
cluded tear gas as well as high explosive, pinned down the defenders, and a
team of sappers worked their way into the perimeter. They attacked the bunkers
and artillery positions with explosive charges and small-arms fire, killing 22 and
wounding 70 of some 200 U.S. defenders and destroying the command post.
The skillfully delivered attack cost the North Vietnamese at least 10 killed.35
Mortar and rocket attacks recurred throughout the year in Military Region
I, and the enemy sometimes followed up with infantry. Rocket barrages struck
Da Nang on six occasions during 1971, and in May, eleven 122-mm rockets
killed twenty-nine Americans and wounded thirty-three at Fire Support Base
Charlie-2 in Quang Tri Province. About one month after the bombardment of
Charlie-2, the enemy battered Fire Support Base Fuller, also in Quang Tri Pro-
vince, with a 1,500-round bombardment, attacked with infantry, and routed the
South Vietnamese who had taken over the outpost from U.S. Marines. In sharp
contrast to the defeat at Fire Support Base Fuller, local South Vietnamese
defense forces at Dai Loc in Quang Nam Province beat off a North Vietnamese
attack launched on the night of May 3 under cover of a tropical downpour that
prevented close air support.36
Although the enemy struck frequently and sometimes successfully in the
northern provinces, the South Vietnamese forces there did not remain exclu-
sively on the defensive. Twice they mounted probes of the A Shau Valley, Lam
Son 720 and Lam Son 810. Both operations produced impressive claims of
North Vietnamese killed in comparatively light fighting.
The first of the two, Lam Son 720, took place from April to mid-June,
involved six American and twenty South Vietnamese battalions, and gave rise
to complaints of inadequate American air support. Generals Lam and Phu, vet-
erans of the recent foray into southern Laos, complained that the Seventh Air
Force did not respond as readily during the first of the year’s A Shau Valley
286
campaigns as it had in the attack toward Tchepone and the subsequent retreat.
Statistics for planned sorties tended to substantiate their complaint, for through-
out Military Region I American aircraft responded with planned strikes fewer
times than the major ground commands requested. During the first three weeks
of June, for example, XXIV Corps requested 344 sorties and received 212, and
the South Vietnamese I Corps had to settle for 148 out of the 166 it sought.
Although bad flying weather contributed to the disparity between planned sor-
ties requested and those flown, the root cause lay in the departure of American
aviation units. For example, the Marine Corps withdrew the last of its forces,
including the aircraft wing, by the end of June, creating a gap for the South
Vietnamese Air Force to fill.
To compensate for the transfers and the resulting decline in planned strikes,
the Seventh Air Force set up a quick reaction force at Da Nang; in case of
emergency, the Tactical Air Control Center could either launch aircraft standing
alert on the ground or divert those already in the air. In either case, the average
response time from request to air strike did not exceed forty minutes. According
to Lt. Gen. Welborn G. Dolvin, who had taken over XXIV Corps from General
Sutherland, the South Vietnamese complaints about air support during Lam Son
720 arose because Lam Son 719 had enjoyed an overriding priority whereas the
subsequent undertaking did not. When comparing air support for the two
operations, Generals Lam and Phu erred in charging that American air power
was inexcusably slighting Lam Son 720, for that essentially routine undertaking
rightfully had a lesser priority than the earlier and far more ambitious advance
toward Tchepone.37
Air support for Lam Son 810, the second sweep of the A Shau region in
1971, aroused no complaints from South Vietnamese commanders. During Sep-
tember, some 16,000 South Vietnamese troops, assisted by fighter-bombers and
B–52s, discovered a few supply caches and some recent road construction but
encountered comparatively light resistance. In a typical skirmish, North
Vietnamese 122-mm artillery fired on the landing zone where Army helicopters
were disembarking a reconnaissance unit; strikes by helicopter gunships and
B–52s silenced the three guns responsible for the bombardment.38
In neighboring Military Region II, encompassing the north central part of
the country, action flared from the seacoast to the western highlands. During
January 1971, rockets detonated a quantity of ammunition stored at Qui Nhon,
and shortly afterward, when a truce marking the Tet holiday came to an end,
similar weapons firing from extreme range hit the air bases at Cam Ranh Bay,
Nha Trang, Phu Cat, and Tuy Hoa.39
The greatest threat to the security of Military Region II arose not at Cam
Ranh Bay or elsewhere along the coast, but in the mountains far to the west
where the North Vietnamese stored, for future distribution, cargo that had
traveled down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On February 11, a South Vietnamese task
force built around the 42d Regiment embarked on a reconnaissance in force to
287
locate and destroy supplies stockpiled in the Plei Trap Valley. Unfortunately,
neither the regiment nor the headquarters of the 22d Infantry Division, which
provided a command element for the task force, proved at all aggressive, and
the attack slowed to a halt early in March.40 A shortage of air power, which
otherwise might have helped compensate for the sluggishness of the troops,
contributed to the disappointing results. As Lam Son 719 was still underway,
Military Region II competed with it for air support, and the advance toward
Tchepone enjoyed the higher priority. As the Plei Trap probe stumbled to its
conclusion, Maj. Gen. Charles P. Brown, who commanded I Field Force, Viet-
nam, conceded that “we are fast running out of air assets” in north central South
Vietnam after “pushing all available assets (Army and Air Force aviation) hard
for several days.”41
On March 16, after the Plei Trap operation had ended, North Vietnamese
troops attacked the district headquarters at Phu Nhon in Pleiku Province,
cracking the defensive perimeter and forcing the defenders of the village to call
for help. Reinforcements started up the road but, as happened so often, ran into
an ambush, and the relief column stalled short of its objective for four days.
Meanwhile, the enemy surrounding Phu Nhon sustained a severe pummelling
from the air, as Air Force fighter-bombers flew 36 sorties and South Vietnamese
aircraft 120. When the reinforcements at last arrived, the attackers grudgingly
pulled back after the village had suffered widespread destruction. Far worse
damage occurred, however, to the confidence of the villagers in a government
pacification program that had clearly failed to bring them peace and security.42
The North Vietnamese, on the last day of March 1971, combined guerrilla
and conventional tactics to overrun an outpost in the western portion of Military
Region II. Shortly after midnight, bands of guerrillas attacked the airfields at
Pleiku and Dak To, damaging thirteen aircraft used by Air Force forward air
controllers, and a few hours later North Vietnamese troops stormed Fire Support
Base 6, southwest of Dak To. Because of the earlier attacks on the airfields,
none of the locally based forward air controllers could take off, and the Seventh
Air Force could not divert replacements until mid-day. During the critical early
morning hours, South Vietnamese airmen both controlled and conducted the air
strikes in defense of the base. Scarcely had American aircraft appeared when the
weather changed; by about 3:00 p.m. cloud cover prevented further visual at-
tacks. Radar-controlled aircraft could intervene, however, and after dark eight
B–52s, diverted from other targets, dropped their bombs around the base.
These air strikes did not save Fire Support Base 6; when the skies cleared
on the morning of April 1, forward air controllers could see enemy gunners fir-
ing artillery pieces left behind when the garrison withdrew. A South Vietnamese
regiment, supported by air power and artillery fire, counterattacked later in the
day, regained the base, and held it, thanks in large measure to air strikes credited
with killing most of the 150 or more corpses in two mass graves that patrols dis-
covered among the nearby hills.43
288
A frequent target of rockets or hit-and-run raids, the fuel and ammunition

storage areas at Cam Ranh Bay presented tempting targets. Attackers could
mingle with local civilians, many of them employed somewhere on the base,
and obtain information on the timing and composition of mobile patrols as well
as the nature of the static defenses. Indeed, a half dozen prostitutes with easy
access to the base turned out to be agents of the Viet Cong, and reports from
these women may have provided further help in avoiding detection.
Strong defenses protected the fuel tanks and ammunition bunkers at Cam
Ranh Bay. Offshore, junks and motorcraft searched for Viet Cong boats or
swimmers. At the storage area, Air Force security police used trained dogs and
motorized patrols to check the perimeter, while longer range probes looked for
signs of hostile activity within rocket range, about 11,000 yards. Tips from local
informants, substantiated by the discovery of aiming stakes some distance from
the perimeter, convinced agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investiga-
tions that the Viet Cong could again attack Cam Ranh Bay sometime between
August and October 1971. Twice previously, the enemy had struck damaging
blows; in the summer of 1970, an attack had set Air Force fuel storage tanks
ablaze, and in May 1971, the Viet Cong had destroyed stocks of fuel belonging
to the Army.
Although the security force at Cam Ranh Bay realized the danger to the
logistics complex and reacted with increased vigilance, a communist demoli-
tions team took advantage of waning moonlight to slip past the security force
and enter the perimeter. The first sign of danger came at about 2:00 p.m. on
August 25, when Air Force security police heard a shuffling noise in the vicinity
of the ammunition dump. A dog and its handler discovered footprints shortly
afterward, but before anyone could follow them, the stored munitions began
exploding. The blasts hurled bombs into the air, the concussion armed them,
and they fell to earth to spread the destruction, as storage revetments exploded
in succession.44
The destruction of the ammunition did not affect the course of the war, but
it demonstrated once again the ability of the Viet Cong to penetrate even a care-
fully planned security screen. The handful of demolitions men had produced an
effect wildly out of proportion to their numbers; this success contrasted sharply
with the South Vietnamese task force that had recently attacked the logistics
complex around Tchepone without achieving decisive results.
After the war, a North Vietnamese general asked a Marine Corps veteran
of the fighting in Southeast Asia, “If you were our commander and were told to
attack . . . [an] air base and destroy the planes there, how many troops would you
need? Several divisions, right?” Yet, a few men had penetrated a strongly de-
fended installation located at Cam Ranh Bay, in territory supposedly controlled
by the South Vietnamese. The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong could strike
sudden, sharp blows like this, not because of their trained battalions or regi-
ments, but because of what the communist general described as “tens of thou-
289
An Air Force sentry and his dog watch an F–4 land at Cam Ranh Bay.
sands of . . . scouts, minelayers, spies, political cadres.”45 Thanks to his network
of sympathizers and part-time soldiers, the enemy enjoyed a mobility that not
even aircraft could confer.
To the south, in Military Region III, which embraced the provinces around
Saigon, the enemy remained fairly quiet during 1971, probably because the
main battleground for that area now lay across the border in eastern Cambodia.
Battalions or regiments rarely clashed in this area, as the war in south central
South Vietnam became a struggle between Viet Cong irregulars and local gov-
ernment security forces. Besides attacking security detachments to capture wea-
pons and demoralize the members, the Viet Cong staged a half-dozen ineffec-
tual mortar or rocket attacks on Bien Hoa airfield, the heaviest consisting of
only five rounds.
In southernmost South Vietnam, Military Region IV, the Viet Cong con-
ducted a series of attacks on local outposts that undermined the morale of the
security forces manning them. The South Vietnamese army, however, claimed
victories in two communist strongholds, the U Minh Forest and the Seven
Mountains region. In this military region as in the adjacent one, the deadliest
fighting had moved to Cambodia where South Vietnamese troops from IV
Corps tried to keep open the highway from Kompong Som to Phnom Penh.46
290
During 1971, the nature of the air war in the four military regions of South
Vietnam remained essentially unchanged from the previous year, with the over-
whelming proportion of sorties supporting the war on the ground. The overall
American aerial effort declined, however, reflecting withdrawal and progress
in Vietnamization. Air Force strength in South Vietnam and Thailand dropped
during the year from fifty-five squadrons with 1,267 aircraft on hand to thirty-
nine squadrons with 906 aircraft. Marine Corps aviators flew their last missions
in May and left the country. The Navy made only a minor contribution to the
war in South Vietnam, concentrating instead on southern Laos. Air Force
activity in South Vietnam dwindled from 35,000 sorties in January to 15,000 in
December, although weather and the tactical situation ensured an uneven pro-
gression, marred by an occasional spike as one month’s total might exceed that
of the previous month, until a steady decline began in September. Meanwhile,
the number of sorties that South Vietnamese airmen flew within the country
grew rapidly and erratically from 34,000 in January to 67,000 in December.
Aerial activity continued throughout the year in neighboring Laos and Cam-
bodia. The number of sorties in Laos fluctuated, reflecting the weather, which
affected both flying conditions and the volume of truck traffic moving down the
Ho Chi Minh Trail to South Vietnam and Cambodia. At year’s end, when dry
weather prevailed, American aircraft were flying more sorties throughout Laos
than in South Vietnam. The Air Force also flew between 2,100 and 4,800 sorties
in Cambodia during each month of 1971. In Cambodia as in South Vietnam,
though not in Laos, the South Vietnamese Air Force took up the slack as
American squadrons departed.47
As the year drew to an end, evidence mounted that North Vietnam was pre-
paring for an invasion of the South. The indications of an imminent attack
included increased truck traffic in the North Vietnamese panhandle and the
strengthening of the antiaircraft defenses around the passes through which men
and supplies bound for South Vietnam entered southern Laos. The enemy’s ex-
tension of radar coverage into southern Laos raised the possibility that radar-
controlled interceptors might join surface-to-air missiles in North Vietnam and
Laos to attack B–52s bombing the roads, trails, depots, bivouac areas, and
waterways that made up the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
During December, a MiG interceptor fired a heat-seeking missile at a cell
of three B–52s but missed. Later that month a surface-to-air missile downed an
F–105 near Mu Gia Pass, and an F–4 escorting a gunship along the trail went
out of control and crashed while trying to avoid a pair of the missiles; rescue
helicopters, however, picked up three of the four crewmen in the two fighter-
bombers. Surface-to-air missiles and MiGs contributed to the loss of two F–4s
that ran low on fuel while taking violent evasive action and could not reach an
aerial tanker; both crews ejected, but only one of the four men survived.48
To deal with a North Vietnamese buildup in preparation for an invasion, the
headquarters of the Commander in Chief, Pacific, had prepared two contingency
291
plans, one concentrating on the airfields in North Vietnam from which MiGs
threatened the B–52s, the other on the logistics network needed to mount an all-
out offensive. Suppression of the antiaircraft weapons defending the targets
formed a part of both plans. The Joint Chiefs of Staff directed Admiral McCain
to combine the two, Fracture Deep and Proud Bunch, into a single document
with options to meet a variety of situations. Coordinating sessions at Tan Son
Nhut Air Base produced Proud Deep Alpha, a plan that called for attacks on
MiG bases, elements of the logistics infrastructure in southern North Vietnam,
and the antiaircraft defenses of both.
Despite bad weather, Air Force and Navy aircraft flew 935 sorties from
December 26 to December 30, 1971, encountering determined opposition from
missiles and antiaircraft fire. United States losses totaled one Air Force fighter-
bomber and two naval aircraft, as the strikes succeeded in cratering runways,
did impressive damage at truck parks, but had a lesser effect against buried fuel
storage tanks. Only one of the crewmen in the downed airplanes was rescued;
the others remained missing in action.49
The fighting during 1971 failed to wrest the initiative from the North Viet-
namese, whose stoutly defended supply lines enabled them to control the tempo
of the war throughout Southeast Asia. Indeed, the unsuccessful Operation Lam
Son 719 in southern Laos, the weather-troubled Proud Deep Alpha bombing of
North Vietnam, and the inconclusive fighting in Cambodia reflected a growing
concern that the enemy would launch an offensive aimed at inflicting severe
casualties on the U.S. ground forces as their withdrawal neared completion, thus
demoralizing the people of the United States and obtaining a free hand to over-
run South Vietnam.
At best, the battles of 1971 bought time, temporarily easing the pressure on
the Americans still in South Vietnam, but the United States faced the formidable
task of using the respite to prepare the South Vietnamese to repel an impending
invasion. North Vietnam’s abiding strength might well raise questions about the
success of Vietnamization and the wisdom of headlong withdrawal, but once
begun, the two closely related programs developed overpowering momentum.
Despite the threat of attack, President Nixon realized that domestic political and
economic considerations prevented him from reversing the policy of withdrawal
or risking increased casualties by making more intensive use of the American
combat troops who had not yet departed. Vietnamization held the key. While
the danger of invasion loomed ahead, the armed forces of South Vietnam had
to train recruits and absorb additional equipment as the Americans pulled out.
Throughout this process, which dominated the events of 1971, air power con-
tinued to protect Vietnamization and withdrawal, even though it had progres-
sively fewer resources for this vital mission.
292
Chapter Seventeen
Further Vietnamization
and Accelerated Withdrawal
The defeat of Operation Lam Son 719 and, to a lesser extent, the inconclu-
sive fighting in eastern Cambodia aroused concern about the ability of the Viet-
namized armed forces to wage war as equipped, especially to interdict the pas-
sage of men and cargo down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. To address the problem of
interdiction, agencies and individuals within the Department of Defense had for
some time been trying to come up with an “Asianizable” means of disrupting
infiltration through southern Laos, and later through Cambodia as well, some-
thing cheaper and less technologically ambitious than the computerized network
of electronic sensors the Air Force operated from Nakhon Phanom Air Base in
Thailand. Until the spring of 1971, the usual response to the problem of Viet-
namizing interdiction had been to propose some form of ground action that
would either disrupt the passage of men and supplies — the basic purpose of
Lam Son 719 — or establish a permanent salient, perhaps by an international
force.1 In the aftermath of Lam Son 719 came the realization that South Viet-
nam could not mount the necessary ground campaign without extensive U.S.
participation, which would become increasingly unlikely as Vietnamization pro-
ceeded and the United States withdrew its forces.
Moreover, the South Vietnamese Air Force did not have and would never
receive the equipment or training to take over the succession of aerial inter-
diction campaigns, the Commando Hunt operations, that the Americans had
been conducting against the Ho Chi Minh Trail since 1968. Regardless of the
capacity of South Vietnam’s air arm to conduct interdiction, disrupting the infil-
tration of men and material remained essential to national survival. Maj. Gen.
Ernest C. Hardin, Jr., Vice Commander of the Seventh Air Force, conceded that
if South Vietnam could not attack the infiltration route by land or air, the United
States would have to do so by air, since Congress had prohibited the use of U.S.
ground forces in Laos. Indeed, if the United States did not hammer the trail, it
would have to intensify the air war in South Vietnam as enemy pressure intensi-
fied and the process of Vietnamization and withdrawal continued. “It is hard to
resist blabbing the truth,” he observed, “which is, if the North Vietnamese con-
293
tinue to use Laos to resupply their forces in the South, we’d better keep substan-
tial U.S. air nearby.”2
Leonard Sullivan, the Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineer-
ing for Southeast Asia Matters, calculated that South Vietnam’s air arm, in the
state that existed when Lam Son 719 began, would be roughly one-tenth as ef-
fective as the Americans in attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He thereupon pro-
posed supplying weapons that would make up the difference — not electronic
sensors reporting to a computer-equipped control center, B–52s or F–4s, nor
AC–130 gunships with their infrared scanners and other devices for penetrating
the darkness — but simple devices, with only one not in the existing inventory
of weapons. Sullivan proposed tapping current Air Force stocks to give the
South Vietnam the CBU–55, a so-called fuel-air bomb that released a cloud of
vapor, similar to propane gas, that seeped into low places like foxholes or
underground bunkers before detonating. He believed that a single-engine A–1,
which South Vietnamese airmen already flew, could generate explosive power
comparable to that carried on an eight-engine B–52 by dropping several of these
bombs. The only new weapon he proposed took the form of a standard light air-
craft, inexpensive and easily maintained, fitted with a side-firing multibarrel
cannon to serve as a “minigunship.” Sullivan envisioned a fleet of minigunships
swarming over the segments of the Ho Chi Minh Trail nearest South Vietnam.3
Because Lam Son 719 failed to cause lasting damage to the transportation
network in southern Laos, Sullivan’s ideas seemed singularly attractive. Dr.
Kissinger, President Nixon’s adviser on national security matters, approved the
development of “aerial interdiction options” as part of the overall scheme of
Vietnamization.4 Secretary of Defense Laird therefore launched a review of the
subject of Vietnamizing interdiction, directing Secretary of the Air Force Robert
C. Seamans, Jr., to investigate the feasibility of arming the South Vietnamese
with CBU–55s for their A–1 aircraft and providing them with several squadrons
of minigunships that could operate in conjunction with a simple array of
electronic sensors.5
The defense establishment could not address the topic of interdiction with-
out involving the American commanders responsible for operations in Southeast
Asia. Although the U.S. Navy had begun entrusting the South Vietnamese with
responsibility for intercepting the movement of supplies and reinforcements in
coastal waters or rivers, the Air Force had thus far excluded them from sharing
in aerial interdiction. General Abrams had Vietnamized the clandestine patrols
that probed southern Laos and eastern Cambodia in search of enemy supply
caches, but his headquarters had not incorporated all the various interdiction ef-
forts into a single campaign. Separate air, land, and naval interdiction plans —
two of them undergoing Vietnamization while air operations did not — persisted
into the summer of 1971. At that point, reacting to Laird’s interest in the sub-
ject, both Admiral McCain and General Abrams addressed the topic of Viet-
namizing interdiction.
294
Further Vietnamization and Accelerated Withdrawal
A conference at Admiral McCain’s headquarters drew up an operations

plan, issued on August 5, to integrate U.S. and South Vietnamese interdiction
in eastern Cambodia, in southern Laos, and along the waterways and coastline
of South Vietnam. The plan, named Island Tree, called for South Vietnamese
airmen to participate in the interdiction campaign, beginning on a limited scale
with Commando Hunt VII in the fall of 1971. As the U.S. Air Force continued
to withdraw, the air force of South Vietnam would assume increasing responsi-
bility for planning and conducting aerial reconnaissance and air strikes over the
Ho Chi Minh Trail. Island Tree served as the basis for a combined interdiction
plan prepared by the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, reviewed informally by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense, and designed to encourage
the South Vietnamese to shoulder more of the burden.6
During August 1971, General Abrams set about taking concrete measures
to attain the objective of Admiral McCain’s Island Tree plan. He established a
Combined Interdiction Coordinating Committee that met at least monthly, while
South Vietnamese and U.S. planners incorporated an interdiction annex into the
annual revision of the Combined Campaign Plan, adopted on the last day of
October. The campaign plan envisioned coordinated air, ground, and sea attacks
on North Vietnamese lines of supply and reinforcement and would coincide
with the destruction of the enemy’s depots in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cam-
bodia. Ambitious though it was in scope, the version completed in 1971 did not
address the need for major land offensives in South Vietnam and Cambodia to
inflict casualties and force the consumption of supplies, thus multiplying the
effect of interdiction.7
Meanwhile, the Seventh Air Force drafted Operations Plan 732, “designed
to enable the VNAF [South Vietnamese Air Force] to plan and conduct limited
interdiction missions during the current Laotian dry season [October 1971 to
May 1972].” The aerial activity would begin in South Vietnam, where the Ho
Chi Minh Trail debouched into the country, and move across the border to the
least defended parts of the enemy’s logistics complex. Various limitations, how-
ever, would hamper the operation, among them the reliance of the South Viet-
namese on U.S. photo reconnaissance, electronic surveillance, and signal intel-
ligence.8
The Combined Interdiction Coordinating Committee, during its October
1971 meeting, heard a disturbing message. Leonard Sullivan, who had argued
throughout the year for the Vietnamization of aerial interdiction, confessed that
the Department of Defense had not yet decided how to attain this goal. To Viet-
namize the existing network of sensors and relay aircraft, the command center
to which they reported, and the high performance aircraft needed to deal with
the improving defenses of the trail seemed out of the question. Commando Hunt
alone cost the United States some $2 billion annually, far more than South
Vietnam could afford. As a substitute for high technology, he suggested ground
patrols, essentially expanded versions of those that General Abrams had Viet-
295
Air Force aircraft destroyed these trucks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
namized, and the minigunships currently under development. Since the mini-
gunships lacked the firepower, the endurance, and the extensive sensor arrays
necessary to pinpoint and attack truck convoys and supply dumps, the South
Vietnamese would need a different target. Infiltrating troops afforded the only
alternative, for, as Sullivan pointed out, “the only thing the North Vietnamese
are paying for themselves are their people.”9 Unlike the destruction of trucks
and supplies provided by other nations, the death of their sons could drive home
to the North Vietnamese populace and leadership the true cost of continuing the
war in South Vietnam.
Worse news soon followed, for even Sullivan’s simplified program of inter-
diction seemed increasingly unlikely. Tests in the United States revealed the in-
ability of the minigunship to attack as formidable a target as the Ho Chi Minh
Trail. The two aircraft chosen for the project, the Fairchild Turboporter and
Helio Stallion, performed marginally at best with a heavy, side-firing, multi-
barrel cannon installed in the cabin behind the pilot. Thus burdened, the mini-
gunships, already cursed with the comparatively feeble destructiveness of the
20-mm shell, lacked the endurance to search out targets.
Instead of minigunships, the South Vietnamese received a few AC–119Ks.
The Air Force Advisory Group removed the radar used to track road traffic in-
stead of training the South Vietnamese to operate and maintain it. The advisers
insisted, however, on retaining the infrared sensor, which could detect heat
sources ranging from campfires to operating internal combustion engines, even
though they did not teach the required maintenance. Instead, a U.S. firm re-
ceived a contract to keep the infrared equipment in working condition. Although
an improvement over South Vietnam’s AC–47 and AC–119G gunships because
296
of its auxiliary jet engines, the AC–119K had already proved vulnerable to the
rapidly improving antiaircraft defenses along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.10
Sullivan’s other scheme, besides the minigunship — using the A–1 to carry
CBU–55s in order to deliver an explosive punch comparable to that of the
B–52 — also failed. Due in part to confusion over the usefulness of the weapon,
South Vietnam received very few CBU–55s. Sullivan had championed Viet-
namizing interdiction to kill or maim infiltrating troops and make North
Vietnam suffer, but proponents of the program within the Air Force tended to
think in terms of destroying trucks and the cargo they carried, as the series of
Commando Hunt operations had done. Although deadly as an antipersonnel
weapon, especially against shelters in bivouac areas, the CBU–55 rarely de-
stroyed trucks. As a result, the Department of Defense curtailed production and
assigned a low priority to supplying the bombs to the South Vietnamese for use
against the trail.11
Even though the minigunship failed to pass its tests and production of the
CBU–55 came to an end, a few South Vietnamese airmen did participate in
Commando Hunt VII, which proved to be the last of the seasonal interdiction
campaigns. During December 1971, A–1s and A–37s from Da Nang, Pleiku,
and Nha Trang carried out forty-nine sorties against enemy supply routes in
western South Vietnam and thirty-four against segments of the Ho Chi Minh
Trail just across the Laotian border.12 The attacks came to an abrupt halt,
however, because the government of South Vietnam had failed to ask permis-
sion from Souvanna Phouma for the aerial forays across the border. The Prime
Minister of Laos had objected to Lam Son 719, largely to preserve his nation’s
facade of neutrality and avoid seeming too cooperative with Hanoi’s enemies.
Since the interdiction strikes appeared insignificant in comparison to the recent
attack toward Tchepone and remained largely undetectable amid the American
Commando Hunt attacks, Seventh Air Force planners had included the South
Vietnamese, assuming that North Vietnamese retaliation against the Laotian
government was a remote possibility at most. Souvanna apparently shared this
viewpoint. After a delay of three weeks to assuage Laotian honor, bruised be-
cause no one had sought his permission to Vietnamize the attacks in Laos, and
also make sure that North Vietnam did not react, Souvanna agreed to the re-
sumption of the South Vietnamese air attacks, provided only that they did not
become public knowledge.13
The failure to begin in 1971 to give South Vietnam an effective means of
aerial interdiction reflected an abiding belief within the Air Force that American
aircraft, the B–52s in particular, would continue bombing the Ho Chi Minh
Trail until mid-1974 and possibly beyond. Secretary Laird thought he knew bet-
ter, however. Congress, he had concluded, was responding to public opinion and
moving toward legislating a deadline for the termination of all American com-
bat activity in Southeast Asia. Assuming that the military situation remained
stable, he predicted that Congress would end the war late in 1972. Clearly, the
297
failure to provide South Vietnam with a satisfactory replacement for the B–52
as a weapon of both interdiction and battlefield support constituted a glaring
weakness in Vietnamization. The Department of Defense actively considered
only the A–1 armed with the CBU–55, and discussions of the overwhelming
importance of the B–52 tended to trail off amid suggestions that Air Force ad-
visers encourage the South Vietnamese to make better use of those aircraft they
were scheduled to receive.14
In the absence of vigorous action on the related topics of furnishing a subs-
titute for the B–52 and providing an effective means of interdicting traffic on
the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the Vietnamized air arm remained capable throughout
1971 of supporting small-scale ground operations of the kind the South Viet-
namese army might undertake after a truce had removed the major communist
units from the South and reduced the war to the status of an insurgency. The
immediate objectives that American advisers established for South Vietnam’s
air force included increased manpower, a greater concentration of forces in the
vulnerable provinces north of Saigon, and stronger South Vietnamese leadership
as the air service expanded. During its springtime review of Vietnamization, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed with General Abrams that the expansion of the
South Vietnamese army and air arm should accelerate to achieve in mid-1972
the manpower levels projected for the middle of 1973. The South Vietnamese
air force would therefore absorb an additional 2,286 officers and enlisted
persons by July 1, 1972, reaching an authorized strength of 46,998.15
This acceleration compounded a “dilution of experience” problem already
affecting South Vietnam’s air arm, especially in maintenance and management,
that resulted from the rapid expansion of the previous few years. According to
the Air Force advisory group, another two years would pass before South Viet-
namese airmen could acquire the needed experience in these fields.16 Similarly,
some Air Force advisers with operational units considered Vietnamization to be
about two years short of accomplishing its current objective of self-sufficiency
for routine post-truce operations other than interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh
Trail. Unless prodded by the Air Force officers, South Vietnamese commanders
still tended to ignore maintenance schedules, to fly only when it was conven-
ient, and to avoid pressing home attacks against heavily defended targets.
Adding more personnel, though comparatively easy, could accomplish nothing
without increased competence and the creation of a fighting spirit.17
The tendency of some South Vietnamese to disregard their assigned mis-
sions angered the Air Force advisers, who on occasion took over the comman-
der’s responsibilities and imposed strict standards of competence and aggres-
siveness. Over-supervision presented a danger, however. As one Air Force offi-
cer observed, “the big-hearted, do-good American is doing the same disservice
to these people that we do to our own children when, instead of showing them
how, we fix the bicycle for them.”18 The issue, unfortunately, was far more im-
portant than repairing a bicycle, and the South Vietnamese were not children.
298
No wonder that trained Air Force pilots or technicians, when overseeing criti-
cally important activities, found it difficult to stand aside and let those who were
still learning make their own mistakes. Yet, until the Americans learned to do
just that, the South Vietnamese could let the advisers and instructors do the
actual work, avoiding responsibility and learning very little.19
Equipment for the growing South Vietnamese Air Force continued to arrive
throughout 1971. The first squadron of C–123s, organized in April, received its
aircraft in May. The delay reflected the extensive maintenance the transports
required after heavy usage flying men and cargo to staging areas for Dewey
Canyon II and Lam Son 719. A second squadron commenced operation in July,
and the third, scheduled for December, took shape in January 1972. The last of
two dozen AC–119Gs joined the South Vietnamese air arm in September 1971,
and in December, Gen. John D. Ryan, the Air Force Chief of Staff, authorized
the transfer of modified AC–119Ks to replace a squadron of AC–47s. At year’s
end, the South Vietnamese had 1,041 aircraft on hand, 762 of them (roughly 70
percent) ready for combat. Organized into forty-one squadrons, the air arm
included three squadrons of A–1s, five of A–37s, one of F–5s, one of AC–47s
(which the AC–119Ks would eventually replace), one of AC–119Gs, sixteen of
helicopters (mostly UH–1s), and seven squadrons of liaison craft for forward
air controllers. It also had one reconnaissance squadron with a mix of U–6s,
RF–5s, and variants of the C–47. The transports units totaled one squadron of
C–47s, one of C–119s, and two (soon to be three) of C–123s. A special air
mission squadron that carried high-ranking passengers and a school squadron
to conduct training rounded out the force.20
The tactical air control system underwent Vietnamization in 1971, but the
original American mechanism continued to function alongside the one operated
by the South Vietnamese. In June, the South Vietnamese assumed complete
responsibility for assigning targets to their aircraft, selecting ordnance, and
scheduling strikes. The U.S. presence at the Vietnamized command and control
center now consisted of a two-man liaison party and a few instructors who
trained the persons assigned there. The South Vietnamese command and control
function did not issue orders to components of the Seventh Air Force, which
continued to maintain a separate tactical air control center for its own aircraft.
By August, the South Vietnamese Air Force had also taken over the four direct
air support centers, one in each corps (or military region), but the parallel struc-
ture prevailed there also, for the Seventh Air Force supplied detachments to
handle strikes by its aircraft.21
As retention by the Seventh Air Force of control over its aircraft indicated,
the South Vietnamese had trouble mastering the tactical air control system, but
the difficulties went beyond the mechanics of operating the various centers.
Ground commanders, for example, frequently ignored the lower ranking air liai-
son officers assigned to help them make effective use of the aerial weapon. For-
ward air controllers, who directed the actual strikes, seldom remained with a
299
Gunships used in Southeast Asia included the AC–47 (top), the AC–119
(above), and the AC–130 (below). The armament and sensors carried by these
aircraft progressively improved, with the last AC–130 carrying 20-mm and 40-
mm guns and a 105-mm howitzer. The South Vietnamese received models of
the AC–47 and the AC–119, but not the AC–130.
300
particular ground unit long enough to learn its special requirements, the charac-
teristics of the operating area, or the patterns of enemy behavior. Moreover,
forward air controllers received, at most, a smattering of night training, and
some of them avoided daylight missions over heavily defended areas, on occa-
sion falsifying reports or logs to conceal their dereliction of duty.22
By the end of 1971, Vietnamization of the air war formed a mosaic of pro-
gress and disappointment. One flaw stemmed from the computerized supply
system installed by the Air Force advisory group. The South Vietnamese logis-
tics command, reluctant to accept computerization, could not make the new
method work as well as the manual one it was supposed to replace and persisted
in using the old style of inventory control.23
In addition, differences in emphasis between the South Vietnamese army
and air force interfered with aerial reconnaissance. Although competent in the
techniques of aerial photography and photo interpretation, the air force had to
fly most of its reconnaissance sorties to generate the intelligence that senior
army officers demanded to support operations by the ground forces. Until air-
men had a stronger influence within the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff,
they would be unable to divert enough reconnaissance craft away from missions
for the army to locate targets exclusively for air operations.24
Aside from aerial interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and possibly the
overall effectiveness of forward air controllers, the worst weakness of the Viet-
namized air arm lay in operating the air bases it had taken over from the United
States. Although the Air Force turned over to its South Vietnamese counterpart
some $28 million in communications gear needed to operate the airfields —
everything from completely equipped control towers to teletype machines — not
enough people had received the necessary instruction to maintain and use it. To
plug this gap, the Air Force turned once again to civilian contractors. American
firms like Philco Ford set up training programs to graduate 1,300 electronics
specialists by the end of 1972.25
Vietnamization, whatever its flaws, permitted the continuing withdrawal of
U.S. forces from Southeast Asia. When 1971 began, the Department of Defense
was withdrawing the sixth increment since President Nixon announced the pro-
gram of reductions in June 1969. The 60,000 manpower spaces of this latest in-
crement included 373 officers and enlisted men of the Air Force, all of them
members of service rather than combat units. The sixth in the series of reduc-
tions fulfilled the President’s pledge to withdraw another 150,000 servicemen
by the end of April 1971 and stabilized the authorized strength at 284,000, down
from the peak authorization of 549,500.26
Even before the last elements of the sixth increment had withdrawn, pres-
sure mounted for further reductions. The Nixon administration had undertaken
the series of withdrawals on a “cut and try basis,” and thus far the tailoring
seemed to have worked, for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had not taken
advantage of the declining American strength. Air power and spoiling attacks
301
in Cambodia and southern Laos apparently held them at bay. Nixon, however,
could not translate success in pulling out of Southeast Asia into political support
in the United States. Economic problems —simmering inflation, increasing job-
lessness, and a growing threat of recession — made cutting the federal budget
seem attractive, even essential, and promised to accelerate the pace of with-
drawal.
When 1971 began, the Office of Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, and the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, were working on
troop reductions beyond the sixth increment. Unless North Vietnam suddenly
and dramatically intensified the war, the related processes of Vietnamization
and withdrawal would continue. The only real questions dealt with pace and
timing, as the United States tried to avoid demoralizing the South Vietnamese
or encouraging the enemy to bolder action.
Secretary of Defense Laird, a knowledgeable politician, called attention to
the relationship of troop withdrawals to the federal budget, the health of the
nation’s economy, and the popularity of the President among voters. In Febru-
ary 1971, he approved a tentative objective of reducing authorized U.S. man-
power in South Vietnam to 153,000 by mid 1972. Achieving this goal required
a decrease of 131,000 between April 30, 1971, and June 30, 1972.
So drastic a reduction aroused concern within the Joint Chiefs, who as-
sessed the withdrawals in purely military terms, excluding considerations of
economics and domestic politics. With the exception of General Westmoreland,
the Army Chief of Staff, the Joint Chiefs called for a manpower authorization
of 255,000 by July 1971, a reduction of just 29,000 since April, declining to
200,000 a year later, for an aggregate withdrawal of 84,000, a schedule that both
Admiral McCain and General Abrams endorsed. Westmoreland based his reser-
vations on the likelihood that economic woes would result in cuts in defense
spending that would force the Army to slash its strength in Europe to sustain the
force levels in South Vietnam that the other chiefs favored. He believed that
Europe contributed more than Southeast Asia to the country’s security.
Regardless of the views of a majority of the Chiefs, Laird’s objective of 153,000
by mid-1972 served as the basis for further planning.
The Secretary of Defense insisted, moreover, that planners look beyond the
coming year and think about two possible developments: a peace settlement that
reduced the violence in South Vietnam from war to insurgency or a decision by
Congress to order the unilateral withdrawal of the remaining combat troops.
Given the economic and political conditions in the United States, he considered
a negotiated truce less likely than some form of congressional interference that,
at the least, would accelerate the pace of Vietnamization and withdrawal. After
all, Congress had already repealed the Tonkin Gulf resolution and prohibited the
use of American ground forces in Laos or their introduction into Thailand. Con-
sequently, during January 1971, Laird directed General Abrams to begin a plan-
ning cycle based on the assumption that American strength in South Vietnam
302
would decline to 60,000 by the end of September 1972. Abrams complied by

shaping a tentative proposal, formally presented to the Secretary of Defense in
mid-March, that reduced manpower to 255,000 by June 30, 1971 — the mile-
stone that he, McCain, and all the Joint Chiefs but Westmoreland had previ-
ously endorsed — after which the total would decline to 233,000 by October,
95,000 in June 1972 — 58,000 fewer than Laird’s earlier planning objective —
and finally to 60,000 on September 30.
The Joint Chiefs, except for Westmoreland, favored the plan that would cut
the force level no lower than 255,000 at the end of June 1971 and to 200,000 a
year later. The sharper decline suggested by Abrams — 233,000 on September
30, 1971, 95,000 on June 30, 1972, to a plateau of 60,000 — represented a
reaction to a possible congressional directive to speed the withdrawal, if not to
liquidate the war. The possibility also existed that a negotiated settlement could
reduce the U.S. presence to an advisory contingent of perhaps 43,000 once the
cease-fire went into effect. Taking into account all these alternatives, along with
Laird’s earlier planning objective of 153,000 on June 30, 1972, the Joint Chiefs
on March 26, 1971, warned against cutting too deeply or planning too far ahead.
American strength should not decline below 199,000 on December 31, 1971,
nor should the Nixon administration venture too far into the unknown and com-
mit itself to troop withdrawals beyond that date. In effect, the Chiefs, West-
moreland included, advocated a reduction of 85,000 during the remaining eight
months of 1971, a significant retreat from the former position that the elimina-
tion of 85,000 authorized spaces would require fourteen months.
Instead of acting upon this recommendation, Laird on March 29, 1971,
presented the Joint Chiefs of Staff with two alternatives of his own: a reduction
of 100,000 during the balance of the year or the withdrawal of 150,000 by the
end of June 1972. The resulting force levels would be either 184,000 on Decem-
ber 31, 15,000 below the level in the latest proposal by the Joint Chiefs, or
134,000 on June 30, some 19,000 fewer troops than in Laird’s earlier planning
guidance. After their review of the proposals, Abrams, McCain, and the Joint
Chiefs objected, pointing out that to reduce American strength by 100,000
during the balance of 1971 represented a deeper cut than Abrams had envi-
sioned for the same period when he addressed the possibility of congressional
acceleration of Vietnamization and withdrawal.27
The final decision on the timing of troop withdrawals and the numbers in-
volved rested with President Nixon, like Laird, a person attuned to domestic
politics. On April 7, some two weeks after the televised interview that claimed
victory for the South Vietnamese in Operation Lam Son 719, the President, by
announcing further reductions in American manpower, sought to neutralize
press reports and television footage indicating that the operation had ended in
a chaotic retreat. After declaring that “Vietnamization has succeeded,” he stated
that between May 1 and December 1, 1971, 100,000 more U.S. troops would be
brought home. The total reduction since the withdrawals began in 1969 thus ex-
303
ceeded 350,000.28 For purposes of planning, the Office of Secretary of Defense

established as milestones a manpower level of 255,000 by July 1; 205,000 by
November 1; and 184,000 on December 1.29
The withdrawals that actually took place during the balance of 1971 con-
sisted of three increments. The first, between May 1 and June 30, eliminated
29,300 manpower spaces, reducing the authorized strength to 254,700. The
second lowered the American strength by 28,700 to 226,000 on August 31. The
third, completed on November 30, reached the objective of 184,000, a cut of
42,000.30
The first increment of the 1971 program, the seventh withdrawn since July
1969, had little impact on the Seventh Air Force, but eliminated Marine Corps
aviation from South Vietnam. The Air Force gave up just 985 spaces, most of
them occupied by officers and airmen already scheduled to leave the country in
the near future or actually in the process of normal rotation. The Marine Corps,
however, closed out two attack squadrons by June 30, removing the last ele-
ments of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, so that the single manager for tactical
aviation in South Vietnam no longer had any Marine Corps aviators over whom
to exercise even nominal control. Nevertheless, the concept of centralized con-
trol under an Air Force officer would surface in the future and continue to in-
spire lively debate.
The eighth withdrawal, between June 30 and August 31, cut more deeply
into Air Force strength. Besides headquarters elements and support units, it
eliminated a tactical reconnaissance squadron, two tactical airlift squadrons,
four tactical fighter squadrons, and one special operations squadron, for a total
of 5,700 officers and airmen.31 Admiral McCain hoped to use air bases in Thai-
land to diminish the effect on air power in Southeast Asia caused by this and the
impending ninth increments. He intended to shift the 480th Tactical Fighter
Squadron from South Vietnam to Thailand and to retain in Thailand a squadron
of B–57Gs that had been attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but stood ready to
cease operation and return to the United States. McCain also proposed that cer-
tain other aircraft already in Thailand — AC–130 gunships, electronic warfare
and radar suppression types, and those engaged in gathering electronic intel-
ligence — intensify their activity, requiring additional crews and support spec-
ialists. Unfortunately, the manpower ceiling the Thai government had approved
for Thailand threatened McCain’s plans to take advantage of Thai airfields.
The Air Force Chief of Staff, General Ryan, pointed out that the limitations
on the manpower assigned to Thailand prevented reinforcement or transfers
from South Vietnam into the country. Unless the Secretary of Defense could
arrange to ease the restrictions, the Air Force would have to return the 480th
Tactical Fighter Squadron to the United States instead of shifting it to Thailand,
recall the B–57Gs from Thailand early in 1972, and cut back rather than in-
crease the operations of the Thailand-based electronic reconnaissance craft. As
the eighth increment left South Vietnam, the future of the 480th Tactical Fighter
304
Squadron remained unresolved, with Air Force headquarters postponing a deci-

sion on its redeployment until Defense Secretary Laird had dealt with the ques-
tion of force levels in Thailand. After Laird decided not to reopen negotiations
with Thai authorities, the 480th Tactical Fighter Squadron joined the ninth in-
crement, withdrawn between September 1 and November 30. This final element
in the 100,000-man reduction that Nixon had announced on April 7 included
5,600 Air Force manpower spaces, two tactical fighter squadrons besides the
480th, two tactical airlift squadrons, a tactical electronic warfare squadron, and
a special operations squadron.32
Between January 1 and November 30, 1971, U.S. armed forces reduced by
160,000 their aggregate manpower authorization for South Vietnam. Because
of fluctuations in scheduling the arrival of replacements in the normal course
of rotation, actual strength and authorized strength did not coincide. In April
1971, for instance, some 272,000 Americans occupied the 284,000 approved
manpower spaces, and the number in South Vietnam declined to about 178,000
at the end of November, 6,000 fewer than the authorized 184,000.
In the first eleven months of 1971, the Seventh Air Force in South Vietnam
gave up sixteen operating squadrons: six of fighter-bombers; one each of recon-
naissance and tactical electronic warfare aircraft; four of tactical transports; two
of special operations, with gunships and attack planes; plus two of observation
craft used by forward air controllers. As 1972 began, squadron strength in these
categories stood at three fighter-bomber, four special operations, four tactical
airlift, two tactical reconnaissance, and two tactical air support. The scaled-
down Seventh Air Force in South Vietnam now operated from just four major
bases — Bien Hoa, Cam Ranh Bay, Da Nang, and Tan Son Nhut.33
Scarcely had the President announced the series of reductions completed
during November 1971, when planning started for yet another sequence of with-
drawals to begin in December. Secretary Laird initially established objectives
of 100,000 Americans in South Vietnam by July 1, 1972 — 84,000 fewer that
the authorized strength on November 30, and 43,400 in July 1973, at which time
a cease-fire could be in effect. During the discussions that followed, Laird mod-
ified his proposal, calling for a manpower level of 60,000 in mid-1972. Al-
though General Abrams objected to reducing strength so rapidly, preferring
instead to postpone the goal of 60,000 until September, he nevertheless hewed
to the guidance of the Secretary of Defense and produced a plan, which Admiral
McCain characterized as realistic but risky. The Joint Chiefs of Staff sided with
Abrams in favoring postponement of the 60,000-man level from June to Sep-
tember and warned that the Nixon administration, if it chose the earlier date,
would have to accept the risks involved, such as a loss of leverage with which
to force North Vietnam to end infiltration by way of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and
release the American servicemen it held prisoner.34
Although negotiations continued with the North Vietnamese, by December
1971 it seemed unlikely that the publicized sessions at Paris would result in
305
North Vietnam’s voluntary acceptance of a settlement ensuring the survival of

the South. Secret diplomacy, conducted since 1969 by Dr. Kissinger for the
United States and Xuan Thuy and Le Duc Tho representing the Hanoi govern-
ment, raised hopes from time to time but thus far had produced no concrete
agreement. In short, the North Vietnamese saw no need to make concessions.
Their tactics of negotiating while fighting seemed on the verge of success, for
the United States was Vietnamizing its way out of the war. Indeed, Congress,
as Laird seemed to expect, might yield to public opinion and establish an arbi-
trary deadline for liquidating an increasingly unpopular commitment to fight for
the preservation of South Vietnam.
Two events occurred during 1971 that further eroded popular support of the
American war effort. A military court convicted Army 1st Lt. William F. Calley
for his part in the killing, three years earlier, of 100 or more unarmed civilians
at a village called My Lai; and Daniel Ellsberg, a veteran of the Vietnam War,
defied the law and made public the Pentagon Papers, the name the press be-
stowed on a classified documentary history of American policy-making in the
early years of the conflict.
Although many Americans viewed Calley as a scapegoat and applauded
President Nixon’s decision to reduce his sentence from life imprisonment to ten
years and afterward grant him parole, the killings in which he participated called
into question one of the announced goals of the war — helping the South Viet-
namese defend themselves against a communist enemy they feared and hated.
Clearly, Calley had seen no difference between the South Vietnamese men, wo-
men, and children that he killed or caused to be killed and the armed soldiers of
North Vietnam. The reduced sentence seemed to endorse his evaluation of the
villagers as enemies to be shot rather than friends, real or potential, to be nur-
tured and protected. Although less shocking than the massacre at My Lai, the
Pentagon Papers revealed a dismaying order of priorities among those who had
taken the United States into the war. Avoiding a loss of American prestige
seemed to have been a stronger motive for involvement than any strategic or
moral imperative to save South Vietnam. Now, after six years of large-scale
U.S. involvement, the fate of South Vietnam receded further in importance, as
the Nixon administration shifted the nation’s objective from South Vietnamese
survival to obtaining the release of the U.S. servicemen held prisoner in North
Vietnam.35
Despite the failure of diplomacy, secret or public, to stop the fighting, Pres-
ident Nixon elected to continue the withdrawals into 1972. Given the mood of
Congress and the American people, he could not do otherwise. On November
12, 1971, he announced a reduction of 25,000 manpower spaces in December
and another 20,000 in January 1972. The abrupt decline from 184,000 to an
authorized strength of 139,000 would, he acknowledged, force the remaining
Americans to remain purely on the defensive, the culmination of a trend that
actually began after the fight for Hamburger Hill in May 1969 and accelerated
306
to keep pace with the withdrawals that commenced during July of the same
year. The President’s definition of the defensive, however, included continued
aerial interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and, in the event of provocation,
retaliatory strikes against North Vietnam. Nixon promised to make another
public announcement before the completion of this latest reduction; the size of
this next withdrawal and those to follow would depend upon the actions of the
North Vietnamese.36
Other nations besides the United States were withdrawing their forces from
South Vietnam. In August 1971, Thailand began pulling out its troops; the
forty-five-man aviation element left in November and December, and by the
spring of 1972 the ground forces had gone. In February 1971, New Zealand
recalled its air detachment, other units followed, and by the end of the year
fewer than thirty men remained in the country training the South Vietnamese.
The Australian contingent — which at once time had included transports, light
bombers, and helicopters, as well as ground troops — declined steadily in num-
bers throughout 1971 until only a training team and a headquarters element,
fewer than 200 soldiers, still served in South Vietnam when the year ended. In
December 1971, South Korea withdrew the first of its 10,000 combat troops,
none of them airmen, and within four months, all had departed.37
The pressure that a faltering economy exerted on the defense budget and the
withdrawals that diminished the number of combat aircraft available for opera-
tions in Southeast Asia threatened to reduce the number of sorties authorized for
South Vietnam during the fiscal year ending on June 30, 1972. The Air Force
and Navy could no longer sustain the 16,000 sorties per month — 14,000 by tac-
tical aircraft, 1,000 by gunships, and 1,000 by B–52s — flown during fiscal
1971. Midway through fiscal 1971, in January, the Air Force had 399 tactical
aircraft — fighter-bombers like the F–4 or attack aircraft like the A–7 — in
South Vietnam and Thailand, the Marine Corps had 51 in South Vietnam, and
the Navy had 103 on carriers off the coast. When fiscal 1971 ended in June
1971, the Air Force could muster just 313 tactical aircraft and the 1st Marine
Aircraft Wing had departed. Although the Navy had three more aircraft avail-
able in June 1971 than in January, the net deficit amounted to 134.
Thanks to Vietnamization, the South Vietnamese Air Force had increased
during fiscal 1971 from 586 to 1,069 aircraft of all types, but the principal
additions had been 231 helicopters, 163 observation craft, and 48 C–123 trans-
ports. Excluding two dozen recently acquired AC–119G gunships, the number
of attack aircraft actually available declined from 190 to 177, apparently the
result of both attrition and scheduled maintenance. Without F–4s, B–52s, or
AC–130 gunships, South Vietnam could not wage the kind of air war that the
United States had been fighting.38
The Air Force continued into fiscal 1972 to provide a shield for Viet-
namization and withdrawal despite the dwindling number of tactical aircraft.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that protecting continued Vietnamization and
307
A South Vietnamese gunner trains in a UH–1 helicopter.

further withdrawals would require a minimum of 10,000 sorties per month by
tactical aircraft until July 1, 1972, along with 1,000 sorties by B–52s and 700
by gunships. The Chairman, Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, recommended as much
to Secretary Laird on January 21, 1971. Laird doubted, however, that Congress
would appropriate the money necessary to carry out the program that the Joint
Chiefs favored. Consequently, the administration’s tentative planning guidance
for fiscal 1972, issued by Deputy Secretary Packard in February 1971, agreed
to 1,000 B–52 and 700 gunship sorties, but proposed averaging the scale of tac-
tical air activity during the fiscal year, so that in June 1972, when bad weather
normally prevailed and the enemy tended to remain inactive, the monthly total
might decline to a mere 6,800 sorties.
Establishing an average number of sorties for the year rather than adhering
to a rigid maximum for each month would permit more than 10,000 sorties, so
long as the monthly average did not exceed 10,000. In brief, Secretary Laird
proposed that the Seventh Air Force, insofar as enemy activity permitted, make
every effort to hold down sorties, especially in the rainy season when the North
Vietnamese tended to be quiescent, so that additional strikes would be available
in good weather when the enemy became active and air power could achieve
deadlier results. Invoking the shibboleth of doing more with less, he argued that
sortie averaging, plus the consolidation of aircraft at fewer bases and the more
intensive use of resources, might well increase the effectiveness of air power
throughout Southeast Asia.
308
Initially, the concept of banking sorties in slack periods for use in

emergencies appealed to the Joint Chiefs, but further consideration resulted in
its rejection on the grounds that squadrons already husbanded their sorties care-
fully and could not safely make reductions below 10,000 sorties to create an
account against which to draw in the future. As a result, the Joint Chiefs con-
tinued to call for 10,000 tactical sorties per month during fiscal 1972, with the
authorization declining to 8,000 as Vietnamization progressed.
Air Force headquarters found itself trapped between the demand for more
sorties, based on military reality as perceived by the Joint Chiefs, and the de-
clining number of squadrons available, as budgetary considerations and weak-
ening support for the war led to further withdrawals from South Vietnam. Ad-
miral McCain’s attempt to retain the B–57Gs and shift a South Vietnam-based
fighter squadron to Thailand failed, as did a recommendation by Secretary of
the Air Force Seamans that the administration seek funds for additional air
crews and mechanics to get more sorties from the tactical aircraft that remained
in South Vietnam. The Air Force did succeed in transferring a half-dozen gun-
ships from Phan Rang, an air base the South Vietnamese were taking over, to
Nakhon Phanom in Thailand, thus reducing the flying time to the segments of
the Ho Chi Minh Trail that these aircraft patrolled. Moreover, the increased use
of laser-guided bombs to attack truck traffic on the trail promised more first-
round hits, possibly reducing munitions costs despite the investment in laser
guidance.
On April 28, 1971, Dr. Kissinger called for a study of various aspects of the
sortie rates established by the President. The wording of Kissinger’s directive
made it appear that the President, speaking through his national security adviser,
had decided in favor of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and against his Secretary of
Defense. Laird insisted, however, that the numbers did not represent a Presiden-
tial decision but only a means of generating further discussion. The ensuing de-
bate, he maintained, would produce information on costs and manpower re-
quirements that would provide the basis for Nixon’s decision on the sortie rate,
and the Chiefs took him at his word.
Ignoring Laird’s earlier warning that Congress would not vote funds for so
ambitious an air campaign, the Joint Chiefs on June 28, 1971, two days before
the end of the fiscal year, resubmitted the recommendation for 10,000 tactical
sorties each month during fiscal 1972 and 8,000 per month throughout fiscal
1973. The services, if Congress should refuse to vote the money, proposed to
share in making up the deficit by dipping into their appropriations and repro-
gramming the necessary amounts. In addition to the recommended course of ac-
tion — 10,000 tactical sorties per month in fiscal 1972 and 8,000 the following
year — the Joint Chiefs offered six alternatives, each of which asked the admin-
istration to weigh, assuming slightly different circumstances, the danger it
would encounter in South Vietnam, as sortie rates declined, against the risks
faced elsewhere if it diverted manpower and money into Southeast Asia.
309
The tactic of forcing the administration to choose between Southeast Asia

and other potential battlegrounds worked as the Joint Chiefs intended. President
Nixon could neither curtail the withdrawal of ground forces from South Viet-
nam nor risk the collapse of the Vietnamized armed forces and had to agree to
the sortie levels that the Joint Chiefs considered essential, though he did so
grudgingly. On July 1, the first day of fiscal 1972, Secretary Laird issued ten-
tative guidance based on one of the six alternatives that, in effect, authorized
10,000 tactical sorties for the immediate future. Not until August 12, 1971,
could he announce that the President had approved 10,000 tactical sorties per
month during the current fiscal year and 8,000 per month in fiscal 1973. To
maintain this level of activity, the services faced some reprogramming of funds,
especially during fiscal 1972, and General Abrams would be “authorized and
encouraged to keep all combat sorties . . . as low as the tactical situation per-
mits.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff also obtained approval for 1,000 B–52 sorties
per month and 750 by gunships. The second figure was fifty more than the Joint
Chiefs would have accepted, possibly reflecting growing concern about South
Vietnamese inability to participate in the interdiction of traffic on the Ho Chi
Minh Trail.
Although the monthly authorization of tactical sorties declined from 10,000
in fiscal 1972 to 8,000 during the following year, the Navy’s share would re-
main at 3,000 throughout the period. To fly 30 percent of the tactical sorties
during the current fiscal year and 37 percent in fiscal 1973 would require a third
aircraft carrier on station in the Gulf of Tonkin. The proportionate increases in
the contribution by naval aviation coincided with the reduction in Air Force
squadrons in Thailand and the transfer of air bases to the South Vietnamese.39
The Air Force reduced its strength throughout 1971, while committing itself
to fly 7,000 tactical sorties each month through June 1972. To meet this objec-
tive, the Seventh Air Force would have to overcome the effects of rampant drug
abuse and deteriorating race relations and make efficient use of the declining
manpower available for duty. By 1971, drugs and racial strife threatened to un-
dermine discipline and impede the effective use of air power, unless the new
programs designed to combat them achieved success.
310
Chapter Eighteen
Discipline, Drug Abuse,

and Racial Unrest
Despite the sense of purpose and spirit of professionalism that prevailed

earlier in the war, by the end of 1969, two problems — drug abuse and racial
violence — had begun to erode discipline and morale at Air Force bases, not
only in South Vietnam, but throughout the world. The use of marijuana proved
so disruptive by the spring of 1968 that Lt. Gen. Joseph H. Moore, the Inspector
General of the Air Force and a former commander of the Seventh Air Force,
branded it a menace to the Air Force.1 Although obviously concerned about
marijuana use as being “conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline,”
Moore did not yet believe it presented a true emergency; as late as September
of that year, he maintained that education and the normal functioning of the
military justice system could deal with the situation. At this point, when he
could still equate drug abuse with marijuana use, he saw no need for special
programs.2
The Air Force had seemed scarcely affected by a rapidly changing drug
culture that went beyond marijuana use and was becoming a symbol of youthful
alienation in the United States and elsewhere. The service, in the eyes of its
leadership, also appeared to enjoy an immunity from the racial friction that had
brought flurries of violence to many American cities. The comparatively few
“racial incidents” that did erupt on Air Force bases in the mid-1960s gave the
impression of being isolated outbursts, purely local reactions by African-
American enlisted men to real or imagined grievances. Racial tensions mounted
within the ranks, however; the cumulative number of clashes that occurred after
the April 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King,
increased from four by the autumn of that year to a dozen by February 1969.
Nevertheless, the service undertook no special effort to correct a racial problem
that had not yet surfaced at its bases in South Vietnam, despite incidents in
Japan and the Philippines.3
The Air Force, apparently confident of both the success of earlier efforts to
eradicate racial discrimination and the quality of its men and women, tended to
disregard the racial turmoil in the nation’s cities and in the other military
311
services. The murder of Dr. King by a white assassin ignited the resentment that
had been building in American society and rioting erupted in the black ghettoes
of most major cities. Besides embodying the civil rights movement, and recei-
ving a Nobel prize for his work, King had denounced the war in Vietnam, and
his assassination unleashed conflicting emotions: on the part of blacks, pride in
his accomplishments and indignation at the circumstances of his death; on the
part of whites, resentment that the progress he demanded seemed to come at
their expense; and in the armed forces, anger at his opposition to the war. Racial
incidents erupted at bases all over the world, including naval installations like
those at Cua Viet and Cam Ranh Bay in South Vietnam.
Although the leadership of the Air Force might understandably ignore
clashes in the Army, which relied heavily on draftees, the Navy, like the Air
Force, filled its ranks with volunteers, perceived as educated, stable, and more
receptive than draftees to leadership and discipline, even on racial matters. The
Navy’s experience indicated, however, that many of the young volunteers
brought with them into the service the same racial attitudes that were rending
the fabric of civil society.4
The myth of Air Force immunity soon vanished as both drug abuse and
racial tension increased, even in South Vietnam. Smoking marijuana became a
recurring subject of disciplinary action in Southeast Asia during 1969, joined
the following year by the widespread use of heroin. Indeed, by 1971 drug abuse
had replaced venereal disease as the most serious medical problem facing the
Air Force in Southeast Asia.5
Besides being a medical problem, drug abuse spawned related crimes; some
individuals resorted to theft to obtain cash for buying drugs, especially heroin,
and others succumbed to the lure of easy money and engaged in smuggling and
distribution. As the drug crisis escalated, the struggle to eliminate the use and
trafficking of narcotics and other dangerous substances took precedence over
efforts to shore up rapidly disintegrating racial amity within the Air Force. Col.
Earl M. Chu, former Seventh Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel,
explained, “When the drug problem became a major issue, it was necessary to
realign available manpower to this new effort, and the EOT [Equal Opportunity
and Treatment] program was a ‘back burner’ project for several months.”6
Why did drug abuse emerge so suddenly as a medical and disciplinary crisis
in Southeast Asia? Various persons, ranging from senior commanders to young
users of heroin and marijuana, offered interpretations of their own. Some saw
the phenomenon as a particularly dangerous manifestation of a lethargy into
which the Air Force had sunk, a condition that left officers and men numb to the
prodding of duty or discipline and gave rise to racial discord, indifference to
personal appearance, and breaches of traditional military courtesy. Those who
offered this interpretation might point to colonels living in air-conditioned
comfort at Tan Son Nhut and complaining because they had to fetch their own
free coffee at the officers’ club instead of being waited on. Self-centered
312
Discipline, Drug Abuse, and Racial Unrest
officers like these, or so the explanation went, had abdicated their authority,
refusing to enforce discipline and by default creating a climate of permissive-
ness in which drug abuse and other disruptive behavior flourished and morale
declined.7
At Air Force installations in South Vietnam, permissiveness defied defini-
tion. One senior officer, for instance, might allow his juniors to speak freely at
informal “rap sessions,” even questioning service policies. Another, however,
might interpret this kind of free-wheeling discussion of grievances as an ill-
considered attempt to cultivate a “nice-guy” image. Those who objected to such
group conversations claimed that the practice led unfailingly to a surrender of
disciplinary responsibility to committees of officers or even to noncommis-
sioned officers.8
Permissiveness, according to a former judge advocate of the Seventh Air
Force, included a reluctance by some commanders to deal with minor infrac-
tions, either suspending punishment or taking no action at all. This specialist in
military law firmly believed that swift and appropriate punishment tended to
discourage further offenses. Withholding punishment until something serious
occurred might give the impression that the commander did not care what was
going on and might actually encourage airmen to test the limits of his tolerance.
The absence of close supervision and swift punishment suited to the par-
ticular offense may have resulted in part from a policy of consolidating small
units, especially those that supported combat operations, into larger ones that
could make economical use of motor pools, mess halls, and equipment for
keeping records. In these consolidated organizations, the individual airman
seemed a numbered part in an impersonal machine. Moreover, command tended
to become diluted, with many young noncommissioned officers supervising air-
men of similar age and background and — ominously in Southeast Asia — a
similar tolerance toward the use of marijuana and more dangerous drugs. Col.
Archie L. Henson, on the basis of his experience as a judge advocate, suggested
that smaller units, though more expensive to operate, “would in the long run be
far less costly in solving the problems of social and racial unrest.”9
Weak or indifferent leadership within the Air Force, its effect possibly in-
tensified by the size of many non-flying units, may have helped subvert disci-
pline and dissolve cohesion, but some officers cited other contributing causes.
“The single most destructive element . . . ,” said one, “was the fact that public
figures, under the guise of freedom of speech, maligned the efforts of the
[Nixon] administration for an honorable withdrawal from Vietnam, a with-
drawal that would also ensure a reasonable opportunity for the survival of a free
South Vietnam.”10
The impact upon the Air Force of public opposition to the war, whether re-
flected in speeches by public officials or demonstrations by antiwar groups,
proved difficult to gauge. A Concerned Officers Movement emerged at some
Air Force bases in the United States, though not in Southeast Asia, and sought
313
to focus public attention on two points — the need to end the Vietnam War and
what the few adherents described as unnecessary restrictions on the constitu-
tional rights, such as free speech, of men and women in uniform. One member
of this group, while in uniform, attended an antiwar rally and sounded a drum
roll during a reading of the names of Americans killed in Southeast Asia. Three
others joined war protesters in picketing an appearance by Vice President Spiro
T. Agnew.11 On the other hand, opposition to the war sometimes failed to appear
where geography indicated it might. The commander of Travis Air Force Base
at Fairfield, California, reported that his installation remained unaffected by
antiwar sentiment even though the University of California at Berkeley, a short
drive to the southwest, seethed with agitation.12
The attitude of the individual airman, often shaped before he enlisted,
determined how he would respond even to conscientious leaders administering
firm but impartial discipline. When asked why he began using drugs in South
Vietnam, an Air Force sergeant replied that he was a “peacetime soldier,”
unused to undergoing hardship or being separated from his family.13 Everyone
experienced a sense of separation, whether from family or from familiar sur-
roundings, but the actual hardship varied from one base to another. An airman
stationed at Cam Ranh Bay in early 1971 lived at an airfield earmarked for the
South Vietnamese, in quarters rapidly falling apart because of humidity, hard
use, and termites. Squalor of this sort, however, did not necessarily result in
drug abuse, then judged no worse at Cam Ranh Bay than in the better main-
tained dormitories at Tan Son Nhut.14
Alert leadership could to some extent ease the physical hardship at a base,
if not the feeling of separation. For example, turning over parts of Bien Hoa Air
Base to the South Vietnamese deprived Americans of facilities built for their
use earlier in the war. Col. Robert N. Slane, in command of the combat support
group located there, campaigned successfully for a new swimming pool and
improvements to enlisted and noncommissioned officers clubs.15
Any list of the least desirable air bases in South Vietnam would have
included Phan Rang, far from any large city, a location where airmen had to rely
for amusement and recreation on the facilities at the installation. At Phan Rang,
however, the drug problem either proved comparatively minor in early 1970 or
largely escaped detection.16 The apparent absence of any link between hardship
and drug abuse underscored an observation made by agents of the Office of
Special Investigations when they probed narcotics use at Tan Son Nhut: what
a young airman described as hardship often reflected his feeling of being picked
on by those in authority rather than physical discomfort.17
Days of boredom, punctuated by moments of terror, also contributed to
experimentation with drugs. A pall of tedium might settle over a base for weeks
before a salvo of rockets or mortar shells shattered the quiet and sent the airmen
diving for cover. Statistics demonstrated that the greatest incidence of drug
abuse occurred in those specialties that required long periods of monotonously
314
repetitive work; the occasionally recurring danger merely introduced a factor

of tense expectation. Security police proved especially susceptible for they
operated alone or in small groups, spending long shifts, frequently of twelve
hours, routinely manning guard posts or walking the perimeter, all the while
exposed to possible attack by the Viet Cong.18
An airman’s peers might also exert pressure to become involved with drugs,
especially on younger persons entering service from a segment of society that
experimented with, or at least tolerated, the use of marijuana and other sub-
stances. One newly arrived airman recalled that he had moved into a “hootch”
or hut with thirteen others, twelve of whom habitually smoked marijuana. Al-
though “a little scared” at first, he discovered that “these guys were old pros,”
who “had been around a long time in the drug scene.” Lonely and unsure of
himself, the newcomer soon became a regular user of marijuana (and later of
heroin) and found acceptance within an informal but clearly defined group.
Drug use, he said, conferred on him a sense of belonging “that I had never seen
before, and I liked it.”19
The availability of drugs for those who considered themselves either beset
by hardship or picked on by superiors or those who simply followed the ex-
ample of their peers helped create an escalating number of users. The cannabis
plant flourished in South Vietnam, and marijuana soon became an important
cash crop. Poppy fields in Laos, Thailand, and as far away as Burma yielded
opium that could be refined into heroin, but transportation of the raw material
into South Vietnam at first proved difficult. The traffickers dared not send
porters across the Ho Chi Minh Trail, defended by North Vietnamese troops and
Lao auxiliaries and harried by American air power. Until 1970, moreover,
smugglers could not move easily through Prince Sihanouk’s Cambodia without
risk of encountering the government’s customs officials and several heavily
defended North Vietnamese bases. After Lon Nol’s revolution, eastern Cam-
bodia became a battleground, even less conducive to nonmilitary travel, whether
afoot or in trucks. Because movement overland faced such difficulties, the
airplane became the preferred method of carrying opium, usually from distribu-
tors in Bangkok, Thailand, to refiners in Saigon.20
For airborne smugglers, the cash rewards could be dazzling. In the spring
of 1970, Air Force investigators searching a transport that had arrived at Tan
Son Nhut from Bangkok discovered packages of opium valued at $75,000 in its
existing state but worth some $16 million if refined into heroin and cut with
non-narcotic additives. The pilot, an Air Force major with fifteen years of
service, was convicted of smuggling 900 pounds of opium and some $5,000 in
currency and sentenced to twelve years in prison and a dishonorable discharge.
The copilot, though acquitted of criminal charges, received an administrative
separation under honorable conditions.21
The overthrow of Prince Sihanouk, though it intensified the hazards of land
travel through eastern Cambodia, soon eased the task of the drug smuggler.
315
Living quarters (“hootches”) at Tan Son Nhut Air Base.

Aircraft began regular flights between Phnom Penh and Saigon, and ships plied
the Mekong waterway. Like the Air Force officer caught flying opium in from
Bangkok, some South Vietnamese yielded to the temptation of sharing in a cash
windfall estimated at $88 million annually and took part in or protected smug-
gling, though American officials insisted that corruption remained confined to
the lower echelons of the Saigon government. Whatever the extent of official
connivance, heroin became as common by mid-1970 as marijuana had been a
few months before. Airmen could buy vials of the drug from roadside soft-drink
stands, from children in the street, and from the maids who cleaned their quar-
ters. Further contributing to the availability of drugs, many South Vietnamese
pharmacists ignored the law and sold amphetamines and barbiturates without
requiring a doctor’s prescription.
The heroin epidemic engulfed South Vietnam at a time when Air Force law
enforcement agents seemed to be making some headway against the marijuana
plague. Several factors contributed to their success against marijuana, not the
least of them the easily detectable activity of smoking. Besides being bulky and
therefore difficult to conceal, cannabis gave off a distinctive odor as it burned.
Heroin users could buy that drug as cheaply as marijuana, and they had less
trouble concealing it. Whether injected, inhaled, or mixed with cannabis and
smoked, heroin soon rivaled marijuana in popularity.22
In dealing with drug abuse, the Air Force took a traditional approach,
seeking to educate its members about the consequences of using drugs, to
discover those who used them, and to punish the offenders. The policy of
316
treating drug abuse like any other offense failed, however, to solve a rapidly
worsening problem that threatened to spread as airmen dependent on drugs
returned to the United States from Southeast Asia. Since all the armed forces
faced this crisis, the Department of Defense set up a task force to look for an
approach that would work throughout the world, and the U.S. Military Assis-
tance Command, Vietnam, conducted a similar search narrowly focused on drug
abuse in Southeast Asia. The departmental task force convened late in July
1970, roughly three weeks before General Abrams’ command began its survey
of the problem. The two investigations produced similar recommendations, the
most important of which called for offering an opportunity for rehabilitation, an
especially attractive option for those seeking to break the chains of dependency
before returning to the United States. Education, detection, and punishment
would continue, but the revised program extended amnesty to anyone who vol-
untarily entered a treatment program.
The work of the Department of Defense task force inspired the Air Force
to adopt in Southeast Asia and elsewhere the Limited Privileged Communi-
cation Program, which held out the assurance of medical assistance and psy-
chological counseling to anyone who, “prior to being apprehended, detected, or
under investigation,” voluntarily requested such aid. Information that a person
volunteering for treatment might give could not be used as evidence by a court
martial, but his statements might result in administrative actions, including
reassignment, loss of a security clearance, or discharge under honorable con-
ditions. The Air Force justified limiting the amnesty program to those who
asked for treatment prior to detection by citing the wide range of assignments,
from pilot to engine mechanic, that required unimpaired judgment; in any of
these, the drug abuser’s gambling that he would escape discovery could result
in disaster. By the end of July 1971, five months after the privileged communi-
cation program began, some 270 persons in Southeast Asia, about one-half of
one percent of the total Air Force strength in the theater, took advantage of the
limited amnesty.23
The Air Force established a program of mandatory urinalysis, required after
July 1971 of officers and airmen transferring from Southeast Asia or helping
administer the drug treatment program there. Since the test reliably detected the
likeliest forms of drug use, it presented abusers a choice of either volunteering
for treatment or being found out and therefore ruled ineligible for amnesty and
rehabilitation. In the fall of 1971, the categories of officers and airmen in
Southeast Asia who underwent the test expanded to include those leaving
Southeast Asia after periods of temporary duty, extending their tours or reen-
listing, going on leave or rest and recuperation, suspected of drug abuse, or
simply selected at random. The widespread employment of urinalysis revealed
that Phan Rang, where drug use had once seemed minimal, now had the second
most serious problem of any air base, ranking behind Cam Ranh Bay in the ratio
of drug users detected. The number of drug users at each base revealed no
317
useful pattern to those trying to eliminate the problem, for the ratios at these two
bases abruptly declined while that at Pleiku inexplicably doubled.24
Meanwhile, the effort to educate the Air Force in the dangers of drug abuse
continued at the bases in Southeast Asia. Some experts, sent to the theater to
share the fruits of their experience, antagonized those in charge of the local
program, bored the persons being educated, or both, although a few did prove
helpful, even inspirational. A better response greeted the drug education field
teams dispatched by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Each of these
groups consisted of a young officer, a young noncommissioned officer, two
former drug users, and one South Vietnamese. One of the rehabilitated drug
users and the officer sought to educate the junior officers, while the noncommis-
sioned officer and the other former drug abuser tried to influence the enlisted
men. The South Vietnamese member of the team warned local inhabitants who
worked on the base of the consequences of dealing in drugs.25
A shortage of posters and printed materials delayed the formal drug educa-
tion program that the Air Force planned for its bases in Southeast Asia and
shifted the burden to the teams sent out by the assistance command. In the
meantime, the local commander could try to supplement the work of the teams,
as at Cam Ranh Bay, where Col. Arden B. Curfman encouraged informal dis-
cussions of the drug problem and appointed unofficial counsellors to steer
newcomers away from drugs.26 Later, at the same base, a coffee shop served as
the site of larger rap sessions that discussed alcoholism as well as drug abuse.27
Stricter law enforcement accompanied the programs of rehabilitation and
education and included a tightening of security at aerial ports. Even so, as late
as June 1971, representatives of the U.S. Bureau of Customs found that inspec-
tion procedures in South Vietnam did not meet the standards established for air
terminals in the United States. Later in the year, dogs trained to react to the
scent of certain illegal substances helped overcome the weaknesses in security
at South Vietnamese airports, as did increased surveillance, closer inspection
of passengers and cargo, and a requirement for more complete documentation
of containers shipped by air. The vials of heroin and packets of marijuana aban-
doned by passengers in airport waiting rooms indicated the effectiveness of
these measures. Nevertheless, drugs still got through, including one package
that reached Williams Air Force Base, Arizona, where the unusually pure heroin
it contained killed the 17-year-old wife of the sergeant who had smuggled it out
of South Vietnam.28
The campaign against drug abuse imposed a staggering burden on the Air
Force Office of Special Investigations and the Security Police in Southeast Asia,
both of which had difficulty finding the manpower and equipment to follow
leads, gather evidence, and lay the groundwork for criminal prosecution.29 Hard-
pressed though they were, agents of the Office of Special Investigations suc-
ceeded during the summer of 1971 in surveying the use of drugs at Tan Son
Nhut, Bien Hoa, Nha Trang, Da Nang, Cam Ranh Bay, Binh Thuy, Pleiku, and
318
Inspection of cargo bound for the United States from Southeast Asia.
Phu Cat — all the bases where large numbers of Air Force personnel still
served. The survey verified the importance of boredom, the feeling of being un-
justly “hassled” by authorities, and the persuasiveness of friends in convincing
lonely young airmen to engage in potentially self-destructive activity.30
The impressions thus gathered also demonstrated the ease with which visi-
tors from nearby Army installations, South Vietnamese civilians, or South Viet-
namese servicemen could gain access to an air base and sell drugs.31 By restric-
ting the airmen to their base, a commander could to some extent neutralize the
ubiquitous suppliers, but restriction gave rise to tensions, with the older non-
commissioned officers, who tended to prefer alcohol to drugs, blaming the
younger men for dealing in drugs and causing the denial of passes to nearby
towns. One base commander eased the ill-feeling by arranging cook-outs that
featured rap sessions involving both groups and non-contact athletic competi-
tion between the two.32
The investigative surveys produced no agreement on the number of persons
addicted to or experimenting with drugs. Estimates varied among bases and
individual observers, with a doctor at Binh Thuy stating that half the airmen in
the lower pay grades used heroin or some other drug on a regular basis.33 At
Bien Hoa, estimates of drug use varied from 20–40 percent of the airmen
twenty-two years of age or younger.34 The surveys of air bases thus tended to
319
reinforce the belief that drug abuse most affected young airmen, though the
chief nurse at the Bien Hoa dispensary dissented, insisting that roughly half the
drug users were older than twenty-two.35 The members of air crews seemed to
have fewer problems with drugs, possibly because of the frequency of physical
examinations and the likelihood that drug-induced behavior would attract the
attention of fellow crewmen.36
Despite the efforts at education, detection, and rehabilitation, drug addic-
tion and experimentation persisted in the Air Force as long as its units served
in South Vietnam and for some time afterward. By the summer of 1972, doubts
had arisen about the success of the campaign against drug abuse. The most ob-
vious flaw in the Limited Privileged Communication Program proved to be the
practice of requiring those who volunteered for rehabilitation to undergo detox-
ification in Southeast Asia before sending them out of the country, if necessary,
for further treatment. To keep a drug user in the very surroundings that had con-
tributed to his problem, said one Air Force officer, made no more sense than
“attempting to reform an alcoholic by confining him to a bar.”37
Moreover, requiring so many persons to undergo urinalysis proved self-
defeating, for the increased volume of samples overwhelmed the Army
laboratories that did the testing in Southeast Asia. Since the Air Force applied
different standards, air base dispensaries sometimes had to confirm the results
of tests done by the Army. The resulting workload required scheduling routine
urinalysis well in advance, which gave the subject time to abstain from drugs,
however painful that might be, so that no detectable trace remained in his
system, to arrange for a substitute specimen from a person he knew was drug-
free, or to persuade someone to falsify the record. Drug users still feared the
unannounced tests administered at random or required of persons suspected of
using narcotics, amphetamines, or barbiturates. As demonstrated by the failings
in the program of urinalysis, the net the Air Force cast for drug users had such
gaping holes that statistical summaries based on detection or apprehension
could not reveal the magnitude of the epidemic.38
Besides damaging the health and judgment of the individual, and under-
mining his value to the Air Force, drug abuse contributed to theft at air bases in
South Vietnam. A base commander at Bien Hoa declared that the high theft rate
at the installation, averaging $33,000 per month at the base exchange alone
early in 1971, “was directly related to the existence of an organized drug cul-
ture,” which aided “in the theft and disposal of property that could be converted
into cash for drug purchases.” Additional guards and improved lighting sharply
reduced the amount of stolen merchandise, the average monthly losses at the
exchange stabilizing at $1,000, a decline that the base commander attributed to
an assault on the drug culture, through law enforcement and the amnesty pro-
gram, and also to routine transfers as tours of duty ended. Much of the theft,
however, may have been the handiwork not of drug users or even black market
operators but of opportunists — visiting soldiers, other exchange customers, and
320
Gates to Tan Son Nhut, showing proximity of base to city.

South Vietnamese clerks who saw the chance to take, with a minimum of risk,
articles readily converted to cash. This interpretation would explain why simple
security measures and closer supervision had such a dramatic effect.39
Some of the money obtained from stolen goods assuredly found its way to
drug dealers, but full-time thieves also played a part. The latter category in-
cluded an Air Force officer commanding a transport plane that routinely de-
livered disassembled helicopters for use by the South Vietnamese. En route
from Travis Air Force Base, he regularly removed electronic equipment items
from the helicopters and sold them by mail order to unsuspecting owners of
private aircraft in the United States. Investigators found stolen items worth
$150,000 stored in a warehouse in San Francisco, California, that he had rented
in his daughter’s name.40
As if thievery and drug abuse were not trouble enough, racial harmony de-
teriorated at Air Force bases in Southeast Asia, indeed, throughout the world,
after the murder of Dr. King in 1968. The air bases in South Vietnam escaped
outbursts of violence comparable to that year’s rioting at the Army-run stockade
at Long Binh, which involved only a few imprisoned airmen. Nor did the Air
Force experience recurring interracial clashes like those that flared at Marine
Corps installations in the northern part of the country or outbursts like those
during 1972 on board the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk and the oiler Hassayampa
in the Philippines or the carrier Constellation, training off the California coast
for service in Southeast Asia.41 The worst single disturbance at an air base in
South Vietnam occurred at Bien Hoa on November 27, 1969, when whites and
blacks brawled over the kind of music played at an airman’s club.42
321
Although Seventh Air Force installations seemed calm in comparison to

those of the Army and Marine Corps in South Vietnam, racial tensions lurked
beneath the placid surface, awaiting the opportunity to erupt. An Air Force-wide
study completed in 1970 revealed that, of those questioned, only 16 percent of
black officers and 6 percent of enlisted men believed that the service accorded
them equal treatment all the time. Moreover, fully 30 percent of the officers and
over half of the enlisted men concluded that they could expect equal opportunity
rarely, if at all.43
The widely held perception of injustice coincided with a growing awareness
among African-Americans in the Air Force of their unique cultural heritage, a
movement that began in civil society and spread to the military. Informal study
groups examined this culture and its current applications, producing a belief
summed up and greatly simplified in the slogan “Black is Beautiful.” Although
not forbidden by Air Force regulations, the groups aroused uneasiness among
some whites, for black awareness tended to manifest itself in hairstyles, off-duty
dress, and even ritual handshakes. Many whites tended to associate all of these
with militant organizations, active in civilian life, that advocated black power
and urged African-Americans to rise up against their white oppressors. An Air
Force study of the phenomenon of black awareness sought to reassure white
commanders by predicting, correctly as events would prove, that the study
groups could provide a valuable means of interracial communication, assuming
they avoided calling for black power and, in effect, demanding resegregation.44
Another phenomenon, known in journalistic shorthand as white backlash,
also spread to the military from civilian life. Characterized by a conviction that
recent economic and political progress by blacks had come at the expense of
whites, those who shared this attitude struggled to hold the line against what
they perceived as further erosion of their rights. Urban rioting by blacks,
especially after the murder of Dr. King, who had relied on non-violent means
in his campaign for equal rights, and the recurring demand for black power
reinforced this backlash and contributed to a polarization of the races in both
civilian and military society.45
Racial enmity worsened throughout 1970 and early 1971, as demands for
white power rivaled those for black power, but the air bases in South Vietnam
seemed less affected than installations of the other services in Southeast Asia
or Air Force bases elsewhere in the world. The atmosphere of wartime Vietnam
that caused some individuals to seek companionship in groups using drugs, led
others to gather in racially exclusive cliques. Since both blacks and whites
tended to consider themselves victimized by reason of race, they drew apart
except to inflict violence on each other, which both races instinctively justified
as retaliation for perceived offenses. Black power and white power clashed,
triggering a series of small-scale outbursts in South Vietnam, but no major riots.
During the spring of 1971, for example, Air Force commanders reported some
thirty racial incidents, one a cross-burning in the fashion of the Ku Klux Klan.
322
The others were assaults of varying severity, mainly fistfights that included a
few drunken brawls in which racial antagonism may scarcely have figured.
The agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations who looked
into the incidents in Southeast Asia considered all of them minor. Since the
official inquiry by that office tended to shrug off the increasing friction between
the races, it contributed to the belief that the existing machinery for promoting
racial harmony had passed the test. The human relations councils at Air Force
installations apparently provided a forum for blacks and whites to present their
differences, and commanders seemed sensitive to the grievances their men
expressed and willing to resolve them insofar as possible.46
In South Vietnam, moreover, some commanders used their ingenuity to
promote racial harmony. Besides relying on the human relations machinery,
they might create informal panels, ad hoc committees, and black awareness
groups to discover what troubled their men. One officer, though he deplored the
exercise of command by committee, conceded that in his organization a “black
committee” ensured “adequate communication between the commander and the
black airmen” and served as “a responsible grievance forum that has helped to
solve some of our racial problems.”47
Other officers reported similar experience, one of them declaring that he
could not “overemphasize the importance of Airmen’s Councils, Rap Sessions,
EOT Seminars, Afro-American Associations, and Human Relations Councils”
in absorbing “a good deal of the energy that otherwise might have been ex-
pended in more violent protests.” Even though meetings sometimes degenerated
into gripe sessions and served “to give every malcontent a prominent platform,”
he believed that the various groups represented a worthwhile investment of a
commander’s time.48
While wing and base commanders in South Vietnam tried through the
formal organizational structure, supplemented by a variety of informal bodies,
to maintain racial amity, a serious riot erupted at an Air Force installation where
calm had thus far prevailed, not an airfield in Southeast Asia but a base in
California. At Travis Air Force Base, a succession of events, escalating from
misunderstandings and insults to rock-throwing and assaults, culminated in a
violent outburst during May 1971, when rampaging black airmen burned a
building to the ground. This riot, which claimed the life of a civilian fireman
who suffered a heart attack, convinced the Department of Defense that the
existing mechanisms for easing racial tension did not work. As a result, the
department launched a program to train instructors who would educate members
of all the services, and civilian employees as well, to understand and cooperate
with persons of other races, religions, or cultures. A task force headed by Air
Force Col. Lucius Theus, an African-American, had laid plans for this under-
taking even before the racial clash at Travis Air Force Base.49
The Air Force launched its program of education with volunteers until the
Defense Race Relations Institute, which convened its first class at Patrick Air
323
Force Base, Florida, in January 1972, could begin turning out trained instruc-
tors. Although personally dedicated to equal treatment and opportunity, the
volunteers tended to substitute confrontation for conciliation and, in spreading
the message of racial tolerance throughout the service, sometimes antagonized
their audience. At a time when tempers readily flared, only a trained individual
could persuade the members of an audience to face their prejudices without
arousing defensiveness, even hostility. By January 1973, officers, enlisted men,
and civilian employees of the Air Force throughout the world were receiving
mandatory training in race relations from graduates of the Defense Race Rela-
tions Institute.50
Racial tension in South Vietnam, like the use of drugs, persisted until the
last Air Force unit left South Vietnam. Mechanisms functioned, however, to
deal with both problems: the Limited Privileged Communication Program,
backed by education and law enforcement, for drug abuse; and the program of
education, supported by a network of councils and committees, for racial
conflict. Officers serving with the Seventh Air Force insisted that neither drug
abuse nor racial turmoil, although dangerous to the institutional fabric, had
diminished the combat effectiveness of the organization. Events in 1972 tended
to support this judgment, for neither drug abuse nor racial strife interfered with
the response to a North Vietnamese invasion of the South during the spring of
that year. The North Vietnamese invasion intensified the workload for officers
and airmen, replaced boredom with a sense of urgency, and required uncom-
promising teamwork on the part of everyone from cooks to security police to
pilots. In this hectic time, the Seventh Air Force expanded greatly in size,
resumed sustained attacks on the North, and continued to support South Viet-
namese troops.51
324
Chapter Nineteen
Invasion
Trying in the summer of 1971 to predict the course of the war in the coming
year, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reviewed the available intelligence and concluded
that North Vietnam retained the initiative and would try to win “at least one dra-
matic tactical victory” in either South Vietnam or Cambodia. If the North Viet-
namese chose to invade the northern provinces of South Vietnam and seek their
symbolic victory there, they could do so as early as the fall of 1971.1 The attack
did not come during that autumn, but an ominous buildup in southernmost
North Vietnam triggered the Proud Deep Alpha bombing there as 1971 ended.
Even though North Vietnam held the initiative, the South Vietnamese could
land stinging blows to prevent the enemy from setting himself to throw a knock-
out punch. Consequently, Secretary of Defense Laird called on the Joint Chiefs
in June 1971 for a list of major cross-border operations that the Vietnamized
armed forces could successfully undertake. Of three possibilities, the Joint
Chiefs preferred a course of action that combined thrusts into eastern Cambodia
with ambushes and large-scale raids in southern Laos. Unfortunately, the South
Vietnamese, as Lam Son 719 had demonstrated, could not execute so ambitious
a plan, given the existing restrictions on the employment of the rapidly de-
parting American ground forces. The Joint Chiefs therefore recommended in-
stead the second concept, which eliminated a major offensive in northeastern
Cambodia but continued to call for less ambitious attacks elsewhere in that
country and in southern Laos. The third alternative, mere probes confined to the
border areas of South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, found no favor with the
Chiefs, who believed it could not enhance South Vietnamese security.2
As 1972 began, South Vietnamese troops undertook a limited offensive in
eastern Cambodia, overrunning a bunker complex in the vicinity of the so-called
Dog’s Head, southwest of Krek, and capturing rice, salt, and weapons. Less am-
bitious raids took place elsewhere in Cambodia — across the border from Ben
Soi, South Vietnam, for instance, and near Neak Luong — and produced corres-
pondingly less impressive results. Meanwhile, southern Laos remained immune
to attack on the ground, although South Vietnamese forces east of the border
followed up B–52 strikes in and near the A Shau Valley, an exit from the Ho
325
Chi Minh Trail, assessing the damage done by the bombing and engaging in
firefights. Skirmishing also broke out in Tay Ninh and Kontum Provinces of
South Vietnam in response to pressure from the North Vietnamese army.3
Besides defeating Lam Son 719 and containing the threat in eastern Cam-
bodia, the enemy had waged a protracted struggle throughout 1971, fighting a
succession of small battles to maintain pressure on the Americans as they with-
drew and to frustrate South Vietnamese efforts to control the countryside.
Directives issued by the communist Central Office for South Vietnam endorsed
this strategy, but a new statement, appearing in December 1971, suggested that
a general offensive and popular uprising loomed on the horizon, the same termi-
nology the enemy had used in describing the Tet offensive of 1968. General
Abrams and his staff at first dismissed the declaration as merely an attempt to
improve morale, for they believed that the communist infrastructure in the
South, apparently uprooted after the Tet fighting in 1968, could not support so
ambitious an attack. However, the enemy, to some extent, had repaired the
damage inflicted that year and compounded by subsequent American and South
Vietnamese efforts to eliminate his local leadership. Whatever the assessment
of Viet Cong resiliency, Abrams remembered the impact of the Tet attacks on
American policy and advised Admiral Moorer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, that the enemy might try to duplicate the political effect of the 1968
offensive, perhaps by a limited operation aimed less at inflicting defeat on the
battlefield than at influencing American public opinion.4
A series of articles in the North Vietnamese press seemed to underscore the
December resolution of the Central Office for South Vietnam. The author, who
used the name Chien Than — the Victor — clearly spoke for the military leader-
ship of the North Vietnamese. Indeed, some U.S. observers believed he was Vo
Nguyen Giap when he declared that the time had come for a campaign of anni-
hilation as the Americans withdrew. The resolution itself and the accompanying
official commentary reminded Abrams and his staff of similar statements on the
eve of the Tet offensive of 1968. The assistance command’s intelligence esti-
mates for 1972, however, indicated an intensification of enemy activity prior to
Tet, a lull from February 14 to 20, and, after the Tet holidays, renewed fighting
timed to coincide with President Nixon’s planned visit to China.5
An offensive of some sort was probable, but timing and extent were uncer-
tain. As early as April 1971, the Central Intelligence Agency had predicted an
attack during 1972 designed to convince the American public, in a Presidential
election year, that the country could not prevail. However, the casualties in-
flicted on the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong during the Tet battles of 1968,
continuing interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and efforts to eradicate the
Viet Cong command structure combined to create an impression that the enemy
could not mount an operation rivalling the 1968 attacks in scope and intensity.
As late as February 1972, Secretary Laird expressed doubt that the North Viet-
namese could again strike on the scale of the 1968 Tet offensive.6
326
Invasion
During February, the signs of impending attack included almost daily re-
ports by South Vietnamese forward air controllers that they had sighted and
sometimes helped destroy hostile tanks in Military Region II, near the border
with Laos. Since the array of electronic sensors on the Ho Chi Minh Trail had
not reported the passage of armored vehicles to the infiltration surveillance cen-
ter at Nakhon Phanom Air Base, Thailand, Air Force forward air controllers
checked the veracity of the sightings and on at least one occasion found the
carcass of a tank at the location of a reported attack.7
In Military Region I, enemy infiltration through the A Shau Valley slowed
as Tet approached but intensified afterward. Sensor activations in the valley and
throughout western Quang Tri Province declined sharply until about February
20, when truck traffic suddenly increased on both sides of the border with Laos.
The spate of activity on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and in the A Shau Valley, along
with the continued presence of armor just north of the demilitarized zone, sug-
gested a buildup for a spring-summer campaign beginning in May.8
Of the two possible objectives — the provinces of Military Region I or
Kontum and Pleiku in Military Region II — the latter seemed the more likely.
The western highlands abounded in concealment and lay conveniently close to
the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Moreover, the defenses there were weaker than along
the demilitarized zone and the administrative machinery of the Saigon govern-
ment less efficient. Assuming that North Vietnamese logistics could not support
more than one attack, the western reaches of Military Region II seemed most
probable. Although the fighting might spread from the highlands northward into
Military Region I, Abrams and his staff believed that the South Vietnamese
would ultimately prevail, thanks to Vietnamization and American air support.9
Since air power provided the shield to keep the North Vietnamese at bay,
the signs of preparations for an attack generated requests for additional aerial
support. Lt. Gen. Welborn G. Dolvin, who commanded the XXIV Corps in the
northern provinces, conceded that the enemy had made “considerable progress
toward preparing the battlefield for an offensive, especially in Quang Tri and
Thua Thien Provinces,” where forward air controllers already reported “more
lucrative targets than there are tac air sorties.” Consequently, Dolvin asked for
more sorties by tactical fighters in Military Region I.10
John Paul Vann, the retired Army officer directing the assistance group in
Military Region II, asked specifically for additional help from B–52s. During
January, the big bombers conducted sixty strikes along the western boundary
of Vann’s military region, and tactical fighters flew an average of twenty sorties
each day. This level of effort produced no measurable results; in December and
January, for example, South Vietnamese soldiers succeeded in entering just
seven of the B–52 target boxes and reported “almost negative BDA [bomb
damage assessment].” Vann, however, believed he had no choice but to
intensify the aerial firepower in the hope of delaying or disrupting the North
Vietnamese offensive.11
327
In Military Region III, U.S. air power and South Vietnamese troops probed
the Hobo Woods, an area along the Saigon River that the Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese had controlled for years. Beginning on February 25, Air Force
fighters joined Army artillery and helicopter fire teams in a three-day battering
of a group of bunkers that might support a future attack toward the capital city.
Air Force fighters flew thirty-two sorties, six of which dropped CBU–55s, and
a dozen South Vietnamese A–1Es joined in the final day’s bombing. While the
high explosives rained down, South Vietnamese cordoned off the cluster of
bunkers to prevent the escape of the troops operating the supply complex. The
attacking airmen reported the destruction of thirty-nine bunkers and the collapse
of three tunnels, but only about fifteen of the enemy killed.12
As Dolvin and Vann called for more sorties and bombs exploded in the
Hobo Woods, additional Air Force tactical fighters arrived in the western
Pacific. To deal with the increasingly likely North Vietnamese attack, the
Pacific Air Forces had a plan, Commando Flash, for shifting all or part of an
eighteen-aircraft tactical fighter squadron from Clark to airfields in Southeast
Asia. With a minimum of publicity, as many as six F–4s would reinforce the
fighter units at each of three bases — Da Nang in South Vietnam and Ubon and
Udorn in Thailand. By the end of December 1971, during the threat that
prompted Operation Proud Deep Alpha, two F–4s had moved from Clark to
each of the bases, and when the signs of invasion did not abate, Gen. John D.
Lavelle, the new commander of the Seventh Air Force, asked for the additional
aircraft. Early in February, General Clay, the Commander in Chief, Pacific Air
Forces, sent the rest of the 523d Tactical Fighter Squadron, as planned. Lt. Gen.
Marvin L. McNickle, in command of the Thirteenth Air Force, hoped to estab-
lish a regular rotation, bringing back some of the F–4s to the Philippines where
they would resume training and later relieve other aircraft still in South Vietnam
and Thailand, enabling them to undergo maintenance and reenter the training
cycle at Clark Air Base. The threat of imminent combat prevented the fighters’
rotation, and by mid-February the entire squadron had begun flying combat mis-
sions in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the Navy adjusted its scheduled ship move-
ments to maintain three carriers off the coast of North Vietnam and the Pacific
Air Forces prepared for another deployment to Southeast Asia, Commando Fly,
by shifting eighteen F–4s fitted with electronic countermeasures pods from
South Korea to Clark Air Base.13
The movement of tactical aircraft coincided with an augmentation of the
B–52 bomber force in Thailand and on Guam. In January 1972, the Commander
in Chief, Pacific, Admiral McCain, alerted the Strategic Air Command to be
ready to increase the authorized number of B–52 sorties beyond 1,000 per
month as early as mid-February. The command could raise the monthly rate to
1,200 sorties simply by shifting its aircraft within the western Pacific; eight
B–52Ds and fourteen crews would go from Andersen to U-Tapao, although at
the cost of eliminating six B–52Ds from the nuclear alert force. To sustain
328
Invasion
1,200 sorties per month for more than thirty days, however, would require addit-
ional B–52s from the United States. Having given the Strategic Air Command
the chance to review its options, McCain formally requested the establishment
of a force capable of 1,200 sorties per month on February 5. The Joint Chiefs
of Staff immediately approved the request, and by February 8, the last of the
required eight aircraft and fourteen crews had arrived at U-Tapao.
Depending on the severity of the expected North Vietnamese offensive, still
heavier bombing might prove necessary. The Joint Chiefs authorized the Stra-
tegic Air Command to prepare to sustain 1,500 sorties per month from U-Tapao
and Guam. In response, on February 8 the command launched Bullet Shot, a
four-day operation that deployed twenty-nine B–52Ds, with thirty-six crews, to
Guam and ten KC–135s, with seventeen crews, to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa.14
As all this aerial activity indicated, defeating a “possible enemy-initiated
offensive designed to impair Vietnamization or impede U.S. redeployments”
depended on U.S. air power. The basic defensive plan called for “maximum
support for RVNAF with TACAIR, Arc Light, naval gunfire, and troop lift.”
The Army helicopters still in the country would serve mainly to shift South
Vietnamese reserves to meet the threat, a task that might require additional Air
Force C–130s or even larger C–141s. The remaining American ground forces
would “maintain the present defensive posture.”15 In public statements during
January, President Nixon acknowledged the defensive mission, declaring that
U.S. strength would decline to 69,000 by May 1972 as the Army’s involvement
in the ground war drew to a close.16
While the Air Force and Navy strengthened U.S. air power to meet an at-
tack, the North Vietnamese continued their preparations to invade. Despite fre-
quent strikes by B–52s, the enemy gathered strength in Quang Tri, Thua Thien,
and Quang Ngai Provinces of Military Region I, as North Vietnamese 130-mm
artillery pieces moved into position north of the demilitarized zone to shell
South Vietnamese outposts.17 Moreover, surface-to-air missiles located in North
Vietnam could engage targets from four to twenty-four miles beyond the border
in an L-shaped region extending from Mu Gia Pass southward to the demilitar-
ized zone, then eastward the length of that zone to the seacoast.18
Electronic sensors that monitored the demilitarized zone frequently reported
hostile movement, but the South Vietnamese troops in northernmost Military
Region I contented themselves with a routine response, depending on the
weapons available and the location and probable nature of the target: two
rounds of 175-mm artillery fire, six rounds of 155-mm, or ten rounds of 105-
mm directed at the place where the sensors indicated the enemy should be.
Rarely did South Vietnamese forward air controllers stray from their assigned
areas to investigate. In an effort to discover what was happening in the demil-
itarized zone, Air Force advisers urged, with only limited success, that comman-
ders have each forward air controller check for activity around one or more of
the sensor strings over which he flew en route to patrol his sector.19
329
Farther south, near Kontum in Military Region II, the South Vietnamese
also proved reluctant to challenge an enemy buildup. Vann reported that senior
officers balked when he suggested vigorous patrolling or spoiling attacks. They
remained content, he complained, to fight the war with air strikes and artillery.20
On March 23, 1972, as hostile activity intensified, the Air Force Chief of
Staff, General Ryan, summoned Lavelle to Washington to answer allegations
that he had violated the rules of engagement governing strikes against North
Vietnam and submitted false reports to conceal his actions. Convinced that the
general had interpreted the rules too broadly and then falsified the official
record, Ryan spurred him to retire in the grade of lieutenant general, rather than
four-star general, a punishment that did not affect Lavelle’s retirement pay. The
armed services committees of both the House of Representatives and the Senate
conducted hearings, during which Lavelle indicated that he believed his super-
iors knew full well how he interpreted the rules. The Senate committee ex-
pressed its displeasure with Lavelle by not recommending his advancement
from his permanent grade of major general to lieutenant general on the retired
list, but the House committee endorsed the strikes as essential and proper, al-
though avoiding the issue of false reporting. In effect, the congressional actions
upheld the decision of the Air Force. Lt. Gen. John W. Vogt, the Director of the
Joint Staff, replaced Lavelle in command of the Seventh Air Force, but by April
6, when Laird announced Vogt’s assignment, the nature of the Vietnam War had
changed.21
On the morning of March 30, Maj. David A. Brookbank, an air liaison ad-
viser with the recently organized South Vietnamese 3d Infantry Division, ac-
companied a forward air controller on a mission to adjust naval gunfire and
artillery in the eastern part of the demilitarized zone. As the observation plane
flew below an 800-foot overcast, he saw a squad of infantrymen moving south-
ward. Recognizing them as North Vietnamese, Brookbank opened fire with the
rifle he was carrying, and the troops below cut loose with their AK–47s, forcing
the aircraft to seek concealment in the clouds.22 The expected attack had begun.
In the next few days, 125,000 North Vietnamese troops supported by artil-
lery and hundreds of tanks launched three major offensives and one diversion-
ary attack across the borders. When the enemy invaded Military Region I on
March 30, two divisions and three independent regiments attacked across the
demilitarized zone toward Quang Tri City, while another division advanced on
Hue from the vicinity of the A Shau Valley. On April 2, another offensive began
some 600 kilometers south of the northernmost battlefield, as three divisions
and their supporting troops advanced from base areas in Cambodia toward Loc
Ninh, An Loc, and the highway leading to Saigon, about 100 kilometers to the
south. The North Vietnamese also invaded the western highlands, not quite
halfway from the demilitarized zone to An Loc, advancing from the triborder
region — where the territories of Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam met —
toward Kontum and Pleiku. The attacking force of two divisions began probing
330
Invasion
Gen. John D. Lavelle (left) and Lt. Gen. John W. Vogt (right),
who replaced Lavelle as Commander of the Seventh Air Force.
the local defenses of the highlands as early as April 2, but the fighting did not
attain full fury until April 14. Meanwhile, a single North Vietnamese division
advanced into the rice-growing area of the Mekong Delta, both to seize food and
to pin down South Vietnamese troops in the region.23
The Easter offensive, so called because the holiday fell on April 2, came as
a surprise to those who expected a comparatively feeble reprise of the Tet offen-
sive of four years earlier. Once again, the North Vietnamese leadership had ad-
justed its tactics to reflect recent experience, a recurring process throughout the
war. Until 1965, General Giap and his colleagues at Hanoi may have assumed
that the war would follow an ideologically sound progression from guerrilla
actions, through more ambitious attacks designed to drive a wedge between the
Saigon regime and the people dependent upon it for protection, to an orthodox
conventional war toppling the government of South Vietnam. The introduction
in 1965 of closely coordinated U.S. firepower, including artillery and air strikes,
and the strategic mobility provided by the helicopter, disrupted the expected
progression toward victory, forcing the North Vietnamese to revise their tactics.
Although North Vietnam’s field commanders could not shuttle reinforce-
ments throughout the country as the Americans could or call down vast destruc-
tion almost at will, they nonetheless enjoyed unmatched mobility before a battle
began. As long as the Viet Cong provided intelligence, food, additional man-
power, and other support, the enemy could join undetected in the normal move-
ment of the populace. Consequently, the communists materialized suddenly,
struck swiftly, and vanished. Giap proposed to capitalize on this mobility, jab-
bing repeatedly at the stronger forces, causing embarrassment, annoyance, and
331
pain. From time to time, a clever feint might cause the Americans to lower their
guard so he could land a truly damaging blow. He tested this concept in the
winter and spring of 1967 and 1968, drawing attention to the border areas, then
attacking the ill-defended cities during the Tet holidays, but he failed to hold
Hue or storm Khe Sanh, if he actually considered either a major objective.
Moreover, U.S. firepower inflicted staggering casualties when the Americans
and South Vietnamese recovered from their initial surprise. Hanoi multiplied its
losses by attempting a second wave of urban attacks in May. Stubborn attach-
ment to a particular tactical concept resulted in crippling losses that compelled
the survivors to recoil and regroup in the distant base camps, leaving a military
vacuum in the countryside for the Saigon regime to fill.
Although a failure in a purely military sense, the Tet offensive of 1968
achieved spectacular political results, and every North Vietnamese military ac-
tion had a political purpose. The sudden and unexpected fury that the commu-
nist enemy unleashed during the Tet fighting shocked the U.S. public and de-
moralized the nation’s political leaders who imposed a ceiling on American
participation in the fighting and, with the coming of the Nixon administration,
formally substituted Vietnamization and withdrawal for continued escalation.
The change in U.S. policy toward the war eased the pressure on the North
Vietnamese and Viet Cong, who could refuse to give battle while they rebuilt
their strength in preparation for future action. Between the fall of 1968 and the
end of 1971, Giap contented himself with hit and run strikes like the raid on the
ammunition dump at Cam Ranh Bay, while parrying thrusts in Cambodia and
southern Laos and resisting attempts to eradicate the local Viet Cong leadership
throughout South Vietnam. He seemed to be waiting patiently, as American
strength declined, for the decisive moment to strike again.
Because the Tet offensive had such a devastating political effect in 1968,
the American leadership in South Vietnam expected something similar in 1972,
possibly during Tet. Giap, however, had different tactics in mind. Instead of
swarming over the defenses of South Vietnam as he had in 1968, landing
flurries of stinging blows, none in itself decisive, he decided to try for a knock-
out, landing three blows that, in combination, would at least cripple South
Vietnam’s military forces or possibly topple its government. Since the Lam Son
719 task force had proved vulnerable to armor, Giap obtained hundreds of T–54
and T–55 tanks from the Soviet Union, along with 130-mm artillery and
shoulder-fired, heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles. In 1968, the enemy achieved
surprise when lightly armed troops attacked throughout all of South Vietnam.
Four years later, the surprise stemmed from the application of overpowering
force, the large-scale use of entire combat divisions armed with modern
weapons that matched or surpassed in quantity and quality those available to the
South Vietnamese.24
332
Chapter Twenty
Reinforcement, Continuing Withdrawal,

and Further Vietnamization
When North Vietnam invaded, the South Vietnamese armed forces num-
bered about 1.06 million, some 50,000 of them in military aviation, while U.S.
strength in the South stood at 95,541, of whom 20,605 served in the Air Force.
In terms of both manpower or machines, South Vietnam’s air arm outnumbered
the American air power based in that country. The South Vietnamese Air Force
had on hand 1,285 aircraft organized into forty-four squadrons. Nine squadrons
flew A–1s, A–37s, or F–5s — a total of 119 aircraft classified as combat-ready
fighter-bombers; two squadrons operated AC–47 or AC–119G gunships, 28 of
the aircraft ready for action; seventeen squadrons had helicopters, 367 of them
combat-ready out of a total of 620; seven forward air controller squadrons flew
O–1 or U–17 light aircraft, 247 operationally ready out of 303, and the re-
maining units carried out training, transport, and reconnaissance duties.
In contrast, the Air Force had just fifteen squadrons with 339 aircraft in
South Vietnam, among them three squadrons of F–4D and F–4E fighters (60
aircraft including the pair deployed to Da Nang in Commando Flash) and one
squadron of 23 A–37s. Other aircraft included 126 OV–10s and O–2s for for-
ward air controllers, 22 helicopters and modified C–130s for rescue, 48 tactical
transports, and 48 C–47s modified for various kinds of reconnaissance.
A larger Air Force contingent, twenty squadrons with 30,680 officers and
enlisted persons, served in Thailand. The 473 aircraft available there included
nine squadrons of tactical fighters that had 177 F–4s and F–105s, two squadrons
of gunships with 34 AC–130s and AC–119Ks, plus 52 B–52s and 38 KC–135
tankers. Another 31 B–52s, along with a pair of aerial tankers, flew from
Andersen Air Base, Guam, and 37 additional KC–135s operated out of Kadena
Air Base on Okinawa.1
As the North Vietnamese surged forward, President Nixon and his assistant
for national security affairs, Henry Kissinger, realized the danger not only to the
survival of South Vietnam but to American diplomatic efforts to exploit the
differences between the Soviet Union and China and ease the tensions between
the United States and those two communist nations. The negotiations to end the
333
Vietnam War — both the publicized sessions at Paris and the formerly secret
meetings there between Kissinger and representatives of North Vietnam, which
the President had revealed in January 1972 — depended upon the outcome of
the current fighting, as might the reception accorded Nixon when he went to
Moscow in May. The President had made a successful visit to Beijing in Feb-
ruary and hoped for similar results when he conferred with Leonid I. Brezhnev
and the other Soviet leaders. If South Vietnam stumbled toward defeat, as Kis-
singer would later write, “Our negotiating position in the eyes of the cold cal-
culators of power in the Kremlin would be pathetically weak [and] China might
reconsider the value of American ties.”2 Nixon agreed, warning that if the inva-
sion ended in a North Vietnamese victory, “The foreign policy of the United
States will have been destroyed.”3
Although Nixon and Kissinger tended to interpret the invasion as a desper-
ate gamble to destroy South Vietnam before the completion of Vietnamization,
indeed, as a reaction to the success thus far in Vietnamizing Saigon’s armed
forces, the leadership in Hanoi may have been willing to settle for less than an
immediate and overwhelming victory. By mid-May, Pacific Air Forces’ intelli-
gence raised the possibility that North Vietnam might be content to seize liber-
ated zones inside South Vietnam as bases for further military action and politi-
cal pressure. In the process of carving out these zones, the People’s Army of
Vietnam would destroy certain of the Vietnamized divisions, discrediting the
process and demoralizing both the government of Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon
and its backers in Washington. As American support withered and Thieu col-
lapsed, the continuing peace negotiations would result in the withdrawal of the
last American forces and the establishment of a communist-dominated coalition
government in South Vietnam.4
Giap later suggested that a sudden collapse of South Vietnamese resistance
would have come as a bonus; it had not, he said, served as the primary goal. If
the invasion — nicknamed Operation Nguyen Hue after an eighteenth-century
military leader who surprised and defeated the Chinese on the outskirts of
Hanoi — actually knocked Saigon out of the war, Giap would have been de-
lighted, but even a partial victory served to strengthen North Vietnam’s military
and diplomatic positions while undercutting those of the United States and
South Vietnam.5
Whatever the immediate objective of Giap and his colleagues, the United
States had to immediately intensify its support of South Vietnam. The President
refused to consider sending ground troops, but not because of the time required
to introduce them. He simply did not believe that the country would support a
war on the ground, with the resulting increase in U.S. casualties, even in re-
sponse to a potentially decisive attack. Consequently, the withdrawal of U.S.
troops continued. Not only did Nixon insist on cutting back the authorized
strength to 69,000, as he proposed in January 1972, on April 26 he announced
a further reduction of 20,000 spaces by July 1, with further cuts to follow.6
334
Reinforcement and Continuing Withdrawal
The decision to continue withdrawing American ground forces meant that

the armed services of the Republic of Vietnam and U.S. air power would have
to contain the onslaught and hurl back the invaders. The Nixon administration
faced four simultaneous tasks: expanding the scope of the air war as necessary
to deal with the invasion; reinforcing aerial strength in Southeast Asia without
shattering the manpower ceilings that the President established for South Viet-
nam, even though some of the newly arrived squadrons would operate from that
country; continuing the withdrawals from South Vietnam; and strengthening the
South Vietnamese armed forces to repel the invaders and defend the country
after the signing of a peace treaty.
According to Kissinger, Nixon, on April 1, approved strikes up to twenty-
five nautical miles above the demilitarized zone. On the next day, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff formally authorized the use of tactical air strikes, artillery, and
naval gunfire in that region. B–52s could not bomb north of the demilitarized
zone, but that lasted only until April 9, when they struck Vinh. Gradually, the
region subject to routine bombing by tactical aircraft extended northward until,
on April 25, it embraced the entire panhandle of North Vietnam, with attacks
occasionally beyond that area. On April 16, for example, fighter-bombers joined
eighteen B–52Ds from Thailand in raiding fuel storage tanks and other targets
at Hanoi and Haiphong (with the B–52s restricted to Haiphong).7
Besides the attack on the railroad yard and petroleum tank farm at Vinh by
a dozen bombers on April 9 and the raid on the petroleum storage area at Hai-
phong one week later, Thailand-based B–52Ds made three other strikes against
North Vietnam in the weeks following the invasion of the South. On April 12,
the Bai Thuong airfield, northwest of the town of Thanh Hoa, served as target
for eighteen of the aircraft, and on April 21 and 23, a force of eighteen B–52s
struck Thanh Hoa and its environs, bombing warehouses, rail facilities, and a
thermal power plant. During all five raids, the attacking bombers relied on chaff
corridors and escorting fighters armed with anti-radiation weapons to deal with
the radar that acquired targets for surface-to-air missiles, and the missiles
launched against the B–52s caused no damage.8
As the pattern of B–52 bombing demonstrated, the air war rapidly shifted
northward during April. The systematic air attacks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in
southern Laos came to an end, and the focus of aerial interdiction moved to
North Vietnam. When Kissinger, returning from Moscow where he had helped
prepare for the imminent visit by President Nixon, talked briefly in Paris with
Le Duc Tho and Xuan Thuy, the North Vietnamese principals in the recently
revealed secret negotiations, he came away convinced that further discussion
would prove fruitless unless the Hanoi government suffered a military reverse.
To help choke off the North Vietnamese advance, Nixon decided to mine the
harbors of North Vietnam, a decision quietly communicated to the Soviet
leaders, who nevertheless chose to go ahead with the meeting at Moscow de-
spite the possible danger to Soviet ships discharging cargo in North Vietnam.
335
Warehouse and transshipment areas of Haiphong under attack in May 1972.

Navy aircraft had already begun dropping mines in Haiphong harbor when
the President on May 8, Washington time, publicly announced both the mine
barrage and the intensification of the bombing campaign. He pointed out that
the mines would not become armed for seventy-two hours, a delay that gave
shipping an opportunity to escape to the open sea. The mine barrage went into
place at Haiphong on May 9, local time, and two days later aircraft began
sealing the lesser ports like Vinh and Thanh Hoa.9
The intensified air campaign, which called for strikes throughout North
Vietnam except for a buffer zone along the border with China, began as Opera-
tion Rolling Thunder Alpha but almost immediately became Operation Line-
backer. During the first strike, laser-guided bombs severed the Paul Doumer
Bridge at Hanoi, while conventional high explosives churned up a nearby rail
yard.10 A systematic attack on North Vietnam’s transportation and logistics net-
works at first focused on petroleum storage, the railroad linking China with the
Hanoi-Haiphong logistics hub, and the supply lines leading away from Hanoi
and Haiphong that sustained the offensive in the South.11
The cancellation of plans to continue aerial interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh
Trail beyond the dry season of 1972 did not release enough aircraft based in
Southeast Asia to attack targets on the battlefields of South Vietnam and at the
same time carry the war to the North. To reinforce the B–52s in Thailand and
on Guam, the Strategic Air Command continued the Bullet Shot deployments,
the first of which had dispatched twenty-nine B–52Ds to Andersen during Feb-
ruary and enabled Abrams to increase the total of monthly bomber sorties from
1,200 to 1,500 when North Vietnam invaded. On April 3, with the invasion
underway, Abrams asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the resources to fly 1,800
336
B–52 sorties per month. The Joint Chiefs approved the request on the following
day, and the Strategic Air Command responded with Bullet Shot II, sending
twenty B–52s and thirty-six crews to Guam and nine KC–135s, with fifteen
crews, to Kadena.
On April 8, one day before the last of the Bullet Shot II aircraft reached its
destination, the Joint Chiefs directed the Strategic Air Command to deploy to
Guam all the B–52Ds modified for high-explosive bombing that remained in the
United States, except those needed to train crews. This decision produced Bullet
Shot IIA. Between April 8 and 11, six B–52Ds, with ten crews, landed at Guam,
while three KC–135s and four crews arrived at Kadena. Bullet Shot IIA had
barely begun when the Joint Chiefs approved Bullet Shot III. By April 11,
twenty-eight B–52Gs, modified to drop conventional weapons, and forty-five
crews converged on Guam from ten different bases in the United States, while
three KC–135s and their crews flew to Kadena. The number of B–52Ds in the
western Pacific swelled as a result of Bullet Shot II and IIA from fifty at U-
Tapao and twenty-nine on Guam to fifty at U-Tapao and fifty-five at Andersen,
with another twenty-eight newly arrived G models also at Guam following
Bullet Shot III. Meanwhile, these deployments increased the number of tankers
on Okinawa to twenty-one.12
As these deployments ended, the series of five B–52 strikes against North
Vietnam began. The town of An Loc, the gateway to Saigon, remained in peril,
however, despite the intensification of the air war against the North. Because
of the danger, General Abrams obtained two more deployments of B–52s.
Bullet Shot IV and V, completed on May 21 and 24, added 70 B–52Gs and 88
crews, bringing the number of the big bombers to 200 — 50 D models at U-
Tapao and 52 at Andersen, with 98 B–52Gs at Andersen. Two additional
KC–135s, with their crews, touched down at Kadena during Bullet Shot V, and
two other tankers flew to Guam to provide an alert force.13 The vastly enlarged
bomber force could fly 105 sorties per day, but the Commander in Chief,
Strategic Air Command, Gen. John C. Meyer, preferred a more easily sustained
daily rate of 99 sorties.14
Like the heavy bomber force, tactical aviation expanded to meet the North
Vietnamese threat. A deployment of Navy and Air Force tactical aircraft,
underway before the invasion, accelerated after North Vietnam launched its
offensive, and Marine Corps aviation immediately joined in. To provide a
fourth aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin, Admiral Moorer, the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, obtained Secretary Laird’s approval to retain USS
Constellation on station there instead of bringing the ship back to the United
States by way of Japan. A fifth carrier, USS Midway, arrived on April 30, and
USS Saratoga, summoned from Mayport, Florida, launched its first strikes on
May 18, bringing the total in the western Pacific to six. By maintaining this
many aircraft carriers in the region, the Navy kept at least four on station
throughout the critical early months of the offensive, while at the same time
337
B–52s cover Andersen’s flightlines after the Bullet Shot deployments.

rotating among them the opportunity to grant liberty and take on supplies at
Subic Bay in the Philippines.15
The first step taken after the invasion to shore up Air Force tactical fighter
strength in Southeast Asia consisted of retaining in place the Commando Flash
F–4s temporarily deployed as the preinvasion crisis worsened. Admiral Moorer
asked for a thirty-day extension on March 30, the day of the North Vietnamese
attack, and Secretary Laird gave formal approval on April 1. Besides keeping
the Commando Flash aircraft in place at Udorn, Ubon, and Da Nang, the
Secretary of Defense at the same time approved deployment to Southeast Asia
of the Commando Fly contingent, eighteen F–4s dispatched to the Philippines
and kept in readiness there in the event North Vietnam should invade the
South.16 The Commando Fly fighter-bombers reached their destinations on
April 3, nine reinforcing the aircraft at Da Nang and the other nine augmenting
the fighter strength at Ubon.
The Commander in Chief, Pacific Air Forces, General Clay, decided within
three days after the arrival of Commando Fly to pull together the recently
deployed aircraft, establish the necessary headquarters, and reconstitute them
as squadrons. Nine Commando Fly F–4s flew from Ubon to Da Nang and, with
the nine already there, formed the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron to augment
the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing. Similarly, all eighteen Commando Flash
fighter-bombers gathered at Udorn and became the 523d Tactical Fighter
Squadron.17
On April 5, Washington time, Laird authorized and Moorer directed the
deployment of three Air Force tactical units from the United States, a squadron
of twelve F–105Gs and two squadrons of F–4s, with eighteen fighter-bombers
338
each. A waiver of the existing manpower ceiling for American units in Thailand
permitted the aircraft to operate from bases there for as long as ninety days. In
general, the Secretary of Defense preferred to exceed the levels established for
Thailand, while respecting the ceilings the President had announced for South
Vietnam.
In this instance, however, the Joint Chiefs also directed the Commander in
Chief, Pacific, Admiral McCain, to execute a plan suggested immediately after
the invasion by Lt. Gen. William K. Jones at Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, and
deploy a squadron of twelve Marine Corps F–4Bs and another of fifteen F–4Js
from Iwakuni Air Base, Japan. Although originally earmarked to operate from
Cam Ranh Bay, the fighters began landing late on April 6, local time, at Da
Nang, located closer to the battlefields of northern South Vietnam and the routes
of supply and reinforcement in the panhandle of North Vietnam. A third
squadron, with twelve F–4Js, arrived at Da Nang from Hawaii on April 14, to
be joined two days later by five two-place TA–4F attack planes from Japan.18
The initial Marine Corps contingent, organized as Marine Aircraft Group
15 (Forward), served, in effect, as reinforcements for General Vogt’s Seventh
Air Force, as did the Marine airmen who followed. They became cogs in the
partly Vietnamized mechanism that responded to requests for air support from
liaison parties with South Vietnamese ground forces. In carrying out this task,
the Marines advised the Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center of the
number of available sorties and received assignments in the daily operations
order that specified times, targets, and munitions. The forward air controllers
who actually directed the Marine Corps strikes might be Air Force pilots of the
20th Tactical Air Support Squadron, South Vietnamese airmen, or members of
Marine air-naval gunfire companies riding as observers in two-place TA–4s,
until those aircraft returned to Japan in June.19
The Marine airmen who deployed to South Vietnam required a supporting
establishment that included specialties ranging from clerk to jet-engine me-
chanic. Marine Aircraft Group 15 (Forward) brought from Japan almost 1,000
Marines and more than 1,000 tons of cargo. The personnel and the material,
which totaled 187,000 cubic feet, traveled by a combination of airlift and sealift,
with the Military Airlift Command and Marine Air Refueler Transport Squad-
ron 152 supplying the transport aircraft.20
General Lavelle, before he was summoned to Washington to answer for the
unauthorized bombing and the attendant cover-up, drew up a list of recom-
mended deployments that included two already in the process of being approved —
the Commando Fly F–4s and a squadron of Wild Weasel F–105Gs to silence the
radars at surface-to-air missile sites. Lavelle also requested additional EB–66s
for stand-off radar jamming and KC–135 tankers for his tactical fighters. De-
fense Secretary Laird endorsed the moves and also agreed with General Lavelle
that the squadron of B–57Gs, fitted with various electronic sensors and used
exclusively against truck traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, no longer served a
339
EB–66s at Takhli Air Base, Thailand.

useful purpose in Southeast Asia. Laird did not, however, order the squadron to
leave Thailand immediately, an oversight that complicated the deployments to
Ubon, where the bombers remained.21
The post-invasion reinforcement of Air Force tactical aircraft in Southeast
Asia, called Constant Guard, began with one of the actions that Laird had
approved and Moorer directed on April 5 — the deployment of one squadron of
Wild Weasel F–105Gs and two of F–4s — and continued through six increments
that involved aerial tankers and included C–130 transports as well as tactical
fighters. Constant Guard I saw the movement of the 561st Tactical Fighter
Squadron, with twelve F–105Gs, from McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, to
Korat in Thailand. The Thai government granted its approval in time for the
support personnel and their equipment to board transports of the Military Airlift
Command and take off on April 6. On the following day, the first three Wild
Weasels headed west, and by April 12 the entire squadron had arrived in
Thailand.
Constant Guard I also included the movement of two squadrons of F–4Es,
the other major deployment Laird authorized on April 5. The 334th and 336th
Tactical Fighter Squadrons at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Caro-
lina, received orders to depart for Korat. The 334th Tactical Fighter Squadron
began taking off on April 8, while the 336th prepared to follow. Once again,
transports carrying personnel and equipment led the way. Six C–141s carrying
197 passengers and some sixty tons of cargo arrived at Korat on April 8, pro-
viding the host organization, the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing, its first hint that
the two squadrons were supposed to appear.
Meanwhile, the Tactical Air Command, responsible for deploying the units,
amended the orders so that only the 334th Tactical Fighter Squadron would
touch down at Korat. The 336th and the Military Airlift Command transports
carrying its support personnel and equipment were directed instead to Udorn,
340
An F–105F Wild Weasel at Korat. The Wild Weasel’s mission

was to find and destroy radars that controlled surface-to-air missiles.
a destination changed almost immediately to Ubon. Ubon could have accommo-
dated both units except for the presence of the squadron of B–57Gs, which
Secretary Laird had earmarked for transfer to the Philippines, though he had not
formally approved the move. Approval came swiftly, and the departure of the
bombers on April 11 made room for both squadrons. As a result, Military Airlift
Command transports reloaded the men and equipment of the 334th so recently
deposited at Korat and delivered them to Ubon. Despite the confusion, the com-
bat elements of the 334th arrived at Ubon on April 11 and commenced opera-
tions three days later. The 336th reached the base on April 12 and flew its first
sorties on the 15th.22
The overall deployment proved confusing as destinations changed and host
units were caught off guard: a decision to treat Constant Guard as top secret
restricted the distribution of message traffic, and the 388th Tactical Fighter
Wing at Korat received no advance notice of the move that, if carried out, would
have forced it to absorb two squadrons. Uncertainty about which airfields the
two squadrons would use in Thailand forced planners at the Tactical Air
Command headquarters to rely on standard deployment packages instead of
tailoring support equipment to a particular base. Because of the use of these
packages, the 334th and 336th Tactical Fighter Squadrons inundated Ubon with
unneeded maintenance gear, and the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, the host at
Ubon, released some ninety-five tons for redistribution.23
The EB–66s that General Lavelle asked for deployed independently of
Constant Guard I. The first increment of electronic warfare aircraft, a pair of
EB–66Es, had already received orders when the North Vietnamese invaded.
341
They, along with another E model and an EB–66C, both alerted on April 4, took
off on the 7th as part of a routine move to replace damaged or downed aircraft
and bring the Korat-based 42d Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron to its
authorized strength of seventeen aircraft. Another four EB–66Es, which jammed
radar more effectively than the C models, began departing for Southeast Asia
on April 10 in specific response to the need for additional jamming capacity. By
the 16th, all four had reached Korat, bringing the strength of the squadron to
twenty-one aircraft.
Korat also provided accommodations for recent arrivals other than the four
EB–66s. The 39th Air Rescue and Recovery Squadron moved seven HC–130s
from Cam Ranh Bay to Korat in March, and the 7th Airborne Command and
Control Squadron, with its dozen C–130 airborne battlefield command and
control centers, began arriving in mid-April from Udorn, where space was
needed for future Constant Guard deployments.24
Constant Guard II consisted of the movement of the 58th and 308th Tactical
Fighter Squadrons to Udorn, where the 432d Tactical Reconnaissance Wing
served as host. The Joint Chiefs of Staff issued the directive on April 26, and on
the following day, the 308th Tactical Fighter Squadron, with eighteen F–4Es,
launched its first cell of three aircraft from Homestead Air Force Base, Florida.
By May 1, seventeen of the fighters had arrived at Udorn; the other one, delayed
by a mechanical problem, arrived on May 2. Three days later, the squadron flew
its first mission from Udorn. The 58th Tactical Fighter Squadron, at Eglin Air
Force Base, Florida, launched its eighteen aircraft on April 28 and 29; all of
them reached Udorn in time to go into action on May 5. As it had in Constant
Guard I, the Military Airlift Command delivered the cargo earmarked for the
two squadrons and more than 1,100 passengers.
The fact that two wings at different bases in the United States had provided
support for the 58th and 308th Tactical Fighter Squadrons resulted in the
duplication of maintenance equipment when both squadrons arrived at the same
destination in Thailand. Neither, however, had brought office furniture, nontac-
tical vehicles, bedding, or even foot lockers. The squadrons obtained these
locally, usually by scrounging from the host unit, which in turn tapped stocks
on Taiwan. Luckily, the 432d Tactical Reconnaissance Wing had been pre-
paring for a possible reinforcement even before the Easter invasion, and the
Commando Flash detachments had already assembled at Udorn to form a squad-
ron, thus providing a limited rehearsal. Consequently, late notice of Constant
Guard II, a result of security considerations in the previous deployment, did not
prove especially disruptive.
When the Joint Chiefs began considering Constant Guard III, they thought
in terms of sending as many as four squadrons of F–4s either to Takhli, from
which Air Force units had withdrawn prior to turning the base over to the Thai
air arm in March 1971, or to Nam Phong, a partially developed and rarely used
Thai base. On May 3, the Joint Chiefs settled on Takhli, directing that the Air
342
Force reopen it to accommodate the 49th Tactical Fighter Wing, with four
squadrons of F–4D fighter-bombers, which would take off from Holloman Air
Force Base, New Mexico. The movement had two related elements: the
deployment itself, Constant Guard III; and the preparation of Takhli, being used
by the Royal Thai Air Force for training, to serve as an operational base for an
entire wing of seventy-two tactical fighters.
The return to Takhli got off to a shaky start, when advance elements of the
800-man Air Force site preparation team arrived on May 5, the first day of a
four-day national holiday, and surprised the Thai base commander who had
heard nothing about the impending deployment. To save cargo space in the
Military Airlift Command transports, the team left its trucks behind and planned
to use Thai vehicles already in place when reopening and operating the base.
Takhli, however, proved short of trucks, forcing the Americans to rent them
locally. Fortunately, a squadron of sixteen KC–135s, the 11th Air Refueling
Squadron, also bound for Takhli, learned of the shortage and brought its own
vehicles from Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma. Despite catching the Thai base
commander off guard, the site preparation team had Takhli ready for operation
when the wing’s fighters arrived. The squadrons left Holloman between May
7 and May 10 and landed between May 10 and 14. The first unit to touch down
launched its first strike on May 11. Equipment and some 4,000 supporting
personnel for Constant Guard III deployed to Takhli from various bases in a
mixed force of C–5s and C–141s.25
The emphasis now shifted from tactical fighters to C–130 transports.
Constant Guard IV, completed between May 13 and 23, increased to 110 the
number of C–130s available in the western Pacific for possible temporary duty
in South Vietnam. Sixteen C–130Es deployed from Langley Air Force Base,
Virginia, to Ching Chuan Kang Air Base on Taiwan. Another twelve arrived
there from Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, and four from Pope Air Force
Base, North Carolina.26
The increase in tactical fighter sorties made possible by the first three
Constant Guard deployments required the support of additional aerial tankers,
but finding suitable bases posed a problem. On April 15, the Strategic Air Com-
mand, the manager of the refueling fleet, ordered 16 KC–135s to U-Tapao,
which brought the total there to 46, with 87 crews, all the base could accommo-
date. Because U-Tapao had reached capacity and both Kadena and Guam were
too far from the aerial battlefield, Clark Air Base in the Philippines became the
temporary home of the tankers that had refueled the 308th Tactical Fighter
Squadron during its deployment. These KC–135s operated from Clark until re-
lieved by those that refueled the other Constant Guard II unit, the 58th Tactical
Fighter Squadron. The 16 KC–135s of the 11th Air Refueling Squadron at Altus
and 28 crews, most of them from that squadron, accompanied the 49th Tactical
Fighter Wing, which deployed to Takhli in Constant Guard III. Other tankers
augmented the existing force, including detachments at Don Muang Airport in
343
Bangkok and at Korat. By the end of June, the Young Tiger Task Force, which
refueled tactical fighters operating in Southeast Asia, totaled 114 aerial tankers
and 196 crews, enabling it to fly 130 sorties per day from U-Tapao, Clark, Don
Muang, Takhli, and Korat. When heavy rains and settling earth damaged the
runways at Clark and caused a leak in a fuel pipeline, operations by the heavily
laden tankers shifted to Ching Chuan Kang. The slower pace of air operations
during the fall of 1972 resulted in a reduction in tanker activity. The
detachments at Don Muang and Ching Chuan Kang returned to the United
States, and the tankers at Korat moved to U-Tapao. When the air war against the
North intensified later in the year, a force of tankers returned to Clark.27
During April 1972, when the Constant Guard deployments began, the
invading North Vietnamese threatened to overwhelm An Loc and launch a drive
toward Saigon. At the time, tactical air support for the defenders of An Loc
depended heavily on a squadron of Air Force A–37s flying from Bien Hoa.
Even as Constant Guard rushed aircraft to Southeast Asia, the Commanding
General, III Marine Amphibious Force, Lt. Gen. Louis Metzger, alerted Maj.
Gen. Leslie E. Brown, the commander of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, to stand
by to send two squadrons of A–4 Skyhawk attack planes to Bien Hoa, in case
the Joint Chiefs decided to reinforce the Air Force unit there. On May 16, the
Commander in Chief, Pacific, relayed the decision to deploy, and on the next
day, General Brown dispatched twenty-two Skyhawks from Iwakuni and ten
others that had been training at Cubi Point in the Philippines. The two squad-
rons constituted Marine Aircraft Group 12 (Forward). To transfer the group’s
support elements, 870 Marines, plus cargo, the Military Airlift Command sum-
moned C–141s and C–130s from around the world to Iwakuni in what the
Marine wing commander considered “an absolutely superior performance.”28
The arrival at Bien Hoa of the Marines and their A–4s posed problems for
a base from which the United States planned to withdraw as a part of Vietnami-
zation. Regardless of its impending change of status, Bien Hoa had already
found accommodations for a detachment of six AC–119K gunships and 150
officers and men from Nakhon Phanom, plus an F–4 turnaround team of 300
that serviced and armed fighter-bombers, saving the time that would have been
lost returning to an airfield in Thailand. Despite the crowding, the air base
squadron that operated the American portion of Bien Hoa allocated the Marines
a suitable share of offices, barracks, aircraft revetments, and maintenance space.
The spirit of cooperation extended to operations. Air Force pilots of the 8th
Special Operations Squadron held briefings for the Marines, took them along
as copilots on orientation strikes in the two-place A–37s, and led the way in an
A–37 on the first combat mission flown by each pair of A–4s. This effort paid
off, inasmuch as Marine Aircraft Group 12 (Forward) lost neither pilots nor
aircraft during its first hundred days of fighting.29
Da Nang Air Base, where Marine Aircraft Group 15 (Forward) had arrived
early in April, experienced worse overcrowding than Bien Hoa. To make room
344
for the Marines, the Seventh Air Force headquarters shifted some OV–10s and
O–2s to airfields elsewhere in South Vietnam and sent twelve EC–47s to
Nakhon Phanom in Thailand. Now an exodus from Da Nang began, perhaps in
belated acknowledgment of its vulnerability as revealed by the earlier North
Vietnamese victories in northernmost South Vietnam. At Iwakuni on May 24,
Marine Brig. Gen. Andrew W. O’Donnell took command of Task Force Delta,
which would open and operate the air base at Nam Phong in east-central Thai-
land. On that same day, a Marine KC–130 flew the advance party, numbering
thirty-nine, to Nam Phong, which consisted of a new 10,000-foot concrete run-
way, but little else. Subsequently, the Military Airlift Command flew in some
500 passengers and almost 1,400 tons of cargo. An Air Force aerial port detach-
ment unloaded construction materials as a crew of 3,200 Navy Seabees and
Marine Corps engineers embarked on a massive project that included 310 huts,
128 larger structures for offices and maintenance facilities, a bomb dump, and
a storage site for 360,000 gallons of fuel complete with a dispensing system.
By June 16, enough work had been finished to permit a squadron of Marine
Corps F–4s to take off from Da Nang, bomb its assigned target, and land at Nam
Phong to begin operations there. Within the next four days, two more Marine
Corps squadrons arrived; an all-weather attack unit, flying A–6s, came from
Iwakuni, and another fighter outfit came from Da Nang. They were followed by
four air-refueling transports and four rescue helicopters. The fighter squadron
left behind at Da Nang returned to Hawaii, and the detachment of TA–4s went
back to Japan.30
The Air Force Chief of Staff, General Ryan, intended as early as January
1972 to pull his tactical fighters out of Da Nang and concentrate them in
Thailand. Had the invasion not intervened, he would have preferred that General
Lavelle, in the time before Vogt replaced him, move one squadron of the 366th
Tactical Fighter Wing from Da Nang to a base in Thailand, divide the aircraft
of another squadron among three sites in Thailand, six aircraft to each, and send
the third, the 390th Tactical Fighter Squadron, back to the United States. The
emergency caused by the Easter invasion postponed further action on the plan
until May 27, when the Commanding General, Pacific Air Forces, proposed a
modified version to the Commander in Chief, Pacific.
The plan, which Admiral McCain approved, called for moving the 336th
Tactical Fighter Wing, less the 390th Tactical Fighter Squadron, from Da Nang
to Takhli in Thailand, where it would take over the base support function from
the 49th Tactical Fighter Wing, enabling that unit to concentrate on combat
operations. The 390th Tactical Fighter Squadron would return to the United
States without its personnel or equipment, sending half its eighteen aircraft to
Udorn and half to Ubon. The 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron, formed at Da
Nang from the Commando Fly contingent that deployed from South Korea by
way of the Philippines, would transfer to Udorn, remain there until the crisis
abated, and then leave the country.31
345
Dividing the resources shifted from Da Nang among Udorn, Ubon, and
Takhli left room in Thailand for the introduction of two squadrons of F–111A
fighter-bombers, each with twenty-four aircraft. The deployment of these
airplanes, Constant Guard V, began on September 27 from Nellis Air Force
Base, Nevada. Twelve of the F–111s departing that day conducted an experi-
ment in rapid deployment; relief aircrews and support personnel flew ahead to
Andersen Air Force Base, the only stop en route, then to Takhli and waited for
the aircraft. Thanks to these preparations, supplemented by aerial refueling, the
advance increment of F–111s landed at Takhli after just twenty-eight hours and
flew their first mission on September 28. The balance of this squadron and the
second one reached Takhli by October 5. The arrival of the F–111s permitted
the return to the United States of the F–4Ds deployed in Constant Guard III,
aircraft judged less effective than the F–4Es that had reached Thailand earlier.
Although the F–111 flew occasional missions in South Vietnam, it performed
its most valuable service in delivering nighttime attacks against heavily
defended targets in North Vietnam, such as surface-to-air missile sites.
The last of the Constant Guard deployments, Constant Guard VI, took place
between October 10 and 16 when the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing dispatched
its three squadrons, totaling seventy-two A–7Ds, from Myrtle Beach Air Force
Base, South Carolina, to Korat. The wing, in effect, replaced the thirty-six
F–4Es of the 58th and 308th Tactical Fighter Squadrons, deployed in Constant
Guard II, which returned to the United States. The A–7Ds flew a variety of
missions throughout Southeast Asia: escorting convoys on the Mekong River
in Cambodia, for example; bombing by daylight in North Vietnam and South
Vietnam; escorting gunships at night; and replacing the A–1s in escorting
rescue helicopters.32
The Constant Guard deployments to Southeast Asia, five of which consisted
of fighter-bombers, increased Seventh Air Force strength in that category from
237, 60 in South Vietnam and 177 in Thailand, when North Vietnam invaded
to a peak of 396, all but two aircraft in Thailand, at the end of September. At
that point, departures made themselves felt, as the total declined by the end of
October to 290 tactical fighters, all in Thailand. At the end of the Constant
Guard cycle in October, the overall proportion of aircraft between Thailand and
South Vietnam stood at three-to-one, compared to four-to-three when the
deployments began. The changed ratio clearly indicates that the United States
withdrew aircraft as well as men from South Vietnam, remaining within the
announced force levels there, simultaneously with a buildup in Thailand.33
By channeling Air Force tactical fighter units into Thailand and increasing
the use of B–52s based in Thailand or on Guam and carrier aircraft, the Nixon
administration managed to continue the withdrawal of American forces from
South Vietnam while helping the Saigon government resist the North
Vietnamese invasion. On April 26, when the very survival of South Vietnam
seemed at risk, President Nixon announced that authorized American strength
346
F–111s and F–4s at Takhli (top); A–7s and F–4s at Korat (bottom).
there, established at 69,000 by the end of that month, would decline by 20,000
during May and June. He insisted, moreover, that General Abrams meet this
goal. Consequently, the Military Assistance Command further trimmed Army
and to a lesser extent Navy forces in compensating for the arrival in South
Vietnam of 2,889 officers and enlisted men from the Air Force and Marine
Corps aviation. Because of the careful juggling of service strengths, the twelfth
reduction since 1969 brought the total authorization to a mere 49,000 on June
30, with the actual strength perhaps 1,000 fewer.
347
At this point, both Abrams and Admiral McCain, the Commander in Chief,
Pacific, warned that further cuts might jeopardize the American troops still in
the country and impair their ability to support the South Vietnamese. Abrams
agreed, however, that a further reduction of 10,000 by September might be
feasible; whereas McCain recommended a summer-long moratorium on troop
reductions. In mid-June, the Joint Chiefs of Staff forwarded these differing
recommendations to Secretary of Defense Laird, along with a reminder of the
critical nature of the military situation, and in doing so, endorsed a 10,000-space
reduction, if “overriding considerations at the national level” so dictated. Once
the Joint Chiefs had lobbed the ball into his court, Nixon slammed it back,
announcing on June 28 the thirteenth reduction in the series, which would cut
the authorized strength to 39,000 on September 1.
The pattern of brushing aside military objections, which the Joint Chiefs did
not assert vigorously, and announcing the next withdrawal as the current one
ended persisted into late summer. A new Commander, U.S. Military Assistance
Command, Vietnam, Gen. Frederick C. Weyand, and a new Commander in
Chief, Pacific, Adm. Noel A. M. Gayler, in effect repeated the advice given by
their predecessors before the previous reduction. Although the Joint Chiefs
recommended maintaining a force of about 30,000 through the end of the year,
the Nixon administration on August 29 announced an objective of 27,000 by
November 30.
The series of sequential reductions and announcements of further cuts
ended in August, for during October peace negotiations stalled. The leadership
at Hanoi seemed hopeful that the November election would return a Congress
willing to cut off funding for the war and thus legislate a North Vietnamese vic-
tory. Instead of setting a further goal as the fourteenth increment ended, the
newly reelected President intensified the air war against the North in an attempt
to force the negotiation of a settlement. Meanwhile, unpublicized withdrawals
continued. Actual U.S. strength in South Vietnam declined to 24,069 at the end
of December, after B–52s and other aircraft had conducted eleven days of
bombing against targets in Hanoi and Haiphong, and to 23,156 at the signing of
a cease-fire agreement on January 27, 1973.34
The withdrawals, which continued despite the invasion, reassured the
American people of President Nixon’s intention to liquidate the war and
prevented the intense reaction during 1972 that the invasion of Cambodia had
triggered two years earlier, but some opposition did surface. The air offensive
launched against North Vietnam in April, though limited in scope and clearly
a reaction to the invasion, spurred congressional opponents of the war to call for
cutting off funds to continue the fighting and for establishing a date to end U.S.
involvement. Protests erupted on some college campuses, and major cities again
served as the sites for antiwar demonstrations. The intensification of the air war
in May, accompanied by the mining of North Vietnam’s harbors, triggered new
congressional agitation along with antiwar demonstrations that for a time shut
348
down the Capitol building and resulted in the detonation of a bomb in the
Pentagon. Passions subsided, however, for U.S. casualties remained few as the
President not only avoided reintroducing ground forces but continued reducing
the number still in South Vietnam.35
Moreover, the Selective Service System no longer served as a catalyst for
youthful dissent, since the threat of being drafted to fight in Vietnam had all but
disappeared. As the Army began its conversion to an all-volunteer service, draft
calls declined to a mere 50,000 in 1972, compared to 299,000 in 1968, before
the beginning of Vietnamization and withdrawal.36 Not even the heavy bombing
near Hanoi and Haiphong during the eleven days surrounding Christmas 1972,
denounced as an atrocity by North Vietnamese propaganda, provoked much of
a reaction in the United States, other than on the editorial pages of some news-
papers. The absence of demonstrations resulted in part from the fact that col-
leges had suspended classes for the holidays and that Congress was not in ses-
sion, muting dissent on Capitol Hill.37
Besides rebuilding aerial strength in Southeast Asia to blunt the North Viet-
namese offensive and continuing the reduction of American numbers in South
Vietnam, the Nixon administration increased military aid to the government at
Saigon. Planning for an acceleration of military assistance began during 1971
with a force structure review that, among other things, sought to improve
coastal surveillance, to strengthen both the army and the local defense forces,
and, of most direct concern to the Air Force, to enable the South Vietnamese to
conduct aerial interdiction of North Vietnamese supply and infiltration routes.
The review included a program, approved by Secretary Laird, that increased the
authorized strength of the South Vietnamese Air Force by some 4,100 to operate
and maintain the proposed five squadrons of minigunships.38
However, the minigunship program, nicknamed Credible Chase, failed to
survive initial tests in the United States. Two aircraft underwent modification
and entered a competition at Eglin Air Force Base in 1972, but neither had the
endurance, structural strength, or aerodynamic stability to function as a gunship.
The unsuccessful test came to an abrupt conclusion shortly after North Vietnam
invaded the South.39
Before the minigunship program fizzled out, the Joint Chiefs in February
1972 endorsed the latest force structure review, thus increasing the authorized
strength of the South Vietnamese Air Force to 61,000 at mid-1973. As approved
by Secretary Laird, the plan called for the addition of 16,905 spaces to the air
arm, including the 4,100 for the minigunship squadrons. To maintain overall
South Vietnamese strength at the 1.1 million programmed in the budget for
fiscal 1973, while at the same time increasing the air force, the South
Vietnamese Joint General Staff suggested making a corresponding reduction in
the irregular forces. Abrams agreed, as did the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
Secretary Laird. By the time Laird approved the plan in July 1972, Credible
Chase had failed to produce a credible weapon. As a result, the 4,100 spaces set
349
aside for that project became a manpower pool for the South Vietnamese Air
Force as it expanded toward a projected 64,507 by June 30, 1973.40
The North Vietnamese invasion at the end of March 1972 underscored the
concerns of Nixon and Laird that the program of military aid then being devised
might accomplish too little too late. The early battles required a vast expendi-
ture of ammunition by the South Vietnamese, and the defeats they suffered cost
them equipment, supplies, and casualties. Ahead lay the daunting prospect of
reestablishing military stockpiles while training, equipping, and organizing re-
placements — interrelated tasks that would require massive aid from the United
States. This assistance came to be known as Project Enhance.
In shaping Project Enhance, the Joint Chiefs persuaded Laird to resist any
impulse to embark on new programs that the South Vietnamese, still reeling
from the recent onslaught, might not be able to absorb. The immediate purpose,
the Chiefs argued, should be to restore the armed forces of South Vietnam to
their pre-invasion strength and effectiveness, while attempting modest improve-
ments. As a result, Project Enhance consisted of a series of layered building
blocks that restored the authorized 1.1-million-man structure and introduced
only such new, or more numerous, equipment as the South Vietnamese could
readily operate and maintain. The building blocks would be in place by August
1. President Nixon approved the concept, despite a possible cost of $730
million. On May 24, while he was in Moscow conferring with Brezhnev, the
Secretary General of the Soviet Union’s ruling Communist Party, Nixon in-
formed President Thieu of South Vietnam that Project Enhance would begin.41
In carrying out its share of Project Enhance, the Air Force first tried to
identify and deliver what South Vietnamese airmen needed to blunt the inva-
sion. The initial layer of building blocks, intended to restore effectiveness,
included 32 UH–1 helicopters, 5 F–5A fighter-bombers, and 48 A–37 attack
aircraft. The delivery of 30 minigunships, projected as the first increment, never
took place because of the collapse of the Credible Chase program.
The subsequent layers of building blocks, which did not have the initial
deadline of August 1, looked to the improvement of the South Vietnamese Air
Force. The U.S. Army, for example, would provide enough CH–47 helicopters
to equip two squadrons, but this could not take place until September. At the
same time, the Air Force would accelerate the delivery of 14 RC–47s, 23
AC–119K gunships, 23 EC–47s, 28 C–7 transports, and 14 C–119Gs modified
for coastal fire support and maritime patrol. The lack of urgency in putting these
later blocks into place reflected problems in training crews and maintenance
specialists. For example, in the spring of 1972, the South Vietnamese Air Force
formally acquired two squadrons of C–7s that U.S. Air Force crews had flown
out of Cam Ranh Bay, but the airplanes could not go into action immediately.
Since no South Vietnamese could fly the C–7, the crews delivered the aircraft
to Phu Cat where American instructors had to train the necessary replacements.
Project Enhance, confirmed by a new force structure review in the summer of
350
1972, brought prompt results, though largely in terms of numbers. By the end
of October, the South Vietnamese Air Force activated all but 7 of the 58
squadrons planned for June 30 of the following year, and actual strength stood
at 52,400.42
In October, as Project Enhance neared completion, the Nixon administra-
tion approved another infusion of equipment, Project Enhance Plus. The new
undertaking served two purposes: to rush war material to South Vietnam before
a cease-fire imposed restrictions on military assistance and to reconcile Presi-
dent Thieu to the fact that the United States, without having consulted him, now
stood ready to accept a settlement that would permit North Vietnamese troops
to remain on South Vietnamese soil, thus legitimizing the results of the Easter
offensive. Although heavily weighted toward equipment for the South Vietnam-
ese army, Project Enhance Plus did not ignore the air arm, for it included 19
A–1s (replaced as rescue escorts by the recently arrived A–7s), 90 A–37Bs, 32
C–130s, 126 F–5s, 177 UH–1s, together with the AC–119Ks and some other
types not yet delivered in Project Enhance. The plan originally called for com-
pleting Enhance Plus by November 20, but later changes moved the deadline to
November 10 and added 35 O–2 observation craft, already in South Vietnam,
as replacements for the older O–1s and U–17s. The collapse of truce negotia-
tions, which did not resume until after the Christmas bombing, caused the pos-
sible signing of a peace settlement to recede beyond January 1, 1973, and eased
the pressure for prompt completion. Reflecting the changing circumstances, the
last items in Project Enhance Plus did not arrive until December 10.
Urgency had prevailed, however, when the project began, and the American
armed forces moved swiftly to carry out President Nixon’s intentions. By
November 10, an estimated 100,000 tons of equipment and cargo for Project
Enhance Plus had arrived in South Vietnam or had begun the journey there. To
make aircraft available, the Air Force diverted shipments intended for other
nations or arranged the recall of airplanes already delivered outside South Viet-
nam. When necessary, Enhance Plus tapped the resources of Air Force Reserve
and Air National Guard units. The Air Force dispatched a total of 256 aircraft
that arrived in South Vietnam either under their own power or partially disas-
sembled in the cavernous hulls of C–5A or C–141 transports. Another 61 air-
planes and 307 helicopters came from Air Force and Army inventories in South
Vietnam. The Military Airlift Command delivered 4,998 tons of cargo, not quite
5 percent of the total, including all the A–37s shipped during Enhance Plus.43
Project Enhance Plus increased the inventory of the South Vietnamese Air
Force by some 595 aircraft, excluding about 30 of the helicopters intended for
a postwar truce surveillance agency. To absorb this influx, the air arm by mid-
1973 organized eight additional fighter or attack squadrons, two transport
squadrons, fourteen squadrons or flights of helicopters, and one training
squadron. Besides accomplishing all of this, the project reequipped some
tactical air support squadrons with O–2s, increased each UH–1 squadron from
351
F–5s sent to South Vietnam as part of Enhance Plus wait to be assembled.

33 helicopters to 38, and began organizing the squadron of armed C–119Gs for
coastal and maritime patrol. When the South Vietnamese Air Force absorbed all
the Enhance Plus aircraft — and eliminated the recently organized C–123
squadrons in 1973, as scheduled — it would total sixty-six squadrons with more
than 61,000 officers and men. This rapid augmentation, however, imposed
strains on the supporting establishment and failed to generate the kind of air
power that the United States had exercised over the years.44
The training of pilots and crews to fly the aircraft provided by Project
Enhance Plus proceeded on the principle that instruction in the United States
soon would merely supplement that administered in South Vietnam. To cope
with the additional aircraft, the South Vietnamese Air Force no longer waited
for trainees to emerge from the pipeline, but tried instead, with American
collaboration, to teach persons already familiar with one kind of aircraft to make
the transition to a more advanced type. Assignments vacated by those who
retrained would go to officers that had recently learned to fly. Pilots of A–37s
retrained for F–5s; O–1 pilots for the O–2 and the A–37; crews of AC–119Gs
for AC–119Ks; crews of C–119s and C–123s for the C–130s; and those of
C–123s for the armed C–119s. Since the C–123 squadrons would disband
during 1973, they seemed a valuable source of pilots and crew members for
transition training. The Air Force Advisory Group, using teams of instructors
dispatched from the United States, planned to teach a number of the South
Vietnamese to take over the postwar training programs for the various types of
aircraft, assisted as necessary by American civilians working under contract. In
contrast to the fixed-wing aircraft, the vast increase in helicopters during
Enhance and Enhance Plus required, at least for the near future, pilots trained
352
exclusively for this type of aircraft by Army instructors in the United States.45
Despite the emphasis on training, in February 1973, two weeks after the cease-
fire took effect, the South Vietnamese Air Force projected a shortage of some
800 pilots or copilots, 300 for fixed-wing aircraft and the rest for helicopters.
The South Vietnamese Air Force also needed additional navigators for the
gunships, transports, and especially the coastal and maritime patrol aircraft it
was acquiring. Unfortunately, the air arm gave a low priority to the aerial
navigation school operated in South Vietnam, reducing the course from twenty
weeks to twelve, and finally closing the course entirely when Project Enhance
created a critical need for pilots. By the time the cease-fire went into effect, the
South Vietnamese had not yet accepted U.S. advice to reopen the navigation
school; indeed, only twenty-three trainees, all of them eliminated from pilot
training, were undergoing instruction in the United States.46
Although logistics had caused problems over the years, the Air Force
Advisory Group seemed generally confident that the South Vietnamese Air
Force could maintain the aircraft provided by Projects Enhance and Enhance
Plus. Although the absence of a common language remained a barrier to the
transfer of maintenance skills, the translation of manuals and technical orders
into Vietnamese helped, as did accelerated programs for teaching English to the
South Vietnamese. Moreover, the average airman entering the South Vietnam-
ese Air Force, though he might be a farmer or laborer unfamiliar with machin-
ery, demonstrated an ability to master fairly complex technical skills. Patience
and motivation seemed the keys to success, for American instructors had to
expect the inevitable errors, correct them again and again, and above all, avoid
giving up and simply doing the job for the persons they were supposed to
teach.47
Plans called for the South Vietnamese to operate a computer-assisted
logistics system patterned on the Air Force model, but oriented toward the
specific aircraft in their inventory. Under this arrangement, a computer at the
Air Logistics Command kept track of spare parts and other material to insure the
presence of adequate stocks at base and depot. Maintenance and repair began
at the base, moving to the depot if the nature of the work proved too demanding.
As a general rule, the more complex the task, the greater the dependence on
American help. When Project Enhance Plus came to an end, the South Vietnam-
ese Air Force bore full responsibility for maintaining the A–1, a technologically
straightforward airplane, and all its components and for repairing battle damage
to most other of its aircraft. South Vietnamese technicians could not, however,
repair all kinds of electronic gear, for in some instances the succession of
modernization and improvement programs had not given them the necessary
test equipment or training. Once the cease-fire took effect, American contractors
would have to deal with this category of electronic devices and also perform
depot, though not base-level, maintenance on the J–85 jet engines that powered
the F–5 and A–37. The C–130, new to the inventory, presented a special post-
353
war challenge, but the Air Force Logistics Command expected South Vietnam-
ese mechanics to learn to perform all base-level procedures, while Lockheed,
the manufacturer, did the more technologically demanding work at depots out-
side South Vietnam. A similar division of labor would also apply to the heli-
copter fleet, as the South Vietnamese assumed postwar responsibility for the
engines, air frames, and rotors, with the U.S. contractors repairing the more
complex components, like the fuel control system of the Bell UH–1. The com-
puter and the various terminals used by the South Vietnamese Air Logistics
Command depended exclusively on American technicians for repair and main-
tenance.48
Although the postwar South Vietnamese Air Force would continue to
require outside help for computer services and aircraft maintenance, its logistics
system seemed, to American eyes, adequate for the support of the aerial armada
that Projects Enhance and Enhance Plus had completed. Later, some of the
Vietnamese assigned to the Air Logistics Command provided a different assess-
ment, one affected, no doubt, by the collapse of the South Vietnamese armed
forces and government and their own escape to the United States. One of them,
Gen. Tu Van Be, pointed out that the expansion of the South Vietnamese Air
Force brought in a vast number of recruits at the very time when American
reductions in funding and the cost of intensified aerial combat put an end to the
technical training of lower-ranking airmen in the United States. In spite of help
from on-the-job training by Air Force technicians, replaced after the cease-fire
by American civilians under contract, South Vietnamese noncommissioned offi-
cers, themselves needed by operational units, had to impart some degree of
technical skill to unwieldy groups of twenty or twenty-five recruits, whereas
they formerly had taught only six or seven persons at a time. He believed, more-
over, that many of the American civilians, who provided technical training
immediately after the cease-fire, did not meet the high standards established by
the Air Force instructors they replaced. Until the contractors weeded out their
unfit employees, the task of training lay heavily on the already overburdened
South Vietnamese noncommissioned officers.49
Brigadier General Dang Dinh Linh, the South Vietnamese Air Force’s
Deputy Chief of Staff for Materiel, praised the Air Logistics Command’s data
processing network, which consisted of a main computer at Bien Hoa and
terminals at the other bases. Data automation, he believed, successfully matched
stocks with the needs of the operational units and helped with logistics
planning.50 One of the officers in Linh’s staff section argued, however, that the
computer should have been located at South Vietnamese Air Force headquarters
at Tan Son Nhut, thus enabling the logistics command to mass supplies in
anticipation of planned operations instead of reacting, as it consistently had
done, to requisitions and reported shortages.51
The same officer who had criticized the location of the main computer, also
complained that Enhance Plus had inundated South Vietnam’s army and air
354
force with more equipment than they could handle. To support this view, he
cited the example of the C–130s, more complicated than the C–123 already in
the inventory, old and in need of maintenance when the South Vietnamese took
them over, and a source of recurring mechanical problems until the fall of
Saigon in April 1975. The two helicopters made available in sizeable numbers
during 1972, the CH–47 and the UH–1, also proved difficult to keep in
operating condition.52 In terms of logistics, the decision to replace some F–5As
with F–5Es also seemed a mistake, for, as General Linh himself pointed out, a
different and more complex fighter took the place of a familiar one.53
Besides being difficult for the South Vietnamese Air Force to maintain, the
aircraft that arrived during the 1972 augmentation failed to correct glaring
weaknesses in the organization’s ability to wage aerial warfare. The inability of
the minigunship to survive testing in Florida left the South Vietnamese with no
aircraft capable of attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail or comparably defended
lines of supply and communication. The most modern gunship, the lumbering
AC–119K, could not survive conventional antiaircraft fire, let alone radar-
directed guns or heat-seeking missiles. The A–1, though sturdy and able to carry
up to four tons of bombs, lacked speed, but the fast jets like the A–37 or F–5,
which might survive antiaircraft defenses, had neither the endurance nor the
bomb capacity for armed reconnaissance and, because of the failure to equip
and train the South Vietnamese for aerial refueling, could not attack targets deep
within southern Laos or North Vietnam. Moreover, only the F–5E provided an
effective weapon for air defense, should North Vietnam break with tradition and
launch an air campaign against the South.54
As it coped with these weaknesses in tactical aviation and air defense, the
South Vietnamese Air Force faced the formidable task of finding an aerial
weapon with the versatility and firepower of the B–52, a high-altitude bomber
that could drop as many thirty tons of bombs on targets varying from troops
massing for an assault to docks and warehouses hundreds of miles from the
battlefield. The Nixon administration sought to substitute a powerful bomb for
a mighty bomber, providing a fuel-air weapon, containing a volatile gas-like
propane, which the A–1 or A–37 could deliver by parachute, and the pallet-load
of high explosive, and sometimes oil or gasoline, parachuted from a transport
like the C–130.55 The South Vietnamese Air Force received some of the
CBU–55 fuel-air devices in time to try them against the enemy-held citadel at
Quang Tri City, where the sturdy masonry walls proved impervious to 500-
pound bombs dropped by A–37s. In this instance, the cloud of gas exploded
ineffectually in the opening along the base of the wall instead of first seeping
into a confined space, like a cellar or bunker, for maximum destructive effect.
After the CBU–55 failed, Air Force F–4s breached the barrier with laser-guided
bombs, which the South Vietnamese did not have.56
The South Vietnamese airmen, lacking laser-guided bombs, had to achieve
the necessary accuracy with ordinary munitions, which required attacks at low
355
altitude. However, the North Vietnamese introduction of a shoulder-launched,

heat-seeking antiaircraft missile, the SA–7, forced a change in tactics. Although
flares might fool the infrared homing device or shields screen the heat source,
the surest protection against the SA–7, until flare dispensers and heat shielding
became commonplace, consisted of staying out of range and bombing from
9,000 or 10,000 feet. At that altitude, even a skilled pilot found it difficult to hit
a compact target with a conventional bomb.57
Despite its use of EC–47s to intercept radio signals and locate transmitters
in the field, the South Vietnamese Air Force depended heavily on photo recon-
naissance for discovering and pinpointing targets. A Vietnamized photo in-
terpretation center functioned at Tan Son Nhut, but neither of the available
camera-equipped aircraft, the RF–5A and the RC–47D, could supply it with
satisfactory pictures of the battlefield. The RF–5A, though fast enough to pene-
trate defended areas, carried a camera that photographed too narrow a swath to
be of much value in finding targets. The RC–47D, flying low and slow, pro-
vided more panoramic coverage but presented an easy target for hostile anti-
aircraft gunners.58
In another form of reconnaissance, visual searches by forward air control-
lers, the South Vietnamese also suffered from second-line equipment. They did
not have the OV–10, the newest aircraft that American forward air controllers
used; indeed, the old and extremely vulnerable O–1 and U–17 remained in ser-
vice, along with the O–2A, better performing but by no means the equal of the
OV–10. In general, South Vietnamese forward air controllers seemed competent
in the procedures for actually directing strikes, but they had done much of their
flying in what American analysts called “a benign environment.”59 Moreover,
as some of the South Vietnamese controllers had demonstrated over the eastern
part of the demilitarized zone in the weeks before the Easter invasion, they
tended, perhaps because of a lack of confidence that they could operate in
heavily defended areas, to show very little initiative as they adhered strictly to
their prescribed routes.60
American air power had protected the withdrawal, principally of ground
forces, that began in 1969 and continued after the Easter invasion of 1972.
Despite three years of Vietnamization, the South Vietnamese Air Force could
not yet take over the air war when the North Vietnamese attacked, though they
did enjoy limited success against poorly defended targets. South Vietnam’s air
arm, moreover, could not absorb and make use of the material provided by Pro-
jects Enhance and Enhance Plus quickly enough to meet the current emergency;
indeed, it seemed unlikely that South Vietnamese military aviation could deal,
unaided, with a future assault of comparable scope. Whatever the future might
bring, the task of responding to the North Vietnamese offensive of 1972 fell to
rapidly reinforced U.S. air power wielded by the Air Force, Navy, and Marine
Corps.
356
Chapter Twenty-One
Military Region I
Quang Tri City Lost and Regained
After announcing that General Vogt would replace General Lavelle, Presi-
dent Nixon summoned the new commander of the Seventh Air Force to the
White House for what turned out to be a pep talk. As Vogt remembered the
conversation, the President complained that Lavelle had shown a lack of aggres-
siveness, even though he actually was being replaced because he had broken the
rules of engagement governing the air war.1 Consequently, Vogt was to “use
whatever air you need to turn this thing around.”2 In carrying out the Presiden-
tial mandate, Vogt wanted a free hand; as he told Nixon, “I can’t have people
telling me what targets to hit . . . I’ve got to be able to run the war.” Nixon
agreed, “You’ve got all that authority,” he replied, though he never reinforced
his oral assurance with a formal directive.
As it turned out, Vogt’s concern lest he fail to “get command arrangements
squared away” proved largely groundless. The practice of approving at Wash-
ington each individual target in North Vietnam, normal for the earlier Rolling
Thunder air campaign, was not sustained during Operation Linebacker, although
certain areas, like the buffer zone along the Chinese border, and some targets,
principally hydroelectric dams (but not the related generators) and irrigation
dikes, remained exempt from attack.
Vogt’s operational control of Marine Corps aircraft did not cause tension
because the Marine airmen returned to Southeast Asia as reinforcements for the
Seventh Air Force, and no combat Marines — except for the limited number of
advisers with the South Vietnamese — served on the ground in South Vietnam
where they would have an emotional as well as doctrinal claim to sorties by
Marine Corps aviation. Finally, as Seventh Air Force commander, Vogt became
more than a deputy for air operations like his predecessors; at the end of June,
he replaced Gen. Frederick C. Weyand as deputy commander of the Military
Assistance Command when Weyand took over as commander from Abrams. In
effect, the headquarters of the Seventh Air Force and assistance command
merged, thus reflecting the dominant U.S. role in the air war as participation in
the fighting on the ground continued to decline.
357
In spite of some disharmony at the start, Vogt got along well with Abrams
and with Weyand, after Abrams left South Vietnam to become Army Chief of
Staff. He moved into an office next to Weyand and saw to it that the staffs of the
Seventh Air Force and the military assistance command collaborated on op-
erational planning. Convinced that duty required him to present Abrams with
the facts as he saw them, Vogt challenged an intelligence report that justified
turning down a request from Maj. Gen. James F. Hollingsworth, the senior U.S.
adviser in Military Region III, to concentrate B–52 strikes against an expected
attack on the town of An Loc. At a staff meeting where Abrams considered
Hollingsworth’s request, Vogt boldly warned that the fall of An Loc could
undercut the American bargaining position on the eve of Nixon’s meeting with
Brezhnev. Abrams, embarrassed by Vogt’s bluntness in the presence of other
officers, angrily overruled the airman. However, the evidence that Vogt immed-
iately mustered, including reports from forward air controllers, caused Abrams
to reconsider, change his mind, contact the Strategic Air Command’s planning
group in South Vietnam, and arrange for diversion of the bombers. This willing-
ness on the part of Abrams to ignore bruised feelings and let Vogt “walk in” and
renew the argument “from a professional standpoint” impressed Vogt as being
to Abram’s “everlasting credit.”3
When Vogt arrived at Seventh Air Force headquarters on April 7, bad
weather, dominant since the offensive began, screened the assault troops in
northern South Vietnam from systematic air attack. At times, according to Maj.
David A. Brookbank, the Air Force adviser with the South Vietnamese 3d
Division, only B–52s using Combat Skyspot or fighter-bombers aided by radar
or Loran could harry the North Vietnamese invaders of Quang Tri Province.4
Indeed, cloud cover also persisted in North Vietnam during the summer months,
as the prevailing monsoon winds brought moisture-laden air from the Indian
Ocean. Dr. Kissinger recalled that during these frustrating days he pressed
Admiral Moorer for news of successful strikes against the North, but “his
answer for the first forty-eight hours was negative.” The subject of the weather
became “nearly an obsession” with Kissinger and the occasion for “sarcasm and
badgering” directed at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “It seemed to
me,” Kissinger recalled several years later, “that our entire Air Force consisted
of delicate machines capable of flying only in a war in the desert in July. I
suggested that if they could not fly maybe they could taxi north for twenty-five
miles.” Not until the arrival of Marine A–6s in June and Air Force F–111s in
September and October did Vogt acquire genuine all-weather fighter-bombers.
According to statistics compiled for Admiral Moorer, by mid-August, bad
weather had forced the cancellation or diversion to secondary targets of 42
percent of the strikes scheduled against targets in North Vietnam.5
Unfavorable weather, the confusion of war, and clashing priorities under-
mined the Vietnamized air control system as the South Vietnamese 3d Division
struggled to defend Quang Tri Province. When the North Vietnamese stormed
358
across the demilitarized zone, catching the recently organized division in the
process of rotating its components among defensive positions inherited from the
Americans, Major Brookbank tried to function as an air adviser, but his counter-
part, the South Vietnamese air liaison officer, proved reluctant to accept respon-
sibility for marshaling air power in support of the division. While cloud cover
and the South Vietnamese officer’s hesitancy handicapped Brookbank’s efforts
to employ aircraft, the hard-pressed division fell back from its northern and
western outposts and organized a line south of the Cua Viet and Mieu Giang
Rivers. At Camp Carroll, the position turned sharply southward, extending to
the border with neighboring Thua Thien Province. On April 2, however, the
commander at Camp Carroll surrendered his 1,500 troops, opening a gap that
the division commander, Brig. Gen. Vu Van Giai, could close only by retreating
some ten miles toward Quang Tri City.6
On the day that the defenses of Camp Carroll collapsed, April 2, two
EB–66s, with radio call signs Bat 21 and Bat 22, were providing electronic jam-
ming for B–52s using Combat Skyspot to bomb through the overcast near the
demilitarized zone, from which enemy troops now pushed southward. Despite
the jamming signal, two radar-guided SA–2 surface-to-air missiles roared
through the clouds, one of them scoring a direct hit on Bat 21. Of the six
crewmen, only the navigator, Lt. Col. Iceal E. Hambleton, escaped from the
shattered airplane. He suffered minor injuries as he parachuted to earth near a
major highway in the vicinity of Cam Lo. Using the hand-held radio that formed
a part of his escape equipment, he contacted would-be rescuers who planned to
pick him up by helicopter on the next day.
To protect the downed airman and the aircrews trying to recover him, the
Seventh Air Force established restrictions on air strikes and artillery barrages
throughout a so-called no-fire zone, 27 kilometers in radius, encompassing
much of the 3d Division’s area of operation, including the North Vietnamese
route of advance from Camp Carroll toward Quang Tri City. The I Direct Air
Support Center was to control the use of firepower within that area, giving an
absolute priority to activity directly related to the rescue. After antiaircraft fire
downed three of the aircraft participating in the planned rescue, along with two
Army helicopters that tried on their own to pick up Hambleton, an officer at his
wing headquarters coached the downed airman by radio to a point on the Cua
Viet River, disguising the instructions by referring to the layout from tee to
green of various holes on golf courses familiar to both men. As Hambleton
golfed his way to safety, starting off in the direction of the tee shot then taking
a dog-leg to the right, Seventh Air Force headquarters tracked his location and
reduced the radius of the safety zone surrounding him to 5,000 and then 2,700
meters. Two other airmen, 1st Lieutenants Mark Clark and Bruce Walker,
whose aircraft were shot down while protecting Hambleton, also received
instructions by radio, though without the references to golf courses, a story that
has become one of the legends of the Vietnam conflict.
359
SA–2 launcher (top) and an SA–2 flashing past a reconnaissance aircraft.

Marine Lt. Col. Andrew E. Andersen, a member of the assistance com-
mand’s Studies and Observations Group who specialized in the recovery of
Americans captured by the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong, dispatched a team
of South Vietnamese led by U.S. Navy Lt. Thomas R. Norris to infiltrate hostile
territory and effect a rescue. Norris and one of the South Vietnamese disguised
themselves as fishermen, took a boat up the Cua Viet, and plucked Hambleton
from the river bank. The exploit earned Norris the Medal of Honor. Thus ended,
after eleven days, a rescue effort that had resulted in the destruction of two
OV–10s, an HH–53, two Army UH–1s, and the loss of eleven American lives.7
The establishment of the no-fire zone to facilitate Hambleton’s rescue
occurred when an estimated three North Vietnamese divisions, with tanks and
artillery, were advancing from the northwest toward the river defenses and from
360
the northwest toward Quang Tri City. The enemy moved at will through the
zone, safe for the most part from artillery fire, but impeded to some extent by
air strikes on road traffic, troop concentrations, or antiaircraft sites that threat-
ened the rescue. Even intelligence collection, especially visual reconnaissance
by low-flying forward air controllers, sought primarily to aid the recovery ef-
fort. Brookbank, the Air Force adviser in Giai’s headquarters, believed that the
Bat 21 no-fire zone “cost the 3d ARVN Division dearly” by giving the North
Vietnamese an immunity to attack “unprecedented in the annals of warfare.”
Despite Brookbank’s somber critique, South Vietnamese artillery did not fall
silent, but continued to fire against carefully chosen targets, largely on the
initiative of its officers.8
The interruption of the air war caused by the rescue of Hambleton raised a
number of issues. An account of Air Force search and rescue activity in South-
east Asia, for example, compares rescuing Hambleton against the U.S. lives
lost, “How much was the one life worth?” The question had not arisen before
the rescue attempt and no formal answer appeared afterward. Air Force rescue
and recovery units avoided throwing away lives on suicidal missions against the
most heavily defended portions of North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail
in Laos, but prior to the Easter offensive, operations in South Vietnam had
usually encountered only automatic weapons and optically aimed, light antiair-
craft guns, the kind of opposition that a fighter escort could readily suppress.
The rescue attempt on April 3 began with every expectation of success, but
ended in failure after North Vietnamese missiles and antiaircraft guns, deadlier
because of radar control, proved too powerful for the rescue force. Once the
enemy demonstrated the actual strength of his battlefield aerial defenses, the
Seventh Air Force launched no further recovery attempts but instead maintained
surveillance while Lieutenant Colonel Andersen’s organization assumed re-
sponsibility for the pickup. No formal evaluation proved necessary, balancing
the number of lives risked against those that might be saved. The area around
Cam Lo simply joined the list of regions, like Hanoi and Haiphong in the north
or Tchepone in southern Laos, where rescue helicopters dared not venture.9
A popular history, John Morrocco’s Rain of Fire, makes much of the fact
that Brookbank, who criticized suspending air support for the 3d Division to
avoid endangering Hambleton (and later Clark and Walker), cried out “Thank
God for the U.S. Air Force” when HH–53 helicopters extricated the unit’s
American advisers as the enemy overran Quang Tri City.10 The attempt at irony
misses the point, which is not that rescues took place, often involving loss of
life among the rescuers and always inspiring gratitude in the individual saved,
but that American authorities were willing to risk the destruction of an entire
division in setting up the recovery of one officer, Hambleton. Upon learning
that the no-fire zone had gone into effect for a lone airman — only Hambleton
had been shot down at that time — a South Vietnamese officer asked one of the
division’s American advisers, “Just one?”11
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Nor is it pertinent that a subsequent rescue saved Brookbank, together with

more than a hundred others, from death or capture at Quang Tri City. Brook-
bank carried out his duties to the bitter end. Marine Lt. Col. Gerald H. Turley,
serving as an adviser to the 3d Division, described Brookbank’s “personal ef-
forts to get TAC [tactical aircraft] on targets” as “instrumental in slowing the
enemy’s advance.” Moreover, in Turley’s opinion, Brookbank had “demon-
strated that he possessed the stamina and those special qualities of which heroes
are made.”12
In spite of his respect for Brookbank, with whom he worked in the divi-
sion’s tactical operations center, Turley criticized a decision that, in his words,
“the U.S. Air Force would control all air strikes and artillery fire” through the
I Direct Air Support Center. In actual practice, however, South Vietnamese
artillery continued firing, although the U.S. advisers monitored the fire control
network and tried to veto any concentrations within 1,000 meters of the reported
positions of Hambleton, Clark, or Walker. Only air support remained under the
strict control of the I Direct Air Support Center throughout the recovery
operation, though the forward air controllers could put in strikes as required,
provided they did not violate overall instructions.13 The policy on air strikes
relaxed only gradually, keeping pace with the progress of the rescue. According
to Maj. Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen, the senior U.S. adviser in Military Region
I, “No commander in MR I could change it and no command authority in
Saigon could be convinced of the need to change it.”14
The emphasis on saving downed American fliers, if at all possible, had
become a tradition by 1972. The rescue of Hambleton differed from the norm
only in the willingness of the U.S. leadership to risk the already battered South
Vietnamese 3d Division. This attitude may conceivably have reflected the
impatience, perhaps the disdain, that some Americans tended to show South
Vietnamese units, which seemed as dependent on American advice and support
after Vietnamization as before. Had the 3d Division been American, either
Army or Marine Corps, the commanders and command authorities might well
have struck a different balance between the survival of the individual and the
military effectiveness of a major unit. Indeed, Earl H. Tilford, Jr., the author of
the Air Force’s history of rescue operations in Southeast Asia suggests that “the
Americans were vastly more concerned with saving the life of one of their own
and, conversely, held the lives of their Asian allies in lower regard.”15
Restrictions on air strikes and fire support other than those related to the
Bat 21 rescue also handicapped the South Vietnamese 3d Division. Another
search and rescue near Route 1, some eight miles north of the Cua Viet River,
permitted North Vietnamese armor for a time to pass unchallenged by air
strikes. Suspected short rounds from air or artillery resulted in a temporary
cease-fire while friendly gunners or airmen checked their data. In the confused
fighting of early April, South Vietnamese artillery, American aircraft, and
American naval gunfire, sometimes directed by Marine Corps spotters in TA–4s
363
or other aircraft, blasted targets along Giai’s front. At the same time, North
Vietnamese long-range 130-mm guns fired into the division’s defensive
positions. Troops on the ground could mistake hostile shelling for friendly fire
and report a short round, as apparently happened on April 4 near the mouth of
the Cua Viet. On that occasion, a forward air controller had directed naval
gunfire against seven tanks crossing the river and destroyed three of them, when
an erroneous report of a short round, forwarded by the I Direct Air Support
Center, forced him to halt the firing and enabled three to escape.16
Outside the no-fire zones, air power killed many tanks. A forward air
controller from Da Nang spotted a column of armored vehicles moving down
Route 1, called on a forward air controller from Nakhon Phanom to confirm the
location, and discovered that the enemy would pass from one planned Arc Light
target to another. The forward air controller from Nakhon Phanom used his
secure radio link to advise the infiltration surveillance center at the Thai air
base, which contacted the Seventh Air Force command and control center and
arranged to divert an approaching cell of B–52s to the box the enemy was about
to enter. Half an hour later, high explosives began churning the road, destroying
an estimated thirty-five tanks and, according to unconfirmed reports, a division
command post as well.17
Despite the surrender of Camp Carroll, the cloud cover that hindered air
support, and the no-fire zones, General Giai succeeded in clinging to a shrunken
perimeter, anchored by the Cua Viet River and a strongpoint at Dong Ha, that
included Quang Tri City. The commander of South Vietnam’s I Corps, Lt. Gen.
Hoang Xuan Lam, rarely stirred from his headquarters throughout the crisis in
Military Region I, coterminous with the area of tactical responsibility assigned
to his corps. He remained content to pass along orders from Saigon, including
a call for a counterattack.18
Preparations for this counterthrust led to the final collapse of the division’s
air liaison machinery. Brookbank sought to arrange continuous daytime cover-
age of the operation using American forward air controllers and just three South
Vietnamese missions each day, but even this proved too much for his counter-
part. The South Vietnamese air liaison officer responded with what Brookbank
described as “an adamant ‘can’t do’,” and refused even to pass the request to the
air division responsible for implementation. As a result, Brookbank took over
as air liaison officer for the 3d Division, relying on U.S. forward air controllers
to conduct reconnaissance and direct air strikes, except in lightly defended
areas, which became increasingly fewer as the enemy introduced the SA–7
shoulder-fired, heat-seeking antiaircraft missile and moved both antiaircraft
guns and radar-guided SA–2 missiles into position to cover the battlefield.
Brookbank also sorted out the requests for Loran and Combat Skyspot strikes,
which exceeded by far the capacity of those systems, trying to limit the attacks
to genuinely rewarding targets and eliminate the “suspected enemy troop
locations” that all too often reflected a South Vietnamese reluctance to invite
364
counterbattery fire by using mortars or artillery for harassment and interdiction

missions.19
The attempted counterattack regained no ground and merely resulted in
casualties that further weakened the bloodied division. On April 23, the Cua
Viet line collapsed, but Giai managed to halt the retreat at the Thach Han River
and form a ragged perimeter around Quang Tri City, the site of his headquarters
and a depot by now largely empty of supplies.
In a final effort to sustain the embattled 3d Division, South Vietnamese
C–123s attempted an emergency delivery of ammunition on April 30. Escorted
by American forward air controllers who directed Air Force fighter-bombers
against antiaircraft sites, two of the transports flew north along Route 1, re-
leased their cargo by parachute, and exited safely over the sea. The North Viet-
namese fire proved so violent that Giai’s assistant division commander con-
cluded that further efforts would proved suicidal and canceled the supply mis-
sion. Another pair of C–123s did not receive word of this decision and bored
through antiaircraft fire that had grown even more intense in the absence of
coordinated flak suppression strikes by forward air controllers and fighter-
bombers. One of the transports got away, but the other sustained mortal damage
and crashed offshore. This display of courage accomplished nothing, however,
for all the cargo dropped that day landed behind North Vietnamese lines.
Cut off from supplies, his division in the last throes of disintegration, Giai
prepared to break out of the encirclement. He tried at last to eliminate a
longstanding obstacle to emergency air support. Throughout the fighting thus
far, I Corps headquarters had shown reluctance to approve diverting air strikes
from other targets to help the division, probably for fear of hitting retreating
troops or noncombatant refugees. On one occasion, the I Direct Air Support
Center waited seven hours before approving an attack on a captured bunker
believed to house a North Vietnamese command post. Now Giai, without
consulting corps headquarters, granted blanket authority for any target
Brookbank might consider worth attacking. This one show of initiative did not
redeem the overall failure of the Vietnamized command and control network;
already the Seventh Air Force had ignored Vietnamization and reestablished a
parallel system to control its aircraft.20
Instead of fighting its way out as Giai intended, the 3d Division fell apart
under attack from armor, artillery, and infantry, although the fleeing survivors
regrouped around attached Marine and ranger units that remained intact south
of Quang Tri City. The final collapse trapped eighty U.S. advisers, Brookbank
among them, and some fifty South Vietnamese in the citadel at Quang Tri City,
the site of Giai’s headquarters. At mid-afternoon on May 1, the I Direct Air
Support Center told Brookbank that rescue helicopters would pick up the group
at a large clearing about 1,000 yards from the command post. The advisers
realized, however, that the enemy had cut them off from that landing zone and
arranged for the HH–53s to use a small helicopter pad at the citadel itself. Three
365
forward air controllers, each directing four teams of fighters, some two dozen
in all, covered the approaches. Brookbank briefed them, speaking to two of the
airborne controllers by secure radio but relying on circumlocution in talking
with the third, whose voice scrambler did not work. When North Vietnamese
artillery knocked out the generator and silenced Brookbank, he advised the I
Direct Air Support Center by telephone to turn the operation over to the air-
borne battlefield command and control center. While A–1s bombed and strafed
to isolate the landing zone and its approaches, three helicopters arrived, flying
at treetop height to avoid radar but accepting the increased risk of small arms
and light antiaircraft guns. The HH–53s landed in succession, loaded, and
roared off again, while a fourth helicopter lagged behind in case it was needed.
A radio message from the citadel alerted Capt. Donald A. Sutton, the pilot of
this fourth rescue craft, that Americans remained at the landing zone, and he
swooped down to save them. Scarcely had the landing gear settled to earth when
hostile riflemen opened fire. When no Americans sprinted toward the lowered
ramp, Sutton realized the North Vietnamese had lured him into a trap. While his
gunner sprayed the area with fire from a multibarrel cannon, he poured on the
power and escaped.21
The fall of Quang Tri City brought changes in the command structure
within Military Region I. Although Giai got as much from his troops as anyone
could have, given the ferocity of the attack and the impact of weather on air
operations, a court-martial sentenced him to prison where he remained until the
spring of 1975 when South Vietnam collapsed. (The triumphant North Vietnam-
ese thereupon jailed him for reeducation in the ways of communism.) On May
3, Lt. Gen. Ngo Quang Truong moved from command of IV Corps in southern-
most South Vietnam to take over I Corps from General Lam who had demon-
strated in Lam Son 719 and again during the Easter invasion his inability to
handle a large and complex military organization. Lam, however, escaped fur-
ther punishment for his role in the collapse of the defenses of Quang Tri
Province. Giai alone served as a scapegoat in defeat.22
Truong set up an advance headquarters at Hue, where he had formerly
served and still enjoyed numerous military and civilian contacts. As part of his
command post, he established a fire support coordination center to meld artil-
lery, naval gunfire, and air strikes. To ease the task of combining all the fire-
power available for the defense of the city, he urged that the Seventh Air Force
move the I Direct Air Support Center from Da Nang to Hue, but Vogt at first re-
sisted, arguing that the facility would function better at the air base. Truong
insisted, however, and Vogt finally agreed to a transfer that required what the
American later described as “superhuman efforts.” Rather than entrust the
region’s tactical air control machinery entirely to the dubious security of Hue,
Vogt retained a rear echelon at Da Nang.23
General Truong inherited a potential disaster. Abrams advised Laird on
May 1 that South Vietnamese “military leadership has begun to bend and in
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some instances break. . . . There is no basis for confidence that Hue or Kontum
will be held.”24 Indeed, the city of Hue stood balanced precariously at the edge
of panic, as disorderly groups of soldiers, defeated in battle elsewhere, prowled
the streets. Truong moved swiftly, however, to restore order and incorporate the
stragglers into combat formations. While shattered units like the 3d Division
and its attached components regrouped, Truong launched what he called Loi
Phong, Thunder Hurricane, a series of offensives involving bombardment by
B–52s, tactical aviation, naval gunfire, and artillery. Loi Phong sought to kill,
wound, or demoralize North Vietnamese reinforcements before they could add
their momentum to the attack on Hue. To take advantage of this deluge of
firepower, Truong authorized the commanders of the divisions and brigades
deployed around Hue to launch limited attacks as they saw fit.25
During the capture of Quang Tri City and again in the advance upon Hue,
North Vietnamese 130-mm guns demonstrated each day their deadly accuracy
and their ability to outrange the 155-mm howitzers the United States had
supplied South Vietnam. The 130-mm weapon not only inflicted casualties but
also undermined morale. Indeed, in General Vogt’s opinion, North Vietnamese
artillery had won the battle for Quang Tri City, forcing the defenders to flee
“because they didn’t want to take the artillery rounds being fired at them,” an
oversimplification, to be sure, but nevertheless containing some truth.26
In the hope of locating the cleverly camouflaged 130-mm batteries, the
Seventh Air Force modified a technique developed by the Rome Air Develop-
ment Center and used unsuccessfully to locate surface-to-air missile sites that
protected the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos. Acoustic sensors, activated
on command from the infiltration surveillance center at Nakhon Phanom, Thai-
land, had listened during the spring of 1972 for the sound of the portable gener-
ators that provided electrical power for the radar at the launch site. In theory, if
three sensors not in a line reported the sound, analysts at the surveillance center
could locate the source by simple triangulation. The engineers, however, had
not taken into account the realities of the Ho Chi Minh Trial. Success required
the precise emplacement of sensors, no easy task in an area bristling with anti-
aircraft guns. The electronic devices, moreover, proved easily fooled by other
sounds, like the idling of diesel-powered trucks, and by the fact that noise did
not radiate uniformly in all directions from the generator but was strongest
along a direct line from the exhaust port. The aerial interdiction of the Ho Chi
Minh Trail ended before Air Force technicians could make the locating system
work satisfactorily.
In spite of this failure, the 130-mm guns proved so dangerous that the Rome
Air Development Center tried to apply the same principle to the detection of
artillery positions. The proposed gun locating system used the sensors to listen
for the sound of firing rather than for the roar of a generator. A pattern of sen-
sors deployed around a suspected artillery position should, proponents of the
method believed, produce directional lines that would intersect at the source and
367
reveal the position of the weapon. The technique failed, however, to detect even
one of the 130-mm guns. The background noise of the battlefield to obscure the
firing of a particular gun, and the weapons frequently fired barrages of several
rounds from a number of weapons, which temporarily deafened the sensors.
Even if the equipment had succeeded in pinpointing one of the guns, a truck or
tractor might well shift the highly mobile weapon to a new firing site before
aircraft could attack. In fact, forward air controllers, assigned to search visually
for the guns in specific areas, had the most success in locating the artillery
positions and directing strikes against them. This success resulted from having
the forward air controllers monitor the frequency on which ground commanders
reported artillery fire; upon hearing such a report, they would begin searching
for muzzle flashes.27
Although artillery remained a persistent threat to the defenders of Military
Region I, North Vietnamese armor repeatedly fell victim to American air power.
Seventh Air Force headquarters boasted that “nobody has a better feel for tank
movements in the I Corps area than we have.” As the skies cleared, Vogt’s
airmen maintained surveillance over all the roads that armor might use to
approach Hue. On the morning of May 6, forward air controllers located three
tanks moving south, paralleling Route 1 and threatening the defensive line that
Truong had established along the My Chanh River. Several F–4s, armed with
laser-guided bombs for attacking bridges, responded to the emergency, joined
by other aircraft as additional tanks appeared. Air Force pilots claimed, by mid-
afternoon, the destruction of eleven tanks and damage to twelve others. “They
reported,” said a Seventh Air Force account of the action, “it had been a turkey
shoot, with the tanks breaking wildly, some running into the sides of huts to
hide under their roofs . . . ”28
Thanks to improving weather — the cloud cover lifted for a week immed-
iately after Truong took command at Hue — tactical aircraft visited destruction
on all road traffic, trucks as well as tanks. In addition, the laser-guided weapons
carried by some F–4s proved deadly against bridges. On one occasion, air
strikes destroyed two cranes brought from North Vietnam to help repair the
bomb-shattered spans.
Meanwhile, B–52s attacked targets in Military Region I as far distant as the
A Shau Valley, the principal conduit for supplies to sustain the attack toward
Hue from the west. On that front, near Fire Support Base Bastogne, recaptured
by the South Vietnamese in mid-May, a patrol swept through a B–52 target box
on May 9 and found forty bodies, plus a large store of ammunition of various
types and a cache of explosives.29 The explosives may have been intended for
Viet Cong irregulars like those who, in early May, blew up a large bridge
between Da Nang and Hue and temporarily severed the highway linking them.30
While air power pounded the roads that funneled men and material to the
battlefields around Hue, Truong went ahead with a series of limited attacks.
Besides recapturing Fire Support Base Bastogne, his troops beat back an
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A U.S. Army helicopter gunship escorts U.S. Marine Corps helicopters

carrying South Vietnamese on an airborne assault near Hue in May 1972.
advance across the My Chanh River, and South Vietnamese marines conducted
an amphibious raid at My Thuy, north of the river line. The South Vietnamese
Airborne Division reinforced Truong’s corps during May, and in June the 3d
Division absorbed equipment provided by Operation Enhance and incorporated
replacements for casualties sustained in the earlier fighting. The strengthened
I Corps, assisted by air attack, fought the North Vietnamese offensive in
Military Region I to a halt by the end of June.31
Throughout their advance, the North Vietnamese had used antiaircraft
weapons, including SA–7 heat-seeking missiles, to protect the advancing troops,
and they also moved radar-directed SA–2s south of the demilitarized zone. The
intense defensive fire over the battlefield forced South Vietnamese airmen to
attack from higher altitudes and claimed most of the forty-one aircraft destroyed
throughout South Vietnam between the end of March and the end of June,
though sappers or rocket attacks accounted for a few. During the same period,
after losing no aircraft in the northern provinces of South Vietnam in the first
three months of 1972, the Seventh Air Force lost twenty fighter-bombers,
observation craft, and helicopters while defending Military Region I. The SA–7
downed six of them, the older SA–2 destroyed seven, and more conventional
antiaircraft weapons claimed the rest. An SA–7 hit the OV–10 flown by Air
Force Capt. Steven L. Bennett, jamming the ejection seat of the Marine flying
as his observer. Bennett died attempting to ditch in the Gulf of Tonkin, but the
observer survived. The victims of the SA–7 also included the first AC–130 shot
down over South Vietnam, destroyed when a heat-seeking missile homed on
one of its engines while the gunship patrolled the A Shau Valley.32
As these losses suggest, tactical aviation helped mightily in stopping the
offensive in Military Region I. Indeed, despite bad weather at the outset, the
tactical effort from April through June totaled 18,000 sorties, 45 percent flown
by the Air Force, 30 percent by the Navy and Marine Corps, and 25 percent by
369
Capt. Steven L. Bennett,

awarded the Medal of Honor for his
actions as pilot of an OV–10.
the South Vietnamese. In addition, B–52s flew 2,700 sorties against targets in
the northern provinces and dropped 57,000 tons of bombs.33
This aerial battering did severe damage to an enemy who had chosen to
mount a conventional attack requiring fuel for tanks and trucks and vast quan-
tities of artillery ammunition. The number of troops involved could not cut
loose from supply depots and live off local sympathizers, as a smaller force of
lightly armed guerrillas might have done. Giap’s choice of tactics, whatever his
motivation, enhanced the effect of aerial attack on his army. Giap also erred in
assigning essentially the same priority to three offensive thrusts — into Military
Region I, from Kontum toward the coast, and from An Loc toward Saigon. Only
the operations in Military Region IV had a clearly subsidiary importance. Al-
though Giap invested enough manpower and other resources in each of the main
attacks to permit sustained fighting against determined resistance — as demon-
strated by the push across the My Chanh River in June — his division of effort
weakened all three. The overwhelming success of any one might well have won
the war. Better, surely, to have landed one crushing blow than three that could
not help but be less damaging.34
Giap might have triumphed despite his mistakes if the South Vietnamese
defenders of Military Region I had not regrouped, dug in, and forced the enemy
to mass his forces and present targets for air power, especially the B–52s.
Abrams believed from the onset of the offensive that South Vietnam’s soldiers
would fight if properly led, but as he told Spiro T. Agnew during a visit to
South Vietnam by the Vice President, only about ten generals really earned their
pay. Troubled by what he perceived as unwillingness on the part of senior South
Vietnamese officers to fight, Abrams issued orders early in May that no Ameri-
can helicopter or airplane could evacuate any South Vietnamese commander
370
without a corps commander’s approval.35 Clearly the cadre of generals willing

to fight included Truong, whose troops, having stopped the North Vietnamese,
stood ready to counterattack toward Quang Tri City.
Upon taking command at Hue, Truong considered the successful defense
of the city as the first phase of an operation that would regain Quang Tri City
and restore Saigon’s authority over coastal Quang Tri Province south of the Cua
Viet and Thach Han Rivers. He had difficulty, however, in convincing both the
Saigon government and Abrams’ headquarters of the feasibility of so ambitious
an undertaking. At last, President Thieu reluctantly agreed, realizing perhaps the
political benefits that the recapture of Quang Tri City would bring him.36
Truong launched his counterattack on June 28, and his troops advanced
swiftly against an enemy battered over the months by aerial bombardment,
artillery, and naval gunfire. Indeed, enemy documents captured on the eve of the
South Vietnamese advance revealed that “the violent sacrifices of recent weeks”
had cut some tactical units “to ribbons” and were eroding the morale of North
Vietnam’s civilian populace.37 Within ten days, the leading elements of I Corps
reached the outskirts of Quang Tri City, where the rapidly reinforced defenses
blunted the South Vietnamese spearhead. “The offensive then took on a new
concept,” Truong later wrote, although the objective remained the same. “I
concluded,” he said, “that if the enemy indeed chose to defend Quang Tri City
and concentrate his forces there, he would give me the opportunity to accom-
plish my mission” — the destruction of the hostile forces — “employing the su-
perior firepower of our American ally.”38 On September 8, after two months of
sustained hammering, Truong realized that the defenses of Quang Tri City were
about to crack and launched a final assault that recaptured the citadel on the
16th. The advance continued beyond the city to the Thach Han River on the left
of the corps sector but ground to a halt short of the Cua Viet.39
Elsewhere in Military Region I, the North Vietnamese tried unsuccessfully
to divert Truong’s attention from regaining Quang Tri City. In August, for
example, an attack down the Que Son Valley penetrated to within twenty-five
miles of Da Nang Air Base, but elements of the advancing division suffered
grievously from B–52 strikes — and later from malaria — and the threat to the
airfield receded. Meanwhile, southwest of Hue, the South Vietnamese
succeeded in consolidating their gains in the vicinity of Fire Support Base
Bastogne and beyond. Finally, on October 1, South Vietnamese Rangers
reopened Route 1 in Quang Ngai Province, linking Military Regions I and II.40
By November, as the pace of the fighting slowed in the northern provinces,
Truong could take heart from the fact that his corps controlled a coastal strip
that embraced the major cities of Quang Tri, Hue, Tam Ky, and Quang Ngai
along with Route 1, the highway that linked them. In spite of this success, the
North Vietnamese had made strategically important gains as a result of the
Easter offensive, rendering the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the A Shau Valley
immune to ground attack as they absorbed the entire demilitarized zone, the
371
succession of strongpoints just to the south, and the territory southward to the
Cua Viet River and beyond. The conquests during 1972 reduced the width of
Military Region I by as much as one-half, thus placing secure assembly areas
for future attacks that much closer to the likely objectives.
The South Vietnamese defenders of Military Region I could not have held
or recaptured even as much territory as they did without U.S. assistance. In spite
of Vietnamization, neither the air force nor the navy of South Vietnam had more
than a “marginal” impact on the fighting in Military Region I, even though both
organizations, as General Truong conceded, fought “to the maximum of their
limited capabilities.” To compensate for the naval deficiencies, the Seventh
Fleet employed as many as thirty-eight destroyers and three cruisers to bombard
targets along the shores of both Vietnams. In support of operations in Military
Region I, these warships fired as many as 7,000 rounds in a single day. The
Seventh Air Force, in the meantime, took over the air support system for I
Corps, in effect Americanizing the previously Vietnamized control network.
Truong, however, maintained a fire support coordination center at Hue designed
“to integrate and make the most effective use of all U.S. and RVN fire support
available.” The I Direct Air Support Center dispatched the bulk of its resources
to Hue to facilitate the work of the center, which Truong believed, “contributed
significantly to the ultimate success in I Corps.”
American B–52s gave Truong powerful aid as he successfully defended
Hue and recaptured Quang Tri City. The bombers flew thirty or more missions
each day during the time when bad weather hampered tactical air strikes in
Military Region I. The B–52s, Truong declared, “caused the most damage and
the greatest losses to enemy support activities” and also provided “close support
to ARVN ground forces on several occasions.”
Tactical aircraft, which rarely flew more than ten sorties per day in Military
Region I during the months immediately preceding the invasion, attained a peak
of 300 sorties in a single day, though not during the critical month of April,
when a lack of aircraft, the need to engage in rescue efforts, and cloud cover
impeded the air support of ground forces. In spite of the early shortcomings on
the part of tactical aviation, Truong seemed pleased with its accomplishments.
In general, he maintained that U.S. fire support — whether by tactical air,
B–52s, or naval gunfire — “was effective and met all I Corps requirements.”41
In Military Region I, a skilled and vigorous corps commander took charge
at the decisive moment, restoring discipline and effectiveness to an organization
that faced total defeat. Elsewhere in the country, South Vietnamese leadership
of similar caliber did not emerge. When facing disaster, senior officers tended
to entrust the conduct of the defense to their American advisers: in Military Re-
gion II, John Paul Vann, a retired Army officer with long service in South Viet-
nam, and General Hollingsworth in Military Region III. Here, and also in Mili-
tary Region IV, U.S. aerial firepower, especially from B–52s, stiffened the
South Vietnamese defense.
372
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kontum City, An Loc, and the Delta
In Military Region II, which embraced the dozen provinces of north-central

South Vietnam, Lt. Gen. Ngo Dzu served as II Corps commander. His adviser,
John Paul Vann, bore the title of Director, rather than Commanding General,
Second Regional Assistance Group, a reflection of Vann’s civilian status. A
retired lieutenant colonel with long experience in South Vietnam as an Army
officer and a civilian consultant, Vann directed rather than commanded the
advisory effort in the region. He acknowledged that Dzu tended to be insecure,
even panicky, and to value American advice over the recommendations of his
staff, but nevertheless considered him capable and hardworking.1 With Vann at
his side to provide advice and reassurance, Dzu seemed adequate to meet the
challenge of the invasion. Indeed, as early as February, in the expectation that
a forward deployment would disrupt the imminent attack, he and Vann had
reinforced the exposed outposts north of Kontum City and the villages of Dak
To I, Dak To II, and Tan Canh.2
Vann had no illusions about the ability of South Vietnamese soldiers to
launch spoiling attacks to deflect the blow that North Vietnam would soon
deliver. “I’m enough of a realist,” he was quoted as saying, “that I’m not going
to ask the ARVN to do what they won’t do.” Dzu’s troops, thinly spread and
handicapped by a road net vulnerable to ambush, seemed unlikely to leave their
fortified positions to seize the initiative. By staying put, however, they could
force the enemy to mass, increasing his vulnerability to aerial attack and
artillery concentrations. A static but stubborn defense, along with overwhelming
support from aircraft and artillery, formed the basis of Vann’s defensive plan.3
Although Base Area 609 — located in the triborder area where the territories
of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia converged — provided a springboard,
the attack in Military Region II gathered momentum slowly, unlike the sudden
plunge into Quang Tri Province to the north. Vann believed that the B–52’s
bombing of suspected troop concentrations and supply dumps caused the delay,
but the North Vietnamese may simply have needed more time to pull together
the soldiers and tanks hidden among the folds of the rugged, heavily forested
highlands and prepare to move systematically against the main objective,
373
Kontum City, its nearby towns, and its outlying fortified bases. Given the
difficult terrain and lack of good roads, the enemy must have been hard-pressed
to commit two divisions, supported by tanks, in the highlands, while another
division infiltrated eastward to join the local Viet Cong in attacks along the
coast in the Bong Son region.4
During the first two days of April 1972, North Vietnamese troops probed
the chain of fire support bases along Route 14 north of Kontum City and di-
rected artillery fire against the airfields at Dak To II and Pleiku. Beginning on
April 2, the pressure focused on Rocket Ridge, a frequently shelled escarpment
that guarded both Route 512, the most direct route from Base Area 609 to Route
14, and the segment of Route 14 linking Kontum City with the two Dak To
villages and Tan Canh. Early the next morning, Brig. Gen. George E. Wear,
Vann’s deputy, reported that “The enemy has apparently launched his offensive
in the highlands.”5
South Vietnamese airborne troops dug in on Rocket Ridge fought stub-
bornly, however, and for a time events seemed to justify Vann’s belief that the
defenders could force the enemy to mass and thus create profitable targets for
air strikes and artillery. For example, a reconnaissance patrol northwest of
Kontum City reported discovering 192 bodies and 100 shattered bunkers in a
B–52 target box and, in another location, the bodies of eighty North Vietnamese
apparently killed by tactical air strikes and artillery.6 The enemy suffered severe
losses but nevertheless succeeded by April 21 in capturing the northern and
southern anchors of the line of outposts along Rocket Ridge. The battle-weary
airborne troops went into reserve, handing over to others the defense of the fire
support bases along the ridge line that remained in friendly hands.7
Meanwhile, pressure mounted against the Dak To villages and Tan Canh.
The North Vietnamese seized the high ground that dominated Tan Canh and
Dak To I and II, forcing the commander of the South Vietnamese division re-
sponsible for their defense to pull back into his fortifications and await an
attack. Directed by observers on the heights, North Vietnamese gunners fired
as many as 1,000 shells per day into the Tan Canh-Dak To defensive complex.
On the morning of April 23, the enemy attacked Tan Canh using wire-
guided antitank missiles, a weapon new to the North Vietnamese. The deadly
accurate rockets destroyed partially dug-in tanks and shattered bunkers,
knocking out the division’s tactical operations center and for a time cutting off
communication with aircraft and other ground units. The U.S. advisers jury-
rigged a new operations center at an undamaged bunker, but the division com-
mander refused to leave the ruins of the old one and, in effect, abdicated his
command responsibilities. When daylight faded, a demoralized group of South
Vietnamese still clung to Tan Canh, though isolated from Kontum City by a
roadblock south of Dak To. Another enemy strongpoint blocked Route 14
between Kontum City and Pleiku, further disrupting the movement of men and
supplies.
374
At dusk, outposts on the highway north of Tan Canh began reporting the
approach of vehicles, which subsequent sightings revealed to be tanks. A
howitzer-equipped AC–130 gunship, commanded by Capt. Russell T. Olson,
arrived to support the defenders in the event of a night attack and promptly
opened fire on the enemy. The approaching force of perhaps twenty vehicles
included eight or more T–54 tanks mounting 100-mm guns and at least two
ZSU–57–2 antiaircraft weapons, modified T–54 tanks, each with a turret con-
taining two visually aimed 57-mm guns. The 105-mm howitzer carried by the
AC–130 enabled Olson to orbit beyond reach of the 57-mm weapons and immo-
bilize as many as seven of the armored vehicles. Fighter-bombers also at-
tempted to come to the aid of Tan Canh’s defenders, but haze and low-lying
cloud cover frustrated the effort. The approach of the tanks caused panic among
the South Vietnamese, already shaken by the earlier wire-guided missile attack.
Responding to a call for help from the U.S. advisers at Tan Canh, Vann boarded
a helicopter and helped extricate them. The AC–130 that had engaged the tanks
remained overhead and North Vietnamese antiaircraft gunners, apparently
impressed by the carnage Olson and his crew had inflicted on the armored
vehicles, ignored the rescue helicopters and tried unsuccessfully to down the
gunship.
After overwhelming Tan Canh and nearby Dak To I, the North Vietnamese
took advantage of cloud cover and an umbrella of antiaircraft fire to attack Dak
To II and its airfield, located southwest of the captured villages, on the opposite
side of Route 14. The garrison at Ben Het, a border outpost the enemy had
bypassed, sent tanks and infantry eastward on Route 512, but halfway to Dak
To II, the North Vietnamese triggered an ambush that destroyed every vehicle
and scattered the surviving soldiers. The defenses of Dak To II promptly
collapsed, and the troops still in place on Rocket Ridge pulled out to avoid
being trapped. By April 26, Kontum City lay open to attack from the north.8
While two North Vietnamese divisions overran Tan Canh and Dak To I and
II and prepared to move against Kontum City, another division joined forces
with local Viet Cong units in Binh Dinh Province to sever Route 1, the coastal
highway, at Bong Son Pass, attack nearby towns, and exert pressure on military
bases in the A Lao Valley. After hostile fire damaged South Vietnamese
Caribou transports landing cargo at the largest of the bases, Landing Zone
English, Air Force C–130s parachuted supplies in an attempt to sustain the
defenders, who seemed on the verge of panic. Rumors reached Vann that a few
South Vietnamese pilots were charging 20,000 Vietnamese dollars and more to
fly passengers out of the besieged landing zone. Neither AC–119 and AC–130
gunships by night nor Air Force F–4s by day could prevent the North
Vietnamese from forcing the South Vietnamese troops to abandon Landing
Zone English on May 2. Accompanied by a large number of dependents and
other refugees, the garrison fled to a nearby beach for evacuation by sea. Air
Force fighter-bombers thereupon attacked the abandoned base, using laser-
375
Armament personnel at Ubon Air Base, Thailand, inspect a

105-mm howitzer before installing it on an AC–130 gunship.
guided bombs to destroy artillery and armored personnel carriers left behind in
the retreat.9
The gravest danger lay not along the coast, but in the highlands, where the
North Vietnamese cut the Pleiku-Kontum City highway in the vicinity of a
quarry known as the Rockpile and kept it closed through the month of June. Af-
ter being separated from the supply depots at Pleiku, Col. Ly Tong Ba, in charge
of defending Kontum City, tried to establish a new defensive line anchored at
the Polei Kleng ranger camp in the west and the village of Vo Dinh to the north.
The defenders of the outpost at Vo Dinh withdrew into Kontum City at the first
hint of an attack, thus frustrating Vann’s intention to delay the enemy there and
force him to present targets for aerial attack. At Kontum City, the American
advisers used fresh troops from Colonel Ba’s division to replace the soldiers,
survivors of Tan Canh and Dak To II, who had bolted from Vo Dinh.
Despite the abandonment of Vo Dinh, the rangers at Polei Kleng held out
long enough for air power to inflict casualties on the enemy. A dozen fighter-
bombers responded when Polei Kleng called for help on the afternoon of May
5, attacking North Vietnamese tanks with laser-guided weapons, armor-piercing
bomblets, and general purpose bombs. A hurriedly launched AC–130, mounting
the 105-mm howitzer, arrived over Polei Kleng after dark on May 6 to fend off
the enemy while a helicopter carried away the American advisers, a sure indi-
cation that Vann’s headquarters expected the attackers to overrun the outpost.
The gunship pilot, Lt. Col. Loyd J. King, listened to the radio traffic as a South
376
Vietnamese helicopter crew refused to land and retrieve the advisory team, but
an American craft soon did so. Once the advisers abandoned Polei Kleng, no
one remained who could speak English and communicate directly with King.
Requests for fire support, regardless of urgency, had to undergo translation by
an interpreter at the II Direct Air Support Center, who knew little or nothing
about the gunship, its sensors, and its weapons.
This cumbersome control mechanism sent King’s AC–130E on a fruitless
30-minute search for North Vietnamese 130-mm guns, which the sensors could
locate only if the gunship happened to be overhead when the weapon fired. King
then returned to Polei Kleng, where the II Direct Air Support Center instructed
him to hose down the area outside the perimeter, from which the attackers
delivered withering fire against the outpost. “I told the sensor [operator] . . . to
just pick out the flashes on the ground and hold the flash positions,” King
recalled, “and we could put a 105 [-mm shell] down on each one until we ran
out.” Firing in succession at the clusters of hostile muzzle flashes, the gunship
exhausted its entire supply of ninety-six 105-mm rounds and silenced the North
Vietnamese riflemen and machinegunners. The II Direct Air Support Center
then forwarded a request to lay down a ring of fire around the camp, using the
gunship’s lighter weapons. Circling so that the torrent of gunfire would fall
outside the defenses, the gunship exhausted all its 40-mm and most of its 20-
mm ammunition. A single gunship saved Polei Kleng, but only temporarily. On
May 9, less than sixty hours later, the enemy took advantage of poor weather
that prevented fighter-bombers from attacking to launch an attack that quickly
overwhelmed the camp.10
The withdrawal of the American advisers from Polei Kleng — which Brig.
Gen. John G. Hill, who had replaced Wear as Vann’s deputy, directed from a
helicopter circling overhead — caused a demoralized General Dzu to lose faith
in Vann’s assurances that the South Vietnamese, by a combination of air power
and determined action on the ground, could save Kontum City. To encourage
Dzu and his senior commanders in II Corps, Vann promised that a “hard corps
of advisers . . . would stay with them to the last in the defense of Kontum City
and this hard corps would not leave.” Special circumstances, he explained, had
prompted the withdrawal of the advisers from Polei Kleng. That outpost, though
it did hold out for two and one-half days after the Americans departed, seemed
on the verge of collapse when they left. Prior to leaving, Vann continued, they
had become separated from Dzu, who had been stunned by shells exploding
against his bunker and could no longer influence the conduct of the battle.11
According to General Truong, the commander of neighboring I Corps, Dzu
despaired of being able to hold Kontum City or even Pleiku, the site of II Corps
headquarters. On May 10, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Van Toan, Truong’s operations
officer, replaced Dzu.12 Control of the defense, however, remained in the hands
of Vann, who orchestrated air power as he prodded the South Vietnamese to
greater efforts. Because of Vann’s critical role, Maj. Gary H. Gerlitz, a fighter
377
pilot assigned to the II Direct Air Support Center, declared that the B–52 was
“no longer an Air Force weapon.” Explaining, in an oversimplified way, the
relationship of the services in defending Kontum City, he claimed, “We fly the
airplane, but the Army” — including the civilian Vann — “puts in the target
request; they handle the clearing; the only thing we do is hand out the air strike
warning to our own aircraft, so they won’t have bombs dumped on them.”13
As Gerlitz suggested, Vann’s use of air power contributed powerfully to the
defense of Kontum City. On May 14, for example, after an intercepted North
Vietnamese message revealed an attack scheduled for shortly after dawn,
missile-firing Army helicopters, Air Force and South Vietnamese fighter-
bombers, and artillery fire broke up the assault by tanks and infantry. Another
thrust later that day succeeded in penetrating South Vietnamese lines in a battle
fought at grenade-throwing range, far too close to permit the use of air strikes.
Vann gambled that the defenders could break contact after dark and fall back
far enough to permit B–52 strikes to do their deadly work. His gamble paid off
in the early hours of May 15, when the bombers rained high explosive upon
tanks and troops advancing from north and northwest of the city. A subsequent
examination of one target box revealed at least 200 bodies. Again on the 18th,
when the North Vietnamese surged forward, B–52s bombed target boxes as
close as one kilometer to defensive positions, causing casualties among the
attackers that panicked the demoralized survivors into fleeing for the refuge of
their own lines, thus exposing themselves to fire from South Vietnamese
mortars and artillery.14
While B–52s, Air Force fighter-bombers and gunships, South Vietnamese
aircraft, and armed Army helicopters — some of these last firing wire-guided
antitank missiles — combined to blunt a succession of North Vietnamese at-
tacks, air transport took over the delivery of supplies to besieged Kontum City
and the border camps, like Ben Het, that the enemy had bypassed. The routine
airlift to Kontum City accelerated after Vann on April 16 reported that he had
only enough supplies for three days. Even so, the supply situation worsened on
April 24 when North Vietnamese troops captured Dak To II and its airstrip and
blocked the road leading from Pleiku to Kontum City. Afterward, aircraft using
the Kontum City airfield provided the only means of delivering supplies.
Although shelling occasionally disrupted operations at Kontum City’s
airfield, activity there intensified even before the severing of Route 14, as Air
Force transports responded to Vann’s report of a supply shortfall, with the
highest priority going to the delivery of jet fuel and gasoline in C–130s
specially modified for the purpose. On April 21, hostile gunners demonstrated
the vulnerability of aircraft on the ground at Kontum City when they scored hits
on an Air Vietnam transport, killing a flight attendant and wounding some of
the passengers. Three days later, long-range rockets disabled an Air Force
C–130, piloted by Lt. Col. Reed C. Mulkey, after it had delivered a cargo of
fuel. Mechanics flew in from Pleiku, but before they could fix all the damage,
378
another rocket set fire to a South Vietnamese C–123 parked next to the Air
Force transport. American soldiers and airmen extinguished the blaze before it
could spread, and the repaired C–130, despite new but superficial damage from
rocket fragments, took off on May 1.
Airlift operations settled into a routine between April 26 and May 3, aver-
aging seven C–130s landing each day to unload ammunition and rice, as well
as fuel, while one or two South Vietnamese C–123s also delivered cargo.
Rocket fire continued, however, damaging one C–130, and a collision with a
helicopter in the crowded sky over Kontum City tore a piece of wing from a
C–130, but it limped safely to Pleiku. The combination of crowded skies by
daylight and increasing enemy fire caused the C–130s to shift to night landings.
During the nighttime operations at Kontum City, which began after dark on
May 3, sensor-equipped AC–130 gunships suppressed antiaircraft fire as the
C–130s spiraled down to an altitude of about 3,000 feet and then lunged for the
airstrip below. Faintly shining portable lights outlined the rectangle of the
runway, and the approaching pilot did not turn on his landing lights until a few
seconds from touchdown. The aircraft remained on the ground as briefly as pos-
sible, unloading rapidly and usually taking refugees on board before roaring
down the runway and into the darkened sky. Because of the inherent danger of
crashing in night operations, the C–130s twice tried to resume daytime landings,
but each time hostile fire proved too formidable. On May 17, for example,
rocket fragments ripped into a C–130 as it gathered speed for a daylight takeoff;
the aircraft crashed and exploded, killing all but one of the crew.
Even at night, North Vietnamese gunners firing from the hills north of the
city disrupted airlift activity. They ignited stored fuel, littered the runway with
shell fragments, and disabled two South Vietnamese C–123s in addition to the
one set afire earlier. The incoming flights, however, had to land regardless of
the peril, first to replenish the ammunition the defenders had expended in
repelling the attacks on May 14 and 15 and then to sustain the garrison. Bull-
dozers made room for unloading by pushing the wrecked C–123s out of the
way. Sweepers tried to keep the surface free of shell fragments and other debris,
but a flat tire immobilized a C–130 in the early morning hours of May 23, and
hostile fire destroyed the aircraft before the tire could be replaced. Another
C–130 succeeded in taking off despite a flat tire and landed safely at Da Nang.
After a final flurry of airlift activity, thirty-eight C–130s landed and unloaded
between the evening of May 23 and the early morning of May 25, when the
airfield at Kontum City became too dangerous to use.15
Despite savage aerial attack and a stout defense by troops using recently
arrived wire-guided antitank missiles, North Vietnamese infiltrators reached the
eastern edge of the runway in one prong of an attack designed to capture the
city. General Hill, who had ordered the advisers out of Polei Kleng, circled
overhead in a helicopter and kept track of the battle as it developed below.
North Vietnamese troop movements tended to confirm intercepted radio traffic
379
indicating that the enemy was closing in for the kill. Since counterbattery fire
had all but silenced the South Vietnamese artillery defending Kontum City, Hill
turned for help to air power.
Once again, air power rose to the occasion. B–52s and gunships pounded
the enemy by night, while fighter-bombers and Army helicopters ranged the
daytime skies despite bad weather. At a critical moment near dawn on May 26,
the clouds parted, enabling Army helicopters to attack North Vietnamese armor
with wire-guided missiles, destroying seven tanks, including one that an
AC–130 had damaged a short time before, and a water tower used as an obser-
vation post for the enemy’s artillery. U.S. fighter-bombers also took advantage
of the break in the weather to attack North Vietnamese artillery batteries. Some
South Vietnamese soldiers fought stubbornly, especially those trained to use
wire-guided missiles or light antitank rockets, and the appearance of tanks no
longer caused panic, as had happened at Tan Canh. The attackers managed to
penetrate Kontum City from the north, northwest, and south, but the offensive
bogged down, in part because B–52 strikes forced the enemy to establish supply
points in the distant hills and increased the time that food and ammunition had
to travel to reach the front lines and, as a result, the exposure to aerial attack.
The North Vietnamese could advance no further, and the defenders could not
dislodge them. The stalemate lasted until May 31, when the enemy began
withdrawing, almost imperceptibly at first, from the ruins of the city.16
Kontum City remained in South Vietnamese hands essentially because the
U.S. advisers solved the problem of resupplying the defenders, whereas the
enemy failed to reinforce his assault force and replenish its supplies. Immed-
iately following the closing of the airfield on May 25, U.S. Army and South
Vietnamese Air Force helicopters, with cargo suspended in nets slung beneath
them, began depositing supplies at a soccer field. The aircraft touched down just
long enough to pick up casualties. The defenders relied on this shuttle until the
afternoon of May 27, when Air Force C–130s began parachuting cargo onto a
drop zone near the Dak Bla River in the southwest corner of the city, using
equipment and techniques already tested at An Loc in Military Region III.17
The so-called ground radar air delivery system required the installation of
a radar transponder in the C–130, enabling Combat Skyspot or a mobile radar
to track the aircraft and direct it to a precisely calculated release point beyond
reach of light and medium antiaircraft guns. Further to increase accuracy, the
drop employed the high-altitude, low-opening technique, in which a pyrotechnic
timer, after a certain number of seconds, triggered an explosive squib that sev-
ered a retaining line and allowed a partially furled parachute to open fully. The
parachute deployed at an altitude low enough to minimize wind-drift as it
deposited the attached cargo container on the drop zone.18
Before the fighting died away at Kontum City, the adverse-weather aerial
delivery system also saw action, mainly to supplement the ground-radar drops.
The C–130s using the adverse-weather system carried station-keeping equip-
380
ment to maintain formation in bad weather or at night, a forward-looking radar,

and a computer that used the radar image to calculate a release point. A radar
transponder on the ground could provide an offset aiming point in the absence
of terrain features or man-made objects with a distinctive radar return. This
delivery system normally employed a high-velocity drop with a fifteen-foot
slotted parachute that minimized the effect of wind by lowering the load at 100
feet per second, roughly four times the rate of descent with a conventional
parachute. Riggers prepared for the high-velocity method by packing a half-ton
of cargo in a container reinforced with several layers of honeycombed card-
board. The addition of a second parachute could double the load to one ton, but
delicate equipment, barrels of liquids, and some medical supplies could not
withstand the shock of a high-velocity drop.19
A test mission at Kontum City, flown on June 3, and fifteen other drops
between June 7 and 15, used the high-velocity method of delivery. On one oc-
casion, the navigator of a C–130 equipped with the adverse-weather system did
the aiming for two other transports flying in line behind him and directed them
to release their loads when each aircraft reached the proper point.20
Because the enemy controlled much of the Kontum City, the C–130s relied
heavily on ground-control radar and high-altitude, low-opening drops to achieve
the necessary accuracy. From May 28 to 31, Air Force transports flew nineteen
missions using a mobile radar at Pleiku. As the North Vietnamese grip on
Kontum City relaxed, the defenders enlarged their area of control and on June
2 established a larger drop zone in the northwestern part of town. The South
Vietnamese progress on the ground enabled the C–130s to resume landing at the
airfield on the night of June 8 and early morning of June 9. Due to the danger
from heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles, as the transports descended sharply
toward the faintly marked runway, South Vietnamese artillery shelled likely
SA–7 sites and launched flares to divert the infrared seekers from the heat of the
turboprop engines. Only one C–130 crew spotted an approaching SA–7 missile,
and the pilot avoided it. Since the first highway convoy since April did not get
past the Rockpile until June 30, Kontum City continued to rely on airlift
throughout that month; drops using the ground radar air delivery system ended
on June 14, but nighttime landings continued.21
On June 9, as the last North Vietnamese soldiers withdrew from Kontum
City, John Paul Vann died in the crash of a helicopter. His ability to inspire
South Vietnamese leaders like Colonel Ba clearly helped repulse the enemy, as
did the aerial resources at his call. Strikes by B–52s, bombing within 1,000
meters of friendly troops, and by tactical fighters disrupted and demoralized the
attackers, as did attacks by armed Army helicopters and Air Force gunships,
especially AC–130s with 105-mm howitzers. Behind the curtain of aerial
firepower that Vann manipulated, the defenders learned to make deadly use of
antitank weapons that blunted armored thrusts or sealed off and eliminated the
tanks that did penetrate the city.
381
Fighting continued in the highlands of Kontum Province until the signing

of a cease-fire on January 27, 1973, but the skirmishes lacked the intensity of
the battle for Kontum City. In spite of South Vietnamese patrols and limited
offensives, the enemy occasionally challenged road convoys to Kontum City
from the south, though those with armed escorts usually got through. The North
Vietnamese also retained control of the Dak To-Tan Canh area, and exerted
pressure on the outposts bypassed during the Easter offensive. North of the Dak
To villages, the enemy forced the abandonment of Ben Het, and west of Pleiku
they gained control of Duc Co. Along the coast, the South Vietnamese reopened
Route 1, probed the A Lao Valley, and regained Landing Zone English and the
towns lost during the Easter offensive.22
The fighting in Military Region II followed a pattern that resembled the
struggle to the north, inasmuch as resistance on the ground forced the enemy to
mass his troops and maintain them in place for several weeks, presenting targets
for air power. Here, as in neighboring Military Region I, U.S. aircraft provided
most of the air support, with the South Vietnamese Air Force participating as
best it could. If Giap and his fellow North Vietnamese generals planned to cut
South Vietnam in half, they failed to do so, but they strengthened their grip on
the highlands, increased the security of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and rendered all
but invulnerable their bases in the triborder area. As in Military Region I, the
gains made here in the spring and summer of 1972 greatly diminished the ability
of South Vietnam to resist a future offensive after a cease-fire took effect.
South of the battlefields of the western highlands and the Bong Son area lay
Military Region III, which encompassed the northern approaches to Saigon,
with its various nearby bases and headquarters installations. The capital city and
its immediate environs shared a boundary with the region but formed a separate
district. Until the third prong of the Easter offensive penetrated Military Region
III in April 1972, it seemed an unlikely place for a major attack. The South
Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in the spring of 1970 had overrun the en-
emy’s potentially dangerous base areas on the border of Tay Ninh and Binh
Long Provinces, and afterward South Vietnamese troops conducted sporadic
operations in eastern Cambodia. The North Vietnamese, however, established
new depots deeper inside Cambodia where they armed and trained. When the
attack came in 1972, it consisted of a feint toward Tay Ninh City to divert
attention from the attacks on Loc Ninh and An Loc, two cities in Binh Long
Province on Route 13, the highway to Saigon.
North Vietnam struck its first blow in Military Region III on April 2 —
sixty-odd hours after the attack in the north toward Quang Tri City and Hue but
at roughly the same time that the enemy began probing the defenses of Kontum
Province — when a column of tanks overwhelmed a fire support base in Tay
Ninh Province. The commander of III Corps, Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Minh,
reacted to this attack by pulling back all but one of the border outposts to form
a new line in the vicinity of Tay Ninh City, thus giving the North Vietnamese
383
troops in Cambodia unimpeded access to the province. Minh left in place the
garrison at Tong Le Chon because the commander there protested that a retreat
would invite a North Vietnamese ambush. As it turned out, that outpost
remained in South Vietnamese hands until the cease-fire of January 1973. In
contrast, the defenders of Thien Ngon followed orders to withdraw and fell into
a trap that destroyed most of their vehicles and artillery. Once the North Viet-
namese had caught Minh’s attention, they abruptly broke off the action, leaving
the South Vietnamese equipment abandoned at the ambush site still littering the
roadway. An Loc, rather than Tay Ninh City, proved to be the main objective;
for, as captured documents and the interrogation of prisoners soon revealed, the
North Vietnamese intended that the captured city would become the capital of
a liberated zone. Only after the establishment of this puppet government would
the enemy exploit his hold on An Loc and advance southwestward into Tay
Ninh Province or southward down Route 13 toward Saigon.23
The battle for An Loc began in the early morning darkness of April 5, when
shells burst in the town and a hostile patrol probed the Quan Loi airstrip, some
seven kilometers to the northeast. The South Vietnamese rangers stationed at
the airfield withdrew, along with their U.S. advisers. The soldiers who remained
behind held the runway only until April 6, when the enemy overran the airfield
and established a roadblock on Route 13 south of An Loc, forcing the defenders
to rely on supplies delivered by helicopter or parachute.24
While isolating An Loc, the North Vietnamese eliminated the outpost at
Loc Ninh, a dozen miles to the north on Route 13. The first attack, on the morn-
ing of April 5, pinned the defenders in two compounds separated by the length
of an airstrip, but resistance continued. Shortly before midnight, the situation
became so desperate that the senior adviser, Army Capt. Mark A. Smith, called
for an Air Force gunship to fire into the compound where he had his headquar-
ters. Smith reasoned correctly that the defenders, who had overhead cover,
would be safer from 20-mm and 40-mm fire than the North Vietnamese trying
to break into the bunkers. The torrent of fire from the gunship saved Loc Ninh
until daybreak when other aircraft could come to its defense.
During an afternoon attack on April 5, fighter-bombers dropped cluster
bombs with antipersonnel munitions, and thousands of fragments cut into the
assault troops as they tried to cross the runway and again storm the bunkers.
Maj. Gen. James F. Hollingsworth, the Commanding General, Third Regional
Assistance Command, credited Army helicopter gunships with inflicting similar
slaughter during a second attack later in the day. The Loc Ninh garrison held on
throughout the night of April 6, but when daylight came, the North Vietnamese
intensified the volume of fire and sent tanks to help the infantry. Captain Smith
called for air strikes on his compound, but this desperate measure could not
prevent the attackers from overrunning the position at about 8:00 a.m. The
second compound, at the opposite end of the runway, held out until dusk before
North Vietnamese numbers and firepower overwhelmed it.
384
Although Hollingsworth estimated that Loc Ninh would have fallen in a

few hours except for air strikes, air support might have done more, except for
poor coordination during the night of April 6. Some of the forward air control-
lers knew very little about the array of weapons and sensors carried by the
AC–130 gunships. On one occasion, a gunship pilot, after reporting that his
flare dispenser did not work, had to remind the controller that this problem
would not affect his mission, since low-light-level television and infrared equip-
ment still enabled him to attack targets on the ground. At other times, a control-
ler might prevent a gunship from engaging a profitable target because another
aircraft, also capable of attacking though perhaps with less deadly effect, had
run low on fuel. A series of formal and informal meetings apprised the forward
air controllers of the value of the gunship, and gunship crews of the compro-
mises necessary when working with large numbers of other aircraft.25
When the North Vietnamese attacked Loc Ninh, a two-battalion South
Vietnamese task force reoccupied two abandoned fire support bases near the
junction of Routes 13 and 17, about halfway from An Loc to Loc Ninh. On
April 6, the second day of the fight for Loc Ninh, one of the battalions, engaged
in patrolling Route 17, received orders to relieve the embattled Loc Ninh garri-
son. At the road junction, the battalion collided with a North Vietnamese strong-
point, which it could not reduce because the available tactical aircraft were
bombing and strafing at Loc Ninh.
Unable to push northward and running short of supplies, the task force re-
ceived new orders to retreat to An Loc, but the movement had barely begun on
the morning of April 7 when an attack from ambush sent the survivors reeling
back to the fire support bases they had just left. Air strikes, which became
available as the fighting tapered off at Loc Ninh, destroyed three howitzers left
at the ambush site. The task force disabled its vehicles and other equipment and
started for An Loc on foot, only to run into a succession of roadblocks. While
the bulk of troops ran this gantlet, the wounded, three Americans and fifteen
South Vietnamese, who could not keep up, took cover, and awaited rescue. Af-
ter the North Vietnamese shot down one helicopter and damaged two others,
Army Brig. Gen. John McGiffert, Hollingsworth’s deputy, called off the rescue
attempt until additional aircraft became available. An AC–130 gunship circled
over the wounded men, keeping the enemy at bay throughout the night. On the
morning of April 8, armed helicopters and tactical aircraft pinned down the
North Vietnamese so that scout helicopters could dart in and retrieve the three
Americans and nine surviving South Vietnamese.26
The fall of Loc Ninh, the defeat of the task force, the capture of the Quan
Loi airstrip, and the closing of Route 13 to the south isolated An Loc. A siege
began that taxed the abilities of the South Vietnamese commanders and the
patience of their U.S. advisers. Indeed, in the opinion of these advisers, Minh
proved “wanting” as a corps commander, and Brig. Gen. Le Van Hung, whose
division defended An Loc, “didn’t do a damn thing.”27 Consequently, Hollings-
385
worth, a flamboyant leader who patterned himself after George S. Patton, Jr.,
of World War II fame, took over the defense of An Loc, much as Vann had
done at Kontum City. “You hold,” he reportedly told the South Vietnamese,
“and I’ll do the killing,”28 and the principal instrument of slaughter proved to
be the B–52. Like the legendary Patton, moreover, Hollingsworth demanded
compliance with uniform regulations, announcing as the siege of An Loc began
that he intended “to restore the image of dignity and discipline among American
troops in MR III.”29
Forward air controllers reported tanks and antiaircraft guns converging on
An Loc, as the North Vietnamese sought to take advantage of the city’s isola-
tion. In recognition of the danger, the province chief, Saigon’s principal civilian
official in Binh Long, removed himself from the process of selecting targets for
air strikes; during the fight for An Loc, military officers could designate targets
without obtaining his approval. This simplification of procedures may have
helped tactical aircraft kill an estimated 200 of the enemy in strikes southwest
of An Loc on April 12. Although targets could be approved more quickly, a
problem in communications arose on April 8, when North Vietnamese soldiers
overran a radio relay station atop Black Virgin Mountain that served forward air
controllers throughout Military Region III. The airborne battlefield command
and control center had to take up the slack.30
Aware of the threat the loss of An Loc could pose for the capital, the Saigon
regime moved swiftly to provide reinforcements, and President Thieu visited
the city to demonstrate the importance he attached to its defense. Army heli-
copters flew more than two battalions of South Vietnamese soldiers into An
Loc, delivered supplies, and evacuated wounded and noncombatants. Hollings-
worth, who reconnoitered the area each day by helicopter, met with McGiffert,
his deputy, and planned B–52 target boxes for the impending battle, as the
defense tried to make every hour count.
The struggle for An Loc began on the morning of April 13, shortly after
midnight, when an AC–130 responded to reports from the ground by firing on
tanks and trucks approaching the defensive perimeter from the southwest. The
gunship crew claimed the destruction of four trucks and, even though the largest
weapon on board was a 40-mm cannon, one tank. At dawn, other tanks appeared
east of town, but the main thrust came from the north, an ill-coordinated attack
in which the armor outdistanced its protecting infantry and presented easy
targets to defenders armed with antitank weapons. The North Vietnamese infan-
try, McGiffert believed, had failed to advance in conjunction with the tanks
because of the disruption and confusion caused by B–52 strikes on bivouac
areas and approach routes.31
Later in the morning, the enemy attacked again, this time from the north-
west. The assault force was moving through one of the B–52 target boxes that
Hollingsworth and McGiffert had chosen, when a cell of the big bombers re-
leased its bombs; the resulting explosions destroyed three or four tanks and
386
killed an estimated 100 infantrymen. Despite the impact of this air strike, the
North Vietnamese by day’s end controlled the northern half of An Loc. Mean-
while, a South Vietnamese attempt to advance up Route 13 ended in failure.
Although the enemy had gained a lodgment in the encircled city and strength-
ened his grip on the southern approaches, Hollingsworth rejected a proposal to
pull out the American advisers. Like Vann at Kontum City, he insisted that they
remain in An Loc until the very end.32
For two more days, April 14 and 15, the North Vietnamese persisted in
attacking the An Loc perimeter, but the defenders eliminated every penetration
by infantry and armor. The enemy failed to extend his control within the city.
To the south, however, he continued to block Route 13, despite some minor
gains by the South Vietnamese relief force.33
When An Loc survived this series of attacks, the North Vietnamese dug in
the artillery pieces and mortars and ringed the city with antiaircraft guns. The
enemy seemed to be settling in, relying on a continuing bombardment — along
with the shortages of food, medicines and ammunition caused by the encircle-
ment — to weaken the garrison before the next assault. In furtherance of this
design, artillery fire destroyed An Loc’s main ammunition dump on April 16.
During the initial three-day onslaught against An Loc, from April 13 to 15,
the control mechanism for air strikes underwent hurried revision to cope with
the large number of American and South Vietnamese tactical aircraft swarming
in the skies over the city. As if to demonstrate the need for on-the-scene
coordination, an AC–130 was firing away by daylight on April 13 when a flight
of South Vietnamese A–1s dived through the gunship’s orbit. A new arrange-
ment took effect on the following day that divided airspace over An Loc into
two sectors. Within one, South Vietnamese forward air controllers directed
strikes by South Vietnamese aircraft; in the other, Air Force forward air control-
lers, operating in shifts so that three were always on duty, directed U.S. tactical
aircraft. One of the Air Force controllers functioned as “King,” informing the
other two of the situation as described by advisers on the ground and passing
along instructions from the II Direct Air Support Center.34
The division of responsibility for directing strikes between the U.S. and
South Vietnamese air forces and the designation of a King forward air controller
within the American sector, improved coordination. Despite these arrange-
ments, complaints persisted about the reliability of South Vietnamese forward
air controllers. As late as May 13, Hollingsworth protested their tendency to
withdraw at any hint of bad weather and their inability, along with the fighter-
bomber pilots they controlled, to operate at night.35
As was true elsewhere, the contributions of South Vietnamese airmen to the
defense of An Loc depended on training and equipment. When the North Viet-
namese isolated the city, the tasks of delivering supplies and evacuating the
wounded devolved upon the South Vietnamese. Since the enemy controlled the
airstrip, cargo aircraft had to parachute food and ammunition into the city, while
387
helicopters delivered additional supplies and picked up the wounded. Unfortu-

nately, events soon demonstrated that South Vietnamese transport and helicop-
ter crews lacked the skill, equipment, and sometimes the motivation to sustain
the An Loc garrison.
South Vietnamese attempts to deal with casualties, both military and
civilian, in an artillery-battered city choked with refugees proved dismaying,
especially after April 13, when shelling destroyed the city’s hospital. The aerial
evacuation system broke down completely; helicopters arrived sporadically, and
the walking wounded, or even the able-bodied, pushed their way past stretcher
cases to find room on the craft. At the request of General Minh, commander of
III Corps, Hollingsworth directed his aviation officer, Army Col. John Richard-
son, to undertake a demonstration mission. Richardson not only planned the
flight, but on May 4 personally led four South Vietnamese helicopters, flying
at treetop height, that brought in thirty-nine replacements and evacuated forty-
two wounded men, sustaining only minor damage to the aircraft.36 Richardson’s
success encouraged a flurry of South Vietnamese evacuation missions, but
Hollingsworth still found fault with the attitude, if not the flying skill of the
helicopter crews. He believed that the loss of life since the Easter offensive
began had undermined “the desire to fly missions in a hostile environment.”37
Not until June, as the battle waned, did the South Vietnamese overcome their
reluctance to risk helicopters by challenging the gunners around An Loc,
establish discipline at the landing zone, and undertake systematic medical
evacuation from the embattled city.38
In contrast, a lack of aircraft and suitable delivery technique, rather than
any failure of discipline or determination, prevented the South Vietnamese from
parachuting into An Loc the volume of cargo needed to sustain its defenders.
Between April 7 and 19, a combination of U.S. and South Vietnamese helicop-
ters and South Vietnamese C–123 transports delivered 337 tons of supplies; but
the operation, dangerous to begin with, rapidly became almost suicidal. North
Vietnamese fire damaged three U.S. Army helicopters as they unloaded and on
April 12 destroyed a South Vietnamese CH–47, thus putting an end to supply
by helicopter one day before the first major assault on An Loc.
South Vietnamese AC–123s and a few C–119s, aiming their cargo without
the aid of radar, braved intense antiaircraft fire and attempted to drop cargo
from altitudes of 700 to 5,000 feet but lost one transport on April 15 and another
on the 19th. The C–123, the best tactical transport South Vietnam’s airmen had,
could not survive at low altitude over heavily defended An Loc, and the mis-
sions there came to an end, except for one improvised higher altitude drop at
night. On April 27, directed by radar on the ground, the South Vietnamese got
through to An Loc, but only 5 percent of the bundles actually reached the troops
for whom they were intended. In June, a program began to train South Vietnam-
ese crews for high-altitude drops using radar beacons as aiming points. It did
not produce results until September, long after the siege of An Loc had ended.39
389
On April 15, four-engine Air Force C–130s, with greater speed and carrying
capacity than the smaller South Vietnamese C–123s, parachuted supplies into
An Loc for the first time since the siege began. American participation
increased until the downing of a second C–123 on April 19, when the Air Force
took over the aerial supply line, using C–130s exclusively. The initial mission
flown on April 15, however, boded ill for the Air Force and its Hercules trans-
ports. Two C–130s approached An Loc that afternoon, planning to descend
sharply and level off at an altitude of 600 feet roughly two minutes from a pre-
scribed release point that would place the containers of cargo within the drop
zone. Antiaircraft fire greeted the first of the transports, damaging the rudder,
but the crew nevertheless parachuted the load. The second C–130 chose a differ-
ent heading but encountered an antiaircraft barrage that killed one crewman and
wounded two others. Shell fragments severed a hot-air line, raising the tempera-
ture of the cargo of artillery and mortar ammunition almost to the flash point
and forcing the loadmaster, SSgt. Charles L. Shaub, to jettison the containers
in order to save the airplane, which the pilot, Capt. William R. Caldwell, landed
safely at Tan Son Nhut. The two aircraft had carried twenty-six tons of cargo,
none of which reached the South Vietnamese defenders of An Loc.
The first day’s experience caused the commander of the 374th Tactical
Airlift Wing, Col. Andrew P. Iosue, to change the profile of the mission. The
C–130s would approach at treetop height to present a fleeting target to antiair-
craft gunners then climb to 600 feet over the release point. A pair of transports,
Iosue in the cockpit of one of them, tested the new tactics on April 16; both sus-
tained some damage from antiaircraft fire, but dropped their loads at the com-
puted release point. Unfortunately, that point was based on an incorrect set of
grid coordinates and all twenty-six tons of cargo landed on the wrong side of
Route 13 in territory controlled by the North Vietnamese.
On April 18, after a day’s delay, Capt. Don B. Jensen piloted another
C–130 toward the soccer field that served as drop zone. When the aircraft
reached the prescribed altitude of 600 feet, antiaircraft fire tore into it, setting
ablaze the right wing and one engine and knocking out a second engine. The
crew jettisoned the load and headed north toward Pleiku, but had to come down
in a swamp short of their destination. Everyone survived the crash, and an Army
helicopter soon picked them up. Hostile gunners at An Loc thus claimed their
first C–130 one day before they downed the second South Vietnamese C–123
and caused the Air Force to take over the airlift operation.
To avoid the savage low-altitude antiaircraft fire, much of it from visually
aimed machineguns, Iosue’s airlift wing turned to the ground air delivery
system, using it in conjunction with the high-altitude, low-opening parachute
technique. A radar at Bien Hoa guided the transport onto position to drop its
load at an altitude beyond reach of the weapons around An Loc. On the night
of April 19, two C–130s returned unscathed after successfully releasing their
loads from 8,000 feet; unfortunately, only two tons out of twenty-six actually
390
reached the An Loc garrison. Six more drops, directed by the Bien Hoa radar,
took place during the next four days, and the Hercules aircraft sustained no
damage whether flying by night or in daylight.
Accuracy remained a problem, however, largely because of a flaw in the
equipment that delayed the opening of the parachute for a specified number of
seconds as the load descended to the desired altitude. The pyrotechnic timing
device proved erratic in triggering the charge that cut the bonds keeping the
parachute partially furled. When the timer released the restraints too soon, the
parachute might drift hundreds of yards from the drop zone; if full deployment
of the parachute came too late or not at all, a hard landing short of the drop zone
could destroy the attached cargo and possibly maim or kill friendly troops or
some of the noncombatants who had sought refuge at An Loc.
Until Army parachute riggers could make the delayed-opening equipment
work properly, the airlift force went back to a nighttime variant of the tactics
used earlier. A blacked-out C–130 might approach the An Loc soccer field at
1,000 feet and descend abruptly to 600 feet for the drop or, if the moonlight per-
mitted, skim the treetops and climb to 600 feet to release the load. With
AC–130 gunships attempting to suppress antiaircraft fires during the final ap-
proach and drop, nighttime missions succeeded on April 23 and 24; the aircraft
suffered no damage, and the troops at An Loc retrieved about 70 percent of the
cargo parachuted to them. The North Vietnamese persisted, however, in trying
to create a curtain of fire across the drop zone approaches and managed to shoot
down another C–130 on April 25, the last of four to drop supplies that night.
Despite the loss of this aircraft and its crew, problems with the high-
altitude, low-opening timing device compelled the Air Force to continue drop-
ping from 600 feet, even flying a mission in daylight on April 27. The two
C–130s that flew the missiom had a powerful flak-suppression escort, but even
so both returned with battle damage. In preparation for the ordeal, mechanics
reinstalled seat armor removed earlier to save weight, and crewmen donned
flack jackets and steel helmets and even brought on board metal trash contain-
ers, draping them with chains to provide the lucky few who could climb inside
with additional protection when the antiaircraft guns began to fire.
Except for the one daytime mission, the drops from 600 feet continued
through the early morning of May 4 to take place in darkness. Various exped-
ients helped mark the drop zone, but they all had disadvantages that could prove
deadly to the aircrews involved. Fires and lights on the ground provided little
help because they tended to blend in with the flames and explosions caused by
the fighting. The light from aerial flares reflected off clouds and off the aircraft,
sometimes silhouetting the transport against an overcast. The AC–130s and
AC–119Ks might pinpoint the drop zone with low-light-level television or with
the night vision scope, then use their searchlights, with the infrared filter
removed, to illuminate it until the approaching transport was barely seconds
from entering the cone of light. Merely turning on the searchlight could trick the
391
antiaircraft gunners into thinking a supply mission was approaching, but the use
of illumination also revealed the position of the gunship.
Although the airlift units, because of the inability to rig loads for high-
altitude release, had no choice but to persist in dropping from 600 feet, the sup-
plies parachuted from that height seldom reached the troops at An Loc. The fail-
ure stemmed in part from an unwillingness to try to retrieve the bundles in the
face of the artillery fire that raked the drop zone after each delivery and the lack
of procedures for systematically distributing the contents. Since many of the
containers held food, soldiers engaged in a free-for-all to open them, keeping
what they wanted instead of dividing the goods among all the units.
Although a lack of discipline contributed to the loss of supplies dropped at
great risk, the fact remained that the containers all too often missed the mark.
The tiny size of the drop zone, the difficulty in locating it through smoke or in
darkness, and the savage antiaircraft fire vastly complicated the task of finding
the exact point in the sky that would place a load of cargo in the hands of the
soldiers below. The infuriating sight of drifting parachutes carrying supplies
into hostile territory became commonplace, as illustrated by the story, perhaps
apocryphal but nevertheless frequently told, of the captured North Vietnamese
officer who asked for more of the canned fruit salad that he had obtained in
recent days from misdirected bundles and found delicious.40
In short, parachuting cargo from 600 feet, even by night, entailed risks out
of proportion to the results achieved. On the night of May 3, North Vietnamese
antiaircraft gunners shot down another C–130, the third such aircraft lost at An
Loc; an additional thirty-eight Hercules transports had by this time sustained
varying degrees of damage. Clearly, transports using low-altitude tactics could
rarely emerge unscathed by hostile fire.41
Avoiding aircraft damage or destruction required finding remedies for the
failings of the high-altitude, low-opening method of delivery. The search began
on April 24 with the arrival at Tan Son Nhut Air Base of additional Army and
Air Force parachute riggers thoroughly familiar with the equipment involved.
Success proved elusive, but by May 4, modified equipment that featured, among
other things, heavier reefing lines to contain the partially furled parachute, en-
abled a C–130 to hit a drop zone from 10,000 feet in a test conducted near Tan
Son Nhut. By flying at 10,000 feet, beyond reach of antiaircraft fire, a C–130
could make more than one drop, using the first to confirm the accuracy of the
release point and the effect of the wind before dropping the additional bundles.
The C–130s tested these procedures at An Loc from May 4 through May 7, but
achieved mixed results. The high-altitude, low-opening technique delivered 185
tons of supplies, some of the items salvaged from shattered containers, since
roughly half the parachutes failed to open.
Further trial and error adjustments of the rigging resulted in more extensive
changes. Longer reefing lines furled the parachute more loosely; a sling in-
creased the separation between parachute and load, enabling a greater volume
392
of air to rush into the canopy; and the use of a second or back-up timer and
cutter ensured that the reefing line would break cleanly at the proper moment.
The number of failures became negligible, but a shortage of the fifty-second and
sixty-second timers used to drop from 10,000 feet threatened to put an end to
this successful technique. Riggers had plenty of the thirty-second variety, which
required releasing the load at a lower altitude, but the appearance at An Loc of
the SA–7 heat-seeking antiaircraft missile placed a premium on high-altitude
operation by the C–130s.
Altitude did not provide the sole protection against the SA–7, which proved
susceptible to various countermeasures, but for transports dropping supplies it
proved the best. Screening materials, for example, reduced the plume of heat
generated by the engines of certain aircraft and flares decoyed the infrared
sensor, especially when released as the aircraft turned toward the ascending
missile and placed a large mass of cooler metal between the engine exhaust and
the heat seeker. However, when parachuting cargo from a transport with four
turboprop engines generating heat, a task that did not lend itself to turns,
altitude afforded the best defense. As the supply of fifty-second and sixty-
second timers dwindled, continuation of the airlift to An Loc again seemed in
jeopardy.
Fortunately, the Air Force had a substitute for the scarce timer, a barometric
device that fired the cutter at a pressure setting corresponding to a specific
altitude. The device proved generally satisfactory, although malfunctions did
occur. Premature openings caused cargo to stray far from the drop zone and on
at least two occasions, failures to unfurl turned loads of ammunition into
potentially deadly bombs.
In addition, an alternative to the high-altitude, low-opening method proved
readily available. Although normally an element of the adverse weather air
delivery system that employed a radar in the aircraft, the high-velocity drop,
using a slotted parachute and a reinforced container, replaced the delayed-
opening release as part of the ground radar air delivery system. The first high-
velocity drops took place on May 8, and during three days, 139 of 140 bundles
dropped with this technique landed safely in the intended area. The 1,000-pound
load suspended from the slotted parachute landed with an earth-shaking jolt, as
demonstrated when a half-ton of canned peaches crushed a parked jeep. The
complete adverse weather air delivery system, with airborne radar and the high-
velocity drop technique, went into action at An Loc in June but merely supple-
mented ground radar air delivery.42
Although statistics on the tonnage actually delivered to An Loc defy con-
sensus, the resupply effort clearly enabled the garrison to keep on fighting.
Hollingsworth, in fact, worried that the airlift removed the incentive to reopen
the highway to An Loc and suggested cutting back on the airlift to encourage
a breakthrough from the south. Abrams, however, did not heed his advice, and
the South Vietnamese never regained the uncontested use of Route 13.43
393
The airlift of supplies to An Loc triumphed over many obstacles, some of

them resulting only indirectly from enemy action. Parachutes, for example,
proved difficult to recover; hostile artillery fire in the drop zone shredded some
canopies and discouraged attempts at retrieval, whereas others simply drifted
with their loads into North Vietnamese hands, and still others became makeshift
shelters to protect An Loc’s defenders from the sun and rain. The sustained use
of the C–130 fleet, reinforced by Constant Guard IV, imposed severe demands
on maintenance specialists, who met the challenge and actually increased the in-
commission rate of the transports from 63 to 71 percent, even though years of
hard use had produced an epidemic of leaking fuel cells in the older models.44
During the transition from low-altitude to high-altitude supply drops,
Hollingsworth lost the daytime use of one aerial weapon he had come to value
and became concerned that he might lose another. On May 2, during a daylight
mission, 37-mm antiaircraft fire tore into the right wing of an AC–119K
Stinger, ripping off the pod-mounted jet engine and knocking out the piston
engine. Seven crewmen parachuted safely from the doomed airplane, but the
other three died. A forward air controller followed the AC–119K in its final
descent and plotted where each parachute came down, enabling two Air Force
HH–53 helicopters and an Army UH–1 to pick up the survivors. Antiaircraft fire
thus banished the slow-moving AC–119K, with its short-range 20-mm guns,
from the daytime skies over An Loc.45
General Hollingsworth protested the decision not to risk the AC–119Ks by
daylight in part because he apparently assumed that the same restriction would
apply to the AC–130s. He objected to forfeiting the ability of the Spectre, its
sensors working in conjunction with 40-mm guns or even a 105-mm howitzer,
to “pick up, lock onto, and destroy enemy mortar positions which are employed
using ‘hugging’ tactics too close to friendly units to be vulnerable to tac air and
B–52 fires.”46 His concerns proved groundless, however, for the AC–130 gun-
ships remained in action over An Loc by day and night. Ironically, the only
Spectre to sustain severe damage there did so at night rather than in the more
dangerous daylight hours. On May 12, a heat-seeking SA–7 missile tracked the
infrared beam from one of the gunships and struck the aircraft near the lowered
cargo ramp at the rear, where an observer secured by a safety line hung over the
lip and warned the pilot of antiaircraft fire. The weapon grazed the crew mem-
ber’s helmet, laying it open, and inflicted cuts to his head that required several
stitches. Continuing on, the missile damaged a beam in the upper fuselage but
exited without exploding. The gunship landed safely at Tan Son Nhut, its tail
section canted slightly sideways because of the structural damage. Until decoy
flares became generally available, the AC–130Es had to remain beyond range
of the SA–7 and operate from 10,000 feet or above, too high for effective use
of the 20-mm cannon.47
During the supply effort from mid-April through mid-May, air power also
helped the defenders of An Loc break up another assault and then launch a
394
AC–130 crewmembers at consoles inside the aircraft. The sensors of

the most advanced AC–130 deployed in Southeast Asia included radar,
low-light television, infrared, and a device that detected truck engines.
limited counterattack that strengthened the South Vietnamese grip on the
shattered city. Beginning in the first week of May, North Vietnamese patrols
probed the defenses, artillery fire became increasingly intense, and statements
by prisoners revealed an abiding determination to seize An Loc. On May 11,
amid mounting evidence of an impending attack, Hollingsworth conferred with
Abrams and requested B–52 strikes against eighteen previously selected target
boxes and 200 sorties by tactical aircraft.
The priorities of the two generals clashed. Hollingsworth wanted the full
weight of the available air power during the period of gravest danger to An Loc.
Abrams also faced important, though not necessarily decisive, battles in Mili-
tary Regions I and II and hoped to rotate the B–52s among the three endangered
areas, concentrating for one day on each region in turn and striking blows from
which the enemy could not recover in the two days before the bombers returned.
At this point, General Vogt argued in a staff meeting for supporting An Loc to
the fullest, expressing his opinion with a bluntness that annoyed Abrams and
served only to strengthen his resolve. Vogt gathered evidence that substantiated
Hollingsworth’s views, presented it privately to Abrams, and convinced him to
give the highest priority to An Loc on the predicted day of the attack. As a
result, B–52s hit one of the eighteen target boxes every fifty-five minutes for
twenty-five hours, beginning at 5:30 a.m. on May 11.48
A preparatory artillery barrage, which began at thirty-five minutes after
midnight on the morning of May 11, signaled the onset of the attack that
395
Hollingsworth expected; before the bombardment ended, an estimated 8,300

shells had exploded within a defensive perimeter measuring about 1,000 by
1,500 meters. As the morning passed, two armored spearheads penetrated the
defenses from the north and west, but the South Vietnamese troops did not
panic. Antitank weapons fired by infantrymen and air strikes destroyed or dis-
abled all of the forty tanks or armored personnel carriers that led the morning’s
thrusts, causing the assault to lose momentum.
As the North Vietnamese bogged down in the ruins of An Loc, tactical
aviation pounced on the attackers, even though they had SA–7 missiles for their
protection. Almost 300 sorties struck the enemy on May 11, and roughly 260
on each of the next four days. South Vietnamese A–1s and Air Force AC–130s
helped the American fighter-bombers pound the western salient, but only the
Spectre gunships could blast the North Vietnamese in the narrow northern
salient, where friendly and enemy troops fought at ranges too close to permit
ordinary bombing and strafing. In the north, accurate fire from the Air Force
gunships drove the North Vietnamese from the cover of the bunkers they had
overrun, forcing them into the open where the defenders of An Loc slaughtered
them with infantry weapons, including claymore mines placed on standards,
aimed into the salient, and detonated by remote control.49
By mid-day on May 11, the combination of air power and determined
resistance on the ground had stopped the North Vietnamese attack. In An Loc,
a few tank crews actually abandoned their vehicles when they encountered
antitank weapons. Outside the city, panic-stricken survivors of bombing by
B–52s came under fighter-bomber attack and artillery fire as they fled. The
North Vietnamese regrouped, however, and renewed the attack on the night of
May 12, taking advantage of bad weather that impeded the fighter-bombers. The
AC–130s, however, could use their sensors regardless of the weather, and the
B–52s bombed through the cloud cover; consequently, the assault troops failed
to crack the defenses. Two days later, when the North Vietnamese seemed to be
preparing for yet another attack to exploit what remained of the gains already
made, three Arc Light strikes thwarted the enemy, who, in Hollingsworth’s
opinion, no longer seemed capable of offensive action against An Loc. Another
month of skirmishing remained, as South Vietnamese forces regained the
heights dominating the city and a relief column, supported by B–52 strikes,
fought its way into An Loc from the south, ending the siege.50
During the critical days of May, B–52s disrupted several attacks as the
enemy massed to launch them, and AC–130 gunships, especially those
mounting the 105-mm howitzer, remained out of range of antiaircraft guns and
heat-seeking missiles while shattering individual buildings within An Loc that
the North Vietnamese had fortified. Navy fighter-bombers, refueling and
rearming at Bien Hoa, joined the Air Force and Marine Corps aircraft based
there in providing sustained support, attacking targets designated by forward air
controllers. Airmen paid a price in conducting these operations, however, for
396
antiaircraft fire downed three Air Force planes from mid-morning of May 11 to
mid-morning of the 12th.
The loss on May 11 of the first of two A–37s caused all the forward air
controllers around An Loc to converge on the place where the aircraft went
down and search, unsuccessfully it turned out, for the missing pilot. (Except on
indoctrination flights for newly arrived Marines, the right-hand seat remained
empty in the A–37.) At the time of this diversion, the King forward air
controller called off a strike by a cell of B–52s diverted to An Loc. Besides
being deprived of the B–52 strike, the town’s defenders lost fighter-bomber
support for an hour and twenty minutes, but the North Vietnamese failed to take
advantage of the break in aerial coverage, possibly because earlier air attacks
had scourged them so cruelly.51 When the enemy shot down an O–2A later on
May 11, “it was edifying to note,” Hollingsworth told Abrams, that “the
remaining FACs [forward air controllers] continued on station.”52
Because of its proximity to An Loc, the airfield at Bien Hoa and the Air
Force A–37s based there made an important contribution to saving the city.
General Vogt pronounced the work of the A–37s to be “absolutely spectacu-
lar,”53 as demonstrated by Lt. Col. Gordon H. Weed during the May 11 fighting.
After he dropped one of his two 250-pound bombs squarely on a North Viet-
namese tank, only to have the weapon fail to explode, he braved the antiaircraft
fire to make a dangerous second pass and score another hit with the second
bomb, this time destroying the tank.54 When the Marine Corps A–4s arrived at
Bien Hoa on May 16 and 17, the A–37 pilots introduced the newcomers, few of
whom had any combat experience, to the aerial battlefield over An Loc. The
airmen who operated Bien Hoa also played host to an Air Force turnaround
team that refueled and rearmed F–4 fighter-bombers based in Thailand, thus
eliminating the use of an aerial tanker, saving the time required to return to a
Thai air base, and doubling or tripling the number of sorties one of these aircraft
could fly in a day. Finally, Bien Hoa sometimes provided the fuel, bombs, and
ammunition that enabled carrier-based aircraft to return swiftly to action.55
As they had at Kontum City, the South Vietnamese prevailed at An Loc,
inflicting grievous losses on the enemy. The defenders of An Loc, however, had
also depended on U.S. leadership — McGiffert and Hollingsworth — and on
U.S. aerial firepower, especially that of the B–52, which South Vietnam’s air
force would never have. The siege ended, moreover, with the South Vietnamese
controlling less territory than when the offensive began. Here, as in Military
Regions I and II, the enemy’s gains enhanced the security of his bases and
supply lines and brought him closer to the likely objectives of future operations.
The offensive in Military Region IV, clearly a subsidiary attack, differed
in some respects from the fighting in the other military regions. The struggle be-
gan, for example, in Cambodia; no major battle ensued, as at An Loc, Kontum
City, and Quang Tri City; and no clear-cut strategic objective emerged. In
southernmost South Vietnam, the Easter offensive seemed designed to protect
397
the North Vietnamese bases in Cambodia, which South Vietnamese troops had
been harassing; to capture foodstuffs in a rice-growing region; and to prevent
Saigon from shifting troops to defend more important objectives elsewhere. Nor
did the American officer who commanded the Delta Regional Assistance Com-
mand, Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Tarpley, assume de facto command, as Vann and
Hollingsworth had. Vigorous intervention in the South Vietnamese command
structure proved unnecessary, in part because of the lack of a decisive battle, but
also because of the competence of the IV Corps commanders — General
Truong, who went to I Corps and directed the recapture of Quang Tri City, and
his successor, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Van Nghi.
Despite the unique aspects of the action in Military Region IV — which
embraced the Mekong Delta — air power proved as important here as it had
elsewhere in halting the Easter offensive. The airplane provided a far-ranging
and versatile kind of firepower capable of influencing the fighting on the ground
or along waterways from Cambodia to the South Vietnamese coast. The North
Vietnamese forces in Military Region IV did not mass for a major battle, how-
ever, so that aerial bombing could not shatter entire regiments as it had at An
Loc, Kontum City, or Quang Tri City.56
The nearest approach to an all-out land battle occurred in Cambodia.
During the first week of April, a division of the People’s Army of North Viet-
nam attempted to overrun a series of South Vietnamese outposts in the vicinity
of Kompong Trach, some fifteen kilometers beyond the Cambodian border. The
attackers sought to isolate that town and destroy the garrison, thus playing out
on a much smaller scale the scenario for An Loc and Kontum City. After the
North Vietnamese surrounded Kompong Trach, the South Vietnamese lost
forty-six armored personnel carriers and tanks in unsuccessful attempts to break
through, and supplies dropped by parachute sustained the garrison when
antiaircraft fire became too deadly for helicopters. South Vietnamese mecha-
nized troops finally broke the siege on April 28, after B–52s had blasted the
supply caches that sustained the enemy force blocking access to Kompong
Trach. Fighter-bombers joined in the strikes, which seemed highly effective,
even though aerial reconnaissance of a typical target revealed only five North
Vietnamese soldiers, three of them dead, among the shattered bunkers.57
While air power helped frustrate the attack on Kompong Trach, scattered
fighting erupted in nearby Cambodia and across the border in Military Region
IV, as Viet Cong units and North Vietnamese regulars emerged from their var-
ious base areas. Besides harassing several towns defended by IV Corps, the
enemy tried, after his failure to overrun An Loc, to infiltrate southward from
Cambodia into the rice growing provinces of the delta. General Nghi reacted by
attacking in northern Kien Tuong Province and the so-called Elephant’s Foot,
a portion of Cambodia jutting into that corner of Military Region IV. His troops
advanced behind strikes by B–52s and fighter-bombers, and here the tactical
aircraft encountered the SA–7 missile that had proved so effective at An Loc
398
and elsewhere. A series of clashes followed in Kien Tuong, Kien Phong, and
Dinh Tuong Provinces, focusing on the Plain of Reeds, a Viet Cong stronghold
near the center of this area, as the enemy tried to disrupt the delivery of rice to
Saigon. The fighting in Military Region IV subsided by September and did not
resume until late October, when the enemy again became active, perhaps in the
hope of improving his position before a cease-fire went into effect.58
General Truong, having commanded both IV Corps and I Corps during the
fighting triggered by the North Vietnamese invasion, expressed satisfaction with
what he and General Nghi had done. The enemy failed to tie down the troops
defending Military Region IV, and the high command at Saigon tapped the area
for reinforcements needed to the north. The North Vietnamese failed to capture
a single town, confiscate the rice crop, stop the flow of rice to the capital
(though they did disrupt this vital traffic for a time), or impede South Viet-
namese movement throughout the delta. In claiming victory, Truong acknow-
ledged that American air power had helped maintain what he described as
“tactical balance”; indeed, he doubted that the Army of the Republic of
Vietnam, without this support, “would have been able to defeat so decisively the
large enemy forces” at Kompong Trach, the Elephant’s Foot, and in Kien
Tuong, Kien Phong, and Dinh Tuong Provinces.59
The Easter offensive of 1972 failed to accomplish the most ambitious
objective attributed to it, the conquest of South Vietnam. Stubborn resistance
at decisive points, massive aerial attack, and aerial resupply that frustrated
North Vietnamese roadblocks combined to stop an enemy who fought to
exhaustion for towns he might conceivably have bypassed. Handicapped by
poor communications and dependent on roads because of his choice of
conventional tactics, the enemy clung to a plan that increased his vulnerability
to aerial attack. Vehicles, along with the bridges and to some extent the roads
over which they travelled, afforded profitable targets for bombs, howitzers in
gunships, and rockets fired from helicopters. Moreover, the supply of fuel for
tanks and trucks, and also the movement of replacement vehicles to sustain the
attack, came under aerial attack all along the routes between the ports where
they arrived and the using unit on the battlefield.
The leadership at Hanoi gambled that the three major thrusts could generate
enough momentum to overcome the cumulative impact of air power, but lost the
bet. Despite battle damage and attacks by rockets or demolition teams on air
bases and fuel supplies in South Vietnam, the United States reinforced and
supplied its air forces more swiftly and efficiently than the North could sustain
the offensive. Those who interpreted the Easter offensive as a bid for immediate
victory concluded that South Vietnam, aided by U.S. leadership and air power,
had won. For example, Gen. Phillip B. Davidson, the former intelligence officer
for Generals Westmoreland and Abrams, concluded that Giap had gone whole
hog, totus porcus, and failed in an attempt to defeat South Vietnam on the
battlefield and demoralize the Saigon government’s American supporters.60
399
Davidson conceded, however, that from the outset the North Vietnamese
invaders might have willingly settled for less than a complete and immediate
victory.61 If so, North Vietnam emerged as the clear victor. The Easter offensive
made inroads into South Vietnam that Saigon’s armed forces could not
eliminate. The captured territory brought the People’s Army of North Vietnam
closer to future objectives, enhanced the security of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and
permitted its improvement to handle a greater volume of traffic more efficiently,
and provided a buffer to protect the enemy’s bases in southern Laos and Cam-
bodia and on the northern and western fringes of what had been South Vietnam.
Difficult to defend when the offensive began in March 1972, South Vietnam
became even more so as a consequence of fighting that left the enemy dominant
in the far north, firmly in control of the western highlands and the triborder area,
and still strong in the southernmost provinces.
The United States, in the meantime, stopped insisting that North Vietnam
withdraw its troops from the South as a condition of any settlement. Instead, the
Nixon administration indicated a willingness to agree to a cease-fire in place,
followed by the release of the Americans being held as prisoners of war and the
departure of the last Americans from South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese
negotiators also offered a major concession, backing away from their demand
that a coalition, including communists, replace the Thieu government as part of
any agreement to end the hostilities. To persuade Hanoi to formally ratify the
negotiated arrangement, President Nixon on October 27 suspended the bombing
of North Vietnam north of the 20th parallel.
Although the North Vietnamese leadership seemed agreeable to ending the
war under these terms, a storm of opposition burst in Saigon where Thieu, even
though assured of remaining in office after the cease-fire, balked at accepting
the continued presence of North Vietnamese forces in postwar South Vietnam.62
Aware of the threat these troops posed to the survival of his country, Thieu
agreed to a cease-fire in place only after President Nixon, early in November,
extended “absolute assurance that if Hanoi fails to live up to the terms of this
agreement it is my intention to take swift and severe retaliatory action.”63 Nixon
in effect pledged that the United States would respond to another North Viet-
namese invasion, launched from the territory captured in 1972, with the kind of
rapid deployment of aircraft and unrelenting aerial attack that had halted the
Easter offensive.
Although ultimately Thieu agreed to accept a settlement that legitimized
North Vietnam’s recent conquests, he did so reluctantly and continued to look
for something better. Meanwhile, Hanoi’s negotiating team began quibbling
over details in the hope of getting truce terms more generous than those already
accepted in principle, perhaps actually accomplishing the removal of Thieu and
the replacement of his regime by a communist-dominated coalition. While
Nixon won re-election on November 7, 1972, amassing 520 of 538 electoral
votes, the leaders at Hanoi may have felt that the new Congress, reflecting the
400
mood of the American people, would decide that the United States had already
done enough for South Vietnam and eliminate or sharply reduce assistance to
the government at Saigon. Nixon acted before Congress convened, however,
demanding on December 14 that Hanoi resume negotiations or face a renewal
of the bombing north of the 20th parallel. The resulting aerial campaign,
Operation Linebacker II, persuaded North Vietnam to negotiate an end to the
fighting, and a blunt warning from the White House that the United States stood
ready to negotiate a truce that reflected only its own interests cut the ground
from under the South Vietnamese president.
The peace agreement, finally signed at Paris on January 27, 1973, repre-
sented a truce rather than a true settlement, for it left North Vietnamese forces
in control of territory within South Vietnam from which they could renew the
war. The survival of South Vietnam depended on the attitudes of two foreign
powers: North Vietnam’s willingness to abide by the treaty and the determina-
tion of the United States to honor President Nixon’s pledge to intervene swiftly
and decisively if Hanoi attacked.64
Whatever Thieu may have believed, or Nixon when he made the promise,
General Vogt doubted that the United States would react to a future invasion
with the overwhelming aerial firepower unleashed in 1972. He recalled that
General Haig, still a member of Kissinger’s staff, and others urged him to use
his influence with various South Vietnamese generals to assure them they could
depend on the American commitment. This he refused to do.65
The war, Americanized and then Vietnamized, ended for the United States
in January 1973. Air power, supplemented by ground offensives of varying suc-
cess in Cambodia and southern Laos, had provided a shield for Vietnamization
and the withdrawal of American troops. As the United States reduced its ground
forces, the nature and purpose of the fighting changed. The South Vietnamese,
at best, had the numbers, equipment, training, firepower, and mobility to fight
a defensive war — in short, to fix an attacking enemy so that overwhelming
U.S. firepower, increasingly delivered by aircraft, could finish him. The init-
iative lay with the North Vietnamese, who, during the Easter offensive, massed
their forces, forfeited their mobility and besieged towns, and suffered grievously
from aerial bombardment.
The battlefield strategy in effect during 1972, as described in the U.S.
Army’s history of the advisory effort, called for South Vietnam “to fight a
defensive war of attrition similar to that which had been waged by the with-
drawing American forces, with local deficiencies being made up by U.S. air and
sea power.” This arrangement had bled the North Vietnamese invaders to a
standstill during 1972, and the Saigon government remained “confident that
American firepower would be made available when necessary” in any future
emergency.66 The goal of training and equipping the South Vietnamese armed
forces to ensure the nation’s independence no longer existed. Instead of an
essentially self-sufficient force capable of decisive action, South Vietnam’s
401
military establishment could do little more than serve as a trip wire to trigger
aerial intervention by the United States.
The composition of the South Vietnamese Air Force reflected the changed
role of the nation’s armed forces. Large though it was, the air arm lacked some
essential tools. South Vietnam did not have fighter-bombers capable of
attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the most modern aircraft for its forward air
controllers, enough transports to duplicate the supply drops of 1972, enough
helicopters for the airmobile tactics pioneered by the Americans, nor any means
of approximating the firepower of the B–52. Instead of emerging as an indepen-
dent organization capable of obliterating targets in North Vietnam, Cambodia,
or Laos, the post-truce South Vietnamese Air Force remained tied to the corps
commanders and their tactical zones.
South Vietnam’s survival required that future Presidents honor Nixon’s
personal commitment to intervene with air power in the event of another North
Vietnamese invasion. Until the promised help arrived, the South Vietnamese
armed forces would have to hold in check an enemy who had already carved out
deep salients that could serve as secure bases for renewing the war. If it were to
function as a trip wire, South Vietnam’s military establishment would require
continuous training and planning, lavish stockpiles of fuel and ammunition, and
better leadership than displayed during the 1972 fighting. If Hanoi attacked, the
defense of South Vietnam would surely depend on materials the United States
had supplied before hostilities resumed, and the survival of South Vietnam
would depend on the willingness of the United States to renew a war that had
generated among the American people apathy, if not outright contempt, toward
the South Vietnamese.
402
Chapter Twenty-Three
After the Truce
The cease-fire agreement of January 1973 enabled the United States to ob-
tain the release from communist prisons of almost 600 Americans, most of them
fliers, carry out their repatriation, and withdraw the last of its forces from South
Vietnam. The settlement, however, did not put an end to skirmishing between
the Saigon government and the communist opposition. Despite the nominal
cease-fire in place, communist forces sought to extend their area of control
through limited attacks, engaging in what Cao Van Vien, Chairman of the South
Vietnamese Joint General Staff, described as land grabbing and population
nibbling. The Saigon government retaliated, and during 1973, in the absence of
major battles, some 2,900 skirmishes erupted.1
As a consequence of the pact negotiated at Paris, the U.S. Military Assis-
tance Command, Vietnam passed into history on March 29, 1973. The major
American headquarters in Southeast Asia became the U.S. Support Activities
Group — also known as the U.S. Support Activities Group/Seventh Air Force — a
joint command established at Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, under General Vogt
of the Air Force. The new organization took over the complex from which Task
Force Alpha had maintained surveillance of traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
including the computer the task force had used for data storage and targeting.2
Besides directing the air war in Cambodia from the buildings it had
inherited at Nakhon Phanom, the U.S. Support Activities Group conducted
liaison and planning activity. As a liaison center, it linked the South Vietnamese
Air Force and the U.S. Air Force units based in Thailand and the western
Pacific. The Support Activities Group’s planning function included preparations
for air power intervention should the United States have to honor President
Nixon’s pledge to respond to another North Vietnamese invasion.
During the spring of 1973, General Vogt’s headquarters received a directive
from the Commander in Chief, Pacific, to plan for two possible responses to a
North Vietnamese invasion. In the event of such an attack, Vogt might launch
the available U.S. air power — Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps — against
the Hanoi-Haiphong area or the panhandle of North Vietnam. The support
group’s planners proposed two ten-day bombing campaigns, neither of them a
403
Jubliant ex-prisoners of war aboard a C–141 on their way home.

rigid progression of strikes but rather ten daily slates of targets that might be
attacked in any sequence, as circumstances required, not necessarily proceeding
from the first day to the tenth. The Strategic Air Command did not participate
in the planning but committed itself to one day of bombing as part of each ten-
day effort.3
To execute either plan and carry out subsequent operations to defeat a
North Vietnamese invasion would require a reintroduction of tactical air power
into South Vietnam. A tentative concept, not yet approved by the Department
of Defense, called for the Air Force to send turn-around teams to Bien Hoa and
Da Nang, where they would service, arm, and launch fighter-bombers shuttling
there from airfields in Thailand. A renewal of large-unit fighting in South
Vietnam would require additional U.S. forward air controllers at Da Nang and
at Nakhon Phanom. In addition, the Air Force would again assign officers to the
South Vietnamese Tactical Air Control Center, the direct air support centers,
and the combat reporting posts. The deployment would total 268 officers, 2,535
airmen, and 177 civilians.4
While planning to respond to future North Vietnamese aggression, General
Vogt’s support activities group fought the air war in Cambodia. Requests for air
strikes from elements of the army of the Khmer Republic underwent one review
by Cambodian authorities in a Khmer Direct Air Support Center and another at
the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, where the office of the Defense Attaché and
the ambassador granted or withheld approval.
Attacks within the previously defined Freedom Deal area in eastern
Cambodia, whether by B–52s or tactical fighters, received automatic validation
404
After the Truce
by the embassy. For targets elsewhere in the country, the embassy had to decide
each one individually, determining, for example, that it lay on a road, trail, or
waterway used by the enemy, and that an attack would not unnecessarily
endanger noncombatants.5
By the end of April 1973, however, the validation procedure became too
cumbersome for a Khmer army that seemed, in the opinion of Air Force Col.
Frederick W, Fowler, “as hapless and helpless as could be imagined.”6 The em-
bassy at Phnom Penh therefore adopted the practice of issuing blanket valida-
tions for gunship and fighter-bomber strikes in broad areas, but continued to
deal with B–52 strikes on a target-by-target basis. Since the support group had
access to the latest aerial photographs and other current intelligence, it assumed
responsibility in the summer of 1973 for the actual targeting of each day’s tac-
tical air strikes, operating within the validations issued by the ambassador and
sometimes denying requests from the Khmer army because of danger to non-
combatants. Normally, requests from the Khmer ground forces for strikes by
aircraft other than B–52s or F–111s using offset aiming points went initially to
a forward air controller. He obtained approval from the Khmer Direct Air
Support Center and the director of airborne battlefield command and control
center, who functioned as the executive agent of General Vogt’s headquarters.7
In the revised scheme of targeting, the airborne battlefield command and
control center approved scheduled strikes by tactical aircraft within previously
validated areas of Cambodia and authorized forward air controllers to direct the
attacks. According to the chief of General Vogt’s Command and Control Divi-
sion, Col. Russell F. Crutchlow, “the final result has been an airborne command
and control element with full authority for air strikes, full control of fragged
TACAIR listed in the day’s fragmentary operations order, and full . . . authority
for assuring that the ROE [rules of engagement] is complied with in the target
selection/validation process.”8
While the U.S. Support Activities Group maintained liaison, conducted
operations in Cambodia, and prepared to resume operations in South Vietnam,
another organization, also located in hand-me-down quarters, provided nonop-
erational support of Saigon’s armed forces. From a part of Pentagon East —
formerly the headquarters of the Military Assistance Command at Tan Son Nhut
Air Base — the fifty-man Defense Attaché Office, under Army Maj. Gen. John
E. Murray, monitored the activity of the South Vietnamese armed forces and
supervised the U.S. contractors who conducted training and provided technical
support. Murray’s group could not, however, give tactical advice or operational
assistance.
Assisted by officers from all the services, many of them specialists in logis-
tics, Murray followed the guidance of the U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam,
Graham Martin, who functioned as the overall chief of mission. A U.S. dele-
gation, drawn from the armed forces, joined representatives of South Vietnam,
North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong in the Four-Party Joint Military Team,
405
which, as one of its duties, sought to discover the fate of known or suspected
prisoners who had not been repatriated when the fighting ended.9
Although Air Force advisers had tried for more than a decade to shape the
South Vietnamese Air Force in an American image, the effort had not suc-
ceeded. The goal of having an airman command air forces remained as elusive
after the truce as it had been during the war. The commanders of South Viet-
nam’s military regions, always soldiers, exercised authority over all the forces,
air and ground, within their territory. The airman who headed the direct air
support center that provided air support within the region, usually a colonel or
lieutenant colonel, reported to the corps operations officer, who was an army
officer, and maintained informal contact with the generals in command of the
divisions operating in the region. South Vietnam lacked any major aerial com-
mand, like the recently departed Seventh Air Force, nor did it have a nominally
joint command comparable to the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam,
or its successor, the U.S. Support Activities Group in Thailand. Moreover,
South Vietnamese army officers dominated Saigon’s Joint General Staff.10
The South Vietnamese Air Force also lacked the operational flexibility of
the U.S. Air Force. Most missions were planned strikes; rarely could a direct air
support center divert air strikes, or launch them, to meet a battlefield emer-
gency. The rigid application of air power reflected, to some extent, the status of
the air liaison officers assigned to ground units and the forward air controllers
overhead. The air liaison parties served at headquarters higher than the battalion
level and tended to consist of junior air force officers, hurriedly trained, who
might not be pilots and, even if they were, could exert scant influence within the
headquarters. Army officers, recent graduates of a thirty-day familiarization
course in air operations, handled liaison chores in the battalions. The forward
air controllers, who worked in conjunction with the liaison officers, varied
markedly in skill and dedication. Unfortunately, Americans no longer could
advise, guide, and encourage them because of the truce.11
By the time the cease-fire went into effect, the South Vietnamese Air Force
had received the benefits of Project Enhance Plus, a final American push to
strengthen the armed forces before the peace settlement restricted the flow of
equipment to replacing, on a one-for-one basis, items already in the inventory.
South Vietnamese airmen were in the process of absorbing C–130 transports,
RC–119G maritime patrol craft, F–5 fighters, A–37 attack planes, as well as
UH–1 and CH–47 helicopters provided by the U.S. Army. Imperfect though it
proved to be, the cease-fire of January 1973 afforded a badly needed respite
from major operations for the air arm to train the pilots, aircrews, mechanics,
staff officers, clerks, and administrators necessary for effective operation.12 This
period of comparative stability, plus continued training and logistics support
from American firms under contract to the Air Force, seemed likely to ensure
progress toward self-sufficiency. Such, at least, was the opinion of the last
officer to head the Air Force Advisory Group, Maj. Gen. Jimmy J. Jumper.13
406
After the Truce
Unfortunately, the aircraft recently incorporated into the South Vietnamese

Air Force brought with them problems that impeded progress toward General
Jumper’s announced goal of self-sufficiency. The war-weary C–130s, for
example, required 199 civilian technicians, supplied under contract by Lear
Sigler Incorporated, plus two technical representatives from Lockheed, the
manufacturer of the transport.14 The RC–119G, moreover, seemed unlikely to
succeed as a coastal patrol craft. Although crews who flew the C–119 or C–47
could readily transition to the patrol plane, navigators remained in short supply,
and the modification of just thirteen AC–119Gs proved expensive, costing more
than $4 million. Once the aircraft were fitted out and manned, tactical problems
would arise. The enemy trawlers and junks, for which the modified gunships
would search, could carry the same antiaircraft guns and shoulder-fired surface-
to-air missiles that earlier had driven the planes from vigorously defended
portions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.15 An even more serious obstacle to self-
sufficiency resulted from the short range of the F–5 and A–37, which could not
carry the war much beyond South Vietnam’s borders.16
The A–1, which Leonard Sullivan had hoped to employ with fuel-air muni-
tions — sometimes described as propane bombs — as a substitute for the B–52,
suffered from decades of hard usage. The Skyraider could no longer dive more
steeply than thirty degrees or exceed four Gs — four times the force of gravity — in
pulling out. These limitations increased the vulnerability of the airplane to fire
from the ground, but against weak antiaircraft defenses the A–1 could
accurately deliver a heavy load of bombs.17
The C–47, an airplane dating from the mid-1930s, also remained a useful
weapon. Indeed, when faced with the prospect of losing the C–47 flareships
slated for conversion to intercept the enemy’s radio traffic, General Vien, Chief
of the Joint General Staff, protested to General Weyand, at the time in charge
of the military assistance command. The U.S. officer decided, however, that the
electronic reconnaissance mission took precedence over flare-dropping, which
could be done by AC–119s.18
Despite the emphasis on using the converted C–47s for intercepting radio
traffic, the Defense Attaché Office looked at the status of military intelligence
and reported a “decided drop in total usable information since the demise of
MACV.” The most notable decline occurred in electronic intelligence. The
ancient EC–47s that located the enemy’s radio transmitters carried equipment
that had become difficult to maintain after years of hard use, first by American
airmen and more recently by the South Vietnamese. Ground-based intercept
stations supplemented the EC–47s, but the operators lacked the experience to
make timely evaluations, so that interpretations lagged an average of five days
behind the message traffic with which they dealt. Photo interpretation also
proved tardy at a time when the South Vietnamese were exposing more film
than ever before. Indeed, the attaché office brought in U.S. photo interpreters
to keep General Murray informed of the military situation in the South.19
407
South Vietnamese airmen perform maintenance on an A–37.

Whatever its failings, the intelligence collection effort could not help but
confirm that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong dominated increasingly vast
tracts of rural South Vietnam, isolating the Saigon government’s political and
military outposts. By November 1973, twenty-six of these outlying sites de-
pended for survival on supplies delivered by air. The South Vietnamese Air
Force was flying an average of 628 sorties per month to sustain an estimated
100,000 soldiers and civilians.
Not even helicopters could land at one of the outposts, the ranger camp at
Tonle Cham in Military Region III, which depended exclusively on supplies
dropped by parachute onto a clearing measuring roughly 150 by 130 meters.
Since hostile antiaircraft guns ringed Tonle Cham, transports had to release their
loads from an altitude of 10,000 feet. Despite radar guidance from the ground,
the early missions delivered only 18 percent of the cargo into the hands of the
rangers. By July, the success rate had reached 50 percent, but during that month,
a shift from the C–123 to the C–130 disrupted the learning curve and cut the
proportion of cargo delivered to 35 percent. Increasing familiarity with the
C–130, however, improved the accuracy of air drops at Tonle Cham.20
The Defense Attaché Office had scarcely taken over its portion of the assis-
tance command’s duties, when serious problems surfaced within South Viet-
nam’s air arm, mostly because of the frenzied expansion. The South Vietnamese
Air Force now totaled 65,000 officers and enlisted men, but half of them were
undergoing some form of training to qualify them for new assignments. Never-
theless, the air service flew over 81,000 sorties by individual aircraft during
September 1973; helicopters accounted for 62,000 of these and training craft for
1,100. Fighter-bombers or attack planes flew most of the others, but all too
often they attacked from 10,000 feet or higher out of respect for antiaircraft
408
After the Truce
weapons. Strikes from this altitude, in the opinion of the chief of the attaché
office, General Murray, not only “failed to contribute to productive destruction”
but caused inaccuracy that actually harmed “interservice relationships.”21
The South Vietnamese could not yet maintain the mixed fleet of aircraft,
many of them cast-offs, they had inherited. For example, maintenance on the
force of UH–1s fell behind schedule throughout 1973, even though Air
Vietnam, the national airline, lent its civilian mechanics to help with
inspections. Similar delays affected maintenance of the EC–47, largely because
crews failed to report equipment failures, and of the C–7, handicapped by a
shortage of spare parts and trained mechanics. Almost every aircraft suffered
from corrosion, the inevitable result of service in a tropical climate.22
During 1973, Lear Sigler launched an ambitious program of maintenance
training. The instructors concentrated on the lagging UH–1 program, but teams
of specialists also taught the South Vietnamese to repair corrosion and battle
damage to the F–5 and A–37. Unfortunately, a shortage of spare parts hampered
the training effort.23
The inability of South Vietnam’s Air Logistics Command to keep track of
inventories contributed to the shortage of spare parts. By October 1973, the
command enjoyed a manning level of 92 percent, but its top managers lacked
experience, and too many other officers, as well as noncommissioned officers,
either had not yet completed training or were awaiting assignment. The
headquarters computer that processed data from the depots in the military
regions frequently broke down during the spring and summer. Indeed, in one
thirty-day period of 1973, the logistics computer at Tan Son Nhut remained out
of service 65 percent of the time. A mobile computer from Clark Air Base in the
Philippines took over in July and, by early September, had conducted more than
400,000 transactions. Meanwhile, new parts, along with emergency mainten-
ance and closer supervision of the operators, had put the idled computer back
in action. Even so, clogged warehouses continued to impede supply flow.24
The Air Training Command, with headquarters at Nha Trang Air Base, as-
sumed responsibility for flying training and for instruction in most career fields.
The command operated six schools: flying, technical training, communications
and electronics, military training, general service, and English language. Gen-
eral Murray and his staff believed that South Vietnamese instructors had, or
could acquire, the skills to lay a foundation of basic knowledge upon which
Lear Sigler Incorporated or schools outside South Vietnam might build. The
effectiveness of the Air Training Command suffered, however, from a fragmen-
tation of training courses among the military regions, lax supervision, and
erratic logistics support. Moreover, power struggles for control of the various
instructional functions pitted the training command against the headquarters of
the South Vietnamese Air Force, as well as the military regions.
Because of these weaknesses in the fundamental courses of instruction
conducted in South Vietnam, subjects taught outside the country remained
409
essential to the operation of an expanded air arm. Plans for fiscal 1974 called
for more than 1,200 South Vietnamese to train overseas, most of them in the
United States, at a cost in excess of $30 million. The program would produce
instructor pilots for fighters, trainers, and helicopters, who would teach students
in South Vietnam, and it also turned out maintenance specialists, administrators,
doctors, and other professionals.
The abiding emphasis on training in the United States underscored the
importance of the Air Training Command’s English Language School. Unfortu-
nately, quotas for the course sometimes remained unfilled. Since combat con-
tinued despite the cease-fire, commanders proved reluctant to release key in-
dividuals, especially pilots, for the language training that served as the first step
toward becoming a pilot instructor or other specialist. Consequently, classes
might be postponed or canceled, thus disrupting the overall training plan.25
While the South Vietnamese Air Force participated throughout 1973 in a
succession of local clashes, the air war in Cambodia flared and came to an end.
When the cease-fire took effect in South Vietnam, the United States backed Lon
Nol’s efforts to extend the truce to Cambodia, urging him to suspend offensive
operations but reserve the right of self defense, in the hope that the Khmer
Rouge would accept the invitation and negotiate a settlement. Under the un-
flinching leadership of Pol Pot, however, the communist faction refused to relax
the pressure on the Khmer Republic.26
Faced with a relentless enemy, the Khmer Republic seemed leaderless. The
effects of his recent stroke had left Lon Nol, in the words of Brig. Gen. John R.
D. Cleland, Jr., “a chief of state who is no longer in touch with his people.” Cle-
land, who headed the Military Equipment Delivery Team, Cambodia, acknow-
ledged, “For the first time in the 13 months I have been here, I am gravely
concerned over the future of the GKR [Government of the Khmer Republic].”27
The Khmer army depended on U.S. air power for success, indeed for
survival. When the troops gained ground, they followed behind a deluge of
aerial bombs. As an Air Force officer declared in retrospect, Lon Nol’s army
“did not fight its way into the positions it held at the end of the air campaign,
it walked to them.”28
Because American bombs exploded so close to the advancing Khmer
forces, accuracy was essential, especially for the B–52s with their large
bombing pattern. Unfortunately, the ground-based Combat Skyspot radars,
which directed the bombers before the cease-fire, left South Vietnam as part of
the final U.S. withdrawal. To replace Combat Skyspot, Loran-equipped F–4s or
F–111s led B–52 cells, unless the bombers carried this precise navigation
system. In addition, radar transponders set up in friendly territory served as
offset aiming points for some strikes by B–52s or F–111s.29
In spite of these precautions, concern mounted that B–52 strikes in
particular killed or wounded noncombatants, forced survivors to flee to Phnom
Penh — already crowded with refugees — disrupted agriculture in the vicinity
410
After the Truce
of the capital, and interfered with supply flights into Pochentong airport. The
U.S. Ambassador to the Khmer Republic, Emory Swank, decided by May 10 to
validate only nighttime strikes by B–52s in southern and southwestern Cam-
bodia to avoid interference with farming and essential air traffic. These
restrictions, however, did not affect the number of B–52 sorties, fifty-four each
day during May, but instead concentrated much of the bombing at a time when
thunderstorms frequently appeared, disrupting Loran signals. The use of alter-
nate targets enabled the bombers to make worthwhile attacks when weather in-
terfered with the primary mission. In addition, General Vogt could employ the
F–111 — using its own radar, sometimes in conjunction with a transponder on
the ground — to hit targets protected by weather or lead B–52s against them.30
In Vogt’s opinion, Swank seemed likely to impose further restrictions after
a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee paid a visit to
Phnom Penh and discussed with him the flood of refugees trying to escape the
bombing. General Vogt warned that Swank might well recommend halting the
B–52 strikes throughout Cambodia and advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff to
marshal their arguments against such a decision, which, he believed, might
jeopardize the survival of the Khmer Republic.31
Congress, however, acted before Swank made a formal recommendation.
The House of Representatives, its attitude shaped by public disenchantment
with the war in Southeast Asia, voted on May 10, 1973, to reject the supple-
mental appropriations needed to continue the air war in Cambodia. The Nixon
administration campaigned for the restoration of this money, but the President
had already begun stumbling toward impeachment, which he would avoid in
August 1974 by resigning. Beset by revelations of his role in Watergate — the
web of felonies surrounding a break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic
National Committee in the Watergate office complex at Washington, D.C., and
the subsequent cover-up — Nixon could no longer rally public opinion to im-
pose his will on the Congress. The administration succeeded only in persuading
the House and Senate conferees to allow the bombing to continue until August
15, 1973. The President on June 29 signed into law the supplemental appropria-
tions bill that extended the air war for another two weeks.32
On August 6, as a bombing drew to an end, a cell of B-52s approached a
beacon set up in Neak Luong, a town on the Mekong downstream from Phnom
Penh. Instead of using the transponder as an offset aiming point for a target
some eight nautical miles to the northwest — and checking the radar return from
a terrain feature designated as a checkpoint — the three bombers mistakenly
dropped their bombs on the beacon itself, located near the center of the town.
The resulting explosions destroyed much of Neak Luong and killed or wounded
an estimated 400 persons.33
In commenting on the tragedy at Neak Luong, the result of a failure to
throw the proper switch, General Vogt conceded that it was the worst bombing
error of the Cambodian fighting. A momentary human lapse had undone all the
411
safeguards — validation by the embassy, review by the support group of the

latest intelligence, and the use of navigation aids — designed to prevent this
kind of accident. Because of Neak Luong, bombers no longer used beacons as
offset aiming points.34
As August 15 approached, a hurried airlift built up the Khmer army’s stocks
of ammunition. The Air Force flew as many as twenty-five daily sorties, landing
cargo at Pochentong or parachuting it to various outposts.35 This effort helped
the army hold the Khmer Rouge at bay during the fall of 1973.
In his assessment of the fighting during 1973, General Cleland pointed out
that the officers and men of the Khmer army had not collapsed as soon as the
bombing ended but instead had “demonstrated that, if given the manpower and
equipment, they can resist the enemy offensives.” Manpower, however, proved
a critical shortcoming; units that did most of the recent fighting remained at
about half-strength, and the Khmer government seemed unable to marshal the
nation’s human resources and obtain replacements. Moreover, military leader-
ship grew weak and discipline lax; the martial spirit that surfaced when the war
began had long since dissipated. In strategic terms, the government at Phnom
Penh had been on the defensive since 1971 and could not regain the initiative.36
Although the bombing of Cambodia ended on August 15, Air Force C–130s
continued for another year to deliver supplies to Phnom Penh and other loca-
tions, either landing to unload or dropping the cargo by parachute. As the
Khmer Rouge grew stronger, American authorities became concerned that an
Air Force transport might be shot down and the crew taken prisoner by the
communists. Rather than risk that Air Force crewmen become hostages, the
United States government chose a civilian contractor to operate the airlift. On
August 28, 1974, Birdair took over the supply mission, using former members
of the Air Force to fly between five and ten sorties each day.37
The Khmer air force contributed little to the fight against the communists.
With eight C–123s and a few C–47s, the air arm could deliver a small amount
of cargo to airstrips within the country. Some AU–24s, unsuccessfully modified
as minigunships for the South Vietnamese, arrived in Cambodia but saw limited
service, mainly as liaison planes or light transports. The forty AT–28Ds, trainers
converted to fighter-bombers, could fly perhaps 160 sorties per day in an all-out
effort but lacked the firepower to take over the air war the Americans had
halted.38
The flaws in the government’s military structure, the American bombing
halt, and the determination of the Khmer Rouge sealed the doom of the Khmer
Republic. By late 1974, the communist faction had isolated the government
forces in a few large cities, including Phnom Penh. The fall of the Cambodian
capital seemed inevitable, and planning began for Operation Eagle Pull, the
withdrawal of the Americans still serving there.
On April 1, 1975, after the Khmer Rouge captured Neak Luong, Lon Nol
left the country. Within five days, only fifty members of the embassy staff
412
After the Truce
remained at Phnom Penh; the others had departed on cargo planes returning to
Thailand or on the few commercial flights still using Pochentong airport. Mean-
while, Air Force and Marine units made their final preparations to carry out the
evacuation. On April 3, at the request of Ambassador John Gunther Deane, an
Air Force HH–53 flew the command element of a Marine security force to the
grounds of the embassy at Phnom Penh. Enemy troops had already entered the
suburbs of Phnom Penh when Ambassador Deane, on April 10, requested that
the operation begin two days later.
On the 12th, an HH–53 landed an Air Force control team, and Marine
CH–53s brought in the remainder of the security force and carried out 276
passengers, including Ambassador Deane. When the Marine fliers had com-
pleted their job, a pair of HH–53s picked up the combat control team and the
last of the 360–man security detachment. Rockets began exploding at the soccer
field that served as landing zone as the last two Air Force helicopters were
taking off. Both HH–53s sustained damage from Khmer Rouge machine guns,
and the one that carried the Marines was vibrating badly throughout the flight
to Ubon, Thailand, where the two helicopters landed safely. The 7th Airborne
Command and Control Squadron at Udorn, Thailand, provided the C–130 air-
borne battlefield command and control center for overall direction of Operation
Eagle Pull. One HC–130 from the 3d Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Group
controlled the helicopter traffic, a second refueled the helicopters and stood
ready to control the rescue effort in the event the Khmer Rouge shot down any
aircraft, and a third served as back-up. Because the number of Air Force
HH–53s in Thailand had declined since the cease-fire, the operation included
Marine Corps CH–53s. Air Force A–7 attack planes, directed by forward air
controllers in OV–10s, and AC–130 gunships had the mission of suppressing
hostile fire during the evacuation.39
The citizens of Phnom Penh did not interfere with the escape of the
Americans or attempt to force their way on board the helicopters. That might
not have been so if the bystanders could have glimpsed the horrors that lay
ahead. Under Pol Pot, the communist government sought to eradicate western
influence through a campaign of terror. His zealots slaughtered tens of thou-
sands outright, and additional tens of thousands starved or died of disease, some
of them while confined at re-education camps, where the death rate in the spring
of 1977 approached 100 per day.40
The end of the bombing in Cambodia, which accelerated the plunge of the
Khmer Republic into oblivion, intensified the threat to South Vietnam. Al-
though he could not predict when, General Murray believed that the communist
high command at Hanoi would eventually decide to attack the South. He pre-
dicted that for two or three months after the air war stopped, the Khmer Rouge
would be badly shaken from the previous bombing and concerned that the at-
tacks might resume. As the Cambodian communists recovered and extended
their control over the port of Kompong Som and the road net that originated
413
The assembly area for the evacuation of Phnom Penh in April 1975.
there, the movement of men and cargo through eastern Cambodia into South
Vietnam would become progressively easier. The cease-fire in South Vietnam
would serve mainly to gain time for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong,
weakened by casualties during the fighting in 1972, to absorb replacements, re-
equip, and become seasoned by small-scale combat.41
In the summer of 1974, Air Force headquarters, Pacific Air Forces, and the
Air Force Logistics Command examined the structure of the South Vietnamese
Air Force and offered specific recommendations to help it repulse an invasion
like the Easter offensive of 1972. Even though public and Congressional sup-
port for South Vietnam was diminishing, the study reflected a tacit assumption
that American air power would intervene on behalf of the Saigon government.
Some of the findings dealt with the problem of gathering intelligence on
enemy activity. The panel concluded that the authorized reconnaissance force
of twelve RC–47s, thirty-two EC–47s, and seven RF–5s was adequate, but pro-
posed that the RF–5s be divided between Da Nang and Bien Hoa, instead of
concentrating at Bien Hoa, thus expanding the area covered by these short-range
aircraft. Also, the South Vietnamese should devise tactics and countermea-
sures — fighter escort, for example, and flares to decoy heat-seeking antiaircraft
missiles — to enable the RC–47 and EC–47 to operate in more areas strongly
defended.
Similarly, the review expressed confidence that the 200 authorized aircraft
would meet the needs of South Vietnamese forward air controllers. The U–17,
judged at best a light transport and liaison plane, seemed too vulnerable for the
forward air controllers to use. The threat posed by the heat-seeking SA–7 mis-
sile inspired two recommendations: the training of forward air control parties
to direct strikes from the ground; and the use of the F–5 as a vehicle for forward
air controllers facing powerful antiaircraft defenses.
414
After the Truce
The interceptor variant of the F–5, the E model, impressed the panel as a
match for the North Vietnamese MiG–21. They believed that a squadron at Da
Nang should meet the threat of MiG incursions over South Vietnam, if neces-
sary launching as many as twenty air defense sorties within two hours.
Turning to airlift, the study declared that the fleet of transports, though
adequate for routine operations, could not sustain a maximum effort for an ex-
tended time. Better management, however, could to some extent make up the
deficiency in the number of aircraft, estimated at 10 percent.
The helicopter armada seemed “more than adequate to meet the projected
requirement.” The number of UH–1s, used by the Americans for assault opera-
tions, could safely be reduced from 842 to 640, since the South Vietnamese
would not be employing airmobile tactics. The fleet of larger CH–47s could
supplement cargo-carrying, fixed-wing transports in an emergency and therefore
should remain at the authorized total of sixty-four.
Fighters and attack aircraft, according to the study, fell “127 aircraft short
of the computed requirement,” although AC–47 and AC–119K gunships might
help make up the difference. Moreover, careful scheduling of maintenance and
the massing of available aircraft could ensure an adequate number of F–5s,
A–1s, and A–37s to deal with the threatened invasion.42
Although the mid-1974 assessment of the force structure generally
approved of the composition of South Vietnam’s air arm, General Murray
warned in October of serious failings that could erode the ability of the South
Vietnamese to control the air. At times, Murray said, pilots crossed “the narrow
line between the brave and the foolhardy.” They flew with an almost suicidal
disregard of basic safety procedures, even though they respected the heat-
seeking SA–7 missile and remained reluctant to venture below 10,000 feet to
attack targets defended by that missile or radar-directed antiaircraft guns. Joy-
riding or careless taxiing, sometimes by drunken pilots, and failure to make
preflight inspections cost the South Vietnamese Air Force, by Murray’s reck-
oning, “the equivalent of an entire squadron of jet aircraft.”
While pilots were thus squandering aircraft, communist air defenses took
a steady toll. By June 1974, the enemy had launched 136 SA–7s, costing an es-
timated $680,000, and downed twenty-three aircraft worth perhaps $12 million.
Antiaircraft weapons proved so deadly that they, in effect, gained control of the
air over a large expanse of South Vietnamese territory, especially in the west,
on the border with Laos and Cambodia. In Military Region I, for example, the
air arm could operate freely over only a narrow strip of land along the seacoast.
Accidents and hostile fire claimed 237 South Vietnamese aircraft in the twenty-
three months following the cease-fire.
The losses, especially the toll from preventable accidents, raised the price
of equipping and training the air arm and consequently discouraged the United
States from spending money to replace aircraft, as the treaty permitted. Support
for the South Vietnamese Air Force cost $382 million in fiscal 1974, excluding
415
the cost of munitions, more than the combined cost for the army and navy. The
air arm also required the services of 1,540 employees of contractors like Lear
Sigler Incorporated, compared with 723 for the Army and 61 for the Navy. Of
466 civilian employees of the United States government assigned to aid the
South Vietnamese armed forces, 202 worked with the Air Force. No wonder
that Murray characterized the South Vietnamese Air Force as “costly, careless,
and conceding air space.”
The chief of the Defense Attaché Office suggested some basic remedies to
correct the failings he described. Besides an emphasis on flight safety, he pro-
posed reducing costs by consolidating the South Vietnamese inventory of air-
craft, perhaps eliminating the T–37 and T–41 trainers and using just one type
for forward air controllers. He also would encourage commanders to choose the
cheaper-to-operate A–37 over the F–5 whenever such a choice was possible. To
reduce combat losses, he suggested fitting some A–37s and F–5s with radar
homing and warning gear to alert pilots that they were being tracked by radar-
controlled antiaircraft weapons.43
Even as he offered this evaluation and proposed changes for the immediate
future, General Murray pointed out that the South Vietnamese Air Force still
packed a punch. Despite the current weaknesses of the air service, North Viet-
nam had invested heavily in SA–7s and other antiaircraft weapons, thus ac-
knowledging the threat from the skies.44 Apparently, Murray’s insistence on
safety paid immediate dividends, for as early as October 1974, the Defense
Intelligence Agency listed “a reduction of accidents” as one of the reasons that
the air arm, in the present tactical situation, could render “sustained and effec-
tive support to the army.”45 Should the communists launch what Murray de-
scribed as a “super offensive,” however, the United States would have to
intervene, as it had in 1972, with “the only ultimate counterforce.”46
During 1974, the South Vietnamese Air Force did take part in some opera-
tions that General Murray considered successful. Tactical fighters and gunships
displayed “mobility, aggressiveness, and initiative” during an armored thrust
into Hau Nghia Province to protect the approaches to Saigon. Also, some 400
sorties, flown during ten days of fighting, helped repulse an attack from the
enemy’s Cambodian bases that made use of armored personnel carriers captured
from the South Vietnamese.
The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in the meantime increased the
intensity of their offensive operations in all four military regions. Tonle Cham,
the isolated ranger camp supplied by airlift since the cease-fire, fell at last, and
the enemy shelled Phu Cat Air Base and overran four nearby outposts. Else-
where, regiments and even divisions clashed, but neither Saigon nor Hanoi won
a decisive victory.47
A captured resolution of the communist Central Office for South Vietnam
called for a nation-wide offensive in 1975, but to American eyes, this operation
seemed likely to be the overture to a final assault sometime the following year.
416
After the Truce
Attacks in 1975 would therefore be less ambitious than the 1968 Tet operation
or the 1972 Easter offensive. According to Leonard Sullivan, Jr., now the
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Program Analysis and Evaluation), the South
Vietnamese could prevent “decisive communist gains” in 1975, assuming that
the United States made available an additional $130 million to $170 million for
ammunition. Such an outlay would enable Saigon’s forces to restrict communist
progress to northern South Vietnam, the central highlands, and the northern
fringes of Military Regions III and IV.
Sullivan believed that without the ammunition Quang Tri City and Kontum
might fall, bringing a communist victory that much closer, though South Viet-
nam would survive at least until the dry season extending from the fall of 1975
to the spring of 1976. What happened then would depend on the ability and
willingness of the South Vietnamese to fight and the determination of the
United States to support them.48
Events taking place as far from Saigon as the Middle East and Washington,
D.C., conspired against the survival of South Vietnam. On October 6, 1973,
Egyptian and Syrian forces invaded territory controlled by Israel. Within three
weeks, the Israeli armed forces repulsed the attackers; a truce ensued that led
ultimately to peaceful relations between Egypt and Israel. Unfortunately, the
war also resulted in a refusal by Arab oil producers to sell petroleum to nations
that supported Israel and, more important, a longer-lasting sense of solidarity
within the Arab-dominated Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries,
which succeeded for a time in controlling production, driving up oil prices, and
touching off world-wide inflation. The dollars the Saigon government received
during the period of rampant inflation could not buy as much fuel, ammunition,
or other tools of war as in previous years.49
Another blow struck the Saigon government on August 9, 1974, when Pres-
ident Richard M. Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment and trial. His
successor, Gerald R. Ford, assured President Thieu that “our support will be
adequate.” Shortly before Ford extended this promise, which was less specific
than his predecessor’s personal vow to unleash U.S. air power in the event of
a North Vietnamese invasion, the term “adequate” lost some of its meaning. In
one of his last acts before resigning, Nixon had signed legislation that author-
ized $1 billion in military assistance for South Vietnam, instead of the $1.6
billion he had sought, a reduction of almost 40 percent from his original request
for fiscal 1975. Congressional dissatisfaction with the Thieu government — and
public eagerness to exorcise the ghost of the Vietnam War — fed by perceptions
of rampant corruption throughout South Vietnam and a belief that the Saigon
government had misused much of the aid it already had received.50 Saigon’s
armed forces were unlikely to get the quantity of ammunition that Assistant
Secretary of Defense Sullivan had recommended.
After the summer of 1974, South Vietnam began receiving progressively
less support to fight an increasing number of battles throughout the nation. As
417
the fighting became more severe and deliveries dwindled, stocks of ammunition
declined by early 1975 from the desired sixty-day supply to a thirty-to-forty-day
level. Moreover, the reserve of gasoline dropped by almost one-third between
1973 and 1975.
General Vien of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff also complained
that a shortage of spare parts had disabled some 4,000 trucks provided by the
Americans.51 The root cause, however, may have been an indifference to routine
maintenance rather than a lack of parts. South Vietnamese abuse of vehicles had
been a source of frequent complaints by U.S. advisers like Air Force Col. David
B. Ballou, who had seen many trucks driven to destruction with no thought even
for oil changes. “As long as a vehicle will run,” he said, “they will use it.”52
The decline in U.S. aid tended to inspire dissatisfaction with President
Thieu among those South Vietnamese who realized the nation’s dependence on
the United States. The cease-fire left the North Vietnamese in control of much
of the South; only American aid and the promise of American firepower could
offset this advantage. Thieu, however, obtained military assistance in a
diminishing volume, and the loss of aid could well be a manifestation of U.S.
indifference to the fate of South Vietnam.
Along with Thieu’s failure to maintain the flow of aid, widespread corrup-
tion threatened his popularity among the South Vietnamese. Indeed, graft grew
worse as inflation soared, forcing civilian officials and military officers to
scramble to supplement their declining income with bribes and kickbacks. In the
armed forces, so-called “flower soldiers” wilted away when the shooting began,
having paid their superiors for blanket permission to take leave as desired.
Thieu might replace blatantly corrupt senior officers, as he occasionally did, but
he could do nothing to lower the price of oil, which fueled inflation and con-
tributed to corruption. Nevertheless, the common wisdom held that the house
leaks from the roof, and Thieu stood at the top of the governmental structure.
As if to demonstrate the growing disenchantment with both Thieu and his
American sponsors, a new book about the overthrow and assassination of Ngo
Dinh Diem in 1963 got an enthusiastic reception among the South Vietnamese.
How the Americans Killed a Vietnamese President ignored the repressive mea-
sures Diem had carried out, his arbitrary rule, the failure of his armed forces to
maintain security and suppress a comparatively small-scale insurgency, and the
widespread celebration when he was overthrown. Instead, the account reshaped
history to make it appear that the United States, by collaborating in the over-
throw and death of Diem, had put an end to a golden age and, under his Ameri-
can-supported successors, begun an era of death and suffering. The populace,
however, was not yet willing to turn against Thieu and the Americans, as the
communist leadership at Hanoi realized.53
Whereas U.S. aid to South Vietnam declined, the Hanoi regime could de-
liver military cargo to the battlefield in greater volume than ever before. Once
the threat of aerial attack ended, the North Vietnamese began extending the Ho
418
After the Truce
Chi Minh Trail all the way to the Mekong Delta and converting the maze of
roads, trails, and waterways into an all-weather highway, over which truck con-
voys, sometimes numbering 200 vehicles, rolled by day and night.54
Emboldened by the buildup that the expanded trail made possible, Gen.
Tran Van Tra, who had commanded Viet Cong forces attacking Saigon during
the Tet offensive of 1968, argued for launching the final onslaught immediately.
The conservatism of the communist high command prevailed for the moment,
though he received permission for a limited offensive in Phuoc Long Province.
He attacked on December 13, 1974, and the fighting that ensued revealed the
failings of the South Vietnamese Air Force. North Vietnamese antiaircraft wea-
pons gained control of the skies over the battlefield, and rockets and artillery fire
shut down the forward airstrips and harassed Bien Hoa, the main air base serving
the III Corps tactical zone. When the enemy cut the main roads that reinforce-
ments might use, CH–47 helicopter and C–130 transports could not take the
place of the truck convoys. Indeed, to mount an all-out airlift for even ten days
would have stripped the other military regions of transports and risked crippling
losses of cargo planes and helicopters to antiaircraft weapons in the threatened
province. At most, the high command at Saigon could commit the few reserves
available within III Corps. Helicopters flew some 250 reinforcements to the
town of Phuoc Binh, despite vicious antiaircraft fire, but this force proved too
small to seize the initiative. By mid-January 1975, Tran Van Tra had overrun the
province, thus demonstrating that the time had come for the final offensive.55
Gen. Van Tieng Dung, a member of the ruling politburo in Hanoi, assumed
responsibility for delivering the next blow, a four-division thrust from the
highlands to the coast that would cut South Vietnam in half. On March 1, he
feinted toward Pleiku in Military Region II, only to surround nearby Ban Me
Thuot and isolate the central highlands. By March 10, the defenders of Ban Me
Thuot and their dependents were fleeing toward the coast.56
Conversations earlier in the year with American officials visiting Saigon
had convinced President Thieu that his nation could not expect a dramatic
infusion of material aid from the United States. Unable to defend all of South
Vietnam with the resources at his disposal, he began thinking of tailoring the
war to fit the nation’s ability to fight. Salvation, he believed, might well lie in
abandoning those portions of the northern provinces still under Saigon’s con-
trol. The defeat at Ban Me Thuot and the headlong flight it triggered persuaded
Thieu to execute this concept — actually a succession of phase lines and shaded
areas drawn on a standard map of the country — which was far too vague to
function as an operations plan. Instead of launching an orderly withdrawal,
Thieu succeeded only in sowing doubt and then panic, as troops and civilians
alike sought the dubious safety of the southernmost provinces.57
As prospects for South Vietnam’s survival grew bleaker, the United States
began rushing badly needed military equipment, especially ammunition, to the
embattled country. Rather than allow the Air Force C–5As delivering the cargo
419
to return empty, the Defense Attaché Office arranged for the planes to partici-
pate in the evacuation. Civilian employees of the office, judged nonessential
and ordered back to the United States, volunteered to look after some 250
infants removed from orphanages and loaded on board one of the Galaxy trans-
ports. This flight was a part of Operation Babylift, designed to spare the infants
the horrors of an apparently inevitable blood bath that would attend the battle
for Saigon. The aircraft took off on April 4, crossing the coast near Vung Tau.
At 23,000 feet above the ocean, an explosive decompression tore away doors
at the rear of the cargo compartment, damaging the tail surfaces. The pilot,
Capt. Dennis Traynor, tried to return to Tan Son Nhut and make an emergency
landing, but a short distance from the airfield, the crippled transport glanced off
an earthen embankment, skipped across a river, and crashed in a swamp. The
flying skill of Traynor and his crew members saved 175 lives, but 172 of the
passengers, most of them infants, died.58
By the time the Babylift C–5A crashed, the enemy had overwhelmed the
northern provinces of South Vietnam, and the government at Saigon careened
toward defeat. On April 8, as if to foreshadow the approaching disaster, a rogue
F–5 pilot of the South Vietnamese Air Force bombed the presidential palace,
though without inflicting casualties. On April 21, Thieu bowed to the inevitable
and stepped down from the presidency in the hope that someone else could
bring the fighting to an end.59
Throughout these discouraging weeks, individuals in the Ford administra-
tion, like General Weyand, the Army Chief of Staff, sought to drum up support
for South Vietnam. Indeed, Weyand visited Saigon late in March to confer with
President Thieu and General Vien. On April 10, President Ford asked Congress
to grant $922 million in emergency aid to South Vietnam. Of this total, $722
million would provide military assistance to help South Vietnam save itself, and
the balance would afford economic and humanitarian help to facilitate the evac-
uation of Americans and those South Vietnamese whose lives might be endan-
gered by a communist victory. He also asked that Congress agree to the deploy-
ment of as many U.S. troops as might be needed to protect the final withdrawal.
By April 23, however, Ford had given up. On that day, during a speech at
New Orleans, Louisiana, he wrote off South Vietnam. “Today,” he said, “Amer-
icans can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be
achieved by reflecting on a war that is finished as far as America is concerned.”
Although the United States was “saddened indeed by the events in Indochina,”
Ford consoled the nation with his belief that “These events, tragic as they are,
portend neither the end of the world nor of America’s leadership.” Congress
was still debating the request of April 10, when Dung’s troops overran Saigon.60
As time ran out, Air Force and Marine Corps helicopters prepared to join
the cargo planes pressed into service to evacuate by air the Americans still in
Saigon and as many as possible of their South Vietnamese associates. Air
America, a firm controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency, was readying its
420
After the Truce
UH–1 helicopters, and the Marine Corps and Air Force marshalled CH–53s,
HH–53s and CH–46s, some of which had carried out the evacuation from
Phnom Penh on April 17. At Saigon, work parties cleared landing zones and
marked rooftops for the final evacuation.61
The evacuation of Saigon, Operation Frequent Wind, used both transports
and helicopters in conjunction with ships. The aerial portion began on April 20,
the day of Thieu’s resignation, when Air Force C–141s, after bringing supplies
to Tan Son Nhut, flew off with passengers and small amounts of unneeded
cargo. On the next day, Philippines-based C–130s joined in the around-the-
clock operation. A processing center at the airfield checked identification papers
and directed the evacuees to the appropriate aircraft. Some of the departing
South Vietnamese and Americans arrived at the air base in vans used to dis-
tribute Pacific Stars and Stripes, the semi-official newspaper of the American
armed forces. Meanwhile, roughly twenty enemy divisions were converging on
Saigon, cutting the road to Vung Tau, where evacuation ships rode at anchor,
and began on April 27 to fire rockets into the capital city.
As the danger mounted, Air Force officers operating the evacuation center
jammed more than 300 persons into C–141s that normally carried 94 passen-
gers. After the shelling on the 27th, the risk became too great to continue flying
these valuable aircraft into Tan Son Nhut. The C–130s took over the airlift,
operating by day and night. A Hercules transport departing from Tan Son Nhut
might carry 240 persons or more, instead of the usual 75.
Tan Son Nhut came under air attack on April 28, when three A–37s, either
captured by the North Vietnamese or flown by defectors, bombed the flight line
and operations building. North Vietnamese antiaircraft gunners in the vicinity
of the airfield opened fire on departing transports, and the combination of
bombing and fire from the ground forced a suspension of transport flights until
the following morning.
Early on April 29, three C–130s ferrying bombs landed at Tan Son Nhut
and unloaded their cargo at an ammunition dump. They then headed to the flight
line where evacuees gathered to board them. As the transports approached the
waiting passengers, a barrage of 122-mm rockets struck the base, one of them
setting on fire the last C–130 in line. While it burned, the crew escaped and ran
to another of the transports, both of which took off immediately, without taking
on board the assigned passengers. The barrage of rockets and artillery shells that
destroyed the aircraft, and also killed two Marines manning a guard post, put an
end to the use of fixed-wing transports in Operation Frequent Wind. While the
attacking North Vietnamese were thus cutting the lifeline that the C–130s
provided to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, UH–1 helicopters flown by Air
America went into action, plucking Americans from rooftops and bringing them
to the processing center at Tan Son Nhut, to the Embassy, or to one of the ships
at sea.62
Although a few South Vietnamese pilots and crews braved antiaircraft guns
421
and heat-seeking missiles in an attempt to hold Dung’s troops at bay, the

downing of an A–1 and an AC–119 heightened feelings of desperation. Pilots
commandeered four Air America helicopters and began scrambling into their
own aircraft, but to flee rather than to fight. In addition, some ground troops
started to show their resentment at being abandoned, shutting down the Air
America operations center at Tan Son Nhut and occasionally shooting in the
direction of Americans or their aircraft.63
Air Force Lt. Gen. John J. Burns, who had replaced Vogt in command of
the U.S. Support Activities Group, anticipated the actions of Ambassador
Graham Martin and ordered the evacuees to begin moving to the helicopter
landing sites before the embassy issued a formal order. The helicopter phase of
Operation Frequent Wind got underway on the afternoon of April 29 with the
arrival at Tan Son Nhut of the first Air Force and Marine Corps helicopters. In
the confusion of launching the operation, an 840-man Marine security force
reached Tan Son Nhut a full hour after its commander, Brig. Gen. Richard E.
Carey, stepped onto the tarmac. An airborne battlefield command and control
center directed the operation, as at Phnom Penh. For the much larger and more
complex evacuation from Saigon, the Strategic Air Command provided radio-
relay aircraft and aerial tankers, while Air Force and Navy fighter-bombers, Air
Force AC–130 gunships, and Marine Corps helicopter gunships escorted the Air
Force and Marine helicopters that would carry away the Americans and South
Vietnamese.
The first wave of evacuation helicopters — ten Marine Corps CH–53s and
CH–46s, plus two Air Force HH–53s that would not only retrieve any downed
airmen but also carry evacuees — took off from the aircraft carrier Midway and
landed at Tan Son Nhut during the afternoon. Random fire from artillery,
rockets, and small-arms challenged the evacuation, though without much effect.
As the last three helicopters in the first wave started toward shore — two of
them Air Force HH–53s — the radar homing and warning gear in the HH–53
flown by Maj. John F. Guilmartin began buzzing, emitting the rattlesnake’s
sound indicating that hostile radar had locked onto the craft. Since Guilmartin
was not yet within range of radar-controlled surface-to-air missiles, the warning
device was obviously malfunctioning, so he shut it down. Luckily, an escorting
fighter-bomber had warning equipment that worked, for the aircraft detected the
signal from a missile-control radar near Tan Son Nhut and fired an antiradiation
missile, designed to home on the radar transmitter, that forced the set to shut
down.64
Helicopters shuttled throughout the night between the aircraft carrier and
the air base. Besides the threat from radar-directed weapons, neutralized by
antiradiation missiles, and scattered small-arms fire from the ground, the rescue
helicopters had to contend with crowds of panicky South Vietnamese trying to
flee the doomed city. When a young woman waiting in line to board pushed her
422
After the Truce
Civilians evacuated from Saigon on April 29, 1975, arrived on the

USS Blue Ridge aboard the Marine helicopter in the background.
way onto an HH–53 helicopter, a crew member shoved her backward. As she
fell, she stumbled against the multibarrel, rearward-firing cannon, turning the
weapon toward the waiting people. In struggling to regain her feet, she
accidentally tripped the trigger. One round seated itself in the chamber, but
instead of blazing away into the crowd at the rate of 2,000 rounds per minute,
the weapon jammed without firing a single shot.
The loading continued until the helicopter staggered into the sky with
ninety-seven passengers on board, twice the normal load. As the craft headed
for the coast, a heat-seeking SA–7 missile streaked toward it. A mechanic on
board saw the exhaust trail and fired a flare to confuse the infrared sensor. The
missile veered toward the burning flare, missing the heavily laden helicopter by
some sixty feet. The activity of Air Force rescue helicopters in Operation
Frequent Wind ended with the their final departure from Tan Son Nhut; in all,
they carried some 400 persons to safety.65
Late on the night of April 29, General Carey ordered the remaining
Americans out of Tan Son Nhut. The Marine security force and two Air Force
communications specialists remained until the end, setting fires that destroyed
Pentagon East. At a few minutes after midnight, the members of this rear guard
boarded Marine helicopters, and all attention focused on the embassy, where
thousands of South Vietnamese grappled for a place in the evacuation.66
The operation continued until 7:53 a.m. from the roof and grounds of the
embassy, despite breakdowns in communications that followed the destruction
of the radio equipment at Tan Son Nhut. Since the helicopter phase began on
April 29, these craft evacuated some 7,800 persons including Ambassador
423
Vietnamese refugees crowd the decks of the USS Pioneer Contender.

Martin, the Marine security detachment, and Maj. Gen. Homer D. Smith, who
had replaced General Murray as defense attaché. Even so, a number of South
Korean diplomats remained behind and had to arrange their eventual release.
Some South Vietnamese employees of the embassy, still waiting as the last
Americans bolted for the final helicopter, fell into the hands of the victors.
Another half-dozen sorties could have picked them up, but the radio link failed
at that critical time, leaving the impression in Washington that a mob was on the
verge of overrunning the embassy. As a result, President Ford stopped Opera-
tion Frequent Wind.67
The South Vietnamese continued to flee the doomed country by air, how-
ever. Even before Gen. Duong Van Minh, the last president of South Vietnam,
at mid-morning on April 30 directed his forces to lay down their weapons, the
air arm was melting away. Some airmen attacked the enemy before departing,
like the A–37 pilots who tried to bomb North Vietnamese tanks, landed to re-
fuel, learned of the surrender, and flew to Thailand. Others cared only for sur-
vival. A number of helicopter and transport crews loaded their families on board
before fleeing. Fighters, attack planes, and transports generally escaped to air-
fields in Thailand; some helicopters did likewise, though others, joined by at
least one O–1 observation plane, landed on ships off the coast, including the
aircraft carrier Midway.68
Thus ended U.S. involvement with South Vietnam, although one minor
operation remained — the rescue of the container ship Mayaguez, seized on
May 12 by gunboats from communist Cambodia. The nature and purpose of the
commitment to the Saigon government — and the role of air power in achieving
American goals — had changed since 1968. The Tet offensive of that year
shook the confidence of the Johnson administration in its ability to force the
Hanoi government to call off the attempt to conquer the South. As a result, the
United States sought to return responsibility for fighting the war to the South
Vietnamese. President Nixon launched a highly publicized program of Vietnam-
424
After the Truce
ization — training and equipping the South Vietnamese to defend their nation —
and U.S. withdrawal. Ideally, the new strategy would have linked progress in
Vietnamization with the pace of withdrawal, with increases in South Vietnam-
ese strength determining the frequency of the American departures and the
numbers involved.
As Henry Kissinger warned when he compared making troop withdrawals
to snacking on salted peanuts, the American people, weary of the war, quickly
developed a greater appetite for reductions in troop strength than a balanced
schedule linked to improvement in South Vietnam’s armed forces could satisfy.
Congress and the Nixon administration realized that support for the war was at
best half-hearted. Indeed, the executive and legislative branches seemed at times
to be competing to liquidate the American involvement. Whereas Congress
made symbolic gestures like rescinding the Tonkin Gulf resolution or requiring
consultation by the President before any future commitment of U.S. troops, only
the administration could fulfill the public’s craving for a succession of U.S.
withdrawals that would rapidly reduce U.S. casualties, put an end to the need
to send draftees into combat, and eliminate the draft except in some future
emergency.
In two of her monographs for the Air Force history program,69 Elizabeth
Hartsook has described how air power became a shield for Vietnamization and
withdrawal. Charged with forestalling an offensive that would drive the dwin-
dling number of U.S. troops into the sea, the Air Force attacked the Ho Chi
Minh Trail in Laos, carried the war into Cambodia — at first bombing secretly,
but in the spring of 1970 supporting an invasion by U.S. ground forces — aided
South Vietnamese troops in Laos and Cambodia, and occasionally struck targets
in the North. These operations may well have delayed, but did not prevent, the
North Vietnamese invasion of March 1972.
When the North Vietnamese attacked, Nixon realized that the public would
not support the reintroduction of American ground forces; indeed, the with-
drawals continued despite the fighting. He again turned to air power, and the Air
Force, Navy, and Marine Corps responded promptly and with deadly effect.
This time the Marines raised no objection to serving under Air Force command.
The single manager system, a source of bitter contention during 1968, went
unchallenged in 1972, for no Marine units fought on the ground where they
would have had an emotional and doctrinal claim on Marine aviation.
Aerial attacks throughout South Vietnam — even more effective because
the invader massed his troops to seize certain key objectives and thus presented
targets ideally suited to bombing and strafing — and strikes against the North
led to a peace settlement. The cease-fire, however, left North Vietnamese troops
in control of the South Vietnamese territory they held when the fighting ended.
The enemy’s supply line through Laos and Cambodia remained secure; in fact,
engineers would soon extend the Ho Chi Minh Trail and convert it into an all-
weather highway. The Saigon government accepted these bleak prospects under
425
pressure from the United States. President Nixon’s personal pledge to react
decisively to any future invasion by the North Vietnamese afforded assurance
to South Vietnamese leaders, who assumed that a repetition of the Easter inva-
sion of 1972 would trigger a comparably devastating aerial response.
The process of Vietnamization, which the Air Force had helped shield,
produced size rather than skill. The South Vietnamese air arm, for example, had
too few trained men to operate and maintain all its equipment, despite its vast
expansion. Moreover, the post-cease-fire training effort could not make up for
the deficiencies left by the wartime program. In addition, the inventory of
aircraft had huge gaps: the fighter-bombers and attack planes lacked the range
to hit targets outside South Vietnam; the transports and helicopters could not
support extended operations on the ground; and no bomber could approach the
B–52 in destructiveness. Finally, stocks of fuel and munitions declined as
American military assistance diminished.
When Hanoi launched its final offensive in March 1975, South Vietnamese
resistance collapsed, and after six weeks Saigon capitulated. President Nixon
had by this time resigned, and President Ford waited beyond the eleventh hour
before requesting emergency military aid. His proposal to help South Vietnam
defend itself, not offered until April 10, accepted the likelihood of a final
withdrawal.
In analyzing the causes of his nation’s defeat, Cao Van Vien, the last chair-
man of the Joint General Staff, blamed the U.S. Congress for cutting military
assistance and President Ford for not honoring Nixon’s promise to intervene
with air power if North Vietnam invaded. Both Congress and the President,
however, accurately reflected the mood of the American people. In fact, the
South Vietnamese general concedes in his analysis that there were grounds for
this disillusionment. Pervasive corruption throughout South Vietnam’s armed
forces and governmental structure aroused opposition to sending Americans to
risk their lives to uphold a regime that seemed ethically, militarily, and politi-
cally bankrupt.70
The collapse of South Vietnam might be interpreted as the result of U.S.
domestic politics, which required concessions to antiwar sentiment among the
populace. The key concession may well have been the Nixon administration’s
decision to separate the withdrawal of American troops from improvements in
the South Vietnamese armed forces. Liquidating the U.S. involvement became
the overriding objective of the United States; the survival of an independent
South Vietnam faded into the shadows. Since public opinion did not rally be-
hind South Vietnam, the independence of that country remained a secondary
consideration, desirable, perhaps, but not essential to the power and prestige of
the United States. President Nixon’s establishment of peaceful relations with
China and his easing of Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union — not to
mention President Ford’s vow to whip inflation — supplanted South Vietnam’s
survival on the list of U.S. priorities.
426
Chapter Twenty-Four
Recapturing Mayaguez: An Epilogue
On the afternoon of May 12, 1975, not quite two weeks after the collapse
of the Republic of Vietnam, the SS Mayaguez, an American-registered container
ship, was steaming off the coast of communist Cambodia en route from Hong
Kong to Sattahip in Thailand. Suddenly, the ship’s radio operator sent an SOS,
reporting that a Cambodian boarding party was seizing the ship. In the initial
response to the SOS, a Navy P–3 patrol plane on temporary duty at U-Tapao
airfield in Thailand took off shortly after 9:00 p.m. Not long afterward, a P–3
from Cubi Point Air Station in the Philippines joined the first patrol plane off
Cambodia, and a third patrol craft soon arrived to help locate the ship.
During the early hours of May 13, a .50-caliber round fired from the
darkness below punched a hole in the vertical stabilizer of one of the patrol
planes, but the radar search continued until, when the skies brightened, one of
the aircrews verified Mayaguez as the source of a radar return detected earlier.
The ship weighed anchor, steamed briefly toward Kompong Som, then
halted near Koh Tang island, where it lay when Air Force F–111As arrived at
mid-day from Thailand to escort the P–3s. Once the Air Force fighter-bombers
arrived on the scene, the patrol planes expanded their activity and monitored the
movement of all the small craft in the vicinity. The escorting fighters —
F–111As and A–7s — kept watch over Mayaguez by day and AC–130 gunships
took over at night, assisted by P–3s that dropped flares to illuminate the cap-
tured ship.1
While these aircraft found Mayaguez and kept it under surveillance, Presi-
dent Ford and his advisers were deciding the nation’s reaction to the ship’s
capture. Within six hours after the SOS went out, the President learned of the
incident. In another three hours, at 12:05 p.m. Washington time, he convened
the National Security Council, which included Henry Kissinger, now Secretary
of State; Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, an Air Force officer serving as Deputy
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs; William Colby,
representing the Central Intelligence Agency; Secretary of Defense James R.
Schlesinger; and Air Force Gen. David C. Jones, Acting Chairman, Joint Chiefs
of Staff, in place of Gen. George S. Brown, also of the Air Force, who was in
427
Map of Cambodia, Gulf of Thailand, and Koh

Tang Island.
Europe. President Ford and his advisers remembered all too clearly the fate of
USS Pueblo, an intelligence-gathering ship operated by the Navy, seized by
North Korea in January 1968. At the time, the United States, caught by surprise
and heavily engaged in the Southeast Asia fighting, could not intervene; as a
result, the crew of Pueblo remained imprisoned for a year, during which their
captors extorted propaganda statements, and North Korea kept the ship after
freeing the crewmen.
Although uncertain whether Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge might use the
crew of Mayaguez for propaganda purposes or as hostages to obtain concessions
of some sort from the United States, President Ford and the Security Council
interpreted the capture of the ship and its thirty-nine crewmen as a challenge.
Swift reaction seemed essential to punish those responsible for the deliberate
affront and to restore American prestige, in decline because of the recent
communist victories in Cambodia and Vietnam.
The Ford administration insisted that the War Powers Act, adopted by
Congress to prevent another involvement like the Vietnam War, did not apply
to the recapture of Mayaguez. On November 7, 1973, Congress overrode Presi-
dent Nixon’s veto to impose restrictions on the war-making powers of the Com-
mander in Chief, who could commit American forces only in response to a dec-
laration of war, a specific statutory authorization, or an attack on the United
States, its overseas territory, or its armed forces.
In the opinion of President Ford and his advisers, the seizure of a ship
flying the American flag and steaming in international waters fit comfortably
within the third category. Except in these broadly defined circumstances, the
428
Recapturing Mayaguez
law required that the President consult with Congress, if at all possible, before
committing or substantially reinforcing combat troops and, within forty-eight
hours after any deployment, issue a report justifying the action. If Congress did
not give after-the-fact approval, the commitment would end after sixty days,
though the President might obtain an additional thirty days, presumably to
ensure an orderly withdrawal.
In responding to the capture of Mayaguez, the President decided to consult
with certain members of Congress before any military action, either advising
them through his Congressional liaison machinery or conferring with them at
the White House. He also proposed to submit a brief after-action report to both
houses of Congress, as called for by the War Powers Act, though he continued
to insist that the law did not apply.
The President had another reason for freeing the crew and recapturing the
ship as quickly as possible. He hoped to avoid an extended campaign and a
possible clash with Congress, which had recently refused emergency aid to
South Vietnam and clearly would not approve another long-term entanglement
in Southeast Asia. General Jones understood the President’s emphasis on speed
but nevertheless tried to persuade the National Security Council to delay the
response and invest more time in planning. Ford decided, however, to strike
immediately with the forces available in Southeast Asia.
Despite his insistence on speed, the President intended to respond with a
degree of force proportionate to the provocation. The boarding of Mayaguez
might have been a free-lance operation by some irresponsible local commander
rather than an action ordered by the authorities at Phnom Penh. If a subordinate
commander had launched the operation, area bombing of the capital city — or
indeed of other targets — might kill noncombatants without punishing those
who had actually committed the act of piracy. President Ford finally decided,
therefore, against using B–52s, not because he did not expect the Khmer Rouge
to fight but because he was trying to avoid unnecessary killing.2
In shaping a response to the capture of Mayaguez, President Ford and his
principal advisers could rely on geosynchronous communications satellites to
keep in touch with the major commands and use computer programs that in-
stantly encrypted or decoded message traffic. The President, acting through
Secretary of Defense Schlesinger and the National Military Command Center,
maintained contact with Air Force Lt. Gen. John J. Burns, who exercised
operational control as Commander, U.S. Support Activities Group/Seventh Air
Force. As commander of the support activities group, Burns was responsible to
the Commander in Chief, Pacific, Adm. Noel Gayler, but because he also
functioned as commander of the Seventh Air Force, he looked to the Pacific Air
Forces in Hawaii and Air Force headquarters in the Pentagon for administrative
support. Since Gayler happened to be in Washington when the crisis erupted,
he met frequently with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and thus advised Schlesinger
and Ford and helped carry out their decisions.
429
Operating through an airborne battlefield command and control center,

Burns would exercise operational control over Air Force units and also issue
instructions and assign tasks to the naval forces and Marines. Relying on a pair
of modified U–2 reconnaissance planes that provided a radio-relay link, Burns
decided to remain at Nakhon Phanom and make use of its computer and com-
munications facilities. He chose Brig. Gen. Walter H. Baxter, III, who
commanded the 13th Air Force Advance Echelon, an administrative headquar-
ters at Udorn, to serve as senior planner at U-Tapao. Baxter’s assistant, Col. R.
B. Janca, joined him at U-Tapao and took over the combat support group there.
Burns sent Col. Robert R. Reed, his Deputy Chief, Operations Division, from
Nakhon Phanom to U-Tapao to act as his troubleshooter. Col. Lloyd J. Anders
reported to U-Tapao and assumed command of helicopter operations, while Col.
William P. Pannell became his operations officer, essentially the same duties
Anders and Pannell had performed on the aircraft carrier Midway during the
evacuation of Saigon.3
The evacuations from the Cambodian and South Vietnamese capitals im-
posed wear and tear on the warships that had helped carry out the operations,
limiting the resources available for the liberation of Mayaguez and its crew. The
assault carrier Okinawa could not steam faster than eighteen knots because of
a broken-down boiler and would be unable to move its Marine helicopters —
which could not refuel in mid-air — to within operating range of the captured
ship. A failed valve had temporarily disabled Hancock, an attack carrier that had
operated helicopters at Saigon. Fortunately, another attack carrier, Coral Sea,
was steaming toward Australia to commemorate the anniversary of the battle for
which it was named, an action fought in May 1942 that ended the threat of a
Japanese invasion.
Coral Sea had not yet cleared Indonesian waters and could quickly steam
into position to launch aircraft in support of a rescue attempt. Besides Coral Sea
and her escorts, the destroyer escort Harold E. Holt (subsequently redesignated
a frigate), the guided missile destroyer Henry B. Wilson, and the stores ship
Vega converged on the scene.
Coral Sea carried only two unarmed SH–3 helicopters used as lifeguards
when the ship launched or recovered aircraft. Neither Okinawa nor Hancock
could participate, which eliminated Marine Corps helicopters from the rescue
operation. By default, the task of landing the assault troops devolved upon two
Air Force helicopter outfits, the 21st Special Operations Squadron, assigned ten
CH–53Cs, and the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron, with a
maximum of nine HH–53Cs. Unlike most Marine Corps and Army helicopter
units, the Air Force squadrons had not trained to land infantrymen in assault
operations; instead, they had conducted rescues, if necessary braving deadly
fire, or inserted agents and patrols in lightly defended areas.
The 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron had saved downed
airmen throughout Southeast Asia, cooperating with escorting fighters and
430
HC–130P aerial tankers. The 21st Special Operations Squadron had landed
reconnaissance or combat patrols, often cooperating more closely with the
Central Intelligence Agency than with Air Force organizations. The Jolly
Greens of the 40th — so called because the squadron had borrowed as its
symbol the Jolly Green Giant, adapted from the advertising of a company that
marketed canned and frozen vegetables — differed in experience and training
from the 21st Special Operations Squadron, which used the call sign Knife.
Whereas the Knives employed stealth in their operations, stalking and thrusting
rather than overpowering, the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron
refueled in the air to fly long missions and, with the help of escorting fighters,
sometimes overcame strong defenses. Moreover, the HH–53, flown by the Jolly
Greens, had better communications than the CH–53, along with explosion-
retardant foam in its 450-gallon external auxiliary fuel tanks and a third
multibarrel gun that fired rearward over the open loading ramp. The CH–53
operated by the Knives had just two side-firing multibarrel guns and 650-gallon
external fuel tanks that lacked protection against explosion.4
Besides the nineteen helicopters, not all of them operational, the Air Force
had a strong force of other aircraft based in Thailand. Udorn served as the base
for 24 RF–4C reconnaissance planes, along with 36 F–4E and 36 F–4D fighters.
Korat housed 18 F–111As, 18 F–4Es, 24 A–7Ds, 17 AC–130 gunships, and 5
HC–130Ps. Besides the CH–53 and HH–53 helicopters, Nakhon Phanom
provided accommodations for 40 OV–10 observation craft, used by forward air
controllers. In liberating the ship and crew, these aircraft could stage as
necessary through U-Tapao, the Thai airfield closest to the scene.5
Because of the Cooper-Church Amendment, the United States could not
maintain ground forces in Thailand to complement the aerial armada. The
troops to free the ship and crew would have to come from Marine units on
Okinawa and in the Philippines. A reinforced rifle company from the 1st
Battalion, 4th Marines — five officers and 115 enlisted men — boarded an Air
Force C–141 on the morning of May 14 and flew from Cubi Point in the
Philippines to U-Tapao, landing before 5:00 a.m. On Okinawa, a battalion
landing team, led by Lt. Col. Randall Austin and drawn from the 2d Battalion,
9th Marines, started boarding Air Force transports during the morning of the
14th. By 8:30 p.m., the landing team had reached U-Tapao, where it reported
to Marine Col. John M. Johnson, Jr., the ground forces commander. In the
meantime, the Air Force helicopters had deployed from Nakhon Phanom to U-
Tapao. Seven CH–53s of the 21st Special Operations Squadron arrived there,
as did three Jolly Green HH–53s.
Before the helicopters left Nakhon Phanom, the U.S. Support Activities
Group/Seventh Air Force decided to have them deploy seventy-five volunteers
from the 656th Security Police Squadron to U-Tapao. If the Marines were
delayed, the airmen, though ill-prepared for offensive operations, could attempt
on the morning of May 14 to liberate the container ship and any merchant
431
sailors on board. One of the Knife helicopters crashed en route to U-Tapao,

killing eighteen security police and the crew of five. The accident forced the
headquarters at Nakhon Phanom to abandon the idea of using airmen to effect
the rescue. Fortunately, the special operations squadron managed to make
emergency repairs to another CH–53 and replace the one that had been
destroyed.6
The detachment of Marines from Cubi Point in the Philippines, under Maj.
Raymond E. Porter, boarded their assigned Air Force helicopters at noon on
May 14, waited two hours for orders to attack Mayaguez that never came, then
disembarked. Authorities at Washington, perhaps President Ford himself,
decided against an essentially improvised assault on a ship that might prove
heavily defended. When General Burns’ planners learned that the room-sized
containers covering most of the deck of Mayaguez could not support the weight
of a helicopter, they ruled out an attack from the air. The ship would have to be
recovered in the same way it had been captured — by a boarding party.7
Late in the afternoon of May 13, before the Marines reached U-Tapao and
while the helicopters were still arriving, aerial surveillance revealed two small
craft alongside the container ship. One of them, a fishing boat, cast off and
headed for Koh Tang island with some forty persons on board, seated on deck,
their heads on their knees. Other sightings indicated that the men — described
as Caucasian, whereas many of the captured crew members were Oriental —
had landed at Koh Tang and moved inland.
If these were the captives, the next logical step seemed to be to prevent the
Khmer Rouge from taking the prisoners to the mainland, where they might dis-
appear into prison camps. The White House issued orders, passed along by Gen-
eral Scowcroft, to “sink anything coming off Koh Tang.” On the early morning
of May 14, fire from an AC–130 gunship forced a Cambodian patrol boat to run
aground on an islet near Koh Tang. Later, at dawn, a fishing boat escorted by
patrol craft set out from the island for the port of Kompong Som on the main-
land. Air Force A–7s sank the patrol boats and sprayed tear gas on the other
craft. Secretary of Defense Schlesinger refused, however, to approve sinking the
fishing boat; he stalled for time to make sure the prisoners were not on board.
When a Navy pilot reported seeing Caucasians on the fishing craft, Schlesinger
persuaded the President to suspend the sink-on-sight order and allow the boat
to proceed.
Schlesinger’s reluctance to sink every boat leaving Koh Tang almost cer-
tainly saved the lives of the captives, who were indeed on board this particular
craft. When the cloud of tear gas enveloped the deck, captors and prisoners suf-
fered alike. Blinded by gas and struggling for breath, the men of Mayaguez
could not seize control. Whenever the Thai helmsman tried to change course for
the open sea, one of the guards, who somehow fought off the effects of the gas,
leveled his weapon until the bow of the fishing boat again pointed toward the
mainland.8
432
Cambodian patrol boat resting on the bottom east of Koh Tang Island.
Consultation between Burns and his superiors in Hawaii and at Washington
resulted in a revised plan for recovering Mayaguez and the captured crew. A
Marine boarding party would seize the container ship at the same time that other
Marines stormed Koh Tang island, where at least some of the sailors might still
be held. The two operations were scheduled for precisely 5:42 a.m., an hour
specified by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The time did not coincide with either sun-
rise or the beginning of morning nautical twilight — the earliest that a rifleman
could see to fire an aimed shot or a pilot to deliver an air strike — and raised
questions about the wisdom of trying to issue minutely detailed orders from the
other side of the globe.
A third element rounded out the operations plan. While the Marine landing
team attacked Koh Tang and the smaller detachment boarded Mayaguez, the
carrier Coral Sea would launch air strikes against military sites on the mainland
to punish the communist authorities responsible for the incident. The timetable
called for hitting Kompong Som and the other targets after the recapture of the
ship and the landing at Koh Tang. Once they began, the attacks on the mainland
went ahead independently of the fighting on Koh Tang and continued after the
capture of the container ship and recovery of its crew.9
The planners could not be sure whether the Khmer Rouge had moved all the
prisoners to Kompong Som or left some of them on Koh Tang. Even if all the
captives had been carried off to the mainland, seizing the island seemed impor-
tant as a demonstration of U.S. resolve. The conquest of Koh Tang might well
persuade the Cambodian communists to release the crew members, wherever
they were held.
The attacking Marines, moreover, did not have up-to-the-minute details on
the island’s defenses. Although Lt. Col. David Metz, commander of one of the
AC–130 gunships that maintained surveillance by night, reported being fired
upon by a 40-mm antiaircraft gun, intelligence specialists believed that nothing
433
larger than heavy machineguns protected Koh Tang. The Defense Intelligence
Agency in Washington, D.C., and the Pacific Command’s intelligence section
in Hawaii estimated the strength of the island garrison at between 90 and 200
soldiers armed with recoilless rifles, mortars, and machineguns. These estimates
failed somehow — perhaps because of restrictions on access to certain categor-
ies of information — to reach the Marines, who believed when they prepared to
set out for Koh Tang that the island’s garrison consisted of 20 or 30 guerrillas.
Not until the first wave was boarding its helicopters did the Marines see aerial
photos that revealed bunkers overlooking the invasion beaches.
Even if the larger estimates of enemy strength proved true, a savage prelim-
inary aerial bombardment could silence the deadliest weapons or discourage the
gunners, enabling the helicopters to disgorge the landing force, but planners
ruled out the preparatory strikes because of the danger to any prisoners who
might be on the island. For this reason, a proposal to use Air Force C–130 trans-
ports to drop 15,000-pound bombs and blast landing zones in the jungle met
prompt rejection, a decision which meant that the helicopters would have to
land the Marines on the exposed beach. Because so few helicopters were avail-
able, the same aircraft would have to participate in successive waves, and losses
could reduce the overall landing force until it was dangerously close to the
strength of the defenders.10
After an Army U–21 liaison plane flew some of the senior Marine officers
on a final reconnaissance of Koh Tang — a mission that revealed very little
about the defenses because the aircraft had no sensors capable of penetrating the
jungle — Colonel Johnson issued orders for the detachment from the 1st Battal-
ion, 4th Marines, to board and seize Mayaguez, while the 2d Battalion, 9th
Marines, attacked Koh Tang island. The force assaulting the island had to leave
its 4.2-inch mortars at U-Tapao because the cumbersome weapons and heavy
ammunition would displace too many infantrymen from the few available heli-
copters. Once the battle began, air power would have to make up for the absent
heavy mortars.
Two tactical fighter wings, the 432d at Udorn and the 347th at Korat, had
the mission of providing air support, carrying weapons specified in the daily
operations order from the Support Activities Group/Seventh Air Force. An air-
borne battlefield command and control center was to coordinate the aerial
activity through a fighter pilot serving as on-scene commander, while forward
air controllers directed the strikes. Both the forward air controllers and on-scene
commanders would fly the A–7, the only tactical fighter that had a radio
compatible with the type of set used by the Marines. Since the A–7s could
maintain contact with the assault force, General Burns decided against using the
OV–10s and the skilled forward air controllers that flew them because he did
not want to “clog up” the already crowded facilities at U-Tapao.
The recovery of Mayaguez and the liberation of the crew began on the
morning of May 15, but fell behind schedule. Three Air Force HH–53s deliv-
434
ered the boarding party to USS Holt. The force assigned to capture the container
ship consisted of fifty-nine Marines, six volunteer seaman from the Military
Sealift Command, two Air Force specialists in disarming explosives, and an
Army interpreter. The transfer from helicopter to the compact landing pad on
the warship proved time-consuming. Because the broad ramp at the rear of the
huge helicopter opened over the water, each Jolly Green had to hover in succes-
sion, while the passengers disembarked in single file through the crew’s access
door near the front.
Not until 6:30 a.m. did the destroyer escort take the last Marine on board
and started toward Mayaguez. Some forty-five minutes later, a flight of A–7s
doused the container ship with tear gas released from under-wing dispensers.
Holt came alongside, and the boarding party found no one on board the
merchant ship, which the destroyer escort promptly took in tow.11
While the boarding party was retaking Mayaguez, USS Henry B. Wilson,
a guided missile destroyer, arrived on the scene after steaming for forty-eight
hours, sustaining a speed of thirty-one knots. The skipper, Comdr. J. Michael
Rodgers, checked in with the airborne battlefield command and control center,
which assumed he was a naval aviator, rather than a ship’s captain, and assigned
him an altitude of 10,000 feet. Once the misconception had been corrected,
Wilson closed with the island. A lookout spotted men in the water, and the
destroyer rescued the survivors of Knife 31, a CH–53 shot down off the eastern
beach.
At 9:30 a.m., the pilot of a P–3 patrol plane advised Rodgers of a boat
approaching his ship. Wilson picked up the intruder on radar, closed the range,
and stood ready to open fire, when the telescopic lens of the fire-control tele-
vision revealed that the boat carried what might be the crew of Mayaguez. Over
his ship’s loudspeaker, Rodgers asked “Are you the crew of Mayaguez?” The
seamen answered that they were and that all hands were on board the fishing
craft. “Lay alongside,” the skipper directed, “You are safe now.” The prisoners
had been released and the ship recovered, but the bitter fight for Koh Tang had
barely begun.12
The hurriedly drafted plan for seizing Koh Tang entrusted the operation to
the 2d Battalion, 9th Marines — organized as a battalion landing team — which
would attack in three waves. Company G, under Capt. James H. Davis, was to
lead the way, landing at the neck of a diamond-shaped headland at the northern
tip of the island. A reinforced platoon, accompanied by Captain Davis, had the
mission of attacking from the west and blocking access from the southern part
of the island. The rest of the company, along with the battalion commander,
Colonel Austin, would land from the east. The entire company then faced the
task of clearing the headland to the north and seizing Hill 440 to the south, the
dominant terrain feature in this part of the island. Meanwhile, the helicopters
that landed these Marines would return to U-Tapao for the second wave, made
up of Company E. After landing this unit to reinforce Company G, the
435
U.S. Marines, wearing gasmasks, board the Mayaguez.

helicopters were to pick up the rest of the battalion, organized as a third wave,
and fly it to the Koh Tang beachhead.
Eleven helicopters stood ready to launch the day’s operations, but three of
them were committed to delivering the boarding party to the destroyer escort
Holt. Because of the shortage of Knife and Jolly Green aircraft, the ground force
commander, Colonel Johnson, chose to keep his command element at U-Tapao
and direct the operation from there, instead of deploying with the landing team.
This decision emphasized the role of the airborne battlefield command and
control center in linking Johnson with his Marines. Nevertheless, during the
formal briefing at 1:00 a.m. on the morning of May 15, no representatives of the
airborne control center participated, nor did an intelligence specialist, who
might have presented the latest estimates of enemy strength that had arrived
from Washington and Hawaii and caused a radical change of plan, such as
conducting extensive preliminary air strikes.13
The three HH–53s bound for USS Holt took off at 4:14 a.m., and within
eleven minutes, the four HH–53s and four CH–53s carrying the first wave set
out for Koh Tang. Tracers fired from boats occasionally arced into the darkened
sky, but the helicopters sustained no damage en route to the objective. At
approximately 6:00 a.m., eighteen minutes after the prescribed time — and at
about the same time the boarding party began transferring from the helicopters
to the deck of Holt — Knife 22 and 21 approached the western beach while
Knife 23 and 31 prepared to land Marines on the opposite shore.
Lt. Col. John H. Denham, at the controls of Knife 21, encountered no fire
from inland of the western beach as he touched down on the sand, nose pointed
seaward, and lowered the ramp so the Marines could run from the aircraft.
When the Marines began emerging, the defenders cut loose with rifles,
436
machineguns, and mortars, knocking out one of the helicopter’s jet engines.
Denham and his copilot, 1st Lt. Karl W. Poulsen, dropped the external fuel
tanks and jettisoned additional fuel, lightening the aircraft and enabling Knife
21 to stagger out to sea.
To cover the escape of Denham’s helicopter, Capt. Terry Ohlemeier, whose
Knife 22 had begun hovering over the landing site, made two passes along the
beach and unleashed a hail of fire inland. On board the aircraft, Captain Davis,
the company commander, was hit in the face by a spent round, and another
bullet, which fortunately had also lost velocity, lodged in the safety harness
worn by one of Ohlemeier’s door gunners. Knife 22 gushed fuel from its
punctured external tanks as the pilot broke off the action and followed Denham,
whose helicopter crashed some 300 yards from shore. Although barely able to
control his damaged helicopter, which still had its Marines on board, Ohlemeier
orbited the wreckage until another CH–53 arrived, lowered its hoist, and
plucked Denham, Poulsen, and one of the other crew members from the sea.14
The Cambodian gunners peering across the eastern beach, who may have
been alerted by the sound of firing behind them, blazed away at 1st Lt. John
Schramm’s Knife 23 when it landed. The fusillade knocked out an engine and
shattered the tail pylon. Miraculously, all on board survived. Twenty Marines,
led by 2d Lt. Michael Cicere, ran from the wrecked aircraft toward the tree line,
while Schramm and his crew remained for a few minutes in the shattered
fuselage and struggled unsuccessfully to establish radio contact with the
airborne battlefield command and control center. When the crew members
abandoned the wreckage and ran toward the Marines, fire from the tree line
wounded one of them, SSgt. Ronald Gross. After linking up with the Marines,
1st Lt. John P. Lucas, Schramm’s copilot, used an emergency radio, normally
for contacting rescuers, and summoned air support.
Just short of the eastern beach, Knife 31, flown by Maj. Richard Corson,
with 2d Lt. Richard Vandegeer as copilot, ran into a wall of fire that killed
Vandegeer, ripped open an external fuel tank, and ignited the fuel spilling out.
Although wounded, Corson succeeded in crash landing the burning CH–53 in
about four feet of water, a short distance offshore. One of the crew, SSgt. Jon
Harston, directed some Marines trapped inside Knife 31 to an open hatch. One
Marine, who had waded clear of the downed aircraft, returned and tried
unsuccessfully to free the copilot from his harness, not realizing the flier was
already dead. Of the twenty-six on board the helicopter, eighteen survived the
crash, but several of these had suffered burns or wounds. Five more died in the
shallow water off Koh Tang before the guided missile destroyer Wilson picked
up the thirteen survivors.
Marine air controller 1st Lt. Terry Tonkin lived through the crash of Knife
31 and for roughly two hours, until the battery gave out, made use of an Air
Force emergency radio to call in air strikes against targets he could see from the
surf. For a time he directed the strikes while swimming on his back. Meanwhile,
437
Koh Tang Island, with north to the right. The eastern beach landing
area is the curved white area on the far right portion of the island. The
western landing area is the small white area just above the eastern beach.
the copilot of the downed Knife 23, Lieutenant Lucas, was using his own
emergency transmitter to arrange air support for the men on the eastern beach.
The violent reaction to the appearance of the first four helicopters caused
the second four to hold off. Knife 32, flown by 1st Lt. Michael Lackey and his
copilot, 2d Lt. Calvin O. Wachs, changed course from the eastern beach, res-
cued three members of the crew of Denham’s Knife 21, which had crashed off
the western beach, and spent half an hour searching unsuccessfully for the
fourth man. Jolly Green 41 stood by as backup for Lackey’s craft, and two other
HH–53s, Jolly Green 42 and 43, orbited north of the island awaiting clarifica-
tion of the situation on the island.15
Word of what was happening on Koh Tang came from a platoon leader, 2d
Lt. James McDaniel, who, shortly after landing, managed to contact the airborne
battlefield command and control center on the Marine tactical radio net. He
reported that his men had succeeded in carving out a small beachhead extending
perhaps fifty yards inland from the western shoreline. His message arrived just
after the control center cleared the three orbiting helicopters — Knife 32, Jolly
Green 42, and Jolly Green 43 — to land as planned on the eastern beach. Since
two helicopters had already been shot down there — Knife 23 on the beach and
Knife 31 offshore — Lackey asked the airborne controllers whether they really
wanted him to use that same fiercely defended stretch of beach and was told to
land from the west instead.
When 1st Lt. Philip Pacini in Jolly Green 42 heard this transmission, he
asked if his aircraft and Jolly Green 43 were to continue their approach to the
eastern beach. The controller promptly diverted them to the western beach,
438
where they would land along with Lackey’s CH–53, Knife 32. The change of
plan surprised the pilots of the A–7s circling overhead, who advised the air-
borne battlefield command and control center that the helicopters were headed
in the wrong direction.
The direction was correct, despite the concerns of the A–7 pilots, but Pacini
quickly realized that he had chosen the wrong landing zone — an area south of
the perimeter — and turned away for another try. With Colonel Austin and the
2d Battalion’s command group on board, Jolly Green 43, flown by Capt. Roland
W. Purser and his copilot, 1st Lt. Robert P. Gradle, headed for the proper
landing zone, only to be beaten back by Cambodian fire. Of the three helicop-
ters, only Knife 32 reached McDaniel’s perimeter on the first try, landing
thirteen Marines, but in doing so, the CH–53 sustained severe damage. Al-
though Lackey nursed the craft safely back to U-Tapao, it could no longer take
part in the operation.
About three minutes after Lackey had turned out to sea, Pacini succeeded
in bringing in his Marines, among them 1st Lt. James D. Keith, the executive
officer of Company G, thus increasing the force on Koh Tang to about sixty.
Purser’s Jolly Green 43 touched down a few minutes later on the landing zone
that Pacini had rejected. Austin, his command element, and a mortar section — a
total of twenty-nine Marines — sprinted down the ramp, advanced inland, and
formed a perimeter about three-quarters of a mile from Keith’s men.16
Another helicopter carrying part of the first wave, Jolly Green 41, tried to
land its Marines on the western beach, only to be repulsed. The pilot and
copilot, 1st Lt. Thomas D. Cooper and 1st Lt. David W. Keith, refueled Jolly
Green 41 from an aerial tanker and made two more unsuccessful attempts to
land. Cooper and Keith made a fourth attempt at about 10:00 a.m., landing
twenty Marines before hostile fire inflicted further damage on the helicopter and
forced it to take off with five members of the first wave still on board.
Over the years, a command structure had evolved for rescue operations that
depended on an HC–130 functioning as an airborne battlefield command and
control center specifically for the rescue. The airborne controller used the radio
call sign King while coordinating the work of helicopters and escorting fighters.
The flaming crash of Knife 31 earlier in the morning alerted the pilot of the
HC–130 circling overhead that the assault on the eastern beach had run into
trouble. He set up a rescue operation, relying on an A–7 pilot trained in such
activity to take command. As part of the hastily organized rescue effort, Jolly
Green 13, which had flown part of the Mayaguez boarding party to USS Holt,
landed on the eastern beach, not to reinforce the few Marines there but to
evacuate them along with the surviving crew members of Knife 23.
Neither the pilot of Jolly Green 13, 1st Lt. Charles Greer, nor his copilot,
1st Lt. Charles Brown, had been under fire before. As their helicopter waited
with lowered ramp, they assumed that the thud of enemy rounds striking the
aircraft was the sound of Marine boots pounding against the cabin floor. When
439
bullets passing over the ramp began tearing into the cabin and shattering the
glass enclosing some of the instruments, they realized their error and took off
empty. By that time, enemy rounds had ignited a flare container, which SSgt.
Steven Lemmin threw overboard, and punctured a fuel tank that fortunately
contained an explosion-retardant chemical.17
The first wave had seized a precarious foothold on the island. Instead of
facing a few irregulars, the Marines and the airmen who flew them into combat
had collided with two companies of trained soldiers, supported by heavy
weapons and protected by log bunkers. The assault struck the island’s strongest
defenses. Instead of rapidly pinching off the headland and easily destroying the
garrison, the attackers were fighting for their lives.18
As early as 6:20 a.m., Air Force A–7s, possibly responding to a message
over the emergency radio that Marine Lieutenant Tonkin had borrowed, strafed
positions inland of the eastern beach. The pilots, however, had great difficulty
locating the hostile weapons the Marines wanted them to attack. Moreover, at
about 7:00 a.m., the first of the A–7s refueled from KC–135 tankers for the
return flight to Korat, and the pilot of an F–4, which did not have a radio that
could tie into the Marine tactical net, briefly took command.
By mid-morning, air support had improved. An AC–130 opened fire on
bunkers pointed out by the Marines, knocking out the strongpoints with 105-
mm rounds that penetrated roofs, exploded inside, and scattered the logs of the
walls like a child’s building blocks. Fourteen 105-mm shells, along with a
deluge of 20-mm and 40-mm fire, bought time for the Marines to consolidate
the western beachhead. In addition, the pilot of one of the A–7s now on station
functioned as a forward air controller, directing F–4s against other strong-
holds.19
Although exercising command from U-Tapao and in only sporadic contact
with the Marines on Koh Tang, Colonel Johnson, the Marine ground force com-
mander, realized that the survival of the assault troops depended on their im-
mediate reinforcement. He had the rest of the 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, at his
disposal, but too many helicopters had either failed to return or come back with
damage that grounded them. Only five helicopters stood ready to carry a second
wave to the island. Captain Purser’s Jolly Green 43 remained flyable after
returning from delivering a portion of the first wave to a landing zone south of
the western beachhead. Jolly Green 11 and 12 had returned directly to U-Tapao
from USS Holt. Knife 52 had undergone needed maintenance and now was
ready, as was Knife 51, which had been loaded with Marines, dispatched to Koh
Tang and then recalled.20
Knife 52 — with 1st Lt. Robert E. Rakitis and his copilot, 2d Lt. David J.
Lykens, at the controls — took off by 9:30 a.m., along with Purser’s Jolly Green
43. Within half an hour, Jolly Green 11, 1st Lt. Donald W. Backlund and 1st Lt.
Gary L. Weikel, set out for the island, together with Jolly Green 12, flown by
Capt. Paul L. Jacobs, pilot, and Capt. Martin A. Nickerson, copilot. At about
440
10:10 a.m., Knife 51, with 1st Lt. Richard C. Brims the pilot and 2d Lt. Dennis
L. Danielson his copilot, joined the second wave after refueling.21
The reinforcements had barely taken off when word arrived “to immedi-
ately cease all offensive operations” against the Cambodians and to “disengage
and withdraw all forces from the operating area as soon as possible.”22 These
instructions, subsequently confirmed by a formal message, originated with Pres-
ident Ford and his advisers and traveled over the satellite communications net-
work. Indeed, the satellite system beamed a torrent of messages — advice, in-
structions, and requests for information — that tended to distract senior com-
manders from the perilous situation on Koh Tang and thus blunted Colonel
Johnson’s arguments for rapid reinforcement. The embattled Marines clinging
to the western beachhead, for example, received a message from the support
activities group asking if they had a bullhorn and a translator, presumably to
parley with the enemy. Questions like this underscored the failure of some
higher headquarters to understand the tactical situation and their insatiable
desire for nonessential detail.23
The order to disengage infuriated Colonel Johnson, who realized that the
Marines on Koh Tang did not control the landing zones necessary for a suc-
cessful withdrawal. “We don’t even own the beach yet!” he reportedly shouted.
“Let’s see us get off a piece of property we don’t even own.”24 The order also
triggered vehement protests from those pilots of the second wave who best
understood the situation on the island. General Burns paid attention to the
complaints of his helicopter pilots, and the Commanding General, Fleet Marine
Force, Pacific, added his voice to the chorus of protest. As a result, the second
wave continued toward Koh Tang.25
While the second wave was drawing near the island, Colonel Austin tried
to link up with the main perimeter on the western beach, but a strongpoint
blocked the way. Austin’s force included a mortar section, commanded by 2d
Lt. Joseph J. McMenamin, which cooperated with attacking fighters in neutral-
izing the Cambodian forces that stood between the two groups of Marines.
Acting on instructions from Lieutenant Keith in the main perimeter and Capt.
Barry Cassidy, Austin’s Marine air liaison officer, the Air Force fighters at-
tacked with 500-pound bombs and 20-mm cannon. After each pass by the air-
craft, the mortar section cut loose. The combination enabled a platoon from the
larger group to reach Austin and his men and bring them into the perimeter.
Shortly before noon, as the two contingents of Marines were joining forces
and beating back a Cambodian attack, Jolly Green 11 and 12 arrived off the
western beach. Each, in turn, fired inland to suppress the defenses while the
other landed its men. Jolly Green 12, commanded by Captain Jacobs, waited on
the sands until the Marines had loaded four of their wounded, whom the heli-
copter flew to U-Tapao.
In spite of the fierce resistance encountered at the eastern beach, the
airborne battlefield command and control center directed the other three heli-
441
copters to land there. Lieutenant Rakitis led the way in Knife 52, but enemy fire
tore into the craft and prevented it from touching down. The CH–53 lurched
across the neck of the island, fuel gushing from its ruptured tanks, but the crew
managed to fly the damaged helicopter to Thailand, with the Marines still on
board. After Knife 52 had been driven off, Knife 51 and Jolly Green 43 diverted
to the western beach, where they landed their Marines, increasing the force
there to roughly 200. Knife 51 then evacuated five wounded men.26
After landing the reinforcements, Jolly Green 43, flown by Purser and
Gradle, and Jolly Green 11, Backlund and Weikel, stood by near Koh Tang to
rescue the twenty-odd Marines and the survivors of Knife 23 from the eastern
beach. Purser’s HH–53 went first, attempting to take advantage of a screen of
riot-control gas dispensed from A–7s, the kind of chemical agent used against
the abandoned Mayaguez. The helicopter crew donned gas masks, but the A–7s
placed the screen across the approach path of Jolly Green 43. As a result, the
helicopter passed almost instantly through the cloud and was silhouetted against
it for gunners unaffected by the tear gas.
Fire from heavy machineguns severed the fuel line that fed the left engine.
Fuel gushed into the passenger compartment, vaporized, and spewed out over
the lowered ramp forming a plume that extended 150 yards behind the strug-
gling aircraft. Luckily, Coral Sea had steamed to within seventy miles of the
island, and Purser had just enough fuel to land on board. The rapid approach of
the aircraft carrier not only saved Jolly Green 43 and its crew but would enable
other helicopters to avoid the time-consuming flight all the way to U-Tapao.
Naval gunfire may have helped Jolly Green 43 escape destruction. At about
1:00 p.m., before the failed rescue attempt, Henry B. Wilson contacted the
airborne battlefield command and control center and volunteered to provide fire
support from the waters off the eastern beach. While Harold E. Holt, with
Mayaguez still in tow, remained off the western shore, Wilson began its bom-
bardment, using a rock jutting from the sea as a reference point. The ship fired
a round that exploded near that rock; A–7 pilots saw the splash and adjusted the
gunfire by radioing successive changes that walked the shells onto a target
ashore.
During the afternoon of May 15, two additional Jolly Greens landed at U-
Tapao along with four OV–10A Broncos, the turboprop aircraft used so effec-
tively by forward air controllers during the fighting in South Vietnam, Laos, and
Cambodia. Two of the Broncos, flown by Maj. Robert W. Undorf and Capt.
Robert Roehrkasse, both trained forward air controllers, arrived over Koh Tang
before 4:30 p.m., made contact with the Marines, and began firing smoke
rockets to mark targets for fighter-bombers. The work of the OV–10s, along
with continued fire from Wilson’s five-inch guns, set the stage for another
attempt to retrieve the men on the eastern beach.27
The previous tries had encountered deadly fire from a patrol boat aground
off the beach, its decks awash. The Cambodian gunners on board took cover
442
when fighter-bombers appeared, but emerged to fire a pair of heavy machine-

guns whenever a helicopter started toward shore. Wilson eliminated this danger
at 4:33 p.m. with twenty-two five-inch shells that ripped the grounded boat to
shreds. Meanwhile, Major Undorf, flying one of the OV–10s, directed strikes
along the eastern beach, and Wilson’s gig cruised off the island, firing a .50-
caliber machinegun at targets ashore. After a final barrage that included fire
from an Air Force gunship, Undorf cleared Backlund to dart in and pick up the
men. Undorf and Roehrkasse strafed the Cambodian defenders, silencing a
machinegun just north of the beach as Backlund touched down at 6:20 p.m. The
Marines fired as they fell back, holding off the advancing enemy long enough
for all twenty-five survivors to scramble up the ramp to safety. Backlund raced
the jet engines, and the craft roared out to sea, bullets fired from shore churning
the sea behind it.28
As Jolly Green 11 got away, an Air Force C–130 dropped a 15,000-pound
bomb near the center of the island, 1,000 yards south of the western perimeter.
Stacked on a pallet, the explosives separated from the extraction parachute and
harness, drifted earthward under the main parachute, and exploded with a
violence that jolted the Marines, who had no idea that such a weapon would be
used. The harness and extraction chute had not yet settled to earth when the
bomb exploded, and the Marines who saw the second parachute assumed it
meant that another bomb was drifting toward them. Men dug with tools or even
finger nails, as the chute and harness flopped to earth some forty yards from the
perimeter.
Intended to demoralize the enemy, the bomb had a similar effect on some
of the Marines; indeed, at least one officer worried that a huge bomb lay nearby
waiting to be detonated by friendly or enemy fire. No wonder the Marine
battalion insisted in its after-action report that the commander on the ground be
advised of plans to use any aerial ordnance like the 15,000-pound bomb. What-
ever the impact on Marine morale, the huge bomb may have disrupted a Cam-
bodian attempt to move reinforcements northward and attack the perimeter in
overwhelming numbers.29
Once Backlund’s Jolly Green 11 had plucked the Marines and airmen from
the eastern beach, Jolly Green 12 — now flown by Capt. Barry R. Walls and 1st
Lt. Richard L. Comer — got word to rescue someone believed to have taken
refuge in the wreckage of Knife 23, off the beach where Backlund had effected
the rescue. While Knife 51 laid down covering fire, Walls hovered over the
crashed helicopter, and Sgt. Jesus P. DeJesus lowered the hoist, but no one was
awaiting rescue in the shattered aircraft. The enemy, who had been shooting at
Backlund’s aircraft now concentrated on Walls’ hovering helicopter, wounding
DeJesus and badly damaging the aircraft, which limped to an emergency land-
ing on Coral Sea.30
In keeping with President Ford’s earlier decision, General Burns had de-
cided to immediately pull out the Marines, taking advantage of the approach of
443
During the rescue of the Marines and airmen trapped on the eastern beach,
Jolly Green 11 hovers over the beach, its ramp down in the rocks and surf.
Coral Sea, which would speed the withdrawal by eliminating the need to fly all
the way to Thailand before unloading the troops removed from the island. His
decision, however, failed to reach Colonel Johnson at U-Tapao or Colonel
Austin on the island. Undorf recalled that, at this critical moment, he could not
make radio contact with the airborne battlefield command and control center
and advised Austin that, though he could use the helicopters already on the
scene to evacuate the Marines, he could not be sure that aircraft would be avail-
able to fly in additional reinforcements. According to Burns, the battalion com-
mander on the beachhead faced the choice of withdrawing immediately or hold-
ing out overnight, probably without further reinforcement, and decided to with-
draw. Clearly, Austin expected to withdraw, for the Marines began shortening
their lines and collecting the wounded as evening approached, but the comman-
der of the Marine landing team remained unsure of the exact timing until the
first of the evacuation helicopters started toward the beach.31
Holding off the Cambodians, difficult to begin with, would be all the more
dangerous because the few available helicopters would have to return to the is-
land for additional men, thus prolonging the operation as the number of Marines
dwindled. One of the two HH–53s that had arrived at U-Tapao during the after-
noon — designated Jolly Green 44 and flown by a crew commanded by 1st Lt.
Robert D. Blough — could participate along with Jolly Green 43, which had
undergone emergency repairs on Coral Sea, and Knife 51. Two unarmed SH–3s
from Coral Sea, their only firepower provided by the M–16 rifles of a few
Marines on board, served as backup for the Air Force craft. The gig from Wilson
had sailed around to the western beach, and Holt, no longer towing the container
ship, could lower two boats if some Marines had to be rescued by sea.
444
An AC–130 gunship, with low-light-level television capable of penetrating

the deepening twilight, might provide the firepower that would keep the enemy
at bay. Although the gunship could fire at night with deadly effect, darkness
posed a handicap for the helicopter crews. Since there would be no moon and
few stars visible during the withdrawal, pilots would have to rely exclusively
on their flight instruments to avoid becoming disoriented.32
At about 6:40 p.m., some twenty minutes after sunset, Knife 51 headed for
the beach to pick up the first of the Marines, who had no warning that the
helicopter was about to land. Although caught by surprise, the Marines reacted
instantly. The battalion surgeon got the wounded on board, and Brims and his
crew carried a total of forty-one Marines out to Coral Sea.
The enemy also reacted to the arrival of Knife 51, hurling grenades into the
perimeter, where the Marines threw some of them back, illuminating the beach
with flares, and firing high-explosive mortar shells. Circling in his OV–10
above the western beach, Undorf spotted the mortar position, but the A–7 pilots
could not see the smoke from the rocket he fired to mark it.
The crew of Purser’s Jolly Green 43, which landed seven minutes after
Brims touched down, loaded fifty-four Marines, including Lieutenant Keith, the
executive officer of Company G, who had landed from one of the second
echelon of helicopters in the morning’s first wave. Keith later recalled hearing
mortar rounds exploding on the sand as his men boarded Purser’s helicopter.
While the blacked-out Jolly Green 43 was loading, Jolly Green 44 ap-
proached the landing zone. Radio traffic alerted Purser’s copilot, Lieutenant
Gradle, that the incoming aircraft could not see his helicopter, increasing the
likelihood of a collision. Gradle flashed Jolly Green 43’s searchlight, and the
pilot of the approaching aircraft, Lieutenant Blough, turned away, allowing the
other helicopter to take off safely and head for Coral Sea. Blough then made a
second approach, only to be driven away by fire from the ground, but the pilot
and crew persisted, landing at 6:54 p.m. Machinegun fire from Wilson’s gig and
Undorf’s OV–10 suppressed the deadliest Cambodian weapons during the three
minutes Jolly Green 44 needed to load forty Marines and take off.33
Only seventy-odd Marines remained on the island after Blough’s departure.
For effective fire support, they had to depend on the AC–130 and its cannon,
Wilson’s gig and the OV–10s with their machineguns, and the evacuation heli-
copters with their multibarrel weapons. Because the Marines faced overwhelm-
ing odds that would grow worse as time passed, Blough decided against flying
all the way to Coral Sea and instead headed for USS Holt. His descent onto the
destroyer escort’s tiny helicopter pad was made even more difficult by the
failure of his damaged searchlight and landing lights. He might have been
forced to continue seaward to the aircraft carrier, if SSgt. Bobby Bounds, who
had the night vision of a cat, had not leaned out of the aircraft to coach Blough
onto the landing pad. After unloading, Jolly Green 44 headed back to Koh Tang
to pick up another load of Marines.
445
Two OV–10s flown by Capt. Seth Wilson and 1st Lt. Will Carroll arrived
to take over for Undorf and his wingman, Captain Roehrkasse. The gunship on
station for much of the day ran low on fuel and had to depart while its replace-
ment was ten minutes from Koh Tang. The arriving AC–130 would need an
additional ten minutes to zero in its sensors and weapons. During this critical
period, Wilson’s gig, with only 1,000 rounds of ammunition remaining, the
newly arrived OV–10s, and Blough’s helicopter would have to reinforce the fire
of the Marines.
Blough’s Jolly Green 44 reappeared, guiding on a flashing strobe light that
Captain Davis, the commander of Company G, had hurled from the shrunken
perimeter onto the beach. Despite this aid, Blough and his copilot, 1st Lt. Henry
Mason, became disoriented, but Sergeant Bounds again made use of his excep-
tionally keen night vision and guided the craft onto the landing zone, where it
settled at 7:15 p.m. While Jolly Green 44 loaded twenty-nine Marines, the
AC–130 that had just arrived knocked out a Cambodian mortar and, as Blough
took off, silenced an automatic weapon firing at the helicopter. Since seawater
ingested during the approach had killed one of the engines, Jolly Green 44 did
not have power enough to maneuver onto the deck of Holt and had to fly out to
the spacious deck of Coral Sea.34
Knife 51, the CH–53 flown by Brims and Danielson, took off from Coral
Sea shortly before 8:00 p.m. The AC–130 dropped flares to reduce the danger
of vertigo as the helicopter pilot touched down, but the parachute flares swayed
as they descended, casting shadows that danced and changed shape with each
movement. Wilson, in his OV–10, tried to guide the helicopter, correcting his
own position with reference to a direction-finding radio beacon and flashing his
landing lights to keep Knife 51 on its approach path. Whenever Wilson turned
on his lights, the enemy opened fire, and the AC–130 cut loose at the muzzle
flashes. As the incoming helicopter hovered over the beach, vertigo overcame
the pilot and copilot, who had no choice but to abandon the attempt to land.
The crew of Knife 51 tried a second time, again became disoriented, and
barely avoided crashing in the surf. For their third attempt, they turned on their
lights, realizing they would have to risk drawing fire if they were to land and
make the rescue. The multibarrel weapons of the helicopter and the orbiting
gunship held off the Cambodians as Brims landed. After ten minutes — during
which the Marines boarded and one member of the crew, TSgt. Wayne L. Fisk,
left the aircraft to make a final check that no one remained behind — Knife 51
took off with twenty-nine Marines on board, the last of the assault force.
While Knife 51 loaded, the ramp, open but unlocked, rested on the beach
to provide easy access for the Marines. As Brims increased power and the air-
craft rose, the ramp dropped several inches, and the forward movement of the
aircraft sent Sergeant Fisk sliding down the sloping ramp toward the opening.
One of the Marines grabbed Fisk, and both of them were slipping toward the
darkness when Captain Davis grabbed hold and slowed them so other Marines
446
could form a human chain and pull them far enough forward for Fisk to reach
the control lever and raise the ramp into the locked position.35
The departure of Knife 51 marked the end of the fighting on Koh Tang. The
response to the seizure of Mayaguez cost the lives of thirty-eight U.S. military
personnel — including three Marines who disappeared during the battle for Koh
Tang and the Air Force security police and crewmen killed when a helicopter
crashed en route to U-Tapao. Another forty-nine suffered wounds of varying
severity. Despite the cost in lives, suffering, and the expenditure of an estimated
$9.5 million in munitions and equipment, Congress in general backed the
President. A few members complained about the hurried and selective process
of consultation, but the legislators did not mount an effective challenge to the
administration’s view that the War Powers Act did not apply.36
A student of the conduct of the air war in Southeast Asia, Air Force Maj.
Earl H. Tilford, Jr., has described the recovery of Mayaguez and the fighting on
Koh Tang as “a microcosm of America’s larger, recently concluded involve-
ment in Indochina.” No one can quarrel with his assertion that the United States
underestimated the Cambodian enemy, committed “too limited a force” to the
assault on Koh Tang, and had to risk landing reinforcements to permit a suc-
cessful withdrawal. Indeed, Tilford argues that the assault on the island proved
unnecessary because the Cambodians, on their own initiative, released the crew;
but the fate of the thirty-nine men did not become known until Wilson picked
them up at about 9:30 a.m., some three hours after the fighting began. To
retrieve the landing force at this point could have been even more difficult than
recovering the reinforced Marines later in the day.37
Besides underestimating the strength and discipline of Koh Tang’s defen-
ders — or failing to disseminate a reasonably accurate assessment — U.S. intel-
ligence failed to pinpoint the location of the crew of Mayaguez. Had it not been
for misgivings on the part of Secretary of Defense Schlesinger, American air-
craft might have sunk the boat carrying the captives to Kompong Som. Indeed,
when the Cambodians released them, the crewmen had another brush with
death, but Wilson’s trained and disciplined fire control team took precautions
before firing, identified the merchant sailors, and saved their lives.
The hectic nature of the U.S. response created other problems. The Marines
flown to U-Tapao from Okinawa and the Philippines had no time to rest before
they attacked, let alone to train or rehearse with the helicopters that would carry
them into battle. Moreover, those manning the airborne battlefield command
and control center lacked the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the
plans and capabilities of the Marines.
Besides emphasizing speed at the expense of preparation, the Americans
failed to make the most effective use of the forces readily at hand. The OV–10s,
for example, played a key role in the withdrawal but contributed nothing to the
earlier fighting. The task of controlling air strikes fell initially to the Air Force
A–7 pilots who, though they could talk with the Marine Corps tactical radio
447
network, had scant experience in controlling air strikes and none at all in
working with Marines. At one time, moreover, senior commanders, rather than
calling upon the OV–10s, considered shifting Coral Sea’s A–6s and A–7s from
attacks on the mainland to supporting the Marines fighting on Koh Tang. The
idea was abandoned, however, because the radios in the naval aircraft were
incompatible with those the Marines used.
Communications caused problems throughout the brief operation. Although
Washington could bombard all echelons of command with message traffic, at
critical times the airborne battlefield command and control center lost contact
with the helicopters, the Marines, or both simultaneously and at other times
misinterpreted their reports. Isolated at U-Tapao, Colonel Johnson, the ground
forces commander, had to rely on his experience and sharply honed tactical
instincts rather than on a steady flow of detailed information from the island.38
Brigadier General Richard E. Carey, whose Marines had provided security
for the final evacuation of Saigon, complained that at Koh Tang the machinery
of command and control left out those commanders closest to the fighting. In
his opinion, “coordination was conducted by an isolated commander (USSAG)
without the proper input from the field commander. To undertake this type of
mission from 195 miles away and with inadequate resources is naive and
foolhardy. The results reinforce my statement.”39
The decision to attack promptly with the mismatched forces readily
available, proceeding on the basis of intelligence that was imperfect or
inadequately disseminated, might well have resulted in disaster. The courage of
the helicopter crews, the tenacity of the Marines, and the ingenuity of both
prevented a defeat like that experienced almost a hundred years earlier by
another command, contemptuous of the enemy and acting boldly on the basis
of poor intelligence — the 7th Cavalry of George Armstrong Custer on the
bluffs overlooking the Little Big Horn River in Montana.
448
Notes
Introduction
1. Robert F. Futrell, with the assistance of The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975,
Martin Blumenson, The United States Air 2d ed. (New York, 1986), pp 170–75.
Force in Southeast Asia: The Advisory Years 5. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History
to 1965 (Washington, 1981), pp 81–84, 93– (New York, 1983), pp 505–6.
102, 133–38; Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A 6. Excerpts from memo, Robert W. Komer
Dragon Embattled, vol II: Vietnam at War to President Johnson, Feb 28, 1967, The
(New York, 1967), p 991; USAF Manage- Pentagon Papers as Published by the New
ment Summary, Vietnam, Feb 1, 1965, p 5; York Times (New York, 1971), p 555.
Adm U.S. Grant Sharp and Gen William C. 7. Ellsworth Bunker, “Report on Viet-
Westmoreland, Report on the War in Viet- nam,” address to the Overseas Press Club at
nam (Washington, 1968), p 95. New York City, Nov 17, 1967, Department
2. Department of Defense, The Pentagon of State Bulletin, Dec 11, 1967, pp 781–84.
Papers: United States-Vietnamese Relations, 8. Gen William C. Westmoreland, “Pro-
1945–1967 (Washington, 1971), bk 4, pt C, gress Report on the War in Vietnam,” an ad-
p 3:1; Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, p dress made before the National Press Club,
156; Dir/Mgt Analysis, USAF Mgt Washington, Nov 21, 1967, Department of
Summary, SEA, Dec 29, 1967, p 16. State Bulletin, Dec 11, 1967, pp 785–88.
3. AFM 1–1, Functions and Basic 9. Public Papers of the Presidents of the
Doctrine of the United States Air Force, Feb United States (Washington, 1970), Lyndon
14, 1979, pp 2:1–2. B. Johnson, 1968–1969, bk 2, pp 1045, 1049,
4. Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air 1053–54.
Power: The American Bombing of North 10. Chester L. Cooper, The Lost Crusade:
Vietnam (New York, 1989), pp 91, 109; America in Vietnam (New York, 1970), pp
George Herring, America’s Longest War: 389–92.
Chapter 1
1. Hist, 12th TRSq, atch to hist, 460th Aug 1, 1968.
TRWg, Jan–Mar 1968. 10. Hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 1968. vol I, pt 2,
2. Hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 1968, vol I, pt 2, pp pp 490–92.
480–83. 11. Combat After Action Rprt, Bien Hoa
3. Hist, USMACV, 1968, vol II, p 897. AB, RVN, Jan 31, 1968; nd, pp 4–5.
4. Hist, 12th TRSq, atch to hist, 460th 12. Intvw, Maj A. W. Thompson with Maj
TRWg, Jun–Mar 1968, pp 5–6. James Grant, FAC based at Bien Hoa, 1968,
5. Hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 1968, vol I, pt 2, pp Mar 9, 1968.
483–84. 13. Hist, USMACV, Jan–Jun 68, vol I, p
6. Combat After Action Rprt, Tan Son 882; hist, The JCS and the War in Vietnam,
Nhut AB, Jan 31, 1968; Mar 9, 1968, pp 1960–1968, pt III, p 4:12.
9–12. 14. Hq PACAF, Summary, Air Opera-
7. Don Oberdorfer, Tet! (Garden City, tions, Southeast Asia, Jan 1968, pp 3:4–5.
New York, 1971), pp 32–33, 40. 15. Hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 1968, vol I, pt 2,
8. Hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 1968, vol I, pt 2, pp pp 493–95.
489–90. 16. Maj Miles Waldron, USA, and Sp 5 Cl
9. Ltr, III DASC Hist Rprt, Jan–Jun 1968; Richard Beavers, Hq, V Prov Corps Hist
449
Notes to pages 13–23
Study 2068, Operation Hue City, Aug 1968, 25. Msg, Westmoreland to Gen Momyer,
pp 1–2; Brig Gen Edwin H. Simmons, Comdr 7AF, Lt Gen Palmer, CG USARV, et
USMC, “Marine Corps Operations in Viet- al, 280153Z Jan 68, subj: Tet Cease-fire;
nam,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, hist, The JCS and the War in Vietnam, 1960–
May 1970, pp 299–300. 1968, pt III, pp 48:4, 6–7.
17. Simmons, “Marine Corps Operations,” 26. Tab A to memo, Ofc, DCS/Mil Ops,
p. 299; Maj A. W. Thompson and C. Will- for CSA, Apr 9, 1970, subj: Information,
iam Thorndale, Air Response to the Tet Of- reference Tet ’68; msg, COMUSMACV to
fensive, 30 Jan–29 Feb 68 (Hq PACAF, Proj MACV, 300325Z Jan 68, subj: Cancellation
CHECO, Jul 12, 1968), pp 17–18. of Tet Cease-fire; Thompson, Saigon, p 2;
18. Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offen- Oberdorfer, Tet!, pp 122–24.
sive, p 2; Maj A. W. Thompson, The Defense 27. Hq USMACV, Study of the Compari-
of Saigon (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Dec sons between the Battle of Dien Bien Phu
14, 1968,), pp 1–2. and the Analogous Khe Sanh Situation, Mar
19. Intvw, Col John E. Van Duyn and Maj 1968.
Richard B. Clement with Maj Gen Robert N. 28. Armed Forces Journal, Feb 24, 1968,
Ginsburgh, senior member, NSC staff, 1968, p 8.
May 26, 1971. 29. Warren A. Trest, Khe Sanh (Operation
20. Hq PACAF, Dep Dir/OSI, Counter- Niagara), 22 January–31 March 68 (Hq
intelligence Digest, Jun 10, 1968, pp 53–55. PACAF, Proj CHECO, Sep 13, 1968), p 26.
21. Msg, CG II FForceV to COMUS- 30. Capt Moyers S. Shore, USMC, The
MACV, 081155Z Jan 68, subj: Visit of Battle for Khe San (Washington, 1969), pp
COMUSMACV, Jan 7, 1968; Warning of 72, 74; TSgt Bruce Pollica and TSgt Joe R.
Tet Offensive, Rprt of President’s Foreign Rickey, 834th Air Division Tactical Air Sup-
Intelligence on Tet, 1968, nd. port for Khe Sanh, 21 Jan–8 Apr 1968, p 5.
22. Warning of the Tet Offensive; Dave 31. Translation, Tet Greetings of Chair-
Richard Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet: man Ho Chi Minh, CDEC Bulletin no. 9318.
U.S.-Vietnam Conflict in Perspective (San 32. Oberdorfer, Tet!, pp 48–49; Buttinger,
Rafael, Calif, 1978), p 184. Vietnam at War, pp 751–52.
23. Hq PACAF, Dep Dir/OSI, Counter- 33. Victoria Pohle, The Viet Cong in Sai-
intelligence Digest, Jun 10, 1968, pp 56–58. gon: Tactics and Objectives during the Tet
24. Ofc of Asst SecDef (Systems Analy- Offensive, RAND Memo 5799, ISA/ARPA,
sis), Response to Question: What informa- Jan 1969, pp 32–35.
tion did Washington have on coordinated 34. Oberdorfer, Tet!, pp 201, 206–7,
attacks on cities?, nd [spring 1968]. 214–15.
Chapter 2
1. PACAF Summary of Air Operations, sive, pp 39–40; Intvw, Maj A. W. Thompson
Feb 1968, pp 3:A:1, 15, 17. with Maj James Gibson, FAC, 9th Inf Div,
2. Hist, 7AF, vol I, pt 1, pp 116–18. 1968, Mar 9, 1968.
3. Thompson, Saigon, pp 5–8; hist, 7. Oberdorfer, Tet!, pp 184–85; Peter
USMACV, 1968, vol II, pp 896–99. Braestrup, Big Story: How the American
4. Intvw, Maj A. W. Thompson with Lt Press and Television Reported and Inter-
Col Thomas P. Garvin, ALO, 25th Inf Div, preted the Crisis of Tet in 1968 in Vietnam
1968, Mar 12, 1968. and Washington (Boulder, 1977), vol I, pp
5. Maj John F. Schlight, Rules of En- 253–62.
gagement, 1 Jan 66–1 Nov 69 (Hq PACAF, 8. Combat after Action Rprt, Maj Evans E.
Proj CHECO, Aug 31, 1969 [sic]), pp 37–38; Warne, ALO, Phuoc Thuy province, 4:55
Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offensive, p a.m.–7:30 p.m., Feb 1, 1968, nd; Intvw, Maj
28. A. W. Thompson with Lt Col Robert C.
6. Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offen- Mason, ALO, 18th ARVN Div, 1968, nd
450
[Mar 1968]. (COMSEC Monitoring and Analysis), Dec

9. Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offen- 1970, pp 85–91; COMUSMACV to
sive, pp 36–38; Palmer, Summons of the CINCPAC and CINCSAC, 290415Z Sep 70,
Trumpet, pp 195–98. subj: CINCPAC Operations Security
10. Simmons, “Marine Operations in Viet- (OPSEC) Report on Arc Light (B–52) Op-
nam,” pp 300–301; Waldron and Beavers, erations in Southeast Asia; Intvw, Lt Col
Hue City, pp 51–53. Arthur W. McCants and James Hasdorf,
11. Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offen- PhD, with Gen John W. Vogt, 7AF Comdr,
sive, pp 32–34, 85–86. Apr–Sep 1972, Aug 8–9, 1978.
12. Waldron and Beavers, Hue City, pp 23. Thompson, Saigon, p 17; hist, 7AF,
25–26; Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offen- Jan–Jun 1968, vol I, pt 1, pp 136, 161.
sive, p 33, fig 7. 24. Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offen-
13. Braestrup, Big Story, vol II, app 26; sive, p 71.
Oberdorfer, Tet!, pp 246–51. 25. Notes on intvw, Col Ray Bowers with
14. Schlight, Rules of Engagement, 66–69, Lt Col Billy G. Gibson, C–130 pilot in South
pp 41–42; 7AF Regulation 55–49, Nov 14, Vietnam, 1968, Apr 21, 1972.
1968. 26. Notes of intvw, Col Ray Bowers with
15. PACAF Summary of Air Operations, Capt Lloyd J. Probst, C–130 pilot in South
Feb 1968, pp 2, 3:9–10. Vietnam, 1968, May 8, 1972.
16. Intvw, R. R. Kritt, PhD, with Lt Gen J. 27. Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offen-
R. Chaisson, USMC, Dir/MACV COC, sive, pp 42, 48, 51.
1967–1968, Aug 12, 1971; hist, SAC, Jan– 28. Ibid, pp. 42–43, 47–49.
Jun 1968, vol I, pp 75–76; hist, USMACV, 29. Ibid, pp 44–45; hist, 834th Air Div, Jul
1968, vol I, p 419; Dir/Mgt Analysis, USAF 67–Jun 68, pp 33–34; 315th Air Div Chro-
Mgt Summary, SEA, Feb 16, 1968, p 20. nology of Korean Contingency Support Ac-
17. Intvw, Maj Richard Clement and tions, Feb 1–29, 68, nd, p 3.
Charles Hildreth, PhD, with Gen John P. 30. Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offen-
McConnell, CSAF, 1965–1969, Nov 4, sive, pp 10, 55–56.
1970, p 26; SAC Command and Control in 31. Ibid, pp 57–58; ltr, Dir/Ops, AF
the SEA Contingency, Nov 12, 1968, atch to Advisory Gp, MACV, to 7AF, Apr 22, 68,
ltr, SAC to Hq USAF, Dec 5, 1968, subj: subj: VNAF Operations, 30 Jan–29 Feb 68;
Trends, Indicators, and Analyses (TIA) PACAF Summary of Air Operations, Feb 68,
(Your ltr, 10 Sep 68); Gen William W. pp 3:A:5, 8.
Momyer, Air Power in Three Wars (Wash- 32. Dir/Mgt Analysis, USAF Mgt Sum-
ington, 1978), pp 101–3. mary, SEA, Jan 5, 68; PACAF Summary of
18. Chaisson intvw [Kritt], pp 29–30; Gen Air Operations, Jan 68, p 3:A:4.
William C. Westmoreland, Historical Sum- 33. End of Tour Rprt, Brig Gen Donavon
mary, Feb 1–29, 1968, p 5. Smith, Chief, USAF Advisory Gp (MACV),
19. DOD Rprt, Selected Air and Ground Oct 66–Mar 68, nd [Mar 68], p 3:42.
Operations in Cambodia and Laos, Sep 10, 34. Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offen-
1973, pp 8–10, 13. sive, p 59; Dir/Mgt Analysis, USAF Mgt
20. SAC Bugle Note Bombing Concept, Summary, SEA, Feb 2, 68, p 64.
Nov 21, 1968, atch to ltr, SAC to Hq USAF, 35. Thompson and Thorndale, Tet Offen-
Dec 5, 1968, subj: Trends, Indicators, sive, p 71; Dir/Mgt Analysis, USAF Mgt
Analyses (TIA) (Your ltr, 10 Sep 68); Summary, SEA, Feb 2, 68, p 1; Feb 23, 68, p
USMACV 1968, vol I, pp 419–20. 1; Mar 68, p 1.
21. Ofc of Hist, Hq SAC, SAC Historical 36. Dir/Mgt Analysis, USAF Mgt Sum-
Study 115, The Search for B–52 Effective- mary, SEA, Mar 1, 68, p 1.
ness, Dec 16, 1969, pp 24–24; Garvin intvw. 37. Hist, USMACV, 1968, vol II, pp
22. Donzel E. Betts, Hiram Wolfe, III, 906–7.
Raymond P. Schmidt, and Thomas N. 38. Ibid, p 906.
Thompson, Deadly Transmissions 39. COSVN Resolution of March 1968, in
451
7AF Weekly Intelligence Summary, 68–25, Humiston, OSI District 50, to Dir/Ops, OSI
Jun 8–14, 68. District 50, Apr 17, 70, subj: Request for
40. Hq PACAF, Proj Corona Harvest In- Visual Reconnaissance (VR).
put, In-Country and Out-Country Strike Op- 44. Lee Bonetti, USAF Civic Action in
erations in Southeast Asia, vol IV, Support: Republic of Vietnam (Hq PACAF, Proj
Air Base Defense, p 14; Roger P. Fox, Air CHECO, Apr 1, 1968), pp 24, 36; Maj A. W.
Base Defense in the Republic of Vietnam, Thompson, USAF Civic Action in Republic
1961–1973 (Washington, 1979), pp 70–71. of Vietnam (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Mar
41. Proj Corona Harvest, Air Base De- 17, 1969). pp 22–24.
fense, pp 16–17; Thompson and Thorndale, 45. Thompson, Civic Action, pp 4–5;
Tet Offensive, pp 22–23. comments, Capt Paul Boulanger, base civic
42. Fox, Base Defense, pp 67–68, 71. action officer, Tan Son Nhut AB, Effects of
43. Ibid, pp 140–42; ltr, Lt Col Ray S. Tet on Civic Action, nd [Mar 1968].
Chapter 3
1. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- of the Armed Forces, Feb 24, 1968, pp 8–9.
nam, 1960–1968, pt III, p 49:2. 13. Msg, Gen Westmoreland to Gen
2. Charles H. Hildreth, Anne B. Mosco- Wheeler, 121823Z Feb 68, subj: none.
lino, et al, The Air Force Response to the 14. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore-
Pueblo Crisis, 1968 (Ofc/AF Hist, Jan 69), land, 172017Z Feb 68, subj: none.
pp 20–21, 24–25, 37. 15. Gen Westmoreland’s marginal nota-
3. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- tions on copy, msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen
nam, 1960–1968, pt III. p 49:3. Westmoreland, JCS 02847, 122014Z Mar
4. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore- 68, subj: none.
land, JCS 01590, 080448Z Feb 68, subj: 16. Msgs, Gen Westmoreland to Gen
none. Wheeler, 111150Z Mar 68 and 171247Z Mar
5. Msg, Gen Westmoreland to Gen 68, subj: none; Excerpts from memo, Gen
Wheeler and Adm Sharp, 081440Z Feb 68, Wheeler to President Johnson, Rprt of the
subj: none. JCS on Situation in Vietnam and MACV
6. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the Vietnam Recommendations, Feb 27, 68, in The Pen-
War, 1960–1968, pt III, p 49:4; msg, Gen tagon Papers as Published by the New York
Westmoreland to Gen Wheeler, 081557Z Times (New York, 1971), pp 615–21.
Feb 68, subj: Additional MACV 17. Department of Defense (The Pentagon
Requirements. Papers), United States-Vietnam Relations,
7. Msg, Gen Wheeler for Gen Westmore- 1945–1967 (Washington, 1971), bk 6, pt
land, JCS 01590, 090021Z Feb 68, subj: IV:c:7, vol II, pp 149–51.
none. 18. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore-
8. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- land, JCS 02590, 051558Z Mar 68, subj:
nam, 1960–1968, pt III, p 49:4. none; Senator Gravel Edition, The Pentagon
9. Msg, Gen Westmoreland to Gen Papers (Boston, 1971), vol IV, pp 575–76;
Wheeler and Adm Sharp, 091633Z Feb 68, Karnow, Vietnam, pp 555–56.
subj: none. 19. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore-
10. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore- land, JCS 02767, 090130 Mar 68, subj: none.
land, JCS 01695, 120108Z Feb 68, subj: 20. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore-
none. land, JCS 02848, 122014Z Mar 68, subj:
11. Hist, Gen Westmoreland to Adm none; New York Times, Mar 10, 68, p 1;
Sharp and Gen Wheeler, 120612Z Feb 68, Washington Post, Mar 10, 68, p 1.
subj: Assessment of Situation and Require- 21. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore-
ments. land, JCS 03024, 162045Z Mar 68, subj:
12. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in none; Karnow, Vietnam, p 556.
Vietnam, 1960–1968, pt III, p 49:8; Journal 22. Msgs, Gen Westmoreland to Gen
452
Wheeler, 111150Z Mar 68, subj: none; Gen for SEA with Increased Emphasis on Air
Wheeler for Gen Westmoreland, JCS 0295, Operations, with attached study; Van Staa-
141514Z Mar 68, subj: none; Adm Sharp to veren, Bombing Halt, pp 27–29.
Gen Wheeler, 270356Z Mar 68, subj: De- 33. Msgs, Gen Westmoreland to Gen
ployment of F–84 Aircraft to SEAsia. Wheeler and Adm Sharp, 071227Z Jan 68,
23. Gravel, Pentagon Papers, vol IV, pp subj: Arms and Ammunition from Cambo-
586–87, 591–92; Ofc Asst Sec Def (Systems dia; COMNAVFORV to DIA, 240902Z Feb
Analysis), paper, Alternative Strategies, Feb 68, subj: none.
29, 1968; David M. Barrett, Uncertain War- 34. Msg, SecState to CINCPAC, State
riors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Ad- 99756, 170408Z Jan 68, subj: Bowles Meet-
visers (Lawrence, Kan, 1993), pp 134–59. ing, quoting New Delhi to State 8396, Jan
24. Msgs, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore- 12, 68.
land, JCS 03449, 280152Z Mar 68, subj: 35. Msg, SecState to CINCPAC, State
none; Gen Westmoreland to Gen Wheeler 99895/1, 170528Z Jan 68, subj: Meeting
and Adm Sharp, 271333Z Mar 68, subj: with Prince Sihanouk, repeating Bangkok to
none; Gen Westmoreland to Gen Wheeler, State, Jan 10, 68.
281206Z Mar 68, subj: none; hist, 36. Ibid; msg, SecState to CINCPAC,
USMACV, 1968, vol I, pp 227–28. State 99897/1 subj: 170532Z Jan 68, Meet-
25. Hists, CINCPAC, 1968, vol III, p 40; ing with Prince Sihanouk, repeating New
and 7AF, Jan–Jun 68, vol I, pt 1, pp 234–35; Delhi to State 8395, Jan 12, 68.
Dep for Reserve Affairs and Education, Ofc 37. Msg, SecState to CINCPAC, 170530Z
of Asst SAF for Manpower and Reserve Af- Jan 68, subj: Third Working Session, repeat-
fairs, Data Base on the ANG and AFRES, ing Bangkok to State 8625, Jan 11, 68.
Oct 21, 74, pp 42–45; Dir/Mgt Analysis, 38. Msg, SecState to CINCPAC, State
USAF Mgt Summary, SEA, Apr 26, 68, p i; 9886, 170412Z Jan 68, subj: Bowles Mission
May 10, 68, p i; May 17, 68, p i, May 24, p i; Joint Communique, quoting Bangkok to
Jun 7, 68, p i; Jun 14, 68, pp i, 18–19. State, 8659, Jan 12, 68.
26. Gravel, Pentagon Papers, vol IV, pp 39. Ltr, Col Alfred G. Hutchens to
593–94; Data Base on the ANG and AFRES, Dir/Intelligence, 7AF, Feb 28, 68, subj: Op-
cited above, pp 153–54. eration Vesuvius.
27. Gravel, Pentagon Papers, vol IV, pp 40. Hist, USMACV, 1968, vol II, p 586;
594–602; Jacob Van Staaveren, The Air Dept of State, memo of conversation, Eu-
Force in Southeast Asia: Toward a Bombing gene Black, William P. Bundy, et al, Sep 30,
Halt (Ofc/AF Hist, Sep 70), p 37. 68, subj: Mr Black’s Visit to Cambodia and
28. Msg, Saigon to SecState, 44567 Asian Tour.
(originally 45436), 170645Z Jul 68, subj: 41. Msgs, Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain
none. and Gen Abrams, JCS 11266, 031415Z Oct
29. Background to CINCPAC Military 68, subj: Base Area 740; Gen Abrams to Gen
Assistance Sales Plan for South Vietnam Wheeler, 260843Z Oct 68, subj: none.
(Country Plan), FY 74–78, Jul 1, 72, pp 8–9. 42. Hist, USMACV, 1968, Annex F, pp
30. Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyn- F:IV:1–5, 7–9.
don B. Johnson, 1968–1969, bk 1, p 471. 43. Msg, Adm McCain to Gen Abrams,
31. Hist, USMACV, 1968, vol I, pp JCS 02945, 151527Z Aug 68, subj: Military
421–23; SEA Impact on SAC SIOP Forces, Actions in Cambodia.
Nov 12, 68, atch to ltr, SAC to USAF, Dec 5, 44. Msgs, Adm McCain to Gen Abrams,
68, subj: Trends, Indicators, and Analyses 180448Z Aug 68, subj: Military Action in
(TIA) (Your ltr, 10 Sep 68); Dir/Mgt Anal- Cambodia; Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler and
ysis, USAF Mgt Summary, SEA, Jan 5, 69, Adm McCain, 010833Z Sep 68, subj: Mili-
p 22. tary Actions in Cambodia.
32. Ltr, Maj Gen Richard H. Ellis, 45. Msg, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler and
Dir/Plans. Hq USAF, to Col [Howard M.] Adm McCain, 271114Z Oct 68, subj: Mili-
Fish, Apr 2, 68, subj: Concepts of Operations tary Actions in Cambodia.
453
46. Msgs, Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain, Cambodia; Adm McCain to Gen Wheeler,
072223Z Nov 68, subj: Actions Against 210012Z Nov 68, subj: none.
Chapter 4
1. PACAF Summaries of Air Operations, 11. Tolson intvw, May 27, 68; rprt, 1st
Feb–Dec 68, passim. Bde, 101st Abn Div, to CG, 101st Abn Div,
2. Shore, Khe Sanh, pp 132–33; intvw, Apr 29, 68, subj: After Action Rprt, Opera-
Capt J. W. A. Whitehorne, USA, with Maj tion Carentan II.
Gen John Tolson, CG, 1st Cav Div (Airmo- 12. Tolson intvw, May 27, 68; Tolson, Air
bile), Jun 17, 68. Mobility, p 184.
3. Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet; Tol- 13. Intvw, C. William Thorndale with
son intvw, Jun 17, 68; 31st Military Hist Det, Capt Wayne Gayler, ALO, 1st Squadron, 9th
Hq, ProvCorpsV, Hist Study 3–68, Opera- Cavalry (Airmobile), 68, May 24, 68.
tion Pegasus, Mar 31–Apr 15, 68, np, nd. 14. Intvw, Thorndale with Capt Donald L.
4. Shore, Khe Sanh, pp 134–44; Lt Gen Abbott, FAC, 1st Cav Div (Airmobile), 68,
John J. Tolson, Vietnam Studies: Airmobil- May 24, 68.
ity, 1961–197 (Washington, 1973), pp 173– 15. Intvw, Thorndale with Maj A. V. P.
77; Lt Col John K. Galvin, USA, “The Relief Anderson, III, ALO, 1st Bde, 1st Cav Div
of Khe Sanh,” Military Review, Jan 70, pp (Airmobile), 68, May 25, 68.
90–93. 16. Abbott intvw.
5. 1st ind to ltr, Hq, 1st Cav Div (Air- 17. Anderson intvw.
mobile), to Dir, DASC Victor, May 5, 68, 18. Tolson intvw, May 27, 68.
subj: Pegasus After Action Rprt, 30 Apr 68; 19. Anderson intvw.
ltr, ALO, 1st Cav Div (Airmobile), to Corps 20. Intvw, Thorndale with Capt William
ALO, Dir, I DASC, et al, Apr 30, 68, subj: R. Bradshaw, FAC, 1st Cav Div (Airmobile),
Pegasus After Action Rprt. 68, May 25, 68; C. William Thorndale, Op-
6. Tolson intvw, Jun 17, 68; Tolson, Air eration Delaware, 19 April–17 May 1968
Mobility, pp 172, 179. (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Sep 2, 68), p 22.
7. Shore, Khe Sanh, pp 149–51; Tolson, 21. Intvw, Thorndale with Maj Anthony
Air Mobility, p 238. C. Zielinski, ALO, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div,
8. Intvw, Whitehorne with Tolson, Jun 24, 68, May 23, 68.
68. 22. Ibid.
9. Ltr, Gen William W. Momyer, 7AF 23. Ltr, Maj Robert G. Archer to Lt Col
Comdr, to COMUSMACV, subj: Employ- Woods, Feb 2, 69, subj: Aircraft Command-
ment of Mk 36 Ordnance; 7AF Air Staff er’s Report on “Combat Trap”; msg, AFWL
summary Sheet, Current Plans Div, 7AF to AFSC, 131643Z Mar 69, subj: Combat
Tactical Air Control Center, nd [Mar 68], Trap Jungle Clearing Device.
subj: Interdiction of Route 548, nd [Mar 68]; 24. Zielinski intvw.
msgs, 7AF Tactical Air Control Center to I 25. Intvw, Thorndale with Capt Robert F.
DASC, DASC Victor, et al, 230821Z Mar Miller, ALO, 1st Cav Div (Airmobile), 68,
68, subj: Interdiction in SVN; 7AF to May 24, 68; msg, ProvCorpsV Tactical Ops
COMUSMACV, CG III MAF, 060506Z Apr Center to COMUSMACV, 290315Z Apr 68,
68, subj: 7th Air Force Interdiction of Enemy subj: Northern I CTZ Special Report,
LOCs. 280900H to 290900H 68.
10. Intvw, Whitehorne with Tolson, May 26. Miller intvw.
27, 68; ProvCorpsV OPlan Delaware/Lam 27. Rprt, 834th Air Div to Gen Momyer,
Son 216, para 3, Apr 16, 68; 1st Weather Gp, May 3, 68, subj: none.
Long Range Forecast Requirement of the 28. Miller intvw.
U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), for the Re- 29. Ibid; Thorndale, Operation Delaware,
public of Vietnam (RVN), nd [Dec 69], atch p 38.
to hist, 1st Weather Gp, Oct–Dec 69. 30. Abbott intvw.
454
31. Statement by FAC, May 3, 68; 7AF 51. Msgs, COMUSMACV to NMCC and
Tactical Air Control Center, Staff Summary CINCPAC, 050830Z May 68, subj: Special
Sheet, Jun 2, 68, subj: Short Round Report, Telecon; DOD/PRO to CINCPAC, CINC-
3 May 68. PACFLT, et al, 050945Z May 68, subj: CAS
32. Memo for the Record, Maj Gen John Field Information Rprt; Simmons “Marine
Tolson, CG, 1st Cav Div (Airmobile), May Operations in Vietnam,” p 306.
7, 68, subj: Firing Incident, 03 May 68. 52. Hist, USMACV, 1968, vol I, pp 159–
33. Anderson intvw. 60; Kenneth Sams, Lt Col John Schlight, et
34. Thorndale, Operation Delaware, pp al, The Air War in Vietnam, 1968–1969 (Hq
38–40, 50–52. PACAF, Proj CHECO, Apr 1, 70), p 34.
35. Tolson intvw, May 27, 68. 53. Msg, 633d Combat Support Gp, Plei-
36. PACAF Summary of Air Operations, ku, to NMCC, PACAF, et al, 050807Z May
Mar 68, p 3:5; hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 68, vol I, 68, subj: none.
pt 2, pp 484–86. 54. Msg, COMUSMACV to NMCC and
37. Intvw, Col Ray Bowers with Maj Alan CINCPAC, 052200Z May 68, subj: Morning
L. Gropman, navigator, 463d TAWg, 68, Telecon.
Apr 13, 72. 55. Msgs, Saigon to State, Saigon 26481,
38. Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 051700Z May 68, subj: none; COMUS-
150257Z May 68, subj: Operation Inferno. MACV to NMCC and CINCPAC, 052200Z
39. Atch to 7AF Tactical Air Control May 68, subj: Morning Telecon; Thompson,
Center Staff Summary Sheet, Nov 24, 68, Defense of Saigon, pp 7–9.
subj: Banish Beach; Gen George S. Brown, 56. Msg, DOD/PRO to CINCPAC, CINC-
7AF Comdr, memo for record, Sep 4, 68, PACFLT, et al, 101549Z May 68, subj:
subj: Banish Beach. Medical Report on General Loan; Ober-
40. Fox, Base Defense, p 132; 7AF Staff dorfer, Tet!, pp 165–71.
Summary Sheet, May 20, 68, subj: Rules of 57. Thompson, Defense of Saigon, pp
Engagement for Attacks on Enemy Rocket 20–29, 36–37.
Positions. 58. Hist, 7AF, vol I, pt 2, pp 486–88.
41. Thompson, Defense of Saigon, pp 59. Ibid, p 493.
57–58. 60. Hists, JCS, The JCS and the War in
42. Garvin intvw. Vietnam, 1960–1968, pt III, p 52:8;
43. 7AF Staff Summary Sheet, cited in FN USMACV, 1968, vol I, pp 132–33.
40. 61. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
44. Ltr, Gen Westmoreland to 7AF Vietnam, 1960–1968, pt III, pp 5:8–9.
Comdr, May 2, 68, subj: Air Attack on 62. Ibid, pp 28–32.
Enemy Rocket Positions. 63. Ltr, William W, Momyer, 7AF
45. Msg, Foreign Broadcast Information Comdr, to COMUSMACV, May 20, 68,
Service, Saigon, to 7th PsyOps, Okinawa, subj: Air Attacks on Enemy Rocket Posit-
PACAF, et al, 050815Z May 68, subj: none. ions.
46. Hist, USMACV, 1968, vol I, p 132. 64. Msg, II FForceV to 7AF, 260325Z
47. Msgs, DOD/PRO to CINCPAC, May 68, subj: Rules of Engagement for
CINCPACFLT, et al, Apr 28, 68, and Armed Helicopters and Air Attacks on En-
301226Z Apr 68, subj: Principal Objectives emy Rocket Positions.
and Forces to be Used in Enemy Attack 65. Ltr, William W. Momyer, 7AF
against Quang Nam Province. Comdr, to COMUSMACV, May 31, 68,
48. Thompson, Defense of Saigon, p 20. subj: Rules of Engagement of Air Attacks on
49. Msg, DOD/PRO to CINCPAC, Enemy Rocket Positions.
CINCPACFLT, et al, 050945Z May 68, 66. Fox, Base Defense, p 134.
subj: CAS Field Information Rprt. 67. Thompson, Defense of Saigon, pp.
50. C. William Thorndale, Defense of Da 47–48, 50–51; hist, USMACV, 1968, vol I,
Nang (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Aug 31, pp 219–20.
69), pp 17–22. 68. Thompson, Defense of Saigon, pp
455
52–53. 70. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in

69. Memo for Record, Phil Odeen, Ofc of Vietnam, 1960–1968, pt III, pp 52:12–13;
Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis), Regional msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Abrams, JCS
Programs, Mar 20, 70, subj: Vietnamization 6117, 042315Z Jun 68, subj: none.
Meeting with Secretary Laird. 71. Thompson, Defense of Saigon, p 64.
Chapter 5
1. Intvw, Lt Col R. A. MacDonough with 24. Flint intvw.
Maj Eugene Carnahan, FAC, 21st TASSq, 25. Intvws, Hanks with Capt Frederick E.
68, nd [summer 1968]. Brayee, S–2, 2d Bde, 9th Inf Div, 69, Jun 30,
2. Lt Col R. A. MacDonough, Truscott 69; and Lt Comdr James M. Carr, Jr., N2
White (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Dec 1, (Intelligence), TF–117, 69, Jun 30, 69.
68), pp 2–4. 26. Intvw, Hanks with Maj Thomas P.
3. Ibid, p 6. Laffey, Asst ALO, 9th Inf Div, 68–69, Jul 1,
4. Intvw, Macdonough with Maj Michael 69.
Burke, ALO, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, 68, nd 27. Kansfield intvw; Flint intvw.
[summer 68]. 28. Fulton, Riverine Operations, pp 170–
5. MacDonough, Truscott White, pp 17– 71; Kansfield intvw; Intvw, Hanks with Lt
18. Col M. E. White, USMC, Dep G–3 (Riverine
6. Burke intvw. War), 9th Inf Div, 69, Jul 6, 69.
7. Intvw, MacDonough with Col Joseph E. 29. Kansfield intvw.
Fix, Comdr, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, 68, nd 30. Laffey intvw.
[summer 68]. 31. Fulton, Riverine Operations, pp
8. Ibid. 179–80; Intvw, Hanks with Comdr James C.
9. Carnahan intvw. Froid, MRF N–4 (Logistics) and comdr, 9th
10. Fix intvw. River Assault Squadron, 68–69, Jun 30, 69.
11. MacDonough, Truscott White, pp 19– 32. Hist, USMACV, 1968, vol I, p 401.
20. 33. Intvw, Col Ray Bowers with Maj Alan
12. Ibid, pp 9–10; Fix intvw. L. Gropman, navigator, 463d TAWg, 68,
13. MacDonough, Truscott White, pp 9– Apr 13, 68.
17; Fix intvw. 34. Hist, USMACV, 1968, vol I, p 401.
14. Maj Gen William B. Fulton, USA, 35. Col Francis J. Kelley, USA, Vietnam
Vietnam Studies: Riverine Operations, Studies: U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–
1966–1969 (Washington, 1973), p 21. 1971 (Washington, 1973), pp 78–80.
15. Intvw, Capt Dorrell T. Hanks, Jr., with 36. Capt Joseph P. Meissner, USA, and
Maj Donald Frank Kansfield, ALO. 2d Bde, SSgt Leland J. Larson, Battle of Duc Lap:
9th Inf Div, Jan 2–Jun 30, 69, Jul 2, 69. After Action Rprt, Nov 27, 68.
16. Fulton, Riverine Operations, pp 31– 37. Rprt, 1st Lt William J. Harp, USA,
32, 56–58. through Det B–23 to CO, 5th Special Forces
17. Ibid, pp 31–94. Gp (A Bn), Nov 29, 68, subj: After Action
18. Intvw, Hanks with Maj Dennis Flint, Rprt.
G–3 (Air), 9th Inf Div, 69, Jun 30, 69. 38. Ibid; MACV after action intvw with
19. Intvw, Hanks with Capt Joseph Di- MSgt Thomas T Boody, nd, incl to Duc Lap
Eduardo, S–3 (Ops and Training) 2d Bde, After Action Rprt; hist, 31st TFWg, Jul–Sep
9th Inf Div, 69, Jul 1, 69. 68, vol I, pp 27–28.
20. Ibid. 39. Harp After Action Rprt.
21. Flint intvw. 40. Rprt, Logistical Support of Duc Lap,
22. Ibid. nd, incl to Duc Lap After Action Rprt.
23. Hanks, Riverine Operations in the 41. Msg, Horn DASC, Da Nang, to 7AF,
Delta (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Aug 31, 301830Z Sep 68, subj: Quang Nam Sector
69), p 31. Situation Rprt.
456
42. Ibid; intvws Kenneth Sams with Lt Gen James Ferguson, AFSC Comdr, Mar 14,
Col Donald J. Parsons, Dir/Ops, Horn DASC, 68, subj: none.
1968, Oct 14 and 30, 68. 53. Melvin F. Porter, Second Generation
43. Quang Nam Sector Situation Rprt. Weaponry in SEA (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO,
44. Intvw, Sams with 1st Lt Richard Sept 10, 70), pp 4, 15–17, 21–24, 71–72.
McDonald, 5th Special Forces Gp, 68, Oct 8, 54. Lt Col Ralph A. Rowley, The Air
68. Force in Southeast Asia: FAC Operations,
45. Quang Nam Sector Situation Rprt; 1965–1970 (Ofc/Af Hist, May 75), pp 37–
Parsons intvws. 39; Weapons and Force Plans Br, Plans Div,
46. Statement by Lt Col Connelly in 7AF Tactical Air Control Center, Oct 1–Dec
intvw, Sams with Lt Cols Daniel Connelly 31, 68; PACAF Summary of Air Operations,
and Maurice Williams, USA, 5th Special Jan–Dec 68, passim.
Forces Gp, 68, Lt Col Ralph Albright, ALO, 55. Hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 68, vol I, pt I, pp
Co C, 5th Special Forces Gp, 68, and Maj 114–15; hist data record, Op Div, 7AF Tacti-
Hugh D. Walker, FAC, 5th Special Forces cal Air Control Center, Apr–Jun 68; C.
Gp, 68, Oct 16, 68. William Thorndale, Air War in the DMZ (Hq
47. Parsons intvws; Simmons, “Marine PACAF, Proj CHECO, Aug 1, 69), pp 44–
Operations in Vietnam,” pp 316–17. 45; msg, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler and
48. Parsons intvws. Adm Sharp, 170447Z Jun 68, subj: Enemy
49. Lt Col Jack S. Ballard, The U.S. Air Air Activity in the DMZ Area.
Force in Southeast Asia: Development and 56. Hist data record, Current Ops Div, 7AF
Deployment of Fixed-Wing Gunships, 1962– Tactical Air Control Center, Jul–Sep 68.
1972 (Washington, 1982), pp 82–89. 57. Msg, 7AF to CINCPACAF, 310505Z
50. Ibid, pp 176–89. Aug 68, subj: Videotape of Helicopter Shoot
51. Maj Victor B. Anthony, The Air Force Down.
in Southeast Asia: Tactics and Techniques of 58. Sams, Schlight, et al, The Air War in
Night Operations, 1961–1970 (Ofc/AF Hist, Vietnam, 1968–1969, p 64; hist data record,
1973), pp 172–76; hist data record, Weapons Current Ops Div, 7AF Tactical Air Control
and Force Plans Br, Plans Div, 7AF Tactical Center, Jul–Sep 68; Lt Col Guyman Penix
Air Control Center, Oct 1–Dec 4, 1968. and Maj Paul T. Ringenbach, Air Defense in
52. Anthony, Night Operations, pp 121– Southeast Asia, 1945–1971 (Hq PACAF,
22, 127–28; ltr, Gen William W. Momyer to Proj CHECO, Jan 17, 73). pp 40–42.
Chapter 6
1. Robert Frank Futrell, The United States 5. Msg, Gen Westmoreland to Gen
Air Force in Korea, 1950–1953 (Washing- Wheeler, 220052Z Jan 68, subj: Visit to
ton, 1983), pp 114–15, 213–14; msg, Washington by Richard E Cabezas, LTC,
CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 242345Z Apr Inf, USA; Westmoreland hist notes, Dec 28,
65, subj: Control of Close Air Support 67–Jan 31, 68.
Operations; Warren A. Trest, Single 6. Chaisson intvw (Moody).
Manager for Air in SVN (Hq PACAF, Proj 7. Gen Westmoreland hist notes, Dec 28,
CHECO, Jul 1, 68), pp 14–17. 67–Jan 31, 68.
2. Intvw, Lt Col Ralph F. Moody, USMC, 8. Memo for record, Gen William W.
with Maj Gen John R. Chaisson, USMC, Momyer, 7AF Comdr, nd [Jan 16, 68], subj:
Dir/MACV Combat Ops Center, 67–68, Mar Ops Control of 1st MAW.
19, 69. 9. FMFPAC, Operations of Marine Forces
3. Hist, USMACV, 1968, vol I, pp 376, Vietnam, Mar 68, pp 67–68, 71–73; msg, III
381; Trest, Single Manager, pp 4–5. MAF to COMUSMACV, 18 [illegible] Jan
4. Memo for record, William W. Momyer, 68, subj: none.
7AF Comdr, Jan 21, 68, subj: Air Support in 10. Msg, Gen Westmoreland to Adm
I Corps. Sharp, 210945Z Jan 68, subj: none.
457
11. Lt Col Robert M. Burch, Single Man- moreland, Gen Abrams, and Gen Momyer,
ager for Air in SVN (Hq PACAF, Proj 110346Z May 68, subj: Single Managership.
CHECO, Mar 18, 69); msg, Gen Westmore- 29. Msg, Gen Westmoreland to Adm
land for Adm Sharp, 271148Z Feb 68, subj: Sharp, 151235Z May 68, subj: Single Man-
none. agement of Strike and Reconnaissance As-
12. Intvw, Robert W. Kritt with Adm U.S. sets.
Grant Sharp, CINCPAC, 64–68, Feb 19, 71. 30. Atch to memo, Gen William W.
13. Msg, Gen Westmoreland to Gen Momyer for Gen Westmoreland, May 18,
Abrams, 081231Z Mar 68, subj: none; ltr, 68, subj: Single Management—Preplanned
Gen William C. Westmoreland to CG III System Modification Test.
MAF, Mar 7, 68, subj: Single Management 31. Ibid; msg, Maj Gen Kerwin to Gen
of Strike and Reconnaissance Assets. Westmoreland, Gen Abrams, and Gen Mo-
14. JCS Dictionary of United Sates Mili- myer, 110346Z May 68, subj: Single Man-
tary Terms for Joint Usage, JCS Pub 1, Nov agership.
1, 60; Aug 1, 68. 32. Memo for record, Gen William W,
15. Burch, Single Manager, pp 9–12; Momyer, May 19, 68, subj: Single Manager
FMFPAC, Operations of Marine Forces of Air Assets.
Vietnam, Mar 68, pp 67–68. 33. Ibid; msg, Gen Wheeler to Adm Sharp
16. Trest, Single Manager, pp 34–35. and Gen Westmoreland, 171353Z May 68,
17. Memo, Brig Gen Jones E. Bolt, Dep subj: Operational Control of III MAF Avia-
Dir/Tactical Air Control Center, for Gen tion Assets; Chapman intvw.
Momyer and Gen Blood, Mar 18, 68, subj: 34. Ltr, Gen William W. Momyer to
Preplanned Sorties from I Corps. COMUSMACV, May 15, 68, subj: Single
18. Trest, Single Manager, pp 23–25. Management of Strike and Reconnaissance
19. FMFPAC, Operations of Marine Assets.
Forces Vietnam, Mar 68, p 64; msg, Gen 35. Rprt, Co C, 5th Special Forces Gp
Westmoreland to Gen Abrams, 081231Z (Abn), May 31, 68, subj: After Action Re-
Mar 68, subj: none. port, Battle of Kham Duc; rprt, Mobile
20. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore- Strike Forces, Co C, 5th Special Forces Gp
land, JCS 3562, 310239 Mar 68, subj: none. (Abn), to CO, Co C, May 16, 68, subj: After
21. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore- Action Report, Ngok Tavak FOB; State-
land, JCS 3665, 031930Z Apr 68, subj: none; ment, Capt Eugene E. Makowski, 5th Spe-
Intvw Benis M. Frank, Jack Shulimson, et al cial Forces Gp, Ngok Tavak, atch to Kham
with Gen Leonard F. Chapman, Jr., CMC, Duc after action rprt.
68–71, Mar 28, 79. 36. Gen Westmoreland hist notes, May
22. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Westmore- 1–31, 68; Statement by Capt Robert Hender-
land, 271722Z Apr 68, subj: Operational son, III, USA, nd, atch to Kham Duc after
Control of III MAF Aviation Assets. action rprt; Kenneth Sams and Maj A. W.
23. Msg, CG III MAF to COMUSMACV, Thompson, Kham Duc (Hq PACAF, Proj
040902Z May 68, subj: Single Management CHECO, Jul 8, 68), p. 5.
of Strike and Reconnaissance Assets. 37. Statement, Maj John W. Gallagher,
24. Burch, Single Manager, pp 15–16. Chief, Kham Duc Ground Control Team,
25. Msg, Gen Westmoreland to Adm May 68, May 17, 68.
Sharp, 091025Z May 68, subj: Review of 38. Statement, Lt Col Reece B. Black, I
Single Management System for Tactical Corps ALO, 68, May 16, 68.
Fighter Bomber Assets. 39. Ibid; statement, Capt Herbert Spier,
26. Burch, Single Manager, pp 16–17. FAC, Americal Div, 68, May 29, 68.
27. Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 40. Sams and Thompson, Kham Duc, p 32.
090003Z May 68, subj: Single Management 41. Gen Westmoreland hist notes, May
Presentation; Gen Westmoreland hist notes, 1–31, 68.
May 1–31, 68. 42. Atch to ltr, Gen Momyer to COMUS-
28. Msg, Maj Gen Kerwin to Gen West- MACV, May 15, 68, subj: Single Manage-
458
ment of Strike and Reconnaissance Assets. 834th Air Div, May 13, 68, subj: Evacuation
43. Spier statement. of Kham Duc.
44. Atch, to ltr, Gen Momyer to COMUS- 51. Gropman, Kham Duc, p 50.
MACV, May 15, 68, subj: Single Manage- 52. Ibid, pp 51–52.
ment of Strike and Reconnaissance Assets. 53. Intvw, Col Ray Bowers with TSgt John
45. Statements, Maj Ernest M. Wood, K. McCall, C–130 flight mechanic, 374th
USA, CO, 178th Assault Helicopter Co, 68, TAWg, 68, Apr 7, 72; ltr, 834th Air Div
May 29, 68; W O James L. Busby, USA, Airlift Control Element to 834th Air Div,
178th Assault Helicopter Co, 68, May 28, 68. May 13, 68, subj: Evacuation of Kham Duc.
46. Statement, 1st Lt S. T. Summerman, 54. Intvw, Col Ray Bowers with Lt Col
USMC, HMM–265, MAG–16, 68, May 28, James L. Wallace, aircraft comdr, 68, Apr 3,
68. 72.
47. Statement, 1st Lt Paul H. Moody, 55. Gallagher statement; Gropman, Kham
USMC, HMM-265, MAG–16, 68, May 28, Duc, pp 54, 58.
68. 56. Gropman, Kham Duc, pp 59–60,
48. Statements, Capt Philip Smothermon, 57. Ibid; Statement, Col Joe M. Jackson,
FAC, Americal Div, 68, May 18, 68; Maj Det Comdr, 311th ACSq, 68, May 3, 72;
James C. Gibler, FAC, Americal Div, 68, notes of intvw, Col Ray Bowers with Lt Col
May 18, 68; Lt Col Robert Andrus, FAC, 2d Emmett A. Niblack, Chief, Standardization
ARVN Div, 68, May 28, 68. and Evaluation, 311th ACSq, 68, May 3, 72.
49. Lt Col Alan L. Gropman, Airpower 58. Msg, COMUSMACV to NMCC and
and the Airlift Evacuation of Kham Duc CINCPAC, 131000Z May 68, subj: Evening
(Maxwell AFB, Ala, 79), pp 37–49, 56; Telecon; Kham Duc after action rprt.
Gallagher statement. 59. Statement, Maj Jack Anderson, Asst
50. Gropman, Kham Duc, pp 4, 49; ltr, ALO, Americal Div, 68, May 29, 68.
834th Air Div Airlift Control Element to 60. Gropman, Kham Duc, p 25.
Chapter 7
1. Burch, Single Manager, pp 19–22. 061130Z Jul 68, subj: Evaluation of Single
2. Msgs, CG FMFPAC, to CG III MAF, Management, 30 May–27 Jun 68.
160911Z May 68, subj: none; to CG III MAF 10. Msg, 7AF AFSSO to CSAF AFSSO
and CG 1st MAW, 182000Z May 68, subj: and CINCPACAF AFSSO, 051115Z Aug
none. 68, subj: Single Management of Strike and
3. Memo, CMC for JCS, Jun 14, 68, subj: Reconnaissance Assets.
Operational Control of III MAF, quoted in 11. Msg, CG FMFPAC to CG III MAF,
msg, JCS to CINCPAC, 191952Z Jun 68, 042313Z Sep 68, subj: none.
subj: same. 12. Ibid; Chapman intvw; msg, 7AF
4. Msg, CG III MAF to COMUSMACV, AFSSO to CSAF AFSSO and CINCPACAF
300636Z Jun 68, subj: III MAF Evaluation AFSSO, 051115Z Aug 68, subj: Single Man-
of Single Management/Strike Support. agement of Strike and Reconnaissance As-
5. Msg, 7AF Tactical Air Control Center sets.
to 1st MAW, 060219Z Jun 68, subj: 1st 13. Msg, CINCPAC to JCS, 041118Z Sep
MAW Sortie Allocation. 68, subj: Single Management.
6. Memo, Gen William W. Momyer to 14. 7AF rprts, Single Management of
7AF Dir/Ops, Jun 20, 68, subj: none. Strike and Reconnaissance Assets, Jun 27–
7. Msg, 7AF to PACAF, 270015Z Jun 68, Jul 27, 68, nd; Single Management of Strike
subj: Operational Control of III MAF and Reconnaissance Assets, Jul 28–Aug 28,
Aviation. 68, nd; Ofc of Asst SecDef (Systems Analy-
8. MACV J–3 Evaluation of Single Man- sis), study, Tactical Air Operations in South
agement, May 30–Jun 27, 68, nd [Jun 68]. Vietnam, nd [Aug 69].
9. Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 15. Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC,
459
071218Z Aug 68, subj: Single Management. 27. Msg, CG III MAF to COMUSMACV,
16. Msg, CG, ProvCorpsV to CG III 120608Z Jan 69, subj: none.
MAF, 141538Z Jul 68, subj: Preliminary 28. PACAF Summary of Air Operations,
Rprt, Operation Thor. Apr 68, Jun 68, Jun 70, passim.
17. 7AF Dir/Plans, Staff Summary Sheet, 29. Tolson, Air Mobility, pp 209–12; hist,
Jun 29, 68, subj: Thor Planning Conference; USMACV, 1969, vol I, pp IV:20–24. V:40.
Maj Robert M. Burch, The ABCCC in SEA 30. Hist, USMACV, 1969, vol I, pp
(Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Jan 15, 69), p IV:12–20; 1970, vol I, pp IV:10–23.
16. 31. Msgs, CINCPAC to CINCPACAF,
18. Msg, CG ProvCorpsV to CG III MAF, CINCPACFLT, and COMUSMACV,
141538Z Jul 68, subj: Preliminary Report, 200120Z Mar 70, subj: Southeast Asia Air
Operation Thor; Notes of briefing by Lt Col Munitions Expenditures; 7AF to PACAF,
T. J. Stevens, USMC, Thor critique, Udorn, 250555Z Mar 70, subj: Southeast Asia Air
Thailand, Jul 13, 68. Munitions Expenditure.
19. Msgs, CG ProvCorpsV to CG III 32. Hist, USMACV, 1968, vol III, p 154;
MAF, 141538Z Jul 68, subj: Preliminary ltr, Lt Gen Keith B. McCutcheon, USMC, to
Report, Operation Thor; Lt Col J. S. Stoer, Maj Gen HomerS. Hill, DCS/Air, Hq USMC.
Rprt, Single Management, Mar 8–Dec 31, 33. Lt Gen Keith B, McCutcheon,
68, Jan 8, 69. “Marine Aviation in Vietnam,” U.S. Naval
20. Msg, CG III MAF to COMUSMACV, Institute Proceedings, May 1971, p 137.
210932Z Oct 68, subj: Evaluation of Thor. 34. Msg, XXIV Corps SSO and 7AF SSO,
21. Stoer, Single Mgt Rprt, pp 43–45; 140300Z Jun 70, subj: Planned Operation.
msg, CG III MAF to COMUSMACV, 35. Msgs, 7AF to CG XXIV Corps,
200229Z Oct 68, subj: Relocation of Fwd 161130Z Jun 70, subj: none; Lt Gen Suther-
Bomb Line (FBL). land to Gen Abrams, 230300Z Jun 70, subj:
22. Msg, 7AF to COMUSMACV, “Thrash Light” Results.
310550Z Oct 68, subj: Relocation of For- 36. 1st MAW Command Chronology, Jun
ward Bomb Line (FBL). 70, p 8; msg, CG 1st MAW to AIG–19,
23. Msgs, Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain 170130Z Jun 70, subj: FMAW SITREP
and Gen Abrams, JCS 10964, 252252Z Sep 1777, 160001H–162400H.
68, subj: none. 37. Intvw, Maj R. B. Clement and Capt R.
24. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in G. Swenston with Gen George S. Brown, 7AF
Vietnam, 1960–1968, pt III, pp 54:6–8; Comdr, 68–70, Oct 19–20, 70, pp 17–19.
Cooper, The Lost Crusade, pp 403–4. 38. Ltr, Lt Gen Keith B. McCutcheon,
25. Msgs, JCS to CINCPAC, CINCSAC, USMC, to Gen Leonard F. Chapman, Jr.,
et al, 010150Z Nov 68, subj: Air Recon- CMC, Aug 16, 70.
naissance Operations; JCS to CINCPAC and 39. MACV Directive 95–4, Aug 15, 70.
COMUSMACV, 242400Z Nov 68, subj: Air 40. McCutcheon ltr.
Reconnaissance Operations; JCS to AIG 41. McCutcheon, “Marine Aviation,” p
7077, 010100Z Nov 68, subj: Operations 137.
against NVN. 42. Intvw, R. R. Kritt, ph D, with Lt Gen
26. Proposed MACV Directive 95–4, Dec Robert E. Cushman, Jr., CG III MAF, 67–68,
68. Aug 13, 71.
Chapter 8
1. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- nam, 1969–1970, pp 218–19.
nam, 1969–1970, pp 5–7. 4. Msgs, Gen McConnell, Acting CJCS, to
2. Msg, Dir/Joint Staff to Gen Nazzaro, Gen Abrams, JCS 01836, 120010Z Feb 69,
Acting CINCPAC, and Gen Abrams, JCS subj: none; Gen Abrams to Gen McConnell,
00936, 230107Z Jan 69, subj: Cambodia. 130230Z Feb 69, subj: none.
3. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- 5. Henry Kissinger, White House Years
460
(Boston, 1979), pp 243–44. CINCSAC, and Lt Gen Gillem, JCS/J–3,

6. 7. Msg, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler 05706, 091745Z May 69, subj: Operations
and Adm McCain, 051012Z Mar 69, subj: Breakfast and Lunch.
Retaliatory Actions. 20. New York Times, Jul 15, 73, p 1.
7. Msg, Paul Kearney to Adm McCain and 21. Kissinger, White House Years, pp
Gen Abrams, JCS 13184, subj: none, retrans- 249–52.
mitting memo, CJCS to SecDef, Mar 12, 69, 22. Ibid, p. 251; msgs, State to Rangoon,
subj: Observations and Recommendations Aug 15, 69, subj: Senator Mansfield’s Visit
Concerning the Military Situation in South- to Cambodia, August 21–23, 1969; Phnom
east Asia. Penh to State, Sep 8, 69, subj: Mansfield
8. Kissinger, White House Years, pp Visit, August 21 through 23, 1969.
239–40. 23. PACAF Summary of Air Operations,
9. Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Mar 69–Apr 70, passim; hist, JCS, The JCS
Richard Nixon (New York, 1978), pp and the War in Vietnam, 1969–19, p 221.
380–81. The Department of Defense “white paper,”
10. Msg, CJCS to COMUSMACV, Selected Air and Ground Operations in Cam-
201917Z Mar 69, subj: Cambodia, retrans- bodia and Laos, has transposed the numbers
mitting Bangkok to State 4992, 191145Z of Base Area 740, a target mentioned in the
Mar 68. Menu message traffic, into Base Area 704,
11. Kissinger, White House Years, pp some 200 miles southwest of the true target.
245–47; msgs 3d Air Div SSO (Gillem) to 24. Kissinger, White House Years, pp 284,
MACV SSO (Abrams), 180420Z Mar 69 and 288.
180750Z Mar 69, subj: none. 25. E. H. Hartsook, The Air Force in
12. Kissinger, White House Years, p 253. Southeast Asia: The Administration Empha-
13. DOD Rprt, Selected Air and Ground sizes Air Power, 1969 (Ofc/AF Hist, Nov
Operations in Cambodia and Laos, Sep 10, 71), p 4.
73, pp 5–11. 26. Extension of Remarks, Rep Ronald V.
14. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain, Dellums, “Escalation, American Options,
100831Z Sep 69, subj: Salem House Eval- and President Nixon’s War Moves,” Con-
uation; to Adms Moorer and McCain, Gen gressional Record, vol 118, pt 13, 92d
Holloway, and Lt Gen Gillem, 110811Z Jun Congress, May 10, 72, pp 16750–51, 16800.
69, subj: Summary of Operation Dinner 27. Kissinger, White House Years, p 239.
Alfa; Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain, Gen 28. Ibid, pp 271–72.
Holloway, and Gen Abrams, 121546Z Jul 29. Memo, SecDef for the President, nd,
69, subj: Operation Menu; to Gen Holloway, subj: Trip to Vietnam and CINCPAC, Mar
JCS 04146, 251829Z Mar 70, subj: Opera- 5–12, 1969.
tion Menu. 30. Memo, Gen George S. Brown for Lt
15. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain, Gen John B. McPherson, Asst to CJCS, Mar
Gen Abrams, and Lt Gen Gillem, JCS 8, 69, subj: Reduced U.S. Levels of Partici-
05292, 302253Z Apr 69, subj: Operations pation in SVN.
Breakfast and Lunch. 31. Memo, SecDef for the President, nd,
16. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler, subj: Trip to Vietnam and CINCPAC, Mar
120535Z May 69, subj: none; to Gen 5–12, 69.
Wheeler and Adm McCain, 311022Z Jan 70, 32. Ibid.
subj: Operation Menu. 33. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 272.
17. Washington Star, Mar 25, 69, p 1. 34. Ibid, p 1481.
18. New York Times, May 9, 69, p 1. 35. Msg, Gen Goodpaster to Gen Abrams,
19. Msgs, Gen Andrew J. Goodpaster, 282219Z Mar 69, subj: none.
USA, to Gen Abrams, JCS 03692, 262115Z 36. National Security Decision Memo 9,
Mar 69, subj: none; Lt Gen John C. Meyer, Apr 1, 69, subj: Vietnam.
USA, J–3, OJCS, to Gen Abrams, Adm 37. Security Study Memo 36, Apr 10, 69,
McCain, Lt Gen Keith K. Compton, Vice subj: Vietnamizing the War.
461
38. Hartsook, The Administration Empha- Fox, Base Defense, pp 110–11.

sizes Air Power, pp 14–16. 53. Msg, AFSSO Tan Son Nhut to
39. Brown intvw (Clement and Swenston), PACAF SSO, 061105Z Oct 68, subj: none.
p 124. 54. Msg, Senior Representative, SAC X-
40. Hartsook, The Administration Empha- Ray, Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii, to 3d Air
sizes Air Power, pp 16–17. Div, 181945Z Oct 68, subj: Arc Light Sortie
41. Msg, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain, Rate, retransmitting COMUSMACV to
300316Z Mar 69, subj: Air Force Tactical SAC, nd, subj; same.
Fighter Posture in SEA. 55. Msg, CINCPAC to JCS, CINCSAC, et
42. Msgs, Adm McCain to Gen Wheeler, al, 191152Z Oct 68, subj: Arc Light Sortie
050255Z Apr 69, subj: Force Posture in Rate, forwarding the views of General
SEAsia; Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain, JCS Abrams.
04502, 131153Z Apr 69, subj: Tactical Air- 56. Memo, Lt Gen K. K. Compton to
craft Reductions; Hartsook, The Administra- CINCSAC, Oct 25, 1968, subj: Matters for
tion Emphasizes Air Power, p 19. Inclusion in Your Monthly Letter to CSAF-
43. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Gen Good- 1800 Sortie Rate.
paster, with the President in Calif, 231554Z 57. Msg, SAC to 3d Air Div, 162227Z
Mar 69, subj: none; hist, JCS, The JCS and Dec 68, subj: Arc Light Sortie Rate.
the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 109–10; 58. Msg, SAC to JCS, 180305Z Dec 68,
7AF Background Paper on NSSM 36, nd subj: B–52 Sortie Rate.
[Jan 17, 70]. 59. Msg, SAC to 3d Air Div, 032346Z Jan
44. Kissinger, White House Years, p 274; 69, subj: Arc Light Sortie Rate retrans-
hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Vietnam, mitting CINCPAC to SAC, 030454Z Jan 69,
1969–1970, pp 115–16. subj: same.
45. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in 60. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 118–19, 123–24. Vietnam, 1969–1970, p 64.
46. Msg, Paul M. Kearney, Admin Asst to 61. Ibid, pp 134–38; USAF Mgt Summary,
CJCS, to Adm McCain, Gen Abrams, JCS SEA, Jan 5, 69, p 22; Dec 31, 69, p 2:17.
10688, subj: none, retransmitting memo, JCS 62. Hist, SAC, fiscal 69, vol I, pp 173–74;
for SecDef, JCSM–540–69, Aug 30, 69, msgs, 7AF to SAC and 3d Air Div, 090925Z
subj: Force Planning; 7AF Background Dec 68, subj: Arc Light Tactics; SAC to
Paper on NSSM–36, nd [Jan 17, 70]. COMUSMACV, CINCPAC, et al, 202240Z
47. Ltr, Gen George S. Brown to Lt Gen Dec 68, subj: Arc Light Bombing Tactics.
Glen W. Martin, DCS/Plans and Ops, Hq 63. Hist, SAC, fiscal 69, vol I, pp 174–75;
USAF, Jun 12, 69. msg, 3d Air Div to 4242d Strat Wg, 4258th
48. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Strat Wg, et al, 190801Z Jan 68, subj: Azi-
Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 133–34; msg, SAC muth Dispersion Bombing.
to 3d Air Div, 092252Z Aug 69, subj: Pro- 64. New York Times, Sep 26, 69, p 1.
gram/Budget Exercise 703. 65. Stanley Millet, ed, South Vietnam:
49. Brown intvw (Clement and Swenston), U.S.-Communist Confrontation in Southeast
p 124. Asia, vol IV, 1969 (New York, 1974), p 159.
50. Hist, 7AF, Jul–Dec 69, vol I, pt 1, pp 66. Public Papers of the Presidents of the
xxx–xxxix; USAF Mgt Summary, SEA, Feb United States (Washington, 1971); Richard
6, 70, p 1:7. M. Nixon, 1969, p 767.
51. PACAF Summary of Air Operations, 67. Ibid. p 907; Millet, South Vietnam, 19,
Jan 69, p 7, Dec 69, p 6; USAF Mgt Sum- pp 196–99.
mary, Jan 9, 70, pp 2:14–15. 68. Kissinger, White House Years, p 1481;
52. Hist, 7AF, Jul–Dec 69, pp xli–xlii; Millet, South Vietnam, 1969, pp 203–7.
Chapter 9
1. Capt Robert F. Colwell, Tactical Reconnaissance in Southeast Asia, July 69–
462
June 71 (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Nov 23, eration Massachusetts Striker.
71), pp 33–38; annex A to ACIC Sentinel 21. Rprt, CO, 9th Marines, to CG, 3d Mar
Suffix/Simplex Loran OPlan, Nov 9, 70. Div, Apr 8, 69, subj: Combat After Action
2. Hist, MAC, Jul 69–Jun 70, vol I, pp Rprt.
25–33. 22. Intvw, Lt Col Bert Aton with Lt Col
3. Cecil L. Reynolds, MAC Aeromedical George C. Fox, CO, 2d Bn, 9th Marines, 69,
Airlift Support of U.S. SEA Operations Aug 3, 69.
(1964–1971) (MAC, 1973), pp 83–85, 105. 23. Ibid; Washington Post, Aug 13, 73, p
4. 1st Lt Edward P. Brynn, Reconnais- 1; Col Bert Aton and C. William Thorndale,
sance in Southeast Asia (Hq PACAF, Proj The A Shau Valley Campaign, December
CHECO, Jul 25, 69, pp 19–23, 45, 49. 1968–May 1969 (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO,
5. Brown intvw (Clement and Swentston), Oct 15, 69), p 16.
pp 98–99, 124. 24. Massachusetts Striker Rprt.
6. Brynn, Reconnaissance, pp 32–33. 25. Incl 11, Air Support, to Massachusetts
7. PACAF Summary of Air Operations, Striker Rprt.
Jan–Dec 69, passim. 26. Aton and Thorndale, A Shau Valley,
8. Ibid, Jan–Dec 68, passim. pp 18–19; intvw, Lt Col Bert Aton with Capt
9. Brown intvw (Clement and Swenston), Albert W. Estes, FAC, 3d Bde, 101st Abn
p 4. Div, 69, Aug 8, 69; incl, Combat After Ac-
10. PACAF Summary of Air Operations, tion Rprt (Intelligence), Apache Snow, nd
Jan–Dec 68, Jan–Dec 69, passim. [Jun 69], subj: Intelligence Exploitation of
11. Ibid, Jan–Dec 69, passim. “Dong Ap Bia.”
12. Military Working Arrangement be- 27. Estes intvw; rprt, 3d Bde, 101st Abn
tween Comdr, 7th AF and Dep Chief of Div (Airmobile), Jun 25, 69, subj: After
Staff, Royal Australian Air Force, nd [1967]; Action Report, Summary, Apache Snow.
hist data record, RAAF No 2 Squadron, Apr– 28. 22d Mil Hist Det, narrative, Operation
Jun 68; Jan–Mar 69; hist, 25th TFWg, Jan– Apache Snow, 101st Abn Div, May 10–Jun
Mar 68, p 14; James T. Bear, The RAAF in 7, 69, nd.
SEA (Hq PACAF, Sep 30, 70), pp 6–7, 17– 29. Ibid; tab B–3 to atch to ltr, Lt Gen
19, 29, 35–36, 45, 52. Melvin Zais, USA, to Brig Gen James L.
13. James T. Bear, The Employment of Air Collins, Chief of Military History, Jan 5, 71,
by the Thais and Koreans (Hq PACAF, Proj subj: none.
CHECO, Oct 30, 70), pp 24–26, 30–31. 30. Tactical Air Support, incl 8 to Apache
14. Ibid, pp 4–5, 7–11, 13–14. Snow Rprt.
15. Lt Col Bert B. Aton and E. S. Montag- 31. Apache Snow hist; msg, Lt Gen
liani, The Fourth Offensive (Hq PACAF, Stilwell, CG XXIV Corps, to Gen Abrams,
Proj CHECO, Oct 1, 69), pp 21–24, 40–45. 211711Z May 69, subj: none; tab B–3 to
16. PACAF Summary of Air Operations, Zais ltr, cited above.
Feb 69, pp 3:9–10. 32. Hist, USMACV, 1969, vol I, p V:57.
17. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler 33. Time, Jun 6, 1969, p 5.
and Adm McCain, 261259Z Feb 69, subj: 34. Hartsook, The Administration Empha-
Request for Arc Light Strikes in Tri-border sizes Air Power, p 62.
Area; Gen Wheeler to Gen Abrams, JCS 35. Nixon Papers, p 767.
02439, 262357Z Feb 69, subj: none; hist, 36. Ernie S. Montagliani, The Siege of Ben
USMACV, 1969, vol I, pp V:70–71. Het (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Oct 1, 69),
18. Col Fred L. Webster, Dir/Horn DASC, pp 2–4.
Resume’, nd, of A Shau Valley Interdiction 37. Ibid. pp 13–16; msgs, Gen Abrams to
Campaign, Dec 9, 68–Feb 26, 69. Gen Wheeler and Adm McCain, 200906Z
19. 7AF Weekly Air Intelligence Sum- Jun 69 and 090814Z Jul 69, subj: Operation
mary, 68–50, Dec 14, 68, p 2. Menu.
20. Rprt, 2d Bde, 101st Abn Div, May 25, 38. Statement, Capt Donald L. Marx, Air
69, subj: Combat After Action Report, Op- Ops Ofcr, DASC Alpha, 69, Jul 11, 69.
463
39. Statement, Lt Col Thomas M. Craw- Authority to Conduct B–52 Strikes within
ford, Jr., Dir/DASC Alpha, 69, Jul 10, 69. Disputed Area Vicinity Bu Prang; Adm
40. 7AF Summary, Ben Het/Dak To Moorer, Acting CJCS, to Gen Abrams, JCS
Campaign, May 1–July 2, 1969, nd. 14976, 020430Z Dec 69, subj: Arc Light
41. Hist, USMACV, 1969, vol I, pp Strikes; Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler,
V:77–78. 070933Z Dec 69, subj: Summary of Arc
42. Msgs, Adm McCain to Adm Moorer, Light Strikes against Enemy Positions near
011510Z Dec 69, subj: Arc Light in Bu Prang CIDG Camp, Nights of 2–3 and
Disputed Areas; Adm Moorer, Acting 3–4 Dec 69.
CJCS, to Gen Abrams, JCS 14943, 012024Z 43. 7AF Weekly Air Intelligence Sum-
Dec 69, subj: Request for Operational mary, Aug 29–Sep 4, 69, pp 4–7.
Chapter 10
1. Msgs, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, to CINCPAC, Jun 8, 69, subj: Republic of
290859Z Jul 68, subj: RVNAF Improvement Vietnam Proposals, Midway Summit Meet-
and Modernization; VNAF Improvement ing, 8 June 1969; hist, JCS, The JCS and the
and Modernization Plan, app VI to James T. War in Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 185–86.
Bear, VNAF Improvement and Moderniza- 11. Memo, SecDef for Service Secretaries
tion Program (Hq, PACAF, Proj CHECO, and CJCS, Aug 12, 1969, subj: Government
Feb 5, 70). of Vietnam Proposals, Midway Summit
2. Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, Meeting, 8 June 1969.
080425Z Oct 68, subj: RVNAF Improve- 12. Brown intvw (Clement and Swenston),
ment and Modernization, Phase II. pp 86–87, 89.
3. Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 13. Ibid, p 81; Intvw, Kenneth Sams and
030610Z May 69, subj: RVNAF Improve- Richard Kott with Gen George S. Brown,
ment and Modernization. 7AF Comdr, 68–70, Mar 30, 70.
4. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- 14. End of Tour Rprt, Brig Gen Charles
nam, 1969–1970, pp 177–78; msg, COMUS- W. Carson, Chief, USAF Advisory Gp, Mar
MACV to CINCPAC, 090515Z Nov 68, 25, 68–Aug 6, 69, Aug 5, 69.
subj: Implementation of Phase II Plan for 15. Ibid.; Intvw, James T. Bear and Ken-
RVNAF Improvement and Modernization. neth Sams with Brig Gen Kendall S. Young,
5. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- Chief, USAF Advisory Gp, 69–70, Nov 3,
nam, 1969–1970, pp 178–79. 1970.
6. Escalation, American Options, and 16. Carson rprt; James T. Bear, VNAF Im-
President Nixon’s War Moves, Extension of provement and Modernization (Hq PACAF,
Remarks by Hon Ronald V. Dellums, Con- Proj CHECO, Feb 5, 70), p 65.
gressional Record, vol 118, pt 13, 92d Con- 17. Carson rprt; Notes of intvw, James T.
gress, 2d Session, May 10–11, 72, 16752. Bear with Lt Col J. W. Woodmansee, USA,
7. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- S–3, 164th CAG, 69–70, Feb 2, 70.
nam, 1969–1970, pp 181–82. 18. Bear, Improvement and Moderniza-
8. Msg, JCS to CINCPAC, JCS 6304, tion, pp 66–67.
021346Z May 69, subj: RVNAF Improve- 19. Language: The Key to Vietnamiza-
ment and Modernization, quoting memo, tion, HQ USAF, Trends, Indicators, and
Dep SecDef to Secretaries of the Military Analyses, Oct 69; Defense Attache’ Ofc,
Departments and CJCS, Apr 28, 69, subj: Quarterly Assessment, Oct 31, 73, p II:5.
RVNAF Phase II Plan for Improvement and 20. Language: The Key to Vietnamiza-
Modernization. tion, cited above.
9. Msg, JCS to CINCPAC, JCS 5531, 21. Ltr, Pacific-SEA Br, Plans Section, to
291543Z Jul 69, subj: RVNAF Improvement DCS/Plans and Ops ([Lt] Gen [Glen W.]
and Modernization. Martin), nd [summer 69], subj: English
10. Atch to memo, Chief of Staff, MACV, Language Training in SVN.
464
22. Bear, Improvement and Moderniza- 40. Ibid; Bear, Improvement and Moderni-
tion, pp 27–31. zation, pp 34–35.
23. Ltr, 7AF DCS/Plans to Dir, Tactical 41. Annex B to VNAF Plan 69–14, May
Analysis, Jan 7, 70, subj: Inputs to CHECO 28, 69; Bear, Improvement and Moderniza-
Rprt; Memo, Gen George S. Brown for 7AF tion, pp 38–39,
Chief of Staff, Sep 23, 69, subj: Nha Trang 42. Maj M. J. Grady, Interdiction in III
Manning Requirements. Corps Tactical Zone: Proj DART (Hq
24. End of Tour Rprt, Col Paul E. Bell, PACAF, Proj CHECO, Aug 10, 69), pp 7–8.
Chief USAF Advisory Gp Team 2, Dec 4– 43. Ltr, Gen Brown to Maj Gen Richard
Oct 30, 69, nd. H. Ellis, Dir/Plans, Hq USAF, Mar 10, 69,
25. End of Tour Rprt, Col H. H. D. Hei- subj: none.
berg, Jr., Chief USAF Advisory Gp Team 1, 44. Intvw, Maj M. J. Grady with Maj Vin-
Dec 4, 68–Oct 30, 69, nd. cent J. Evans, Comdr, Det L, 504th TASGp,
26. Annex A to VNAF Plan 69–17, Air 68–69, Apr 1, 69; Grady, DART, pp 21–22.
Logistics Command, Aug 1, 69. 45. Grady, DART, pp 16–17; End of Tour
27. Young intvw. Rprt, Col John C. O’Neill, Dir/Ops, USAF
28. Heiberg rprt; msg, 7AF SSO to Advisory Gp, 69, Nov 3, 69.
PACAF SSO, 120805Z Oct 69, subj: Viet- 46. DSPG Documentary Supplement I,
namizing the War; 7AF Combined Cam- Jun 69–Aug 70, p II:28; ltr, Asst DCS/Ops,
paign Plan, FY 1/70, nd. 7AF, to DCS/Plans, Jan 7, 70, subj: 7AF
29. Bear, Improvement and Moderniza- OPlan 498–69, Combined Campaign Plan
tion, pp 54–55; End of Tour Rprt, Col Quarterly Report (Your ltr, 26 Dec 69); Sig-
Wayne G. Grooms, senior adviser to the nificant VNAF Achievements from a Head-
VNAF Logistics Command, Aug 13, 69– quarters Point of View, atch to End of Tour
Aug 3, 70, Jul 15, 70, p 6; USAF Advisory Rprt, Col William A Lafferty, Dir/Plans and
Gp, Vietnam, Military Assistance Program Programs, USAF Advisory Gp, Jul 69–Jun
Rprt, Oct–Dec 69, nd. 71, Jun 9, 71.
30. Bear, Improvement and Moderniza- 47. Young intvw.
tion, p 59; 7AF Combined Campaign Plan 48. Memo, Curtis W. Tarr, Asst SAF
Quarterly Rprt, FY 2/69, nd. (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), for Secre-
31. Heiberg rprt. tary Laird, Oct 7, 69, subj: Observations on
32. Ibid; USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, a Trip to Vietnam.
Military Assistance Program Rprt, Oct–Dec 49. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
69, nd. Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 197–98.
33. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Abrams, 50. Memo, Ivan Selin, Acting Asst SecDef
JCS 07380, 141457Z Jun 69, subj: none. (ISA), for SecDef, Dec 15, 69, subj: Viet-
34. VNAF TACS ALO/FAC Upgrading namization Progress.
Plan, Mar 69. 51. Memo, SecDef for CJCS, Nov 10, 69,
35. Annex B to VNAF TACS ALO/FAC subj: Vietnamization—RVNAF Improve-
Upgrading Plan, Mar 69. ment and Modernization, Aspects and Re-
36. Ibid. lated U.S. Planning.
37. End of Tour Rprt, Col Delbert J. Light, 52. Memo, David Packard for SAF, Dec
Chief, USAF Advisory Team 7, 68–69, nd 19, 69, subj: VNAF Modernization.
[Aug 69]. 53. Hartsook, The Administration Empha-
38. Bear, Improvement and Moderniza- sizes Air Power, p 77.
tion, p 49. 54. Intvw, Kenneth Sams and Maj Philip
39. Brown intvw (Clement and Swenston), Caine with Gen Creighton Abrams,
pp 84–85. COMUSMACV, 68–72, Mar 3, 70.
Chapter 11
1. Kissinger, White House Years, p 250. 2. Ibid, p 255.
465
3. Ofc, Dep Asst SecDef (ISA), Regional tions; hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
Programs, Cambodian Contingencies, nd Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 236–37.
[summer 1970]. 16. Msg, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler and
4. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- Adm McCain, 301242Z Mar 70, subj: Plan
nam, 1969–1970, pp 227–32. for Ground Action against Base Areas in
5. Msg, Gen Rosson, Dep COMUS- Cambodia.
MACV, to Gen Brown, 231036Z Mar 70, 17. Msg, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler and
subj: none. Adm McCain, 041054Z Apr 70, subj: Salem
6. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- House.
nam, 1969–1970, p 237. 18. Msg, Paul M. Kearney, Ofc CJCS, to
7. Kissinger, White House Years, p 465. Adm McCain and Gen Abrams, JCS 05161,
8. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Abrams, JCS 151326Z Apr 70, subj: none, retransmitting
04182, 260126Z Mar 70, subj: Plan for State to Phnom Penh and Saigon, 055340,
Ground Strikes against Base Camps in Cam- 150017Z Apr 70.
bodia. 19. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler,
9. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Abrams, JCS 161151Z Apr 70, subj: none; 271254Z Apr
04213, 261941Z Mar 70, subj: Plan for 70, subj: Additional Small Arms for Cam-
Ground Action against Base Areas in Cam- bodian Armed Forces; to Gen Wheeler and
bodia. Adm McCain, 280122Z Apr 70, subj: none.
10. Msgs, Gen Wheeler to Gen Abrams or 20. Msg, Adm McCain to Gen Abrams,
Gen Rosson, JCS 04217, 261954Z Mar 70, 282351Z Jun 70, subj: C–130 Airlift to Cam-
subj: Planning for Cambodian Actions; Gen bodia.
Abrams to Adm McCain, 311446Z Mar 70, 21. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
quoting Saigon to State 4725, subj: Cross- Vietnam, 1969–1970, p 236; msg, Adm Mc-
border Operations and Relations with Cam- Cain to Gen Wheeler, 190224Z Apr 70, subj:
bodia. Request for Assistance.
11. Maj D. I. Folkman and Maj P. D. 22. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
Caine, The Cambodian Campaign, 24 April– Vietnam,1969–1970, p 240.
30 June 1970 (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, 23. DOD Rprt on Selected Air and Ground
Sep 1, 1970), pp 10–11. Operations in Cambodia and Laos, Sep 10,
12. Msgs, Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain 73, p 21.
and Gen Abrams, JCS 04372, 311441Z Mar 24. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
70, subj: Additional Cambodian Options Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 246–47.
Involving B–52s, and JCS 04447, 011716Z 25. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Gen Brown and
Apr 70, subj: Increased Menu Activities; Col Cavanaugh, 211154Z Apr 70, subj:
Gen Abrams to Adm McCain, 301014Z Mar Strike Authority; Gen Abrams to Gen
70, subj: Plan for Ground Action against Wheeler, 250200Z Apr 70, subj: Patio
Base Areas in Cambodia; to Gen Wheeler Report One.
and Adm McCain, 030025Z Apr 70, subj: 26. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain,
Additional Cambodian Options Involving 101119Z May 70, subj: Request for Strike
B–52s. Authorization; Adm Moorer to Adm McCain
13. Kissinger, White House Years, p 495. and Gen Abrams, JCS 06544, 111808Z May
14. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in 70, subj: same; 7AF SSO to MACV SSO,
Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 238–40; msgs, Gen 130758Z, subj: Intentions Regarding Special
Wheeler to Adm McCain and Gen Abrams, Strike Authority; 141200Z May 70, subj:
JCS 04424, 010041Z Apr 70, subj: Cambo- Special Strike in Cambodia.
dian Border ROE [Rules of Engagement] 27. Memo, President Nixon to Dr. Kissin-
Guidance; Gen Abrams to Gen Brown, Lt ger, Apr 22, 70, in Kissinger, White House
Gen [Frank T.] Mildren, et al, 011140Z Apr Years, p 1484.
70, subj: Operations Near Cambodian Border. 28. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain
15. Msg, Adm McCain to Gen Wheeler, and Adm Moorer, 231436Z Apr 70, subj:
310459Z Mar 70, subj; Camel Path Opera- Cambodian Operations; Adm Moorer, Act-
466
ing CJCS, to Adm McCain and Gen Abrams, bodia, Apr 29–Jun 21, 70, p 6.
JCS 05623, 232209Z Apr 70, subj: Opera- 40. Msg, Adm Moorer to Adm McCain
tions in Cambodia. and Gen Abrams, JCS 06037, 012239Z May
29. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Abrams, 70, subj: Attack of Additional Base Areas in
JCS 05711, 251802Z Apr 70, subj: none. Cambodia.
30. Msg, Adm Moorer to COMUSMACV 41. 7AF Air Ops in Cambodia, p 6; hist,
and CINCPAC, 250015Z Apr 70, subj: none. USMACV, 1970, vol III, pp C:57, 68–71,
31. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler 76–79, 84, 88.
and Adm McCain, 251031Z Apr 70, subj: 42. 7AF Air Ops in Cambodia, p. 6; hist,
none; 261044Z Apr 70, subj: Operation in USMACV, 1970, vol III, pp C:93–94.
BA 352/353 (Operation Shoemaker); Gen 43. 7AF Air Ops in Cambodia, p 6; hist,
Abrams to Maj Gen Dixon, 7AF Vice USMACV, 1970, vol III, p C:97.
Comdr, 290519Z Apr 70, subj: Operation 44. Memo for Record, Phil Odeen, Ofc of
Shoemaker; hist, USMACV, 1970, vol III, p Dep Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis), Reg-
C:68. ional Programs, May 8, 70, subj: Vietnam-
32. Msg, Col Scott G. Smith, USA, to Gen ization Meeting with Secretary Laird; hist,
[Elvy B.] Roberts, USA, 051530Z May 70, JCS, The JCS and the War in Vietnam,
subj: none. 1969–1970, pp 293–94, 301–2,
33. Public Papers of the Presidents of the 45. Folkman and Caine, Cambodian Cam-
United States (Washington, 1971), Richard paign, fig 19, pp 26–27.
Nixon, 1970, pp 405–10. 46. 7AF Air Ops in Cambodia, p 2.
34. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in 47. Ibid; atch to rprt, USAF ALO, 22d
Vietnam. 1969–1970, p 254; msgs, Gen ARVN Div, Lt Col James V. Hyland, to Hq,
Abrams to Gen Brown, VAdm [Elmo R.] 7AF, Jul 10, 70, subj: CHECO.
Zumwalt, et al, 300836Z Apr 70, subj: none; 48. Atch to rprt, Lt Col James Hyland,
Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain and Gen cited above.
Abrams, JCS 06076, 022035Z May 70, subj: 49. Ibid; 7AF Air Ops in Cambodia, pp 2,
none. 10–11.
35. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Gen Abrams and 50. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain,
Adm McCain, JCS 05812, 281956Z Apr 70, 060145Z May 70, subj: Request for Author-
subj: Actions to Protect U.S. Forces in South ity for Overflight of Cambodia; Adm Mc-
Vietnam; hist, USMACV, 1970, vol III, p Cain to Gen Wheeler, 060259Z May 70,
C:50. subj: same; Adm McCain to Gen Abrams,
36. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler, 060320Z May 70, subj: none; Gen Wheeler
041036Z May 70, subj: Reporting TACAIR to Adm McCain, JCS 06259, 061412Z May
Operations in Cambodia; Gen Wheeler to 70, subj; Reconnaissance in Cambodia; JCS
Gen Abrams, 042316Z May 70, subj: Re- 06324, 062245Z May 70, subj; Reconnais-
porting TAC Air Operations in Cambodia; sance Overflight of Cambodia.
DOD Rprt on Selected Air and Ground Op- 51. 7AF Air Ops in Cambodia, pp 10–11.
erations in Cambodia and Laos, Sep 10, 73, 52. Ibid, pp 11, 13; msgs, Gen Abrams to
pp 21–22. Lt Gen [Michael S.] Davison, USA,
37. Msgs, Gen Wheeler to Gen Abrams, 090001Z May 70, subj: Psyop Support; 7AF
Adm McCain, et al, JCS 06072, 021955Z to II DASC, 3d TFWg, et al, 020800Z Jun
May 70, subj: Operation Menu; JCS 07362, 70, subj: Operating Instructions; Adm
272252Z May 70, subj: B–52 Strikes in McCain to Gen [Ralph E.] Haines [Jr.],
Cambodia (Menu Mentioned); Gen Abrams USA, and Gen Nazzaro, 170319Z May 70,
to Gen Wheeler and Adm McCain, 280022Z subj: Psyop Planning for Cambodia.
May 70, subj: Operation Menu. 53. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
38. Msg, Ambassador Leonard Unger to Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 352–353; msgs,
Adm Moorer, Bangkok 1012, 020724Z May Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler and Adm
70, subj: B–52 Support in Cambodia. McCain, 020944Z May 70, subj: Interdiction
39. 7AF Study, Air Operations in Cam- of Routes 1036/1039/1032/7; 031038Z May
467
70 and 040956Z May 70, subj: Strikes and Adm McCain, 250647Z Jun 70, subj:
against Logistics Targets in NVN; to Adm B–52 Support for Ground Operations in
Moorer and Adm McCain, 030203Z May Cambodia.
1970, subj: Interdiction of Routes 61. Hist, USMACV, 1970, vol III, pp
1036/1039/1032; 7AF SSO to CTF 77, C:45, 52–57.
021026Z May 70, subj: none. 62. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
54. Nixon Papers, 1970, p 407. Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 298–99, 306.
55. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain 63. Sir Robert Thompson, Peace Is Not at
and Gen Abrams, JCS 06055, 021502Z May Hand (New York, 1974), pp 78–79.
70, subj: COSVN Headquarters. 64. William Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissin-
56. Msg, Maj Gen [Edward] Bautz [Jr], ger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia
USA, to Lt Gen Davison and Brig Gen (New York, 1979), pp 393–96.
[Francis J.] Roberts, USA, 140545Z May 70, 65. Facts on File Yearbook, 1970 (New
subj: POW—COSVN Signal Unit. York, 1971), pp 299–300.
57. Msg, Gen Wheeler, CJCS, to Gen 66. Theodore H. White, Breach of Faith:
Abrams and Adm McCain, JCS 07117, The Fall of Richard Nixon (New York,
2 1 2 2 4 8 Z M ay 7 0 , s u b j: C O SV N 1971), p 135; Karnow, Vietnam, pp 611–12.
Headquarters. 67. H. R. Haldeman with Joseph DiMona,
58. Msg, Gen Abrams to Gen Brown, The Ends of Power (New York, 1978), p. 107.
221634Z May 70, subj: COSVN Head- 68. Nixon Papers, 1970, pp 414–17.
quarters. 69. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
59. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Gen Brown, Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 266–67; Lester A.
222152Z May 70, subj: none; 7AF SSO to Sobel and Hal Kosut, eds, South Vietnam:
AF SSO and COMUSMACV, 240220Z May U.S.-Communist Confrontation in Southeast
70, subj: 23 May 70 Special Strike against Asia, vol V, 1970 (New York, 1973), p 143.
Suspected COSVN Headquarters. 70. Sobel and Kosut, eds, South Vietnam,
60. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Lt Gen [Julian 1970, pp 61–62, 74–77, 113, 119–20.
J.] Ewell, USA, U.S. Embassy, Paris, 71. PACAF Summary of Air Operations,
060959Z Jun 70, subj: Rules of Engagement May 70, p 4:3; Jun 70, p 4:4; USAF Mgt
for Cambodia; Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler Summary, Jul 16, 70, p 40.
Chapter 12
1. 7AF Rules of Engagement, Cambodia, Air Operations in Cambodia, pp 19–20.
pp 1–2; msgs, Gen Abrams to Gen Brown, 6. Memo, Col Malcolm E. Ryan and Col
290754Z May 70, subj: Air Interdiction in [James H.] Ahmann for Gen [John W.]
Cambodia; MACV to 7AF, 311132Z May Roberts, May 21, 70, subj: Intelligence Tar-
70, subj: Air Operations in Cambodia. geting in Cambodia.
2. Msg, CINCPAC to CINCPACAF, 7. Malcolm Ryan intvw.
COMUSMACV, et al, 060320Z Jun 70, 8. Current Ops Div, TACC, Staff Sum-
subj: Basic Operation Order for Air Inter- mary Sheet, w atch, May 28, 70, subj: Ivy
diction Operations in Eastern Cambodia. Tree Operations.
3. Msg, CJCS to CINCPAC, 240136Z 9. Msg, Adm Moorer, Acting CJCS, to
May 70, subj: Air Operations in Cambodia. Adm McCain and Gen Abrams, JCS 08085,
4. Intvw, Maj David I. Folkman and Maj 092353Z Jun 70, subj: Reconnaissance in
Philip D. Caine with Col Malcolm E. Ryan, Cambodia.
7AF staff, 70, Jun 6, 70. 10. Msg, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain,
5. Memo of Agreement on Rules of 151015Z Jun 70, subj: Extension of SAR and
Engagement, Cambodia, May 29, 70; msg, Recovery Authority in Cambodia; 7AF Rules
7AF SSO to MACV SSO, 131220Z Jul 70, of Engagement, Cambodia, Sep 30, 70, p 3.
subj: Training of Cambodian Pilots for Air/ 11. 7AF Study, Air Operations in Cam-
Ground Controller Employment; 7AF Study, bodia, pp 16–17,
468
12. Folkman and Caine, The Cambodian 26. Ibid; Loye and Caine, Cambodia 1970,
Campaign, pp 51–52. pp 20–22.
13. 7AF Study, Air Operations in Cam- 27. Msg, 7AF SSO to MACV SSO,
bodia, pp 19–20; Lt Col John F.Loye, Jr., 211010Z Jul 70, subj: Cambodian Air Oper-
and Maj P. D. Caine, The Cambodian Cam- ations.
paign, 1 Jul–31 Oct 1970 (Hq PACAF, Proj 28. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
CHECO, Dec 31, 70), pp 8–9; msgs, JCS to Vietnam, 1969–1970, p 309.
CINCPAC and COMUSMACV, JCS 2835, 29. Loye and Caine, Cambodia 1970, pp
172344Z Jun 70, subj: Employment of 27–28; msg, Gen Abrams to Gen Brown,
RVNAF in Cambodia; COMUSMACV to 200321Z Aug 70, subj: Air Operating
7AF Comdr, 290950Z Jun 70, subj: Air Authority in Cambodia.
Operations in Cambodia. 30. Msgs, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC,
14. Nixon Papers, 1970, p 478. 211100Z Aug 70, subj: Expansion of Air
15. Msg, Gen Abrams to Adm Moorer and Operating Authority in Cambodia; JCS to
Adm McCain, 071021Z Jun 70, subj: none. CINCPAC, 252016Z Aug 70, subj: U.S. Air
16. Memo for Record, Phil Odeen, Ofc of Operations in Cambodia.
Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis), Regional 31. Msgs, 7AF SSO to MACV SSO,
Programs, Jun 5, 70, subj: Vietnamization 140227Z Aug 70, subj: Strike Authorization,
Meeting with Secretary Laird. and 011140Z Sep 70, subj: same; Gen Ros-
17. Msg, Adm Moorer, Acting CJCS, to son to Gen [Ernest C.] Hardin [,Jr.], 7AF
Adm McCain and Gen Abrams, JCS 08495, Dep Comdr, 141154Z Aug 70, subj: same;
152321Z Jun 70, subj: Discussions with the Gen Abrams to Gen Brown, 230332Z Aug
President Concerning U.S. Policy toward 70, subj: same; Loye and Caine, Cambodia
Cambodia. 1970, p 25.
18. Folkman and Caine, The Cambodian 32. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
Campaign, pp 52–53. Vietnam, 1969–1970, p 309.
19. Msg, COMUSMACV to 7AF Comdr, 33. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain,
290950Z Jun 70, subj: Air Operations in 311142Z Aug 70, subj: Enemy Water LOCs;
Cambodia. DOD/PRO to CINCPAC, 081303Z Sep 70,
20. PACAF Summary of Air Operations, subj: [CAS Field Information Report on]
Jul–Dec 70, sec 4; msgs, Gen Abrams to Disruption of North Vietnamese Army Use
Adm Moorer and Adm McCain, 071021Z of Rivers of Northeast Cambodia by Floating
Jun 70, subj: none; 7AF TACC to 3d TFWg, Mines; Loye and Caine, Cambodia 1970, pp
12th TFWg, et al, 031000Z Jun 70, subj: 31–32.
OPREP 4 Reporting. 34. Hist, USMACV, 1970, Annex B, pp
21. DOD Rprt on Selected Air and Ground III:37–40; msgs, 7AF to II DASC, 56th
Operations in Cambodia and Laos, Sep 10, SOWg, et al, 181345Z Jun 70, subj: Special
73, p 23. Operating Instructions; Adm McCain to Gen
22. Facts on File Yearbook, 1971 (New Abrams, 100410Z Jun 70, subj: Sensor Oper-
York, 1972), p 26; Department of State Bul- ations in Salem House.
letin, vol LXIV, no 1651 (Feb 15, 1971), p 35. Hq 7AF Evaluation of the Adequacy
195; vol LXIV, no 1654 (Mar 8, 1971), p and Timeliness of Immediate Close Air Sup-
281; Kissinger, White House Years, p 1000. port, Jun 69, p 3; draft msg, 366th TFWg to
23. Msg, COMUSMACV to 7AF, 7AF, may 29, 70, subj: Fast Mover FACs.
300324Z Jun 70, subj: none, retransmitting 36. Loye and Caine, Cambodia 1970, p
JCS to CINCPAC, 300012Z Jun 70, subj: 12; msg, 7AF SSO to MACV SSO, 131220Z
Air Operations in Cambodia. Jul 70, subj: Training of Cambodian Pilots
24. Msg, COMUSMACV to 7AF Comdr, for Air/Ground Controller Employment.
290950Z Jun 70, subj: Air Operations in 37. Msgs, 7AF SSO, cited above; Gen
Cambodia. Abrams to Adm McCain, 071047Z Sep 70,
25. 7AF Rules of Engagement, Cambodia, subj: Third Country Air Operations in
Sep 20, 70, pp 2–3. Cambodia.
469
38. JCS Action Officers’ Data Book on 17–18; msgs, Phnom Penh to State 2297,
Vietnamizing the War, Jun 28, 72, p B:39. 061345Z Sep 70, subj: Cambodian SITREP,
39. Msgs, MACV SSO to 7AF SSO, 6 Sep, and 2388, 141203Z Sep 70, subj:
130737Z Dec 70, retransmitting Gen Cambodian SITREP, September 14.
Abrams to Adm McCain, 111411Z Dec 70, 43. Msgs, 7AF SSO to CINCPACAF SSO
subj: Relief of Kompong Cham; MACV and MACV SSO, 180320Z Aug 70, subj:
SSO to 7AF SSO, 150018Z Dec 70, Effective Communications and Increased
retransmitting Lt Gen Davison to Maj Gen Control for Air Operations over Cambodia;
[Welborn G.] Dolvin, 141110Z Dec 70, subj: Gen Abrams to Adm McCain, 071047Z Sep
III Corps Cambodian Operations as of 70, subj: Third Country Air Operations in
141600H Dec 70. Cambodia; hist, ADC, fiscal 1971, pp
40. Brown intvw (Clement and Swenston), 313–15; Loye and Caine, Cambodia 1970,
pp 90–91. pp 33–35.
41. Msg, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain, 44. Ltr, Lt Col Paul D. Wagoner to Chief,
071047Z Sep 70, subj: Third Country Air Dir/Ops, 7AF, 7AF TACC, et al, Oct 30, 70,
Operations in Cambodia; Loye and Caine, subj: Visit of Lt. Colonel Wagoner to Phnom
Cambodia 1970, pp 13–14. Penh, 27–29 Oct 70; Loye and Caine,
42. Loye and Caine, Cambodia 1970, pp Cambodia 1970, p 38.
Chapter 13
1. End of Tour Rprt, Col J. R. Lilley, 70, p 51; Sep 16, 70, p i; Jan 19, 71, pp i, 54.
Chief, Advisory Team 3, Jul 29, 70–Aug 2, 10. App I to Capt Drue L. DeBerry, Viet-
71, nd [Aug 71]. namization of the Air War, 1970–1971 (Hq
2. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- PACAF, Proj CHECO, Oct 8, 71).
nam, 1969–1970, pp 373–76. 11. DeBerry, Vietnamization, 1970–1971,
3. Msg, COMUSMACV to 7AF, USARV, pp 7–8; hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
American Embassy, Saigon, 160620Z Mar Oct–Dec 70, pp 12, 16–17.
70, subj: none, retransmitting JCS to 12. Maj David Roe, Maj Wayne C. Pitt-
CINCPAC, 142344Z Mar 70, subj: Vietnam- man, Jr., Capt Dennis K. Yee, Capt Paul D.
ization—Consolidated RVNAF I&M [Im- Knobe, and Capt Drue L. DeBerry, The
provement and Modernization] Program, VNAF Air Divisions: Reports on Improve-
quoting memo, SecDef to JCS, Mar 13, 70, ment and Modernization (Hq PACAF, Proj
subj: same. CHECO, Nov 23, 71), pp 126–28.
4. Msg, COMUSMACV to USARV, 13. Young rprt, p 26; hist, USAF Advisory
NAVForV, and 7AF, 102325Z, subj: none, Gp, Vietnam, May 70, p 43; Jan 70, ch 4, p
retransmitting JCS to CINCPAC, subj: Viet- 1; Mar 70, ch 4, pp 1–2.
namization—Consolidated RVNAF Im- 14. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
provement and Modernization Program and Oct–Dec 70, vol I, pp 103–4.
Related U.S. Planning, quoting memo, 15. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
SecDef to JCS, Jun 5, 70, subj: same. Jul–Sep 70, vol I, pp 107–8; Young rprt, pp
5. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, 33–34.
Oct–Dec 70, vol I, p 61. 16. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
6. End of Tour Rprt. Brig Gen Kendall S. Oct–Dec 70, vol I, pp 92, 104–6.
Young, Chief, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, 17. Ibid, p 31; hist, USAF Advisory Gp,
Jul 31, 69–Feb 15, 71, Feb 15, 71, pp 3–4. Vietnam, Apr 70, ch 2, p 4; Jun 70, p 43.
7. Ibid, p 37. 18. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
8. Msg, CINCPACAF to 7AF and USAF Feb 70, ch 2, p 5; Apr 70, ch 7, p 1; Jun 70, p
Advisory Gp, 081834Z Jul 70, subj: Man- 43; Oct–Dec 70, vol I, p. 32.
agement of VNAF Military Assistance Pro- 19. Young rprt, pp 6–7; hist, USAF Advi-
gram. sory Gp, Vietnam, Mar 70, ch 1, pp 3–4;
9. USAF Mgt Summary, SEA, Aug 12, Oct–Dec 70, vol I, p 32.
470
20. Notes of intvw, Capt Drue L. DeBerry Apr 70, ch 4, p 2; Apr 70, tab C, p 3; May 70,
with Col Roy D. Broadway, Chief, Air Force pp 21–22.
Advisory Team 5, 71, Aug 5, 71, p 1. 43. Atch to memo, MACV to J–2, J–3, et
21. End of Tour Rprt, Col Nelson C. Pohl, al, Aug 29, 70, subj: WIEU Meeting (Com-
Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 1, Aug 1 manders), 20 August 1970; hist, USAF Ad-
69–Jul 10, 70, Jul 7. 70. visory Gp, Vietnam, Jul–Sep 70, vol I, pp
22. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, 61–62.
Oct–Dec 70, vol I, p 32. 44. Fox rprt, pp 18–19.
23. Notes of intvw, Capt Drue L. DeBerry 45. Young rprt, p 35; Comptroller, Hq
with Lt Col Jimmie R. Osborne, Chief Air USAF, USAF Statistical Digest, fiscal 1970,
Force Advisory Team 5, 71, Aug 5, 71, pp p 84.
1–2. 46. Msg, Brig Gen Cushman to Gen
24. Young rprt, p 25. Abrams, 250850Z Nov 70, subj: VNAF Air
25. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, Support.
Apr 70, ch 7; May 70, pp 41–42; End of Tour 47. Msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen
Rprt, Col Cecil B. Fox, Chief Air Force Ad- Abrams, 260135Z Nov 70, subj: VNAF Air
visory Team 4, Aug 30, 69–Aug 30, 70, nd, Support.
p 23. 48. Msg, Lt Gen Collins to Gen Abrams,
26. Young rprt, p 38. 240900Z Nov 70, subj: VNAF Air Force.
27. Ibid, pp 21–23. 49. JCS Action Officers’ Data Book on
28. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, Vietnamizing the War, Apr 27, 71, p C:142.
Jun 70, p 34; Jul–Sep 70, vol I, p 70. 50. Young rprt, p 12; ltr, Col Paul E. Bell
29. Young rprt, p 117. to ASI, Mar 12, 71, subj: Proj Corona Har-
30. Ibid, pp 18–19. vest End of Tour Report; msg, 7AF to USAF
31. Ibid, p 28; hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Advisory Gp, Vietnam, and CINCPACAF,
Vietnam, Feb 70, ch 8, pp 1–2. 190315Z May 70, subj: Equipage of VNAF
32. DeBerry, Vietnamization, 1970–1971, Fighter Attack Units.
pp 13–16; Young rprt, p 18; hist, USAF Ad- 51. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
visory Gp, Vietnam, Jul–Sep 70, pp 73–74. Jul–Sep 70, vol I, pp 57–58; Oct–Dec 70, vol
33. Rprt, Tab B to 7AF OPlan 145–70, I, p 58; Young rprt, p 10.
Combined Campaign Plan, Jul 21, 1970, p 52. Fox rprt, p 18; hist, USAF Advisory
10. Gp, Vietnam, Jul–Sep 70, vol I, pp 58–59.
34. Ibid, p 12. 53. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
35. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, Apr 70, ch 3, p 4; Fox rprt, p 24.
Jul–Sep 70, vol I, p 68. 54. Msgs, Lt Gen Collins to Gen Abrams,
36. Ibid, p 72; hist, USAF Advisory Gp, 240900Z Nov 70, subj: VNAF Air Support;
Vietnam, Oct–Dec 70, vol I, p 66; Jan 70, ch Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen Abrams, 260135Z
7, pp 1–2, May 70, p 66; Young rprt, pp Nov 70, subj: same.
19–20. 55. Fox rprt, pp 5–6; msg, 7AF to CSAF
37. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, and CINCPACAF, 120700Z Jun 70, subj:
Oct–Dec 70, vol I, p 69. none.
38. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain, 56. Fox rprt, p 5; Young rprt, pp 40–41;
240352Z Jun 70, subj: Actions Related to DeBerry, Vietnamization, 1970–1971, p 74;
Cambodia. Ofc of SecDef, Southeast Asia Statistical
39. Msg, Brig Gen Cushman to Gen Summary, Dec 3, 1973, table 122.
Abrams, 250850Z Nov 70, subj: VNAF Air 57. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
Support. Jul–Sep 70, vol I, p 18; Oct–Dec 70, vol I, pp
40. Msg, Lt Gen Collins to Gen Abrams, 26–27; DeBerry, Vietnamization, 1970–
240900Z Nov 70, subj: VNAF Air Support. 1971, pp 50–52.
41. Msg, Lt Gen Davison to Gen Abrams, 58. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
241040Z Nov 70, subj: VNAF Air Support. Feb 70, ch 1, p 3; Wright Air Development
42. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, Center, Aircraft Statistics Summary, 1970.
471
59. Rprt, tab B to 7AF OPlan 145–70, Jan 70, ch 3, pp 6–7; Jul–Sep 70, vol I, p 78.
Combined Campaign Plan, Jul 21, 70, p 4; 66. DeBerry, Vietnamization, 1970–1971,
tab B to 7AF OPlan 145–70, Combined p 16.
Campaign Plan, Oct 16, 70, p 7. 67. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
60. Tab B to 7AF OPlan 145–70, Com- Jun 70, vol I, p 25.
bined Campaign Plan, Oct 16, 70, pp 4, 7; 68. Young rprt, p 14; tab B to hist, USAF
hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, Jul–Sep Advisory Gp, Vietnam, Apr 70, p 11.
70, p 57; Young rprt, p 12. 69. Young rprt, pp 38–39.
61. Young rprt, p 5; msg, CINCPACAF to 70. Tab A to USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
CINCPAC, 160100Z Sep 70, subj: Activa- Update of Periodic Assessment of the
tion of VNAF EC–47 Squadron. Situation in Vietnam, May 27, 70, atch to hist,
62. App II to Annex A, Weapons Control USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, May 70, vol I.
Functions, VNAF Plan 69–20, AC&W Self 71. Young rprt, pp 30–31, 38–40.
Sufficiency, Jan 22, 70; hist, USAF Ad- 72. Broadway intvw, pp 3–4.
visory Gp, Vietnam, Mar 70, ch 2, pp 1–2; 73. Young rprt, pp 23, 30.
Lilley rprt. 74. Tab A to USAF Advisory Gp, Viet-
63. Lilley rprt. nam, Update of Periodic Assessment of the
64. Ibid; rprt, tab B to 7AF OPlan 145–70, Situation in Vietnam, May 27, 70, atch to
Combined Campaign Plan, Jul 21, 70, p 8. hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, May 70,
65. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, vol I.
Chapter 14
1. Washington Post, Sep 25, 69; Karnow, ization Meeting with Secretary Laird.
Vietnam, p 597. 12. Msg, Adm McCain to Gen Abrams,
2. Msg, Saigon to State, 240850Z Jan 70, 250322Z Apr 70, subj: Redeployment Incre-
subj: Estimate of Enemy Strategy in 1970. ment Four.
3. Memo, Phil Odeen, Dep Asst SecDef 13. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain
(Systems Analysis), Regional Program, for and Gen Abrams, JCS 07202, 231854Z May
[Brig] Gen Robert E. Pursley, Aug 7, 70, 70, subj: none, forwarding memo, SecDef
subj: Presidential Statements on Vietnam. for CJCS and Service Secretaries, May 20,
4. 7AF Background Paper on NSSM–36, 70, subj: Troop Strength in South Vietnam.
nd [Jan 70]; hist, JCS, The JCS and the War 14. Nixon Papers, 1970, p 479; msgs,
in Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 382–83. C O M U SM A C V to 7A F, U SA R V ,
5. Brown intvw (Clement and Swenston), ComNavForV, 111137Z Jun 70, retransmit-
pp 124–25. ting JCS to CINCPAC, 102325Z Jun 70,
6. Hist, USMACV, 1970, vol I, pp IV:28– subj: Vietnamization—Consolidated
29; USAF Mgt Summary, SEA, May 13, 70, RVNAF Improvement and Modernization
p 35; hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 70, vol I, pt 1, p xix. Program and Related U.S. Planning; Gen
7. Msg, Gen Wheeler to Adm McCain and Abrams to Adm Moorer and Adm McCain,
Gen Abrams, 312031Z Mar 70, subj: Force 081041Z Jun 70, subj: none.
Planning; hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in 15. Brown intvw (Clement and Swenston),
Vietnam, 1969–1970, 383–84. pp 15–16.
8. Msg, Gen Abrams to Gen Wheeler and 16. Msg, CINCPACAF to CSAF, 090511Z
Adm McCain, 011120Z Apr 70, subj: Force Jun 70, subj: Augmentation of 523 TFSq.
Planning. 17. Msg, 7AF to CINCPACAF, 100410Z
9. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- Jun 70, subj: none.
nam, 1969–1970, pp 384–85. 18. Hist, 7AF, Jul–Dec 70, vol I, pt 1, p
10. Nixon Papers, 1970, p 374. xxiv.
11. Memo for Record, Phil Odeen, Ofc of 19. Ibid, pp xxv–xxvi, pt 2, p 207.
Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis), Regional 20. Brown intvw (Clement and Swenston),
Programs, Apr 23, 1970, subj: Vietnam- p 16.
472
21. Hist, 7AF, Jul–Dec 70, vol I, pt 1, pp Levels, FY 72; USAF Mgt Summary, SEA,
xxiv, xxvii–xxviii; USAF Mgt Summary, Feb 6, 70, p 2:19; Jan 19, 71, pp 4–5.
SEA, Nov 16, 70, p 4. 35. Hist, USMACV, 1970, vol I, pp IV:
22. USAF Mgt Summary, Mar 13, 70, p 3; 24–25, VI:12–13.
Nov 16, 70, pp 4–5; Jan 19, 71, p 42; hist, 36. Memo for Record, Phil Odeen, Ofc of
7AF, Jan–Jun 70, vol I, pt 1, p 72; Jul–Dec Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis), Regional
70, vol I, pt 1, pp xix, 72. Programs, Jan 30, 70, subj: Vietnamization
23. Hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 70, vol I, pt 1, p Meeting with Secretary Laird.
xxii; Jul–Dec 70, vol I, pt 1, p xxi; Futrell, 37. Msg, AF SSO to PACAF SSO and
The Advisory Years, p 22. 7AF SSO, 272303Z Feb 70, subj: Vietnam-
24. Msgs, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, ization Phase III.
060907Z Sep 69, subj: Phasedown of Herbi- 38. Msg, 7AF SSO to AF SSO and
cide Operations; 250827Z Feb 70, subj: PACAF SSO, 040930Z Mar 70, subj: Viet-
Herbicide Operations; to CINCPAC, namization Phase III.
USARPAC, et al, 161406Z Sep 69, subj: 39. Elizabeth H. Hartsook, The Air Force
none; Capt James R. Clary, Ranch Hand: in Southeast Asia: The Role of Air Power
Herbicide Operations in SEA (Hq PACAF, Grows, 1970 (Washington, 1972), pp 30, 32.
Proj CHECO, Jul 13, 71), pp 23–24. 40. Atch to ltr, Gen John C. Meyer to
25. Clary, Ranch Hand, p 28; American SAF, Mar 18, 70, subj: Air Operations in
Embassy rprt, Herbicide Policy Review, Aug Southeast Asia; hist, SAC, fiscal 1970, vol I,
22, 68, p 59. p 165.
26. Clary, Ranch Hand, pp 24–25, 29–30. 41. Memo for Record, Phil Odeen, Ofc of
27. Memo, Gen George S. Brown, 7AF Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis), Regional
Comdr, for Chief of Staff, MACV, Jul 16, Programs, Feb 2, 70, subj: Vietnam Meeting
70, subj: Herbicide Operations. with Secretary Laird, 2 Feb 1970.
28. Clary, Ranch Hand, pp 31–32; 42. Hist, Dir/Plans, Jan–Jun 70, pp 124–
William A. Buckingham. Jr., Operation 25.
Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbicides 43. Msgs, 7AF to CSAF and CINCPAC,
in Southeast Asia, 1961–1971 (Washington, 111200Z Apr 70, subj: SEA Force Structure;
1982), p 175; msg, 834th Air Div to 7AF, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain, 011006Z May
030250Z Jan 71, subj: Deconfiguration of 70, subj: Future Level of Air Support
Herbicide Aircraft; Memo, Brig Gen John H. Resources.
Herring, Jr., 834th Air Div comdr, for Gen 44. USAF Mgt Summary, SEA, May 13,
Clay, Jan 10, 71, subj: VNAF C–123 70, p 3; Jan 17, 71, pp 4–5; hist, Dir/Plans,
Training; msg, COMUSMACV to CG XXIV Jul–Dec 70, p 88; hist, 7AF, Jul–Dec 70, vol
Corps, CG FFV, et al, 161145Z Apr 71, subj: I, pt 2, pp 225–26.
Use of Herbicides. 45. Memo for Record, Phil Odeen, Ofc of
29. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis), Regional
Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 398–99; Kissinger, Programs, Jul 22, 70, subj: Meeting with
White House Years, pp 984–85. Secretary Laird to Discuss Vietnam, 22 Jul
30. Kissinger, White House Years, p 985. 70.
31. Msg, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain, 46. Msgs, Adm Moorer, CJCS, to Adm
091107Z Sep 70, subj: none. McCain, 061634Z Aug 70, subj: Air Support
32. Msg, Adm McCain to Adm Moorer, for Southeast Asia Operations; JCS to
090820Z Sep 70, subj: SEA Deployments. CINCPAC, 142250Z Aug 70, subj: Air
33. USAF Mgt Summary, Dec 17, 70, p 1; Operations in Southeast Asia.
Jan 19, 71, p 4; Feb 19, 71, p 44; msg, Adm 47. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
McCain to Gen Westmoreland, Acting Vietnam, 1969–1970, p 343; msgs, 7AF to
CJCS, 300258Z Sep 70, subj: Fifth CINCPACAF, 311100Z Aug 70, subj: Air
Redeployment Increment. Operations in SEAsia; CINCPAC to CJCS,
34. Memo, SAF for Dep SecDef, Dec 3, 060838Z Sep 70, subj: same.
70, subj: Southeast Asia Forces and Activity 48. Msg, CJCS to CINCPAC, JCS 12471,
473
151532Z Sep 70, subj: Air Operations in 57. Long-Range Forecast Requirements of
Southeast Asia. the U.S. Army—Vietnam (USARV) for the
49. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Republic of Vietnam, nd, atch to hist, 1st
Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 344–45; Memo, Weather Wg, Oct–Dec 69; hist, 7AF, Jul–
SAF for Dep SecDef, Dec 3, 1970, subj: Dec 70, vol I, pt 1, pp xxvi–xxvii.
Southeast Asia Forces and Activity Levels, 58. Hist, USMACV, 1970, vol I, pp III:
FY 72. 109–10, V:6–7, VI:49–50.
50. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in 59. Ibid, p VI:60.
Vietnam, 1969–1970, pp 63–69; hist, SAC, 60. Ibid, pp III:110–11.
fiscal 1970, vol I, p 166. 61. Msgs, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen
51. Hist, SAC, fiscal 1970, vol I, pp Abrams, 081108Z Sep 70, subj: Air Cam-
180–82. paign—FSB O’Reilly; Gen Abrams to Gen
52. Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, Sutherland, 090943Z Sept 70, subj: same.
100716Z Apr 70, subj: Southeast Asia Air 62. Msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen
Munitions Expenditures. Abrams, 181020Z Sep 70, subj: Air Opera-
53. Hist, SAC, fiscal 1971, vol II, pp tions FSB O’Reilly.
217–19. 63. Hist, USMACV, 1970, vol I, pp
54. Msg, 7AF to TACC-NS, 620th TCSq, VI:55–56, 62, 67.
et al, 260405Z Jan 70, subj: MiG Combat Air 64. Hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 70, vol I, pt 1, pp
Patrol Tactics; Staff summary sheet, Current xix–xxi, xxvii; Jul–Dec 70, vol I, pt 1, pp
Ops Div, TACC, Jul 5, 70, subj: Modifica- xxi–xxv, xxviii–xxix.
tion of OPlan 775 (Tiny Tim); ltr, Chief, 65. Hist, USMACV, 1970, vol I, pp
Special Ops Div, 7AF, to DMX, Feb 24, 71, III:137–38.
subj: Recon Action R–711–5201. 66. Hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 70, vol I, pt 1, pp
55. Hist, SAC fiscal 1970, vol I, pp xxvii–xxviii, xxx; Jul–Dec 70, vol I, pt 1, pp
186–87; fiscal 1971, vol II, pp 225–26. xxiii, xxix.
56. PACAF Summary of Air Operations, 67. Hist, USAF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
Jan–Dec 70; JCS Action Officers’ Data Apr 70, ch 4, p 3; hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 70, vol
Book on Vietnamizing the War, Jan 2, 71, I, pt 1, p xxiv.
app to draft MS, Shelley Peterson, Chro- 68. Hist, 7AF, Jan–Jun 70, vol I, pt 1, pp
nology of Significant Events in Cambodia, xxiv, xxvi, xxviii–xxix; Jul–Dec 70, vol I, pt
1963–1973, Aug 17, 79. 1, pp xxiii, xxvi, xxviii, xxx.
Chapter 15
1. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- 6. Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp 7, 53–54.
nam, 1971–1973, pt I, p 15. 7. Kissinger, White House Years, p 990.
2. Msg, Adm McCain to Adm Moorer, 8. Msg, Adm McCain to Gen Abrams,
100556Z Nov 70, subj; Contingency Plan- 080435Z Dec 70, subj: Laos Contingency
ning for Laos. Planning.
3. Msg, Adm McCain to Gen Abrams, for- 9. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet-
warding msg from Adm Moorer, 062130Z nam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 16–17; msgs, Gen
Dec 70, subj: Contingency Plans; Kissinger, Abrams to Adm McCain, 120952Z Dec 70,
White House Years, p 991. subj: Planning for Laos; Ambassador Godley
4. U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center, to Gen Abrams, 181234Z Dec 70, subj:
Vietnam Revisited: Conversation with Wil- none.
liam Broyles, Jr. (Washington, 1984), pp 10. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain,
28–30; Maj Gen Nguyen Duy Hinh, Indo- 120952Z Dec 70, subj: Cambodian Con-
china Monographs: Lam Son 719 (Washing- tingency Planning.
ton, 1979), pp 10–11, 16, 32. 11. Col J. F. Loye, Maj G. K. St. Clair,
5. Msg, Gen Abrams to Adm McCain, Maj L. D. Johnson, and J. W. Dennison, Lam
071130Z Dec 70, subj: none. Son 719, 31 January–24 March 1971: The
474
South Vietnamese Incursion into Laos (Hq 30. Msg, Gen Abrams to Lt Gen Suther-
PACAF, Proj CHECO, Mar 24, 71), p 27; land, 131017Z Feb 71, subj: none.
Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp 30–31, 57. 31. Kissinger, White House Years, p 1004;
12. Maj Ronald D. Merrell, Tactical Airlift Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 79.
in SEA (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Feb 15, 32. Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp 74, 79.
72), p 47; Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 35n. 33. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Lt Gen Suther-
13. Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 34. land, 131017Z Feb 71, subj: none; 141220Z
14. Hist, JCS, The JCS and The War in Feb 71, subj: none.
Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I. pp 26–27. 34. Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, pp
15. Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp 151–52, 156. 46–48, 50–51.
16. Merrell. Tactical Airlift, pp 47–52. 35. Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 81.
17. Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, pp 36. Hist, SAC, fiscal 1971, pp 219–21,
27–30. 226–27; msg, CINCSAC to JCS,192301Z
18. Rolland V. Heiser, Dep Asst Chief of Feb 71, subj: Arc Light Sortie Level; hist,
Staff, Ops, MACV J–3, After Action Rprt, JCS, The JCS and the War in Vietnam,
Lam Son 719, Jan 12–Feb 28, 71, nd, Viet- 1971–1973, pt I, pp 39–40.
nam intvw tapes, Center of Military History; 37. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp 66–67. Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 38–39.
19. Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, p 38. Brynn and Tihomirov, Air Power
32. against Armor, pp 11–12; Jack S, Ballard,
20. Msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen The United States Air Force in Southeast
Abrams, 190400Z Mar 71, subj: Items of Asia: Development and Employment of
Interest to B G Haig. Fixed-Wing Gunships, 1962–1972 (Wash-
21. Keith William Nolan, Into Laos: The ington, 1982), p 171.
Story of Dewey Canyon II/Lam Son 719; 39. Brynn and Tihomirov, Air Power
Vietnam 1971 (Novato, Calif, 1986), p 103; against Armor, p 11; Loye, St. Clair, et al,
hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, pp E:19–20. Lam Son 719, pp 57–69.
22. Capt Edward P. Brynn and Capt 40. Marine Corps Historical Center, Viet-
Michael L. Tihomirov, Air Power against nam Revisited, p 27.
Armor (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, nd, un- 41. Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp 84–85.
published MS), p 10; Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 42. Hist, 56th SOWg, Jan–Mar 71, vol I,
102. pp 109–10; rprt, Capt Peter J. Ruppert,
23. Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, pp Cobra 23, Feb 25–26, and Search and Rescue
15–18, 20. Commander’s Log, atchs 1 and 2 to ltr,
24. Msgs, CINCPAC to JCS, 192121Z Jan Comdr, 1st SOSq, to Dir/Ops, Mar 9, 71,
71, subj: Planning for Laos; JCS to CINC- subj: SARCO Rprt for Cobra 23 A&B, supp
PAC, 262240Z Jan 71, subj: same; hist, JCS, doc to hist, 56th SOWg, Jan–Mar 71.
The JCS and the War in Vietnam, 1971– 43. Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, p
1973, pt I, pp 21–24. 57; hists, 12th TFWg, Jan–Mar 71, vol I, p
25. Merrell, Tactical Airlift, pp 52–53; ix; 389th TFSq, Jan–Mar 71, p vii.
Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, p 54. 44. Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, pp
26. End of Tour Rprt, Col Hubert W. 62–64; Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp 90, 95n.
Dean, Chief Transportation Div, MACV J–4, 45. Msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen
Sep 70–Aug 71, nd [Aug 71], p 3; msg, Gen Abrams 031230Z Mar 71, subj: none; Loye,
Abrams to Gen Catton, 121012Z Mar 71, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, pp 93–97.
subj: Outsize Airlift. 46. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Lt Gen Suther-
27. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in land, 061014Z Mar 71 and 091232Z Mar 71,
Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, p 35. subj: none; Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen
28. Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, pp Abrams, 060344Z, subj: ARVN Reinforce-
40–45; hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, pp ment of Lam Son 719, and 100850Z Mar 71,
E:19–27. subj: none; Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp 99–102,
29. Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 73. 103n.
475
47. Msgs, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen Apr 71, subj: none.

Abrams, 061025Z Mar 71, subj: Arc Light 60. Merrell, Tactical Airlift, p 61.
Strikes; Gen Abrams to Lt Gen Sutherland, 61. “A Conversation with the President,”
091224Z Mar 71, subj: same; Gen Abrams to intvw, with Howard K. Smith of the Ameri-
Lt Gen Sutherland, info Gen Holloway, can Broadcasting Company, March 22,
140521Z Mar 71, subj: same; Loye, St. 1971, Public Papers of the Presidents of the
Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, pp 117–21; hist, United States, Richard M. Nixon, 1971
USMACV, 1971, vol II, pp E:41–42. (Washington, 1972), pp 450–52, 458.
48. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, p E:31; 62. Msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen
Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, pp 69– Abrams, 251155Z Mar 71, subj: Periodic
70; msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen Abrams, Appraisal of Progress of Lam Son 719,
180944Z Mar 71, subj: Periodic Appraisal of 18000H to 242400H Mar 71.
Lam Son 719 for the period 110001Z to 63. Msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen
172400Z Mar 71. Abrams, 040740Z Mar 71, subj: Periodic
49. Msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen Appraisal of the Progress of Lam Son 719
Abrams, 181425Z Mar 71, subj: none. for the Period 250000H Feb 71 to 032400H
50. Ibid. Mar 71.
51. Lt Gen Davison to Gen Abrams, 64. Hinh, Lam Son 719, p. 154.
190700Z Mar 71, subj: none. 65. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, pp
52. Brynn and Tihomirov, Air Power E:33–35; 7AF Rprt, Commando Hunt V,
against Armor, pp 13–14; Hinh, Lam Son May 71, pp 82–85.
719, p 118. 66. Nixon Papers, 1971, p 523.
53. Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, pp 67. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, p E:15;
10, 76–77; Brynn and Tihomirov, Air Power msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC and JCS,
against Armor, p 14. 031015Z Apr 71, subj: Vietnamization.
54. Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 151; Nolan, Into 68. Msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen
Laos, pp 346–47. Abrams, 251155Z Mar 71, subj: Periodic
55. Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 151; msgs, Lt Appraisal of Progress of Lam Son 719 for
Gen Sutherland to Gen Abrams, 250430Z the Period 180000H Mar 71 to 242400H Mar
Mar 71 and 251359Z Mar 71, subj: none. 71.
56. Msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen 69. Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, pp
Abrams, 290600Z Mar 71, subj: none; Hinh, 13–14; hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, p E:37.
Lam Son 719, p 122. 70. USAF Advisory Gp, VNAF Improve-
57. Msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen ment and Modernization Briefing, Apr 7, 71;
Abrams, 311418Z Mar 71, subj: none; Hinh, hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, p E:38.
Lam Son 719, pp 123–24. 71. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, pp E:34,
58. Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp 124–25; hist, 41–42; Loye, St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719,
JCS, The JCS and the War in Vietnam, pp 138, 140; Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 132.
1971–1973, pt I, p 62. 72. . Nolan, Into Laos, pp 357–58; Loye,
59. Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 125; msgs, Lt St. Clair, et al, Lam Son 719, figure 17; hist,
Gen Sutherland to Gen Abrams, 300745Z USMACV, vol II, p E:34.
Mar 71, subj: Future Plans and Operations; 73. Hinh, Lam Son 719, p 129.
Lt Gen Robertson to Gen Abrams, 011050Z 74. Karnow, Vietnam, p 631.
Chapter 16
1. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- 4. Shawcross, Sideshow, pp 130–31.
nam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 214, 219–23 5. Sobol and Kosut, eds, South Vietnam,
2. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, p F:1. vol 5, 1970, pp 61, 75–76; msg, Amb Swank
3. Msg, Adm Moorer to Adm McCain, to Gen Abrams, Phnom Penh 531, 260955Z
JCS 14429, 272127Z Oct 70, subj: Cam- Oct 70, subj: Developments on the Concept
bodian Strategy. to Create an Allied Air Operations Coordina-
476
ting Center. Abrams, 081435Z Oct 71, subj; none.

6. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, pp I:1–3 22. Ibid; msg, Maj Gen Wagstaff to Gen
7. Msg, Gen Abrams to Amb Swank, Abrams, 111515Z Oct 71, subj: none.
280322Z Oct 70, subj: Air Operations Co- 23. Msg, Maj Gen Wagstaff to Gen
ordination Center (AOCC); Capt Charles A. Abrams, 191710Z Jun 71, subj: Support of
Nicholson, Khmer Air Operations, Nov 70– Toan Thang 01/71NB; Nicholson, Khmer
Nov 71 (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Jun 15, Air Operations, p 47.
72), pp 31, 33–35. 24. Bowers, Tactical Airlift, p 507.
8. 7AF Briefing Paper, Rules of Engage- 25. Msgs, Lt Gen Collins to Gen Abrams,
ment, May 10, 1972; memo for record, Brig 040045Z Jan 71, subj: Employment of Heli-
Gen Richard G. Gross, Chief, Air Ops Div, copter Gunships; Lt Gen Davison to Gen
Dir/Ops, USMACV, subj: Khmer Strike Abrams, 081005Z Jan 71, subj: Employment
Clearance Authority. of Helicopters; Gen Abrams to Lt Gen Col-
9. Msg, Adm Moorer to Adm McCain, lins, Lt Gen Davison, et al, 120119Z Jan 71,
JCS 14429, 202127Z Oct 70, subj: Cam- subj: none.
bodian Strategy. 26. Msgs, CG, Delta Military Assistance
10. Denis Warner, Certain Victory: How Command, to COMUSMACV, 130910Z Jan
Hanoi Won the War (Kansas City, 1978), pp 71, subj: Employment of Helicopter
166–71. Gunships; USS Cleveland to 7AF TACC,
11. Donald Kirk, Wider War: The Struggle 151446Z Jan 71, subj: none; Gen Abrams to
for Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos (New Gen Clay and Maj Gen [Hal D.] McCown,
York, 1971), pp 6–7, 50–55. 250412Z Jan 71, sub: Employment of Heli-
12. Nicholson, Khmer Air Operations, pp copter Gunships.
38–41. 27. Capt William A. Mitchell, Aerial
13. Ibid, pp 34–37. Protection of the Mekong River Convoys in
14. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, pp E:5, Cambodia (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Oct
7. 1, 71), pp 8–9.
15. Msg, Lt Gen Davison to Gen Abrams, 28. Ibid, p 6; Shawcross, Sideshow, p 174.
210830Z Mar 71, subj: Assessment of 29. Mitchell, Aerial Protection of Mekong
ARVN Dry Season Campaign in Response River Convoys, pp 6–7.
to Request of 20 March. 30. Msg, COMUSMACV to
16. Msgs, Lt Gen Davison to Gen Abrams, ComNavForV and Comdr, 7AF, 160730Z
031040Z Mar 71, subj: none; 041054Z Mar Feb 71, subj: Employment of U.S. Navy
17, subj: none; Abrams to Swank, 181037Z Aircraft.
Nov 71, subj: none; hist, USMACV, 1971, 31. Msg, Dep COMUSMACV for Air/
vol II, pp E:7, 9. Comdr, 7AF, to ComNavForV, Dep Com
17. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, pp E:7, NavForV, et al, 241040Z Feb 71, subj;
9; Nicholson, Khmer Air Operations, p 29; Employment of U.S. Naval Aircraft.
Bowers, Tactical Airlift, p 507; msgs, Maj 32. Mitchell, Aerial Protection of Mekong
Gen John Wagstaff to Gen Abrams, 311645Z Convoys, pp 9–10, 12, 16.
May 71, subj: none; 050425Z Jun 71, subj: 33. Shawcross, Sideshow, pp 184–85.
Combat Effectiveness. 34. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
18. Nicholson, Khmer Air Operations, pp Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 85–94.
27–29; hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, p E:9; 35. Msgs, Maj Gen James L. Baldwin to
Shawcross, Sideshow, pp 202–3. Gen Abrams, Lt Gen McCaffery, and Lt Gen
19. Msg, Gen Abrams to Lt Gen [Welborn Sutherland, 281820Z Mar 71, subj: Attack
G.] Dolvin, Mr [John Paul] Vann, et al, on FSB Mary Ann (AS 961988); to Gen
260316Z Oct 71, subj: Enemy Tactics. Abrams, 071120Z Apr 71, subj: Interim Re-
20. Msg, Maj Gen Wagstaff to Gen port Concerning Attack on FSB Mary Ann;
Abrams, 260115Z Oct 71, subj: Cambodian hist, USMACV, 1971, vol I, p IV:21. For the
Situation Report, Personal Appraisal. details of the attack on Fire Support Base
21. Msg, Maj Gen Wagstaff to Gen Mary Ann, see: Keith William Nolan, Sap-
477
pers in the Wire: The Life and Death of 041600Z Mar 71, subj: none.
Firebase Mary Ann (College Station, Tex, 44. Msgs, Maj Gen Brown to Gen
1995), pt V. Abrams, 181730Z Mar 71, subj: Update on
36. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol I, pp IV: Operation Vicinity of Phu Non; 221400Z
21–22; msg, Lt Gen Sutherland to Gen Mar 71, subj: Wrap Up of Vic Phu Non (AQ
Abrams, 040800Z May 71, subj: Attack on 8699).
Dai Loc (D), Quang Nam (P), Headquarters. 45. Msgs, Maj Gen Brown to Gen
37. Msgs, Lt Gen Dolvin to Gen Abrams, Abrams, 010425Z Apr 71, subj: Recapitula-
191430Z Jun 71, subj: TAC Air Allocations; tion on Action at FSB 6; 031730Z Apr 71,
Abrams to Dolvin, 231021Z Jun 71, subj: subj: Update on Operations in the Highlands;
same. 051610Z Apr 71, subj: Update on Operations
38. Msgs, Lt Gen Dolvin to Gen Abrams, in the Highlands; hist, USMACV, vol I, p
071700Z Sep 71, subj: Lam Son 810; IV:27.
121420Z Sep 71, subj: same. 46. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol I, pp IV:31,
39. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol I, p IV:27. 35, 37; Fox, Base Defense, pp 196–200.
40. 1st Lt Thomas G. Abbey, Attack on 47. E. Hartsook, The Air Force in South-
Cam Ranh Bay, 25 August 1971 (Hq PACAF, east Asia: Shield for Vietnamization and
Proj CHECO, Dec 15, 71), pp 7–16. Withdrawal, 1971 (Washington, 1976), pp
41. William Broyles, Jr., “The Road to 76–77; USAF Mgt Summary, SEA, Dec 31,
Hill 10,” The Atlantic Monthly, vol 255 (Apr 70, pp 6, 11; Jan 19, 71, pp 4, 9.
1985), p 102. 48. Hq PACAF, Summary of Air Opera-
42. Msgs, Maj Gen [Charles P.] Brown to tions, Southeast Asia, Dec 71, pp 5:A:1–3;
Gen Abrams, 051540Z Mar 71, subj: Plei hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Vietnam,
Trap Operation; 071730Z Mar 71, subj: 1971–1973, pt I, pp 267–70.
Wrap Up of Plei Trap Operations as of 49. Mel Porter, Proud Deep Alpha (Hq
062400 Mar 71. PACAF, Proj CHECO, Jul 20, 72), pp 2, 6,
43. Msg, Maj Gen Brown to Gen Abrams, 22–23, 27–31, 50.
Chapter 17
1. Ltrs, Leonard Sullivan, Dep DDR&E Tree, Aug 5, 71; hist, JCS, The JCS and the
(SEAM), to John Kirk, Dec 17, 69, Jul 30, 70. War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 334–43.
2. Msg, 7AFSSO to AFSSO CSAF, 7. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol I, pp IV:4, 6;
030900Z Mar 71, subj: Military Vietnam- Annex F to Combined Campaign Plan, 1972,
ization. Oct 31, 71.
3. Memo, Dep DDR&E (SEAM) for Brig 8. 7AF OPlan 732, Nov 22, 71.
Gen Fred A. Karhohs, USA, Dir, Vietnam 9. Synthesis of remarks by Mr L. Sullivan,
Task Force (ISA), Feb 19, 71, subj: DDR&E DDR&E (SEAM), nd.
Inputs on the Vietnamization of Laotian 10. Memo for Record, Frank Tapparo, Asia
Interdiction Operations. Div, Ofc of Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis),
4. Memo, Henry A. Kissinger to Under May 23, 72, subj: Visit to Credible Chase;
Secretary of State, Dep SecDef, Dir/CIA, Atch to memo for Col Raymond A. Boyd, Ch,
and CJCS, Apr 15, 71, subj: Assessment of AF Advisory Gp, Vietnam, Nov 16, 71, subj:
the Situation in South Vietnam. CRIMP Review; msgs, COMUSMACV to
5. Memos, SecDef for the Asst to the CINCPAC, 211625Z Jan 72, subj: Vietnam-
President for National Security Affairs, Apr izationofInterdictionOperations;CINCPAC
16, 71, subj: Improvement and Moderniza- to JCS, 290430Z Jan 72, subj: same.
tion of the South Vietnamese Armed Forces; 11. App to memo, CJCS to SecDef, JCSM
for the SecArmy, SecNav, SAF, Dir/Defense 54–72, Feb 14, 72, Vietnamization of Inter-
Special Projs Gp, Apr 20, 71, subj: Vietnam- diction Operations; Study rprt evaluating
ization of Laotian Interdiction Campaign. CBU–55 weapon system for the VNAF, Jun
6. Annex L to CINCPAC OPlan Island 2, 71.
478
12. Memo, Lt Col Deafenbaugh for 7Af Intelligence Improvement and Modernization
Dir/Ops, Dec 14, 71, subj: VNAF Inter- Program Monitor, Apr 9–16, 71, May 10, 71.
diction Sortie Record. 25. End of Tour Rprt, Maj Gen James H.
13. Msgs, State to Vietnam, State 226081, Watkins, Chief, Air Force Advisory Gp,
161735Z Dec 71, subj: VNAF Interdiction in Vietnam, Feb 15, 71–May 16, 72, May 14, 72,
Laos; Vientiane to COMUSMACV, Vien- p C:22.
tiane 0203, 081046Z Jan 72, subj: none. 26. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, p F:7;
14. Memos for Record, Phil Odeen, Ofc of Thomas C. Thayer, War without Fronts: The
Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis), Oct 4, 71, American Experience in Vietnam (Boulder,
subj: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Colo, and London, 1985), table 4.5.
Laird; Nov 1, 71, subj: same. 27. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
15. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 135–37.
Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 298–99, 305– 28. Nixon Papers, 1971, p 524.
6; Memo, Lt Col Watha J. Eddins, Jr., USA, 29. Memo for Record, Phil Odeen, Ofc of
Ofc of Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis), Asst SecDef (Systems Analysis), Apr 8, 71,
Regional Programs, for Mr McManaway, Jul subj: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary
8, 71, subj: RVNAF Improvement. Laird.
16. USAF Advisory Gp, VNAF I&M [Im- 30. Hist, USMACV, 1971, vol II, fig F:1.
provement and Modernization] Briefing, Apr 31. Ibid, p F–1:12; hist, JCS, The JCS and
7, 71. the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp
17. Ltr, 20th TASSq, OL 201, to 20th 148–49.
TASSq, Apr 14, 71, subj: Special Survey. 32. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
18. End of Tour Rprt, Col Harold W. Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 150–51; Hart-
Hobbs, Comdr, 377th CSGp, Jul 70–Jul 71, sook, Shield for Vietnamization and With-
Dec 18, 71, pp 3–4. drawal, pp 68–71.
19. Atch 2 to End of Tour Rprt, Col Robert 33. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
W. Slane, VComdr and Comdr, 553d Recon Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 150–51, 159–
Wg, Sep 15, 70–Feb 1, 71, and Comdr, 6251st 61; USAF Mgt Summary, Southeast Asia,
CSGp, Feb 2–Sep 2, 71, Nov 15, 71. Dec 19, 70, p 5; Jan 19, 71, pp 2, 4; Dec 12,
20. Atch 1 to End of Tour Rprt, Col 71, pp i, 5, Jan 24, 72, pp 2, 4.
Thomas A. Barr, Dir/Ops, Air Force Advisory 34. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
Gp, Vietnam, Jul 30, 71–Jan 5, 73, nd, pp Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 152–58.
5–6; Air Force Advisory Gp, Vietnam, I&M 35. Kissinger, White House Years, pp
Briefing, Apr 7, 71; USAF Mgt Summary, 1017–18; Karnow, Vietnam, pp 398, 633,
May 21, 71, p i; Aug 18, 71, p iii; Jan 24, 72, 655; Thomas D. Boettcher, Vietnam: The
p 39; Feb 22, 72, p 39; Jan 19, 73, p 39. Valor and the Sorrow (Boston, 1985), pp
21. Capt Joseph G. Meeko IV, Vietnamiza- 246–49, 390–91, 450–51.
tion of the Tactical Air Control System (Hq 36. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
PACAF, Proj CHECO, Sep 23, 74), pp 14– Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 159–60.
15. 37. Ibid, pt I, pp 174, 178–82.
22. Ibid, pp 38–41; ltr, I DASC to 7AF 38. JCS Action Officer’s Data Book on
DCS/Ops, May 15, 71, subj: Night FAC Vietnamizing the War, Jun 28, 72, p B:37–1;
Strike Certification for Close Air Support; Hartsook, Shield for Vietnamization and
End of Tour Rprt, Col Peter B. Van Brussel, Withdrawal, pp 73–74.
Jr., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 2, Aug 39. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
70–Jul 72, nd, p 2:1. Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 185–207; Hart-
23. Atch 2 to Slane End of Tour Rprt. sook, Shield for Vietnamization and With-
24. Trip Rprt, Capt C. L. Christon, VNAF drawal, pp 71–84.
Chapter 18
1. TIG, [The Inspector General] Brief, vol XX. no 6 (Mar 29, 68), p 17.
479
2. TIG Brief, vol XX, no 19 (Sep 27, 68), p 20. Alfred W. McCoy, with Cathleen B.
20. Read and Leonard P. Adams, III, The Politics
3. Memo, J. William Doolittle, Asst SAF, of Heroin in Southeast Asia (New York,
Manpower and Reserve Affairs, for the Vice 1972), pp 186–87; 7AF Background Paper on
Chief of Staff, Feb 4, 69, subj: Race Relations Drug Abuse Prevention Program, nd.
within the Air Force; Intvw, Maj Alan 21. Hist, Ofc of the Inspector General,
Gropman with Col Hughie C. Mathews, Ex- Jan–Jun 70, vol II, pp 14–15. Additional in-
periences of a Black Officer, 1945–1964, Oct formation supplied by Edward A. Mishler,
25, 73, pp 34–37. PhD, Historian, Ofc of Special Investigations.
4. Jack D. Foner, Blacks and the Military in 22. McCoy, with Read et al, The Politics of
American History: A New Perspective, pa- Heroin, pp 181–83, 185; 7AF Background
perback edition (New York, 1974), pp 212– Paper on Drug Abuse Prevention Program,
13. nd.
5. Hist, Ofc of Surgeon General, USAF, 23. Hist, Ofc of the Inspector General,
Jan–Jun 68, p 149; Jul–Dec 70, p 33. Jul–Dec 70, vol II, pt 4, pp 46–47; msg,
6. End of Tour Rprt, Col Earl M. Chu, CSAF to ALMAJCOM, 081623Z Mar 71,
DCS/Personnel, Hq 7AF, Jun 17, 71–Jun 16, subj: Privileged Communication for Drug
72, June 15, 72, p 15. Abusers, unnumbered supporting doc to hist,
7. Hobbs End of Tour Rprt, pp 2–8. PACAF, Jul 70–Jun 71, vol II; Briefing chart,
8. Atch 1 to Slane End of Tour Rprt. USAF Limited Privileged Communication
9. End of Tour Rprt, Col Archie L. Henson, Program, nd.
Staff Judge Advocate, Hq 7AF, Aug 25, 24. Maj Richard B. Garver, Drug Abuse in
70–Aug 24, 71, Aug 15, 71, pp 2–4. Southeast Asia (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO,
10. Slane End of Tour Rprt, pp 7–8. Jan 1, 75), pp 7–14.
11. Lt Gen Paul K. Carlton, Comdr, 15AF 25. Chu End of Tour Rprt, pp 27–28.
(SAC), speech to the graduates of the Squad- 26. Curfman End of Tour Rprt, p 14.
ron Officers’ School, Aug 6, 71. 27. Fitzgerald End of Tour Rprt, pp 34–35.
12. Intvw, Lt Col Robert G. Zimmerman 28. End of Tour Rprt, Col Raymond A
with Col John E. Blake, Comdr, Travis AFB, Gailer, Comdr, 2d APGp, and Chief, Aerial
Calif, 1970–71, Jul 24, 74. pp 54–55. Port Div, Dir/Airlift, 7AF, Jul 71–Jul 72, nd,
13. Intvw, Maj Richard B. Garver with Sgt pp 30–31; hist, Ofc of the Inspector General,
“J,” enrolled in drug rehabilitation program at Jul–Dec 70, vol II, pt 4, p 47; Jan–Jun 71, vol
Udorn AB, Thailand, Aug 23, 73. III, p 14; General Accounting Ofc, Review of
14. End of Tour Rprts, Col Arden B. Curf- Drug Abuse Program in Southeast Asia, nd, p
man, Comdr, 483d CSGp, Cam Ranh Bay 45.
AB, Oct 16, 70–Oct 13, 71, nd, pp 10–11; Col 29. Henson End of Tour Rprt, p 3.
Francis P. Fitzgerald, Comdr, 483d CSGp, 30. OSI Rprt of Investigation, Tan Son
Cam Ranh Bay, AB, Oct 13, 71–Apr 15, 72, Nhut, May–Jun 71.
nd, pp 2–3; OSI Rprt of Investigation, Tan 31. OSI Rprts of Investigation, Da Nang
Son Nhut AB, May 28–Jun 23, 71, Narcotics AB, Vietnam, May 22–Jun 25, 71, Narcotics
Investigative Survey, Jul 23, 71. Investigative Survey, nd; Phu Cat AB, Viet-
15. Slane End of Tour Rprt, p 8. nam, May 19–Jun 25, 71, Narcotics Investi-
16. End of Tour Rprt, Brig Gen Walter T. gative Survey, Jul 16, 71.
Galligan, Comdr, 35th TFWg, Phan Rang 32. OSI Rprt of Investigation, Binh Thuy
AB, Aug 8, 69–Jun 10, 70. AB, Vietnam, May 21–Jul 6, 71, Narcotics
17. OSI Rprt of Investigation, Tan Son Investigative Survey, Jul 19, 71.
Nhut, May–Jun 71, cited above. 33. Ibid.
18. Curfman End of Tour Rprt, p 7; 34. OSI Rprt of Investigation, Bien Hoa
PACAF Briefing Chart, Drug and Alcohol AB, Vietnam, May 22–Jul 9, 71, Narcotics
Abuse Control: Drug Incidents by Specialty, Investigative Survey, Jul 20, 71.
nd. 35. Ibid.
19. Sgt “J” intvw, cited above. 36. OSI Rprt of Investigation, Pleiku AB,
480
Vietnam, Jun 3–Jul 8, 71, Narcotics Investi- Power (New York, 1970), pp 255–70; Leslie
gative Survey, Jul 21, 71. H. Fishel, Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, The
37. End of Tour Rprt, Lt Col Vaughn E. Black American: A Documentary History
Hill, Staff Judge Advocate, 7AF, Jul 6, 72– (Glenview, Ill, 1970), pp 577–87.
Mar 28, 73, nd, pp 1–2. 46. OSI Rprt, Review of Racially Oriented
38. Chu End of Tour Rprt, pp 24–26. Incidents at USAF Bases in the RVN, Apr–
39. Slane End of Tour Rprt, pp 7, 9. Jun 71, Jul 14, 71.
40. Hist, Ofc of the Inspector General, 47. Atch 1 to Slane End of Tour Rprt.
Jan–Jun 71, vol III, pp 12–13. 48. End of Tour Rprt, Col Charles D. Gunn,
41. Hq 18th Military Police Brigade, Rprts Jr., Comdr, 377th CSGp, Jul 9 71–Jan 17, 72,
of Investigations Concerning USARV Instal- and 377th ABWg, Jan 17–Jul 1, 72, nd, p 3.
lation Stockade, Set 13, 68, and USARV 49. Alan Osur, “Black–White Relations in
Stockade Disturbance of 13 November 1969, the Military,” Air University Review, vol
Dec 11, 69; Hist Div, HQMC, Summary of XXXII, no 1 (Nov–Dec 81), pp 76–77; Blake
Significant Racial Incidents at Marine Corps intvw, Jul 24, 74, pp 66–87.
Installations, nd; Foner, Blacks and the Mil- 50. Foner, Blacks and the Military, pp
itary, pp 243–48. 235–36; intvw, Shelby E. Wickham with Lt
42. USMACV Rprt, Detailed Breakout of Col Thomas J. Sizemore, Chief, 2750th
Disturbances, nd. ABWg Social Actions Ofc, Wright-Patterson
43. Maj Richard H. Bucher, Study of Black AFB, Ohio, 1974–77, Mar 3, 77, pp 16–19.
Awareness Groups, Aug 5, 70. 51. Gunn End of Tour Rprt, pp 2–3; End of
44. Ibid. Tour Rprt, Col Gregg F. Glick, Comdr,
45. Benjamin Muse, The American Negro 6251st ABWg, Bien Hoa AB, South Vietnam,
Revolution: From Non-Violence to Black Sep 7, 71–Sep 4, 72, nd.
Chapter 19
1. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- Daily Evaluation.
nam, 1971–1973, pt I, p 73. 9. Eduard Mark, Aerial Interdiction: Air
2. Ibid. pt I, pp 78–79. Power and the Land Battle in Three American
3. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol I, Wars (Washington, 1994), pp 369–70.
pp 16–18, 32, 26–27, 30–31. 10. Lt Gen Dolvin to Gen Abrams,
4. Msg, Gen Abrams to Adm Moorer, 230455Z Feb 72, subj: Commander’s Daily
010223Z Feb 72, subj: Unnumbered COSVN Evaluation.
Resolution; hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in 11. Msg, Vann to Gen Abrams, 020235Z
Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 209–10; John Feb 72, subj: Specified Strike Zone.
M. Gates, “People’s War in Vietnam,” 12. Msgs, Maj Gen Hollingsworth to Gen
Journal of Military History, vol LIV, no 3 (Jul Abrams, 250215Z Feb 72, subj: Daily Com-
1990), pp 337–38. mander’s Evaluation, 241000H to 251000H
5. Msgs, Gen Abrams to Adm Moorer, Feb 72; 260206Z Feb 72, subj: Daily Com-
221037Z Feb 72, subj: NVN Propaganda; mander’s Evaluation, 251000H to 261000H
Maj Gen [Thomas M.] Tarpley to Gen Feb 72; 270210Z Feb 72, subj: Daily Com-
Abrams, 070420Z Feb 72, subj: Enemy Sit- mander’s Evaluation, 261000H to 271000H
uation. Feb 72; 280205Z Feb 72, subj: Daily Com-
6. Gen Bruce Palmer, Jr., USA, “U.S. mander’s Evaluation, 271000H to 281000H
Intelligence and Vietnam,” Studies in In- Feb 72.
telligence (Special Issue, 1984), pp 91–92. 13. Capt Charles A. Nicholson, The USAF
7. Msg, Vann to Gen Abrams, 031240Z Response to the Spring 1972 NVN Offensive:
Feb 72, subj: Report of Tanks. Situation and Redeployment (Hq PACAF,
8. Msgs, Lt Gen [Welborn G.] Dolvin to Proj CHECO, Oct 10, 72), pp 25–29, 31–33.
Gen Abrams, 200430Z Feb 72, 230455Z Feb 14. Hist, SAC, Fiscal 1971, vol II, pp
72, and 290435Z Feb 72, subj: Commander’s 235–37; msg, SSO SAC to CINCPAC,
481
082330Z Feb 72, subj: Arc Light Deploy- Fall of Quang Tri, p 4.
ment. 20. Msg, VANN to Abrams, 270151Z Mar
15. Msg, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 72, subj: Daily Commander’s Evaluation for
050055Z Feb 72, subj: Operational Plans, 24 hours from 1000H, 27 Mar.
SEA. 21. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
16. Public Papers of the Presidents of the Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 293–95.
United States: Richard Nixon, 1972 (Wash- 22. Brookbank Rprt, p 3.
ington, 1974), pp 30, 192–193. 23. Phillip G, Davison, Vietnam at War:
17. Msgs, Maj Gen [Frederick J] Kroesen The History, 1946–1975 (Novato, Calif,
[Jr.] to Gen Abrams, 240220Z Feb 72, subj: 1988), pp 608–11, 614, 619, 624; hist,
Daily Commander’s Evaluation, and USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol I, p 41.
260337Z Mar 72, subj: none; Lt Gen Dolvin 24. Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of
to Gen Abrams, 090229Z Mar 72, subj: Vietnam (Novato, Calif, 1896), pp 222– 25;
Commander’s Daily Evaluation. Ngo Vinh Long, “The Tet Offensive and its
18. Msg, 7AF SSO to MACV SSO, Aftermath,” paper presented at Remembering
220630Z Mar 72, subj: Freedom Block. Tet: An Interdisciplinary Conference on the
19. Rprt, Maj David A. Brookbank, ALO War in Vietnam, Salisbury State University,
Adviser, 3d ARVN Div, VNAF FACs and the Md, Nov 18–21, 1992, pp 1–3, 48–49.
Chapter 20
1. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol II, 1985), pp 131–32.
p N:2; USAF Mgt Summary, SEA, Apr 20, 11. Msg, JCS to CINCPAC, 092356Z
72, pp 4–6, 30, 38, Jun 21, 72, p 58. May 72, subj: NVN Interdiction Plan.
2. Kissinger, White House Years, p 1098. 12. Hist, SAC, Fiscal 1972, vol III, pp
3. Nixon, RN, p 588. 423–29, 476; vol IV, p 599.
4. PACAF South Vietnam Assessment, 13. Ibid, vol III, pp 431–32, 481; vol IV, p
May 15, 72. 599.
5. Peter Macdonald, Giap: The Victor in 14. Msg, MACV CofS to 7AF Comdr, re-
Vietnam (New York, 1993), p 328. transmitting CINCSAC to CINCPAC and
6. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Viet- COMUSMACV, 141630Z Jun 72, subj: Arc
nam, 1971–1973, pt I, p 457. Light Sortie Rate.
7. Ibid, pt I, p 353, 365–367; Kissinger, 15. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
White House Years, p 1098; msgs, JCS to Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 358–59; hist,
CINCPAC, 021702Z Apr 72, 031716Z Apr CINCPAC, 1972, vol I, pp 195–97; Nichol-
72, and 042325Z Apr 72, subj: SEASIA son, USAF Response, pp 52–53.
Operating Authorities; 082259Z Apr 72, 16. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
subj: Freedom Train Authorities. Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, p 358.
8. Hist, SAC, Fiscal 1972, vol III, pp 17. Nicholson, USAF Response, pp 34, 36.
9. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, p 359; Nicholson,
Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 382–85; Kis- USAF Response, pp 36, 53–54; Charles D.
singer, White House Years, pp 1169–86, Melson and Curtis G. Arnold, U.S. Marines
1192–94. in Vietnam: The War That Would Not End,
10. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in 1971–1973 (Washington, 1991), pp 153–54,
Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt I, pp 385–86; msgs, 157.
Adm Moorer to Adm McCain, 090247Z 19. Melson and Arnold, War That Would
May 72, subj: NVN Interdiction Program, Not End, p 157.
and JCS to CINCPAC, 092307Z May 72, 20. 1st Marine Aircraft Wing Command
subj: NVN Interdiction Plan; John Mor- Chronology, Jan 1–Jun 30, 72, pt II, para 7;
rocco, The Vietnam Experience; Rain of hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, p B:61.
Fire: The Air War, 1969–1973 (Boston, 21. Nicholson, USAF Response, pp 35–36,
482

22. Ibid, pp 40–41, 42–45. Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt II, pp 480–84; hist,
23. Hist, TAC, Jul 71–Jun 72, vol I, p 185. USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol I, p C:14.
24. Nicholson, USAF Response, pp 40–42. 41. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in
25. Ibid, pp 45–51. Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt II, pp 484–94.
26. Hist, TAC, Jul 71–Jun 72, p 184; 42. DesBrisay, VNAF Improvement and
USAF Mgt Summary, SEA, Jun 21, 72, p 6. Modernization, pp 32–35; Memo, SecDef to
27. Hist, SAC, Fiscal 1972, vol II, pp Service Secretaries and CJCS, Jun 16, 72,
474–84; Fiscal 1973, vol I, pp 29–31. subj: Military Assistance to the RVN; Memo
28. Melson and Arnold, War That Would for record, Asst SecDef (I&L), Jun 16, 72,
Not End, pp 159–160. subj: same; End of Tour Rprt, Col John F.
29. Msg, Gen Abrams to Lt Gen [William Nuding, Dir, Programs, 7AF, Jul 12, 71–
J.] McCaffrey and Maj Gen Hollingsworth, May 27, 72, DCS/Plans, 7AF, May 28, 72–
181231Z May 72, subj: SEASIA TAC Air Jul 30, 72, nd, p 11.
Augmentation; Glick End of Tour Rprt, nd, 43. DesBrisay, VNAF Improvement and
np. Modernization, pp 35–38; hist, JCS, The JCS
30. Melson and Arnold, War That Would and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt II,
Not End, pp 165–66; Nicholson, USAF Re- pp 499–503; Karnow, Vietnam, p 648.
sponse, pp 60–61; msg, Gen Abrams to Gen 44. DesBrisay, VNAF, VNAF Improve-
Vogt, 180930Z Jun 72, subj: Increment ment and Modernization, pp 49–50; hist,
Twelve Redeployments. USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, p C:20–22.
31. Msgs, 7AF SSO to MACV SSO, 45. DesBrisay, VNAF Improvement and
030100Z May 72 and 300130Z May 72, Modernization, pp 50–51, 118; Point paper,
subj: Increment 12; COMUSMACV to 7AF Ofc of Special Asst for Vietnamization,
Comdr, 070606Z May 72, subj: Increment DCS/Plans and Ops, VNAF Training for
12 Redeployments; 7AF to PACAF, Enhance Plus Aircraft, Dec 12, 72; hist,
201230Z May 72, TAC SSO to PACAF USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol I, pp C:74,
SSO, AFSSO, et al, 241915Z May 72, and 77, 79.
AFSSO to PACAF SSO, 262215Z May 72, 46. AF Advisory Gp Rprt, VNAF Pilot
subj: RVN TACAIR Relocations; PACAF Conference and FY 74 Security Assistance
SSO to 7AF SSO and 13AF SSO, 070238Z Workshop, Bangkok, Thailand, Feb 9–13,
Jun 72, subj: none; Nicholson, USAF Re- 73.
sponse, pp 54, 58, 60, 61, 63; USAF Mgt 47. DesBrisay, VNAF Improvement and
Summary, SEA, Oct 27, 72, p 4. Modernization, pp 123–24.
32. Hist, TAC, Jul 72–Jun 73, pp 217–23. 48. Atch to ltr, Air Force Logistics
33. USAF Mgt Summary, Apr 20, 72, pp Command to Ofc SecDef (I&L), nd [ca mid-
4–5; Nov 27, 72, p 5. December 72], subj: Plan for Completing
34. Hist, JCS, The JCS and the War in U.S. Civilian and Third-Country Support of
Vietnam, 1971–1973, pt II, pp 442–45, RVNAF.
451–59. 49. Msg, 7602 AINTELGp, Ft. Belvoir,
35. Ibid, pt I, pp 375–76, 389–31. Va., to DIA, Washington, IR 1 502 0211 75,
36. Facts on File, vol XXXII, no 1677 subj: Logistics Problems.
(Dec 17–23, 72), p 1022G3. 50. Msg, 7602 AINTELGp, Ft. Belvoir,
37. Karnow, Vietnam, p 653. Va., to DIA, Washington, IR 1 502 0271 75,
38. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol I, Jul 75, subj: VNAF Logistics.
p C:12; Thomas D. DesBrisay, VNAF Im- 51. Msg, 7602 AINTELGp, Ft. Belvoir,
provement and Modernization Program, Jul Va., to DIA, Washington, IR 1 502 210 75,
1971–Dec 73 (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, 221801Z Jul 75, subj: Problems Associated
Jan 1, 75), p 28. with VNAF Logistics.
39. Col J. L. Gardner, Background Paper 52. Ibid.
on Current Status of Credible Chase, May 9, 53. Msg, 7602 AINTELGp, IR 1 502 0271
72. 75, cited above.
483
54. Rprt, Ofc SecDef Ad Hoc Panel on 58. End of Tour Rprt, Maj Gen James H.
Technical Improvements of VNAF Capabili- Watkins, Chief, AF Advisory Gp, Vietnam,
ties, nd [ca Dec 72], pp 17, 24–25, 29–30, Feb 15, 71–May 16, 72, p C:8; msg, 7602
32. AINTELGp, Ft. Belvoir, Va., to DIA, Wash-
55. Ibid, pp 28–29. ington, 271942Z Aug 75, subj: VNAF Re-
56. Ibid, p 17; End of Tour Rprt, Col connaissance Capabilities; DesBrisay, VNAF
Charles E. Hammack, Chief, AF Advisory Improvement and Modernization, pp 100–
Team 1, Jun 19 72–Mar 14, 73, nd, p 3. 101.
57. Rprt, Ofc SecDef Ad Hoc Panel on 59. Rprt, Ofc SecDef Ad Hoc Panel on
Technical Improvement of VNAF Capabili- Technical Improvements of VNAF Capabili-
ties, pp 35–36, 38–39; Hammack End of ties, p 21.
Tour Rprt, p 2. 60. Brookbank Rprt, p 4.
Chapter 21
1. Morrocco, Rain of Fire, p 102. 13. Ibid, pp 200–204; Whitcomb com-
2. David Fulgham, Terrence Maitland, et ments.
al, The Vietnam Experience: South Vietnam 14. Quoted in Melson and Arnold, War
on Trial, Mid-1970 to 1972 (Boston, 1984), That Would Not End, p 61.
p 142. 15. Tilford, Search and Rescue, p 120.
3. Intvw, Lt Col Arthur W. McCants and 16. Brookbank rprt, p 8.
James C. Hasdorff with Gen John W. Vogt, 17. A. J. C. Lavalle, ed, USAF Southeast
7AF Comdr, Apr 72–Sep 73, Aug 8–9, 78, Asia Monograph Series: Airpower and the
pp 63–64, 263–66, 271–72. 1972 Spring Invasion (Washington, 1985),
4. Brookbank rprt, pp 4–5. reprint, p 41.
5. Kissinger, White House Years, p 1098, 18. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 33, 36–
1098n. 37.
6. Brookbank rprt, p 10; Ngo Quang 19. Brookbank rprt, pp 6, 10.
Truong, Indochina Monographs: The Easter 20. Ibid, pp 6, 16–17.
Offensive of 1972 (Washington, 1980), pp 21. Ibid, p 18; Tilford, Search and Rescue,
23–30. pp 120–21; msg, MACV CofS for 7AF
7. Brookbank rprt, p 7; Morrocco, Rain of Comdr, 020947Z May 72, retransmitting CG
Fire, pp 106–7; Earl H. Tilford, Search and FRAC to COMUSMACV, 020455Z May 72,
Rescue in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975 subj: Commander’s Daily Evaluation.
(Washington, 1980), pp 118–19; 96th Cong, 22. Truong, Easter Offensive, p 50; David-
1st Sess, Senate Committee on Veterans’ son, Vietnam at War, p 618.
Affairs, Medal of Honor Recipients (Wash- 23. Maj David K. Mann, The 1972 Inva-
ington, 1979); G. H. Turley, The Easter sion of Military Region I: Fall of Quang Tri
Offensive: Vietnam, 1972 (Novato, Calif, and the Defense of Hue (Hq PACAF, Proj
1985), p 202n; Melson and Arnold, War That CHECO, Mar 15, 73), p 56.
Would Not End, p 71; Darrel D. Whitcomb, 24. Msg, Gen Abrams to Secretary Laird,
The Rescue of Bat 21 (Annapolis, Md, 1988), 011601Z May 72, subj: Personal Assessment
pp 61–63, 78–82, 93–108, 120–121. For a of Situation in RVN.
fictionalized account of Hambleton’s rescue, 25. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 53–54,
see William Anderson, Bat 21, Englewood 56.
Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1980. 26. Msg, 7AF SSO to AF SSO and
8. Brookbank Rprt, p 9; commnets by PACAF SSO, 061045Z May 72, subj: none.
Darrell D. Whitcomb, nd, on draft MS. 27. Msgs, AF SSO to 7AF SSO, 241422Z
9. Tilford, Search and Rescue, pp 118–19. May 72, subj: RADC [Rome Air Develop-
10. Morrocco, Rain of Fire, pp 107, 112. ment Center] Artillery Locating System
11. Turley, The Easter Offensive, p 203. (RALS); Maj Gen [Howard H.] Cooksey to
12. Ibid, p 123. Gen Abrams, 140230Z Jun 72, subj: Com-
484
mander’s Daily Evaluation; Mann, The 1972 Offensive, p 58.

Invasion of Military Region I, p 62; Whit- 34. Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp 635–37.
comb comments. 35. Msgs, COMUSMACV to CG FRAC,
28. Msg, 7AF SSO to AF SSO and Dir SRAG, et al, 020452Z May 72, subj:
PACAF SSO, 061045Z May 72, subj: none. none; Gen Abrams to Vice President Agnew,
29. Mann, The 1972 Invasion of Military 171034Z May 72, subj: Memcon of Meeting
Region I, pp 58, 67. at TSN Base Operations VP Lounge.
30. Msg, CG FRAC to COMUSMACV, 36. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 65–66.
100300Z May 72, subj: none. 37. CAS South Vietnam Situation Rprt,
31. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 56–63. 271600Local Jun 72.
32. Hq PACAF, Summary of Southeast 38. Truong, Easter Offensive, p 67.
Asia Air Operations, Apr 72, p 5:C:2; Jul 72, 39. Ibid, pp 70–71; hist, USMACV, Jan
p 5:C:2; Mann, The 1972 Invasion of Mili- 72–Mar 73, vol I, pp 73–77.
tary Region I, p 74; msg, Maj Gen Cooksey 40. Hammack End of Tour Rprt, p 3; CAS
to Gen Abrams, 190244Z Jun 72, subj: Com- South Vietnam Situation Rprts, 011700Local
mander’s Daily Evaluation; Lavalle, ed, Air- Oct 72; 021800Local Oct 72; 281800Local
power and the Spring Invasion, p 44; Whit- Oct 72; hist, MACV, Jun 72–Mar 73, vol I,
comb comments. pp 78–85.
33. Lavalle, ed, Airpower and the Spring 41. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 75–77.
Chapter 22
1. Jeffrey J. Clarke, The United States Hours from 1000H, 3 May; to COMUS-
Army in Vietnam; Advice and Support: The MACV, 050300Z May 72, subj: Daily Com-
Final Years, 1965–1973 (Washington, mander’s Evaluation for 24 Hours from
1988), p 477. 1000H, 4 May.
2. Truong, Easter Offensive, p 82. 10. Truong, Easter Offensive, p 94; Intvw,
3. Capt Peter A. W. Liebchen, Kontum: Lt Col V. H. Gallacher and Maj Lyn R. Offi-
The Battle for the Central Highlands, 30 cer with Col Loyd J. King, AC–130 comdr,
March–10 June 1972 (Hq PACAF, Proj 71–72, Feb 8, 73.
CHECO, Oct 27, 72), p 2. 11. Msgs, Vann to COMUSMACV,
4. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 83–84, 91; 030340Z May 72, subj: Daily Commander’s
Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Evaluation for 24 Hours from 1100H, 2
Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New May; 070315Z May 72, subj: Daily Com-
York, 1988), p 755. mander’s Evaluation for 24 Hours from
5. Msg, Brig Gen [George E.] Wear to 1000H, 6 May.
Gen Abrams, 030330Z Apr 72, subj: Daily 12. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 91–92.
Commander’s Evaluation for 24 Hours from 13. Quoted in Liebchen, Kontum, p 34.
1000H, 2 April. 14. Liebchen, Kontum, pp 44–45, 47–48;
6. Liebchen, Kontum, pp 11–12. hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol II, pp
7. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 86–87; K:17–18.
hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol I, p 51. 15. Bowers, Tactical Airlift, pp 566–69.
8. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 86–90, 16. Leibchen, Kontum, pp 55, 57.
93–94; Liebchen, Kontum, pp 17, 20–22, 17. Liebchen, Kontum, pp 55–57.
36–37. 18. Maj Paul T. Ringenbach, Airlift to
9. Msgs, Vann to Gen Abrams, 291040Z Besieged Areas, 7 Apr–31 Aug 72 (Hq
Apr 72, subj: Miscellaneous Problems PACAF, Proj CHECO, Dec 7, 73), p 29;
Relating to Air Support; to COMUSMACV, Bowers, Tactical Airlift, pp 544–45.
030340Z May 72, subj: Daily Commander’s 19. Maj Paul T. Ringenbach and Capt
Evaluation for 24 Hours from 1000H, 2 Peter J. Melly, The Battle for An Loc, 5 Apr–
May; to COMUSMACV, 040411Z May 72, 26 Jun 1972 (Hq PACAF, Proj CHECO, Jan
subj: Daily Commander’s Evaluation for 24 31, 73) app 2; Bowers, Tactical Airlift, p
485
550. Spring Invasion, p 97.

20. Bowers, Tactical Airlift, p 571–572. 46. Msg, Maj Gen Hollingsworth to Gen
21. Bowers, Tactical Airlift, p 570. Abrams, 100235Z May 72, subj: Daily Com-
22. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 104–5; mander’s Evaluation Rprt, 091000H through
hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol I, pp 101000H May 72.
87–91. 47. Intvw, Lt Col Robert Zimmerman with
23. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 107–8, Lt Col Stephen J. Opitz, Fire Control Offi-
111–12, 114–15; hist, USMACV, Jan 72– cer, AC–130 Gunship, Jul 71–Jul 72, Jul 18,
Mar 73, vol II, pp J:1, 3. 72, p 43; Ringenbach and Melly, An Loc, p
24. Ringenbach, Airlift to Besieged Areas, 46; Lavalle, Airpower and the 1972 Spring
pp 1–2; Ringenbach and Melly, An Loc, p 5. Invasion, p 97.
25. Ringenbach and Melly, An Loc, pp 48. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol
7–8, 12–13. II, p J:22; Vogt intvw, pp 262–67.
26. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol 49. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol
II, pp J:7–9. II, pp J:22–23, 25; Lt Col Gerald J. Tull and
27. Clarke, Final Years, p 485. Maj James C. Thomas, Pave Aegis Weapon
28. Davidson, Vietnam at War, p 629. System (AC–130E Gunship) (Hq PACAF,
29. Msg, Maj Gen Hollingsworth to Lt Proj CHECO, Jul 30, 73), pp 23–24.
Gen McCaffrey, 160910Z Apr 72, subj: 50. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol
none. II, pp J: 26, 28.
30. Ringenbach and Melly, An Loc, p 15. 51. Ringenbach and Melly, An Loc, p 45.
31. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol 52. Msg, Maj Gen Hollingsworth to Gen
II, pp J:9–10, 12–13. Abrams, 120227Z May 72, subj: Daily Com-
32. Ibid, p J:13; Ringenbach and Melly, mander’s Evaluation Report, 111000H
An Loc, p 17. through 121000H May 72.
33. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol 53. Quoted in Ringenbach and Melly, An
II, pp J:13–14. Loc, p 60.
34. Ringenbach and Melly, An Loc, pp 54. Ringenbach and Melly, An Loc, p 43.
18–19, 22–23. 55. Lavalle, Airpower and the Spring
35. Maj Gen Hollingsworth to Gen 1972 Invasion, pp 85, 199; Glick End of
Abrams, 130225Z May 72, subj: Daily Com- Tour Rprt, np.
mander’s Evaluation Rprt, 121000H through 56. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 137, 146,
131000H May 72. 148; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp 609–10.
36. Ringenbach and Melly, An Loc, pp 57. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol I,
24–25, 37–38. p 63; msgs, Brig Gen Frank E. Blazey to
37. Maj Gen Hollingsworth to Gen COMUSMACV, 060215Z Apr 72, subj:
Abrams, 100235Z May 72, subj: Daily Eval- TAOR [Tactical Area of Responsibility]
uation Rprt, 091000H through 101000H Report; Maj Gen Tarpley to COMUS-
May 72. MACV, 050240Z Apr [actually May] 72,
38. Bowers, Tactical Airlift, pp 550–51. subj: same.
39. Ringenbach and Melly, An Loc, pp 58. Hist, USMACV, Jan 72–Mar 73, vol I,
27–28; Bowers, Tactical Airlift, pp 540, 546, pp 63, 65; Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 145–
555, 596–97. 46, 148–55.
40. Bowers, Tactical Airlift, pp 541–48. 59. Truong, Easter Offensive, pp 146, 155.
41. Ibid, p 546. 60. Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp 605–8.
42. Bowers, Tactical Airlift, pp 549–54, 61. Ibid, p 608.
572–73. 62. Kissinger, White House Years, pp
43. Ibid, pp 555–56; Truong, Easter Of- 1146–47, 1352–53, 1378–92, 1402. To view
fensive, p 133. the negotiating process through South Viet-
44. Bowers, Tactical Airlift, pp 555–56, namese eyes, see: Nguyen Tien Hung and
576. Jerrold L. Schecter, The Palace File (New
45. Lavalle, Airpower and the 1972 York, 1986), chapters 7–9.
486
63. Nixon, RN, p 718. 1459–60.

64. Ibid, pp 749–50; Karnow, Vietnam, pp 65. Vogt intvw, p 276.
651–55; Kissinger, White House Years, pp 66. Clarke, Final Years, p 520.
Chapter 23
1. Cao Van Vien, Indochina Monographs: 12. AFGp/XR Talking Paper, VNAF
The Final Collapse (Washington, 1983), pp Force Structure, Jan 11, 73, DAO 201–09A,
29–30. RVNAF Force Structure.
2. End of Tour Rprt, Col Merrill W. 13. End of Tour Rprt, Maj Gen Jimmy J.
Hulse, Chief, Automated Systems Div, J–3, Jumper, MACV J–5, 7AF Dir/Intelligence,
Hq USSAG/7AF, Aug 7, 72–Aug 6, 73, Aug and Chief, AF Advisory Gp, Jul 6, 72–Mar
6, 73, p 5. 28, 73, Jun 14, 73, np.
3. Msg, PACAF SSO to USSAG SSO, 14. Atch to AF Gp/LG Working Paper,
230401Z Mar 73, subj: Ten-Day Targeting VNAF Force Structure, Jan 11, 73, DAO
Plan, retransmitting PACAF SSO to SAC 201–09A RVNAF Force Structure.
SSO, 222200Z Mar 73, subj: same. 15. Msg, AFGp to COMUSMACV,
4. Msg, PACAF SSO to 7AF SSO, 110301Z Jan 73, subj: Maritime Patrol
282230Z Feb 73, subj: PACAF Base Re- Squadron, DAO 201–09A VNAF Maritime
opening Plan (Commando Freight 11). Patrol Squadron.
5. Msg, Nakhon Phanom SSO to 16. End of Tour Rprt, Col Gerald M.
CINCPAC SSO, 170250Z Apr 73, subj: Op- Adams, Dir/Plans and Programs, AFGp, Jul
erational Procedures. 15, 72–Feb 28, 73, Feb 26, 73, pp 2–3.
6. End of Tour Rprt, Col Frederick W. 17. Disposition Form, Col [Perrin W.]
Fowler, Chief, Targets Div, J–2, USSAG, Gower [ Jr.,] to Brig Gen [Ralph J.] Mag-
Feb 13–Aug 29, 73, Oct 11, 73, p 10. lione [ Jr.,] and Maj Gen Murray, Aug 14,
7. Msgs, Nakhon Phanom SSO to PACAF 73, subj: Air Attache Visit to 6th, 2d, and 1st
SSO, 271040Z Apr 73, subj: Command and Air Divs, DAO 201–09A Air Attache Visit
Control in Khmer Republic; to Phnom Penh to 6th, 2d, and 1st Air Divs.
SSO, 281015Z Apr 73, subj: SEAsia Operat- 18. Disposition Form, AFGp to COMUS-
ing Authorities; to DIA SSO, 020545Z Jul MACV, Jan 9, 73, subj: Non-Concurrence
73, subj: none; CJCS to CINCPAC and with JGS Recommendation That VNAF Re-
CINCSAC, 280028Z Apr 73, subj: SEAsia tain Nine Excess C–47 Aircraft; ltr, Gen
Operating Authorities; ltr, Gen John W. Fred C. Weyand to Gen Cao Van Vien, Jan
Vogt to Thomas Ostrum Enders, Dep Chief 14, 73, DAO 201–09A Proj Enhance Plus,
of Mission, U.S. Embassy, Phnom Penh, Folder 2.
1970–1974, Jul 8, 79, in Henry Kissinger, 19. Msg, Maj Gen Murray to Gen Vogt,
Years of Upheaval (Boston, 1986), tab C to 011041Z May 73, subj: Collection Capabil-
app. ities in SVN—DAO vis a vis MACV.
8. End of Tour Rprt, Col Russell F. 20. DAO Quarterly Assessment, Oct 31,
Crutchlow, Chief, Command and Control 73, pp 6:48–49.
Div, 7AF, Jun 72–Jun 73, nd [Jun 73], p 2. 21. Ibid, foreword.
9. Col William E. LeGro, Vietnam from 22. Ibid, pp 6:35–36.
Cease-Fire to Capitulation (Washington, 23. Ibid, p 6:31.
1981), pp 18–19; Clarke, The Final Years, 24. Ibid, pp 6:14, 26, 31; Memo, Maj Gen
pp 495–96; Stuart Herrington, Peace With John E, Murray, USA, Defense Attache, for
Honor? An American Reports on Vietnam, Gen Maglione, Aug 21, 73, subj: LSI Brief-
1973–1975 (Novato, Calif, 1983), pp 12–14, ing on VNAF, DAO 201–09A, Air Attache
48–49. Visit to 6th, 2d, and 1st Air Divs.
10. DAO Quarterly Assessment, Oct 31, 25. DAO Quarterly Assessment, Oct 31,
73, pp 12:10, 12. 73, pp 6:53–56, 59, 63.
11. Ibid, p 12:12. 26. Msg, State to Phnom Penh, Saigon, et
487
al, State 015050, 260022Z Jan 73, subj: 47. Defense Attache, Saigon, RVNAF
Cease-fire in Vietnam in Kissinger, Years of Quarterly Rprt, 4th Quarter FY 74, nd, pp
Upheaval, Tab A to App. 2:1, 14, 21.
27. Msg, Brig Gen Cleland, Chief, 48. Atch to memo, Leonard Sullivan, Jr.,
MEDTC, to COMUSSAG, 310845Z Mar 73, Asst SecDef (Program Analysis and Evalua-
quoting his msg to CINCPAC Chief of Staff, tion) for SecDef, Jan 6, 75, subj: Prospects
291121Z Mar 73, subj: GKR Situation. for South Vietnam—1975 and Beyond.
28. Fowler End of Tour Rprt, p 10. 49. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp 885–
29. Msg, Nakhon Phanom SSO to TAC 87; Herrington, Peace with Honor?, p 35.
SSO, 160440Z May 73, subj: none; Vogt 50. Karnow, Vietnam, pp 660–61; Con-
intvw, pp 93–94; Earl H. Tilford, Jr., Setup: gressional Almanac, 93d Congress, 2d Ses-
What The Air Force Did in Vietnam and Why sion, 1974 (Washington, 1975), p 584.
(Maxwell AFB, Ala, 1991), p 276. 51. Cao Van Vien, The Final Collapse, pp
30. Hq PACAF, with the Support of SAC, 50–53.
Corona Harvest Study, USAF Air Opera- 52. End of Tour Rprt, Col David B. Bal-
tions in Southeast Asia, Jul 1, 72–Aug 15, lou, Chief Advisory Team 3, Sep 12, 72–Feb
73, May 7, 75, vol III, sec VI, pp 38–39. 15, 73, Jan 30, 73.
31. Ibid, vol III, sec VI, p 40. 53. Herrington, Peace with Honor?, pp
32. Tilford, Setup, p 277. 36–40, 91–93.
33. Ibid, pp 276–77; msg, CINCSAC SSO 54. Cao Van Vien, The Final Collapse, pp
to CINCPAC SSO, 251555Z Aug 73, subj: 35–36; Karnow, Vietnam, pp 659–60.
Neak Luong Short Round. 55. Cao Van Vien, The Final Collapse, pp
34. Ltr, Vogt to Enders, Jul 8, 1979, cited 58–67.
above. 56. Karnow, Vietnam, pp 664–65.
35. Msg, Nakhon Phanom SSO to DIA 57. Cao Van Vien, The Final Collapse, pp
SSO, 020545Z Jul 73, subj: none. 75–80; Karnow, Vietnam, pp 665–66.
36. Msg, Brig Gen Cleland, Chief, 58. Herrington, Peace with Honor?, pp
MEDTC, to Adm [Noel] Gayler, CINCPAC, 137–40.
091200Z Oct 73, subj: FANK Capabilities. 59. Cao Van Vien, The Final Collapse, pp
37. Bowers, Tactical Airlift, p 627. 141–43.
38. Ibid, pp 627–28; msg, Brig Gen 60. Public Papers of the Presidents of the
[William] Palmer, Chief, MEDTC, to Adm United States (Washington, 1977) Gerald R.
Gayler, Gen Vogt, et al, 181200Z Jun 74, Ford, 1975, bk I, pp 569–70. Karnow, Viet-
subj: Khmer Air Force Operations. nam, p 667; Congressional Almanac, 94th
39. Tilford, Search and Rescue, pp 137– Congress, 1st Session, 1975 (Washington,
41. 1976), p 306.
40. Karnow, Vietnam, pp 44–45. 61. Lt Col Thomas G. Tobin, Lt Col Ar-
41. Msg, Maj Gen Murray, DAO, Saigon, thur E Laehr, and Lt Col John F. Hilgenberg,
to Gen Vogt, 281042Z Jun 73, subj: Assess- USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series:
ment of a Bombing Halt in Cambodia. Last Flight from Saigon (Washington, 1978),
42. VNAF Force Structure Assessment, pp 35–38.
atch to ltr, Vice Chief of Staff, USAF, to 62. Tobin, et al, Last Flight from Saigon,
CINCPACAF, Jun 14, 74, subj: same. pp 50–78; Herrington, Peace with Honor, pp
43. Defense Attache, Vietnam, Rprt, Dec 170–71.
12, 72–Aug 21, 74, nd, vol I, pp 81–83, 85– 63. Tobin, et al, Last Flight from Saigon,
88. pp 82–89.
44. Ibid, pp 85–86. 64. Ibid, p 97; Tilford, Search and Rescue,
45. DIA Military Intelligence Summary, pp 144–45.
DI–210–713–74, sec VII, Southeast Asia, 65. Tilford, Search and Rescue, pp 144–
Oct 1, 74. 45.
46. Defense Attache, Saigon, Rprt, cited 66. Tobin, et al, Last Flight from Saigon,
above, vol I, pp 87–88. pp 104, 107–8.
488
67. Ibid, p 111; Tilford, Search and Res- pp 113–21.

cue, pp 145–46; John F. Guilmartin, Jr., A 69. See The Role of Air Power Grows,
Very Short War: The Mayaguez and the Bat- 1970, and Shield for Vietnamization and
tle of Koh Tang (College Station, Tex, 1995), Withdrawal.
pp 23–24. 70. Cao Van Vien, The Final Collapse, pp
68. Tobin, et al, Last Flight from Saigon, 154–55.
Chapter 24
1. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 26, Peterson, “‘Mayday’ for Mayaguez: The
53–54; Thomas Des Brisay, USAF Southeast Destroyer Escort Skipper,” U.S. Naval
Asia Monograph Series: Fourteen Hours at Institute Proceedings, vol CII, no 11 (Nov
Koh Tang (Washington, 1985), p 15; J. A. 1976), p 102.
Messegee, “‘Mayday’ for Mayaguez: The 12. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp
Patrol Squadron Skipper,” U.S. Naval Insti- 98–100; J. Michael Rodgers, “’Mayday’ for
tute Proceedings, vol CII, no 11 (Nov 1976), Mayaguez: The Guided-Missile Destroyer’s
pp 94–96. Skipper,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings,
2. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 25– vol CII, no 11 (Nov 1976), p 104.
27, 36–38; Congress and the Nation, vol IV, 13. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 77–
1973–1976 (Washington, 1977), pp 849–51, 81, 84; Des Brisay, Fourteen Hours at Koh
898–99; Roy Rowan, The Four Days of Tang, p 104; Johnson, Austin, and Quinlan,
Mayaguez (New York, 1975), pp 66–70, “Individual Heroism,” p 29.
176. 14. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp
3. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 29, 88–89; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, p 106–109,
43–47. 112.
4. Ibid, pp 39–43, 47–49. 15. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 84–
5. Ibid, pp 49 (chart). 89; Dunham and Quinlan, The Bitter End, pp
6. Ibid, pp 50–51, 56–57; Walter Wood, 248–49; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, pp 111, 113–
“‘Mayday’ for Mayaguez: The Company 15.
Commander,” U.S. Naval Institute Pro- 16. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 89–
ceedings, vol CII, no 11 (Nov 1976), p 101. 93; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, p 119.
7. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, p 56; 17. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 44,
Wood, “The Company Commander,” p 101; 88, 100–104; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, pp 119–
George R. Dunham and David A. Quinlan, 23, 125, 127–28.
U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Bitter End 18. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, p 83
(Washington, 1990), p 241. (map 5).
8. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 55– 19. Ibid, pp 91, 95, 102, 104.
56; Tilford, Search and Rescue, pp 147–48. 20. Ibid., pp 97–98; Des Brisay, Koh
9. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 58, Tang, pp 128, 130.
99. 21. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp
10. Ibid., pp 60–62, 74, 78, 85–86; J. M. 105–6.
Johnson, Jr., R. W. Austin, and D. A. Quin- 22. Msg, JCS to CINCPAC, 150455Z
lan, “Individual Heroism Overcame Awk- May 75, quoted in Guilmartin, A Very Short
ward Command Relationships, Confusion, War, p 107.
and Bad Information Off the Cambodian 23. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp
Coast,” Marine Corps Gazette, vol LXI, no 107–11.
10 (Oct 1977), p 28. 24. Quoted in Guilmartin, A Very Short
11. Intvw, Hugh N. Ahmann with Lt Gen War, p 111.
John J. Burns, Commanding General, US 25. Ibid, pp 111–12.
Support Activities Gp/7AF, Sep 74–Aug 75, 26. Ibid, pp 112–14; Dunham and Quin-
Jun 5–8, 84, p 450; Guilmartin, A Very Short lan, The Bitter End, pp 252–57; Des Brisay,
War, pp 71–74, 77–78, 86, 98; Robert A. Koh Tang, pp 133–35.
489
27. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 129–30.

116–21; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, pp 135, 33. Ibid, pp 131–32; Des Brisay, Koh
137–43; Burns intvw, p 456. Tang, pp 146–47.
28. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 34. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp
122–24; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, pp 143–44; 132–33; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, pp 147–48.
Dunham and Quinlan. The Bitter End, p 258. 35. Guilmartin, A Very Small War, pp
29. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 141–43; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, pp 148–49.
125–26; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, pp 144–45; 36. Congress and the Nation, 1973–1976,
Dunham and Quinlan, The Bitter End, p 264. p 899; Dunham and Quinlan, The Bitter End,
30. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp p 263.
127–28; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, p 145. 37. Tilford, Setup, p 282; Guilmartin, A
31. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp Very Short War, p 99.
127–28; Des Brisay, Koh Tang, p 146; Dun- 38. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp 114,
ham and Quinlan, The Bitter End, pp 259– 148–50.
60; Burns intvw, p 456. 39. Quoted in Dunham and Quinlan, The
32. Guilmartin, A Very Short War, pp Bitter End, p 265.
490
Glossary
A–1 The Douglas Skyraider, a piston-powered, single-engine attack
plane built in one- or two-place versions. Because of its age—it
saw service as the Navy’s AD–1 during the Korean War—it was
nicknamed the Spad, after the World War I fighter.
A–4 A single-place, single-jet attack plane built by Douglas (later
McDonnell Douglas) for the Navy and Marine Corps.
A–6 The Grumman Intruder, a two-place, twin-jet attack plane flown
by the Navy and Marine Corps.
A–7 A single-place, single-jet attack plane built by Ling Temco Vought
and flown by the Navy and Air Force.
A–37 An attack version of the T–37 trainer.
AC–47 Gunship version of the C–47 transport.
AC–119 Gunship version of the AC–19 transport.
AC–123 A Fairchild C–123 transport fitted with sensors to locate targets at
night and a bomb dispenser to attack them.
AC–130 Gunship version of the C–130.
Adm. Admiral.
Airmobile Tactics, developed by the U.S. Army, in which helicopters
deployed, supplied, and supported with fire lightly armed combat
troops.
Apache Snow An operation in the A Shau Valley during the summer of 1969 that
culminated in the fight for Ap Bia, known as Hamburger Hill.
ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam.
A Shau Valley A terrain feature that served as a conduit for enemy supplies and
reinforcements destined from the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern
Laos to northwestern South Vietnam.
B–52 The Boeing Stratofortress, an eight-jet strategic bomber.
B–57 The Canberra, a British-designed, twin-jet medium bomber built in
the United States by Martin.
Babylift The spring 1975 evacuation of orphans from South Vietnam in
departing American transports.
C–5 The four-turbofan Lockheed Galaxy, during the Vietnam War, the
largest transport flown by the Air Force.
C–7 The twin-engine, piston-powered de Havilland Caribou; originally
a U.S. Army transport, turned over to the Air Force in 1967.
C–47 A low-wing Douglas transport, designed in the 1930s and powered
by two radial piston engines.
C–119 A twin-boom Fairchild transport; two radial engines powered the
G model, but the K version also had two auxiliary jet engines.
C–123 A Fairchild transport originally powered by two piston engines;
the K model also mounted a pair of auxiliary jets.
C–130 The Lockheed Hercules, a medium-range transport powered by
four turboprop engines.
C–141 The Lockheed Starlifter, a long-range four-turbofan transport.
Capt. Captain.
CH or HH–3 A twin-turbine, single-rotor helicopter built by Sikorsky for the
Air Force and Navy.
491
Glossary
CH–46 A twin-turbine helicopter, with two rotors mounted in tandem,

designed by Boeing-Vertol and built for the Navy and Marine
Corps.
CH–47 A twin-turbine helicopter, with two rotors mounted in tandem,
designed by Boeing-Vertol and built for the U.S. Army.
CH or HH–53 A twin-turbine Sikorsky helicopter, with a six-bladed overhead
rotor, flown by the Marine Corps and the Air Force.
Col. Colonel.
Combat Spyspot A ground-based radar used to direct air strikes, especially by
B–52s.
Cooper-Church A rider to defense appropriations legislation for fiscal 1971 that
Amendent forbade the introduction of American ground troops into Thailand,
Laos, or Cambodia; sponsored by Senators John Sherman Cooper
and Frank Church.
Comdr. Commander.
Delaware An attack in the A Shau Valley during April 1968.
Dewey Canyon A probe of the A Shau Valley by Marine units in the spring of
1969 that resulted in combat patrols in Cambodia.
Dewey American operations in northwestern South Vietnam in prepar-
Canyon II ation for Lam Son 719, the South Vietnamese attack into Laos
launched in February 1971.
DOD Department of Defense.
Eagle Pull Designation for the withdrawal of the Americans serving at the
embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
EA–6 A Grumman A–6 fitted out for electronic warfare.
EB–66 A twin-jet light bomber built by Douglas for the Navy; later
acquired by the Air Force and modified to intercept or jam enemy
electronic signals.
EC–47 A C–47 transport modified to intercept enemy radio traffic and
locate transmitters.
EC–121 A Lockheed Superconstellation transport fitted out to relay radio
traffic or interpret or relay the radio signals from sensors planted
to detect hostile movement.
Enhance Plus An American program of material aid to strengthen the armed
forces of South Vietnam before a cease-fire imposed restrictions
on military assistance.
F–4 The McDonnell Douglas Phantom, a twin-jet, two-place tactical
fighter flown by the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.
F–5 The Northrop Freedom Fighter, a lightweight, easily maintained
aircraft built for use by America’s allies.
F–84 An obsolete tactical fighter and reconnaissance craft, specifically
the F model with a swept wing and a single jet engine, built for the
Air Force by Republic and used by the reserve components.
F–100 The North American Super Sabre, a single-jet tactical fighter built
in single-seat and two-place models.
F–102 The Convair Delta Dagger, a single-seat, delta-wing, single-jet
interceptor flown by the Air Force.
F–105 The Republic Thunderchief, a single-jet tactical fighter; a two-
place model, the F–105F, was armed with antiradiation missiles
and used to suppress enemy radar.
F–111 A variable-sweep, twin turbofan, two-place fighter-bomber built
for the Air Force by General Dynamics.
492
Glossary
FAC Forward Air Controller.

Fishhook Cambodian base area used by the North Vietnamese and Viet
Cong.
Forces Armee The armed forces of the Khmer Republic.
Nationale Khmer
Frag A fragmentary order—the daily operations order with portions, or
fragments, applicable to various units.
Freedom Action The authority for American air power to intervene anywhere in
Cambodia where a communist victory might pose a serious
military or psychological threat to the Khmer Republic.
Frequent Wind The designation for the evacuation of Americans and some South
Vietnamese from Saigon in April 1975.
Fuel-Air Munitions A bomb employing an explosive gas like propane.
Gen. General.
GKR Government of the Khmer Republic.
H–34 A Sikorsky helicopter, redesignated the CH–34, with a four-bladed
overhead rotor, used by the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.
Hamburger Hill A name given by the assaulting troops to Ap Bia, a mountain in
the A Shau Valley captured in a meatgrinder-like operation that
cost 56 Americans killed and 420 wounded, but then abandoned.
Ho Chi Minh Trail A complex of roads, trails, and waterways that carried men and
cargo from north Vietnam through southern Laos to South
Vietnam and Cambodia.
HP–130 A C–130 transport modified to refuel helicopters and serve as a
command post for rescue squadrons.
Igloo White The air-supported, electronic, anti-infiltration system covering the
Ho Chi Minh Trail and monitored from a surveillance center at the
Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Base.
JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Jolly Green Call sign of the Air Force rescue helicopters, HH–3s and HH–53s.
KC–135 A four-engine, jet-powered aerial tanker sometimes employed as a
transport, a communications monitoring aircraft, or a reconnais-
sance aircraft.
Knife Call sign of Air Force CH–53s used in the Mayaguez operation.
Lam Son A village where Le Loi, a Fifteenth Century Vietnamese leader,
defeated the Chinese, a name frequently used for South Vietnam-
ese operations like Lam Son 719, the invasion of southern Laos in
1971.
Loran Long-Range Radio Aids to Navigation.
Khmer Rouge The Cambodian communist movement and its armed forces.
Linebacker I the bombing of southern North Vietnam in response to the Easter
invasion of 1972.
Linebacker II A bombing campaign in December 1972 directed at North Viet-
nam’s heartland, especially Hanoi and Haiphong, and intended to
force the communist regime to accept the cease-fire negotiated at
Paris.
MACV Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.
MAF Marine Amphibious Force.
Maj. Major.
Massachusetts An attack by U.S. Army troops against the A Shau Valley in the
Striker spring of 1969.
MAW Marine Aircraft Wing.
493
Glossary
Mayaguez An American-operated container ship seized by communist Cam-

bodian forces in May 1975 and quickly recovered.
Menu The operation, March 1969–May 1970, during which B–52s
secretly bombed North Vietnamese and Viet Cong bases in
Cambodia; the targets bore the nicknames Lunch, Dinner,
Breakfast, Snack, and Dessert.
MiG–21 A single-engine, Soviet-built, jet interceptor flown by the North
Vietnamese.
Mini-Tet A series of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese attacks in May 1968
that American military leaders considered a pale copy of the Tet
offensive early in 1968.
MR Military Region.
Napalm Sunday April 7, 1968, when Air Force C–130s saturated with diesel oil
and jet fuel a woods concealing an enemy base; forward air
controllers then ignited the mixture with rockets.
NMCC National Military Command and Control Center.
NVN North Vietnam.
O–1 The Cessna Bird Dog, a single-engine, piston-powered, two-place,
high-wing monoplane; used by the Air Force and Marine Corps.
O–2 A two-place, twin-boom, high-wing monoplane, with piston
engines mounted fore and aft of the crew compartment; built by
Cessna for the Air Force.
OSI Office of Special Investigations.
OV–1 The Mohawk, a two-place, twin-turboprop battlefield surveillance
aircraft built by Grumman and flown by the Army.
OV–10 the Bronco, a two-place, twin-boom, twin turboprop
counterinsurgency aircraft built by North American Rockwell for
the Air Force and Marine Corps.
Parrot’s Beak The site of an enemy base in Cambodian territory just 35 miles
from Saigon.
Patio An operation that launched strikes by American aircraft against
targets in certain regions of Cambodia.
Pegasus The operation by airmobile forces in the spring of 1968 that broke
the siege and provided relief for the Marines defending Khe Sanh.
Plain of Reeds A swamp in southern South Vietnam, near the Cambodian border,
that served as a communist redoubt.
Project 703 A budget-cutting exercise in preparation for the fiscal 1969
budget.
RAAF Royal Australian Air Force.
RAND The name—an acronym for Research and Development—of a
nonprofit think tank established to conduct studies for the Air
Force.
RC–47 Reconnaissance version of the C–47 transport.
RC–119G A maritime reconnaissance version of the C–119G transport.
RF–4 Reconnaissance version of the F–4 tactical fighter.
RF–5 Reconnaissance version of the F–5 lightweight fighter.
RF–101 The single-place McDonnell Voodoo reconnaissance aircraft, a
modification of the twin-jet F–101 long-range interceptor.
RVN Republic of Vietnam.
RVNAF Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces.
SA–7 A Soviet-developed heat-seeking, shoulder-fired antiaircraft
weapon.
494
Glossary
Salem House The operating area for patrols dispatched into northeastern
Cambodia by the Studies and Observations Group, U.S. Military
Assistance Command, Vietnam.
SEA or SEAsia Southeast Asia.
SH–3 A Navy version of the Sikorsky CH–3 helicopter.
Shoemaker The operation that launched American troops into Cambodia in
April 1970; a reference to the name of the commander, Brig. Gen.
Robert Shoemaker.
Single The placing of Air Force and Marine Corps tactical combat air-
Management craft under the direction of an Air Force officer.
SIOP Single Integrated Operation Plan, the overall plan for a nuclear
war.
Somerset Plain A thrust into the A Shau Valley in August 1968.
Sortie A takeoff and landing by a single aircraft; any flight by a single
aircraft against the enemy.
T–37 The two-place, twin-jet, trainer built by Cessna for the Air Force.
T–41 A trainer version of the Cessna model 172, a single-engine, piston-
powered, high-wing light monoplane.
TACAIR Tactical air.
TACC Tactical Air Control Center.
TACS Tactical Air Control System.
Tet The lunar new year celebrated in South Vietnam.
Thor An operation in the summer of 1968 to neutralize through air
power, naval gunfire, and artillery the North Vietnamese artillery
and the antiaircraft batteries in the easternmost part of the
demilitarized zone.
Toan Thang Total Victory, a nickname used for south Vietnamese Operations
against communist bases in Cambodia.
Triborder Area The region where the borders of Laos, Cambodia, and South
Vietnam converged.
Truscott White An offensive in the western highlands during 1968.
Tropic Moon II A Martin B–57B fitted with low-light-level television, an infrared
sensor, a laser range-finder, and a computer for locating road
traffic and determining the release point for weapons.
U–2 A single-place, long-range, high-altitude, single-engine, jet
strategic reconnaissance craft built by Lockheed.
U–17 Military version of a piston-powered single-engine light
monoplane built by Cessna.
UC–123 A Fairchild C–123 transport fitted out to spray herbicide.
UH–1 A single-rotor, single-turbine, helicopter developed by Bell as a
troop carrier, gunship, and command craft for the Army.
U.S. United States.
USA U.S. Army.
USAF U.S. Air Force.
USMACV U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.
USMC U.S. Marine Corps.
USN U.S. Navy.
VC Viet Cong.
VC/NVA Viet Cong/North Vietnamese Army.
Vesuvius An operation conducted in 1968 to develop, through aerial
photography, intelligence on enemy activity in northeastern
Cambodia.
495
Glossary
Vietnamization The program, foreshadowed by President Johnson and conducted

by President Nixon, that sought to train and arm the South
Vietnamese to take over the fighting and ultimately assume
responsibility for the defense of their country.
War Powers Act Legislation adopted in 1973 that, in the absence of a declaration of
war or hostile attack, requires the President to advise Congress
formally of military action he may take on his own authority and
obtain Congressional approval within a specified time.
496
Bibliographic Note
Three collections yielded the bulk of the material that formed the founda-
tion of this book. The greatest volume of detailed information came from the
largest of the three, the so-called CHECO microfilm, on which Project CHECO
(initially the Contemporary Historical Evaluation of Counterinsurgency Opera-
tions, later the Contemporary Historical Evaluation of Combat Operations, and
ultimately the Contemporary Historical Examination of Current Operations)
preserved many of the day-to-day records of the Seventh Air Force and
Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force. Two microfilmed indices hold the key to this
mass of material, one dealing with material originally classified as Secret or
lower and the other with items that were Top Secret.
The other two collections—the message traffic of Gen. Creighton Abrams,
Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, and the historical
materials prepared by or for his predecessor, Gen. William C. Westmoreland—
were located at the time of my research in the Center of Military History. The
Abrams documents, arranged in chronological order, had no index. The most
useful of the Westmoreland material took the form of a historical diary, with
commentary inserted from time to time after the event, that dealt with, among
other things, the appointment of a single manager for tactical combat aviation.
General Westmoreland’s additions, however, could readily be separated from
the original entries. The Center of Military History, besides maintaining the
Abrams and Westmoreland collections, also had in its files a large number of
interviews, reports, and other documents that were then being used for the
writing of the Army’s history of the Vietnam War.
Project CHECO, besides preserving the files of the two principal Air Force
commands in Southeast Asia, produced more than two hundred reports on var-
ious aspects of the fighting. These proved most helpful, as did the end of tour
reports prepared by Air Force officers in certain important assignments and the
interviews conducted by the Air Force and Marine Corps oral history programs.
Catalogues exist that list the CHECO reports and both collections of oral history
interviews, though the revised list of Air Force interviews covering the Vietnam
years is indexed exclusively by the name of the person interviewed rather than
by the topics discussed. Similarly, the microfilmed index of end of tour reports
refers to names rather than assignments or areas of interest.
Air Force Historical Publications and Studies
Anthony, Victor B. The Air Force in Southeast Asia: Tactics and Techniques
of Night Operations, 1961–1970. Washington: Office of Air Force History,
March 1973.
497
Bibliographic Note
Ballard, Jack S. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: Development
and Employment of Fixed-Wing Gunships, 1962–1972. Washington: Office
of Air Force History, 1982.
Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973: An
Illustrated Account. Washington: Office of Air Force History, revised edi-
tion, 1984.
Bowers, Ray L. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: Tactical Airlift.
Washington: Office of Air Force History, 1982.
Buckingham, William A., Jr. Operation Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbi-
cides in Southeast Asia, 1961–1971. Washington: Office of Air Force His-
tory, 1982.
Fox, Roger P. Air Base Defense in the Republic of Vietnam, 1961–1973.
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1979.
Gropman, Alan L. USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series: Airpower and the
Airlift Evacuation of Kham Duc. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University,
1979.
Hartsook, Elizabeth H. The Air Force in Southeast Asia: The Administration
Emphasizes Air Power, 1969. Washington: Office of Air Force History,
November 1971.
———. The Air Force in Southeast Asia: Air Power Helps Stop the Invasion
and End the War, 1972. Washington: Office of Air Force History, 1978.
———. The Air Force in Southeast Asia: The Role of Air Power Grows, 1970.
Washington: Office of Air Force History, September 1972.
———. The Air Force in Southeast Asia: Shield for Vietnamization and
Withdrawal, 1971. Washington: Office of Air Force History, July 1976.
Lane, John J. Air War in Indochina Monograph: Command and Control and
Communications Structures in Southeast Asia. Maxwell AFB, Alabama:
Air University, 1981.
Lavalle, A. J. C., ed. USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series: Airpower and
the 1972 Spring Invasion. Washington: Office of Air Force History, reprint
1985.
———, ed. USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series: The Vietnamese Air
Force, 1951–1975, an Analysis of Its Role in Combat, and Fourteen Hours
at Koh Tang. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1977.
Mark, Eduard. Aerial Interdiction: Air Power and the Land Battle in Three
American Wars. Washington: Center for Air Force History, 1992.
Momyer, William W. Air Power in Three Wars. Washington: Office of Air
Force History, reprint, 1985.
Rowley, Ralph A. The Air Force in Southeast Asia: FAC Operations, 1965–
1970. Washington: Office of Air Force History, May 1975.
Schlight, John. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia; The War in
South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968. Washington: Office
of Air Force History, 1988.
498
Bibliographic Note
Thomas, James C. Training: The Air Force in Vietnamization. Air War College
Report no. 5093. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University, April 1973.
Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975. Washing-
ton: Office of Air Force History, 1980.
———. Setup: What the Air Force Did in Vietnam and Why. Maxwell AFB,
Alabama: Air University, 1991.
Tobin, Thomas G., Arthur E. Laehr, and John F. Hilgenberg. USAF Southeast
Asia Monograph Series: Last Flight from Saigon. Washington: Government
Printing Office, nd.
Van Staaveren, Jacob. The Air Force in Southeast Asia: Toward a Bombing
Halt, 1968. Washington: Office of Air Force History, September 1970.
Wolk, Herman S. USAF Plans and Policies: R&D for Southeast Asia. Washing-
ton: Office of Air Force History, July 1970.
Other Government Publications and Studies
Clarke, Jeffrey J. The United States Army in Vietnam; Advice and Support; The
Final Years, 1965–1975. Washington: Center of Military History, 1988.
Cosmas, Graham A., and Terrence P. Murray. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Viet-
namization and Redeployment, 1970–1971. Washington: History and
Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1986.
Cao Van Vien. Indochina Monographs: The Final Collapse. Washington: Cen-
ter of Military History, 1983.
Dellums, Rep. Ronald V. Extension of Remarks: Escalation, American Options,
and President Nixon’s War Moves. Congressional Record, vol 118, pt 13,
92d Congress, May 10, 1972, pp 16748–836.
Department of Defense. The Pentagon Papers as Published by the New York
Times. New York: Quadrangle, 1971.
———. The Pentagon Papers: The Department of Defense History of United
States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Senator Gravel Edition. 5 vols. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1971.
———. The Pentagon Papers: United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967.
12 vols. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1971.
Dunham, George R., and David A. Quinlan. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Bit-
ter End, 1973–1975. Washington: History and Museums Division, Head-
quarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1990.
Fulton, William B. Vietnam Studies: Riverine Operations, 1966–1969. Wash-
ington: Department of the Army, 1973.
Kellen, Konrad. A Profile of the PAVN Soldier in South Vietnam. Rand memo
RM 5013–1–ISA/ARPA, June 1966.
LeGro, William E. Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Washington: Cen-
ter of Military History, 1981.
Melson, Charles D., and Curtis G. Arnold. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The War
499
Bibliographic Note
That Would Not End, 1971–1973. Washington: History and Museums Divi-
sion, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1991.
Ngo Quang Truong. Indochina Monographs: The Easter Offensive of 1972.
Washington: Center of Military History, 1980.
Nguyen Duy Hinh. Indochina Monographs: Lam Son 719. Washington: Center
of Military History, 1979.
National Archives and Records Service. Public Papers of the Presidents: Ger-
ald R. Ford, 1975. Washington: Office of the Federal Register, 1977.
———. Public Papers of the Presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968–1969.
Washington: Office of the Federal Register, 1970.
———. Public Papers of the Presidents, Richard M. Nixon, 1969, 1970, 1971,
1972. Washington: Office of the Federal Register, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974.
North Vietnam. From Khe Sanh to Chepone [Tchepone]. Hanoi: Foreign Lan-
guage Publishing House, 1971.
Pearson, Willard. Vietnam Studies: The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–
1968. Washington: Department of the Army, 1975.
Pohle, Victoria. The Viet Cong in Saigon: Tactics and Objectives during the Tet
Offensive. Rand memo 5799–ISA/ARPA, January 1969.
Sharp, U. S. Grant, and William C. Westmoreland. Report on the War in Viet-
nam. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1968.
Shore, Moyers S. II. The Battle for Khe Sanh. Washington: Headquarters, U.S.
Marine Corps, 1969.
Smith, Charles R. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: High Mobility and Standdown,
1969. Washington: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S.
Marine Corps, 1988.
Tolson, John J. Vietnam Studies: Airmobility, 1961–1971. Washington: Depart-
ment of the Army, 1973.
U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center. Vietnam Revisited: Conversation with
William Broyles, Jr. Washington: Histories and Museums Division, Head-
quarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.
Project CHECO Reports
Abbey, Thomas G. Attack on Cam Ranh Bay, 25 August 1971. December 15,
1971.
Adamic, Frank J. Short Rounds. July 15, 1972.
Aton, Bert B., and E. S. Montagliani. The Fourth Offensive. October 1, 1969.
Aton, Bert B., and William Thorndale. A Shau Valley Campaign, December
1968–May 1968. October 15, 1969.
Bear, James T. The Employment of Air by the Thais and Koreans in SEA.
October 30, 1970.
———. The RAAF in SEA. September 30, 1970.
———. VNAF Improvement and Modernization Program. February 5, 1970.
500
Bibliographic Note
Bonetti, Lee. USAF Civic Action in Republic of Vietnam. April 1, 1968.

Brynn, Edward P. Reconnaissance in SEAsia, Jul 66–Jun 69. July 15, 1969.
——— and Tihomirov, Michael L. Airpower against Armor. Unpublished MS,
no date.
Burch, Robert M. The ABCCC in SEA. January 16, 1969.
———. Command and Control, 1966–1968. August 1, 1969.
———. Single Manager for Air in SVN. March 18, 1969.
CHECO Staff. Short Rounds and Related Incidents, 1 Jun 69–31 Dec 70. Feb-
ruary 15, 1971.
Clary, James R. Ranch Hand: Herbicide Operations in SEA. July 13, 1971.
Colwell, Robert F. USAF Tactical Reconnaissance in Southeast Asia, July
1969–June 1971. November 23, 1971.
DeBerry, Drue L. Vietnamization of the Air War, 1970–1971. October 8, 1971.
Elder, Paul W., and Peter J. Melly. Rules of Engagement, November 1969–
September 1972. March 1, 1973.
Folkman, D. I.,and Caine, P. D. The Cambodian Campaign, 29 April–30 June
1970. September 1, 1970.
Garver, Richard B. Drug Abuse in Southeast Asia. January 1, 1975.
Grady. M. J. Interdiction in III Corps Tactical Zone: Project Dart. August 10,
1969.
Hanks, Dorrell T., Jr. Riverine Operations in the Delta, May 1968–June 1969.
August 31, 1969.
Harrison, Philip R. Impact of Darkness and Weather on Air Operation in SEA.
March 10, 1969.
Leibchen, Peter A. W. Kontum: The Battle for the Central Highlands, 30
March–10 June 1972. October 27, 1972.
Loye, J. F., Jr., and P. D. Caine. The Cambodian Campaign, 1 Jul–31 Oct 70.
December 31, 1970.
Loye, J. F., Jr., G. K. St. Clair, L. J. Johnson, and J. W. Dennison. Lam Son 719,
30 January–24 March 1971. March 24, 1971.
MacDonough, R. A. Truscott White. December 11, 1968.
Merrell, Ronald D. Tactical Airlift in SEA. February 15, 1972.
Mitchell, William A. Aerial Protection of Mekong River Convoys in Cambodia.
October 1, 1971.
Montagliani, Ernie S. The Siege of Ben Het. October 1, 1969.
Nicholson, Charles A. Khmer Air Operations, Nov 70–Nov 71. June 15, 1972.
Penix, Guyman, and Paul T. Ringenbach. Air Defense in Southeast Asia, 1945–
1971. January 17, 1973.
Porter, Melvin F. The EC–47 in SEA, April 1968–July 1970. September 12,
1970.
———. Tactical Control Squadron Operations in SEAsia. October 15, 1969.
Pralle, James B. Arc Light, June 1967–December 1968. August 15, 1969.
Ringenbach, Paul T. Airlift to Besieged Areas, 7 Apr–31 Aug 72. December 7,
501
Bibliographic Note
1973.
——— and Melly, Peter J. The Battle for An Loc, 5 Apr–26 Jun 72. January 31,
1973.
Roe, David H., Wayne C. Pittman, Jr., Dennis K. Yee, Paul D. Knobe, and Drue
L. DeBerry. The VNAF Air Divisions: Reports on Improvement and Mod-
ernization. November 23, 1971.
Sams, Kenneth, and Bert B. Aton. USAF Support of Special Forces in SEA.
March 10, 1969.
Sams, Kenneth, and A. W. Thompson. Kham Duc. July 8, 1968.
Schlatter, J. D. Short Rounds, June 1968–May 1969. August 15, 1969.
Schlight, John. Rules of Engagement, 1 January 1966–1 November 1969. Au-
gust 31, 1969.
Seig, Louis. Impact of Geography on Air Operations in SEA. June 11, 1970.
Thompson, A. W. The Defense of Saigon. December 14, 1968.
———. Strike Control and Reconnaissance (SCAR) in Southeast Asia. January
22, 1969.
———. USAF Civic Action in RVN. March 17, 1969.
Thompson, A. W. and Thorndale, C. William. Air Response to the Tet Offen-
sive, 30 January–29 February 1968. August 12, 1968.
Thorndale, C. William. Defense of Da Nang. August 31, 1969.
———. Operation Delaware, 19 April–17 May 1968. September 2, 1968.
Trest, Warren. Khe Sanh (Operation Niagara), 22 January–31 March 68. Sep-
tember 13, 1968.
Till, Jerald J., and James C. Thomas. Pave Aegis Weapon System (AC–130E
Gunship). February 16, 1973.
Other Reports
Betts, Donzel E, Hiram Wolfe III, Raymond P. Schmidt, and Thomas N.

Thompson. “Deadly Transmissions (COMSEC Monitoring and Analysis).”
December 1970.
Brookbank, David A. “FACs and the Fall of Quang Tri.” No date.
Bucher, Richard H. “Black Awareness Groups.” August 5, 1970.
Department of Defense. “Report on Selected Air and Ground Operations in
Cambodia and Laos.” September 10, 1973.
1st Battalion, 501st Infantry (Airmobile), to Commanding General, 101st
Airborne Division, subj: Combat Operations After Action Report [Carentan
I and II]. May 28, 1968.
1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, to Commanding General, 101st Airborne
Division, subj: Combat After Action Report, Operation Carentan II. April
29, 1968.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Southeast Asia Report no 1247, Viet-
nam; A History of the Bulwark B–2 Theater, vol 5: Concluding the 30-Year
502
Bibliographic Note
War. February 2, 1983.

Harp, William J., through Detachment B, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
to Commanding Officer, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), After Action
Report. November 29, 1968.
Heiser, Rolland V. “After Action Report, Lam Son 719, January 12–February
28, 1971.” April 1, 1971.
Headquarters, Pacific Air Forces. “Counterintelligence Digest.” Recurring re-
port.
———. “Project Corona Harvest Activity Inputs, January 1, 1965–March 31,
1968.” April 1, 1968–December 31, 1969.
———. “Summary of Air Operations, Southeast Asia.” Recurring report.
Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, Deputy Chief of Staff, Research and Develop-
ment, Office of Science and Technology. “Ad Hoc Panel on Technical Im-
provements of the VNAF Capabilities.” No date [summer 1972].
———. USAF Management Summary. Recurring report.
———. USAF Statistical Digest. Recurring report.
Headquarters, Seventh Air Force. “Air Operations in Cambodia, April 29–June
21, 1970.”
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Director for Operations. “Action Officers’ Data Book on
Vietnamizing the War.” Recurring report.
Meissner, Joseph P., and Leland J. Larson. “After Action Report: The Battle of
Duc Lap.” November 27, 1968.
Mobile Strike Forces, Company C, 5th Special Forces Group, to Commanding
Officer, Company C. “After Action Report: Hgok Tavak.” May 16, 1968.
Palmer, Bruce, Jr. “U.S. Intelligence and Vietnam.” CIA Studies in Intelligence,
Special Issue, 1984.
Roberts, Maj. Gen. Elvy B., Commanding General, 1st Cavalry Division
(Airmobile), April 23, 1969–May 5, 1970. “Senior Officer Debriefing.”
April 18, 1970.
Thayer, Thomas C., ed. A Systems Analysis View of the Vietnam War, 1965–
1972. 12 vols. Department of Defense, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Sys-
tems Analysis), 1975.
31st Military History Detachment, Headquarters, Provisional Corps, Vietnam.
“Historical Study 3-68: Operation Pegasus, March 31–April 15, 1968.” No
date.
22d Military History Detachment. “Narrative: Operation Apache Snow, 101st
Airborne Division, Maj. Gen. John M. Wright, Jr., Commanding, May 10–
June 7, 1969.” No date.
Recurring Official Histories
The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam.

Commander in Chief, Pacific.
503
Bibliographic Note
U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.

U.S. Support Activities Group/Seventh Air Force.
Defense Attache Office.
Pacific Air Forces.
Seventh Air Force.
Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force.
Air Force Advisory Group, Vietnam.
Military Airlift Command.
Strategic Air Command.
Tactical Air Command.
Office of the Surgeon General.
Office of the Inspector General.
Oral History Interviews
Albright, Lt. Col. Ralph. See Connelly, Lt. Col. Daniel, USA.
Brayee, Capt. Frederick E., USA, S–2, 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, 1969.
June 30, 1969.
Brown, Gen. George S., Seventh Air Force Commander, 1968–1970. March 30,
1970, and October 19 and 20, 1970.
Brown, Dr. Harold, Secretary of the Air Force, 1965–1969. August 29 and 30,
1972.
Burke, Maj. Michael, Air Liaison Officer, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division.
No date.
Burns, Lt. Gen. John J. Commanding General, U.S. Support Activities Group/
Seventh Air Force, September 1974–August 1975. June 5–8, 1984.
Carnahan, Maj. Eugene, 21st Tactical Air Support Squadron, Pleiku, South
Vietnam, 1968. No date.
Carr, Lt. Comdr. James M., Jr., USN, N–2 (Intelligence), Task Force 117, 1969.
No date.
Chaisson, Lt. Gen. J. R., USMC, Director, Combined Operations Center, Mili-
tary Assistance Command, Vietnam, 1967–1968. March 19, 1969, and Au-
gust 12, 1971.
Chapman, Gen. Leonard F., Jr., USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps.
March 28, 1979.
Connelly, Lt. Col. Daniel, USA, and Lt. Col. Maurice Williams, USA, 5th
Special Forces Group, 1968; Lt Col Ralph Albright, Air Liaison Officer,
Company C, 5th Special Forces Group, 1968; and Maj. Hugh D. Walker,
Forward Air Controller, 5th Special Forces Group, 1968. October 16, 1968.
Cushman, Lt. Gen. R. E., USMC, Commanding General, III Marine Amphib-
ious Force, 1967–1969. August 13, 1971.
DiEduardo, Capt. Joseph, USA, S–3 (Operations and Training), 2d Brigade, 9th
Infantry Division, 1969. July 1, 1969.
504
Bibliographic Note
Fix, Col. Joseph E., USA, Commander, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division,
1968. No date.
Flint, Maj. Dennis, USA, G–3 (Air), 9th Infantry Division, 1969. June 30, 1969.
Froid, Comdr. James C., USN, N–4 (Logistics), Mobile Riverine Force, and
Commander, 9th River Assault Force, 1968–1969. June 30, 1969.
Garvin, Lt. Col. Thomas P., Air Liaison Officer, 25th Infantry Division, 1968.
March 12, 1968.
Gibson, Lt. Col. Billy G, C–130 crew member, Vietnam, 1968. April 21, 1972.
Gibson, James, Forward Air Controller, 9th Infantry Division, 1968. March 9,
1968.
Ginsburgh, Maj. Gen. Robert N., Air Force member, Chairman’s Staff Group,
Office of Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; senior staff member, National
Security Council staff; and Armed Forces Aide to the President, 1966–
1969. May 26, 1971.
Grant, James, Forward Air Controller, Bien Hoa Air Base, 1969. March 9,
1968.
Gropman, Maj. Alan L. Navigator, 463d Tactical Airlift Wing, 1968. April 13,
1968.
Kansfield, Maj. Donald Frank. Air Liaison Officer, 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry
Division, January 2–June 30, 1969. July 2, 1969.
Laffey, Maj. Thomas P., Assistant Air Liaison Officer, 9th Infantry Division,
1968–1969. July 1, 1969.
Mathews, Col. Hughie, Air Force career 1945–1964. October 25, 1973.
McCall, TSgt John K., C–130A flight mechanic, 374th Tactical Airlift Wing,
1968. April 7, 1972.
McConnell, Gen. John P, Air Force Chief of Staff, 1965–1969. November 4,
1970.
McDonald, 1st Lt. Richard, USA, 5th Special Forces Group, 1968. October 8,
1968.
Niblack, Col. Emmett A., Chief of Standardization and Evaluation, 311th Tac-
tical Airlift Squadron, 1968. May 3, 1972.
Parsons, Lt. Col. Donald J., Director of Operations, Horn Direct Air Support
Center, 1968. October 14 and 30, 1968.
Pence, Col. A. W., Jr., USA, Airborne Advisory Detachment, Vietnam. May 17,
1971.
Probst, Capt. Lloyd J., C–130 pilot, Vietnam, 1967–1968. May 8, 1972.
Ryan, Col. Malcolm E., staff officer, Seventh Air Force, 1969–1970. January
5, 1970.
Ryan, Gen. John D., Air Force Vice Chief of Staff and Chief of Staff, 1968–
1973. May 20, 1971.
Sizemore, Lt. Col. Thomas J., Chief, Social Actions Office, 2750th Air Base
Wing, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, 1974–1977. March 3, 1977.
Tolson, Maj. Gen. John J., Commanding General, 1st Cavalry Division (Air-
505
Bibliographic Note
mobile), 1968. May 27, 1968, and June 17 and 24, 1968.
Vogt, Gen. John W., Seventh Air Force Commander, April 1972–September
1973. August 8 and 9, 1978.
Walker, Maj, Hugh D. See Connelly, Lt. Col. Daniel, USA.
Wallace, Lt. Col. James L, aircraft commander, 50th Tactical Airlift Squadron,
1968. April 3, 1972.
White, Lt. Col. M. E., USMC, Deputy G–3 (Riverine War), 9th Infantry Divi-
sion, 1969. July 6, 1969.
Williams, Lt. Col. Maurice, USA. See Connelly, Lt. Col. Daniel, USA.
End of Tour Reports
Adams, Col. Gerald M., Director of Plans and Programs, Air Force Advisory
Group, Vietnam, July 15, 1972–February 28, 1973. February 26, 1973.
Ballou, Col. David B., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 3, September 12, 1972–
September 15, 1973. January 30, 1973.
Barr, Col. Thomas A. Director of Operations, Air Force Advisory Group, Viet-
nam, July 30, 1971–January 5, 1973. No date [January 1973].
Barrow, Col Sterling E., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 7, May 1, 1970–April
11, 1971. March 12, 1971.
Bell, Col. Paul E., Chief, Air Force Advisory Teams 6 and 2, September 8,
1969–September 5, 1970. August 18, 1970.
Boyd, Col. Raymond A., Director of Plans and Programs, Air Force Advisory
Group, Vietnam, July 1971–July 1972. July 14, 1972.
Chu, Col. Earl M., Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel, Seventh Air Force, June
17 1971–June 16, 1972. June 15, 1972.
Crego, Col. John C., Deputy J–2, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, June
2, 1971–June 5, 1972. No date [June 1972].
Crutchlow, Col. Russell, Chief, Command and Control Division, Seventh Air
Force, June 1972–June 1973. No date.
Curfman, Col. Arden B., Commander, 483d Combat Support Group, October
16, 1970–October 13, 1971. No date.
Dean, Col. Hubert N. Dean, Chief, Transportation Division, J–4, Military As-
sistance Command, Vietnam, September 1970–August 1971. No date [Au-
gust 1971].
Fisher, Col. Harold E., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 3, September 6, 1971–
September 15, 1972. August 8, 1972.
Fitzgerald, Col. Francis P., Commander, 483d Combat Support Group, October
13, 1971–April 15, 1972. No date.
Fowler, Col. Frederick W., Chief, Air Intelligence Division, J–2, Military
Assistance Command, Vietnam, August 29, 1972–February 12, 1973, and
Chief, Targets Division, U.S. Support Activities Group/Seventh Air Force,
February 13, 1973–August 29, 1973. October 17, 1973.
506
Bibliographic Note
Fox, Col. Cecil E., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 4, August 30, 1969–August
30, 1970. No date.
Galligan, Brig. Gen. Walter T., Wing Commander, 35th Tactical Fighter Wing,
August 8, 1969–June 10, 1970. July 21, 1970.
Gayler, Col. Raymond H., Commander, 2d Aerial Port Group, and Chief, Aerial
Port Division, Directorate of Airlift, Seventh Air Force, July 1971–July
1972. No date.
Glick, Col. Gregg F., Commander, 6251st Air Base Squadron, September 7,
1971–September 4, 1972. No date.
Grooms, Col. Wayne G., Senior Adviser to the South Vietnamese Air Force
Logistics Command, August 13, 1969–August 3, 1970. July 15, 1970.
Gunn, Col. Charles D., Jr., Commander, 377th Combat Service Group, July 9,
1971–January 17, 1972, and Commander, 377th Air Base Wing, January
17, 1972–July 1, 1972. June 29, 1972.
Hammack, Col. Charles E., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 1, June 19, 1972–
March 14, 1973. No date [March 1973].
Henson, Col. Archie L., Staff Judge Advocate, Seventh Air Force, August 26,
1970–August 24, 1971. August 15, 1971.
Hill, Lt. Col. Vaughn E., Staff Judge Advocate, Seventh Air Force, July 6,
1972–March 28, 1973. No date.
Hobbs, Col. Harold W., Commander, 377th Combat Service Group, July 1970–
July 1971. December 18, 1971.
Hulse, Col. Merrill W., Chief, Automated Systems Division, J–3, Military
Assistance Command, Vietnam, August 7, 1972–March 1, 1973. August 6,
1973.
Hunt, Col. Senour, Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 5, November 19, 1969–
November 8, 1970. December 8, 1970.
Jumper, Maj. Gen. Jimmy J., J–5, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, and
Director of Intelligence and Chief, Air Force Advisory Group, Vietnam,
July 6, 1972–March 28, 1973. June 14, 1973.
Lilley, Col. J. R., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 3, July 29, 1970–August 2,
1971. No date [August 1971].
Luby, Col. Edward W., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 3, September 23,
1969–July 20, 1970. No date.
Pohl, Col. Nelson O., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 1, August 1, 1969–July
10, 1970. July 7, 1970.
Saye, Col. Robert N., Jr., Chief, B–52 Operations Division, Military Assistance
Command, Vietnam, and U.S. Support Activities Group/Seventh Air Force,
April 15, 1972–April 11, 1973. March 21, 1973.
Slane, Col. Robert M., Vice Commander and Commander, 553d Reconnais-
sance Wing, September 15, 1970–February 1, 1971, and Commander,
6251st Combat Service Group, February 2–September 2, 1971. November
15, 1971.
507
Bibliographic Note
Slay, Maj. Gen. Alton D., Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations, and
Chief of Staff, Seventh Air Force, 1971–1972. No date.
Smith, Brig. Gen Donavon F., Chief, Air Force Advisory Group, Vietnam, Oc-
tober 1966–March 1968. No date [March 1968].
Snyder, Col. Franklyn C., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 4, August 22, 1970–
July 26, 1971. No date. [July 1971].
Van Brussel, Col. Peter B., Jr., Chief, Air Force Advisory Team 2, August
1970–July 1972, nd [July 1972].
Wall, Col. Frank A., J–6, U.S. Support Activities Group and Deputy Chief of
Staff, Communications and Electronics, Seventh Air Force, June 1, 1973–
June 1, 1974. June 1, 1974.
Watkins, Maj. Gen. James H., Chief, Air Force Advisory Gp, Vietnam, Febru-
ary 15, 1971–May 16, 1972. May 14, 1972.
Young, Brig. Gen Kendall S., Chief, Air Force Advisory Group, Vietnam, July
31, 1970–February 15, 1971. February 15, 1971.
Books
Barrett, David M. Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Ad-
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Boettcher, Thomas D. Vietnam; The Valor and the Sorrow: From the Home
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Brown, 1985.
Bonds, Ray, ed. The Vietnam War: The Illustrated History of the Conflict in
Southeast Asia. New York: Crown, 1979.
Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported
and Interpreted the Crises of Tet. Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1977.
Chanoff, David, and Doan Van Toan. Portrait of the Enemy. New York: Ran-
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Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam. New York: Dodd,
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Davidson, Phillip B. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, Califor-
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Foner, Jack D. Blacks and the Military in American History: A New Perspec-
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Fulgham, David, Maitland, Terrence, et al. The Vietnam Experience: South Viet-
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Gelb, Leslie H., and Richard K. Betts. The Irony of Vietnam: The System
Worked. Washington: Brookings Institution, 1979.
Guilmartin, John F., Jr. A Very Short War: The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh
Tang. College Station: Texas A&M, 1995.
Haldeman, H. R., and Joseph DiMona. The Ends of Power. New York: New
York Times, 1978.
508
Bibliographic Note
Head, William, and Lawrence E. Grinter, eds. Looking Back on the Vietnam
War: A 1990s Perspective on the Decisions, Combat, and Legacies. West-
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Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam,
1950–1975, revised edition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.
Herrington, Stuart A. Peace with Honor? An American Reports on Vietnam,
1973–1975. Novato, California, Presidio, 1983.
Hoopes, Townsend. The Limits of Intervention. New York: David McKay,
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Isaacs, Arnold R., Hardy, Gordon, Brown, MacAlister, et al. The Vietnam Ex-
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1987.
Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of The Presidency, 1963–
1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Kalb, Marvin, and Bernard Kalb. Kissinger. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974.
Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York: Viking, 1983.
Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.
———. Years of Upheaval. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982.
Knappman, Edward W., and Hal Kosut, eds. South Vietnam: U.S.-Communist
Confrontation in Southeast Asia, 1972–1973. New York: Facts on File,
1973.
Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam, New York: Oxford University, 1978.
MacDonald, Peter. Giap: The Victor in Vietnam. New York; W. W. Norton,
1993.
Maclear, Michael. The Ten Thousand Day War: Vietnam, 1945–1975. New
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McCoy, Alfred W., with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard P. Adams II. The Pol-
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McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and
Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Random House Times Books, 1995.
Kirk, Donald. Wider War: The Struggle for Cambodia, Thailand, and, Laos.
New York: Praeger, 1971.
Millet, Stanley, ed. South Vietnam: U.S.-Communist Confrontation in Southeast
Asia, 1968. New York: Facts on File, 1974.
———. South Vietnam: U, S.-Communist Confrontation in Southeast Asia,
1969. New York: Facts on File, 1974.
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1973. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985.
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Novato, California: Presidio, 1986.
———. Sappers in the Wire: The Life and Death of Firebase Mary Ann. Col-
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509
Bibliographic Note
Nixon, Richard M. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Grosset and
Dunlap, 1978.
Oberdorfer, Don. Tet!. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1971.
Palmer, Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lex-
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Palmer, Dave Richard. Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective.
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Pike, Douglas. PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Novato, California: Presidio,
1986.
Pisor, Robert. The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1982.
Prados, John, and Ray W. Stubbe. Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh.
Boston-New York-London: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
Rowan, Roy. The Four Days of Mayaguez. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.
Schandler, Herbert. Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: The Unmaking of a Presi-
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Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cam-
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Sobel, Lester A., and Hal Kosut, eds. South Vietnam: U.S.-Communist Confron-
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Sorley, Lewis. General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times. New
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Thompson, Sir Robert. Peace Is Not at Hand. New York: David McKay, 1974.
Thompson, W. Scott, and Davidson W. Frizell, eds. The Lessons of Vietnam.
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Truong Nhu T’ang with David Chanoff and Doan Van Toai. A Viet Cong Mem-
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Warner, Denis A. Certain Victory: How Hanoi Won the War. Kansas City,
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Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. Garden City, New York: Double-
day, 1976.
White, Theodore H. Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon. New York:
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510
Bibliographic Note
Articles
Brodie, Bernard. “Why Were We So (Strategically) Wrong?” Military Review,

June 1972, pp 40–46.
Broyles, William, Jr. “The Road to Hill 10: A Veteran’s Return to Vietnam.”
The Atlantic Monthly, April 1985, pp 91–118.
DeBerry, Drue L. “Vietnamese Air Force Technical Training, 1970–1971.” Air
University Review, January–February 1973, pp 43–51.
Galvin, John R. “The Relief of Khe Sanh.” Military Review, January 1970, pp
88–94.
Garver, John W. “The Chinese Threat in the Vietnam War.” Parameters: U.S.
Army War College Quarterly, Spring 1992, pp 73–85.
Gates, John M. “People’s War in Vietnam.” The Journal of Military History,
July 1990, p 325.
Gray, Colin S. “What Hath RAND Wrought?” Military Review, May 1972, pp
22–33.
Johnson, J. M., R. W. Austin, and D. A. Quinlan. “Individual Heroism Over-
came Awkward Command Relationships, Confusion, and Bad Information
Off the Cambodian Coast.” Marine Corps Gazette, October 1977, pp 24–
34.
McCutcheon, Keith B. “Marine Aviation in Vietnam.” U.S. Naval Institute
Proceedings, May 1871, pp 124–55.
Messegee, J. A. “‘Mayday’ for Mayaguez: The Patrol Squadron Skipper.” U.S.
Naval Institute Proceedings, November 1976, pp 94–97.
Ngo Vinh Long. “The Tet Offensive and Its Aftermath.” A paper presented at
Remembering Tet: An Interdisciplinary Conference on the War in Vietnam,
Salisbury State University, Maryland, November 18–21, 1992.
Osur, Alan M. “Black-White Relations in the U.S. Military, 1940–1972.” Air
University Review, November–December 1981, pp 69–78.
Peterson, Robert A. “‘Mayday’ for Mayaguez: The Destroyer Escort Skipper.”
U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, November 1976, pp 97–100.
Rodgers, F. Michael. “‘Mayday’ for Mayaguez: The Guided-Missile Des-
troyer’s Skipper.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, November 1976, pp
108–11.
Simmons, Edwin H. “Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam.” U.S. Naval Insti-
tute Proceedings, May 1970, pp 290–320.
Swartztrauber, S. A. “River Patrol Relearned.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceed-
ings, May 1970, pp 120–57.
Tilford, Earl H., Jr. “Setup: Why and How the Air Force Got Lost in Vietnam.”
Armed Forces and Society, Spring 1991, pp 327–42.
Webb, Willard J. “The Single Manager for Air in Vietnam.” JFQ: Joint Forces
Quarterly, Winter 1993–1994, pp 88–98.
Wood, Walter. “‘Mayday’ for Mayaguez: The Company Commander.” U.S.
511
Bibliographic Note
Naval Institute Proceedings, November 1976, pp 100–104.

Xaioming Zhang. “The Vietnam War, 1964–1969: A Chinese Perspective.” The
Journal of Military History, October 1996, pp 731–62.
Yudkin, Richard A. “Vietnam: Policy, Strategy, and Air Power.” Air Force
Magazine, February 1973, pp 31–35.
512
Index
(Numerals in bold indicate an illustration.)
Abrams, Creighton W.: 118 aerial interdiction capability

A Shau Valley interdiction mission Aerial reconnaissance
(1968–69): 152 Army dissatisfaction with Air Force
Cambodia attack plan (1970): 181–82 efforts: 147
Cambodia bombing proposal: 127, 129 in A Shau Valley: 59, 60–61
Cambodian threat concerns: 51–52 by Australia: 150
force deployment decisions: 45 over Cambodia (1970): 51, 192–93
Hue offense role: 25 Cambodia attack plans, lack of (1970):
interpretation of Cambodia policies: 203 182
Island Tree plan: 294 during Menu bombings: 131–32
opinion of senior South Vietnamese in Military Region I: 329
officers: 370–71 in mini-Tet: 72
opposition to bomber sortie cuts: 242 photography and: 30
opposition to force reduction: 137–38 for I Corps support: 117
phase II plan for South: 162 mapping: 145
reevaluation of An Loc: 358 for Menu bombings: 131
support of B–52 sorties: 141 South Vietnamese dependence on:
truce negotiations (1968): 121 356
view of single manager for tactical South Vietnamese capabilities: 224–25,
aviation: 114 356
view on reconnaissance: 131 Vietnamization of: 301, 356
Acheson, Dean: 44 Aeronautical Charting and Information
Acoustic sensors. See Sensors Center: 145
Adverse-weather aerial delivery system: Agnew, Spiro T.: 314, 370
380–81 Air America: 420–21
Aerial interdiction Airborne battlefield command and control
at Ben Het: 157, 158–59 center: 115, 120
Cambodia campaign 7th Airborne Command and Control
close air support continuation: 203–4 Squadron: 342
extension beyond Mekong River: over Cambodia: 210, 284, 405
201–2 over Kham Duc: 106–7
forward air controller duties: 200 over Khe Sanh: 96, 98
Freedom Action: 202 during Lam Son 719: 254
language barrier considerations: 200 during Mayaguez incident: 430, 434–39,
liaison officer difficulties: 200–201 441–42, 444, 448
purpose of: 210 in Military Region I: 366
rules of engagement: 199–200 in Military Region III: 386
effectiveness in tri-border region: in Phnom Penh evacuation: 413
76–78, 78 in Saigon evacuation: 4
ground support role: 79–81 during Operation Thor: 119
intelligence gathering: 81 Aircraft, Australia
lack of South Vietnamese skill in: 178 Caribou: 150
scope in tri-border region: 79 Canberra: 21, 149
strike planning: 81 Aircraft, Cambodia
Vietnamization of. See Vietnamization, AT–28: 412
513
Index
AU–24: 412 anti-helicopter operations: 91

C–47: 281, 412 funding reduction effects: 140
MiG–17: 208 maintenance problems (1973): 409
O–1: 279 in mini-Tet defense: 72
T–28: 208, 277, 279 Project Enhance Plus logistics: 406–7
Aircraft, North Vietnam (MiGs): 242, 291, AC–47: 68, 300
292, 415 in Ap Bia offensive: 156
Aircraft, South Korea (C–54): 150 at Ben Het: 159
Aircraft, South Vietnam Kham Duc support: 104
A–1: 33, 70, 88–89, 171, 298, 333, 351 in mini-Tet: 69, 72
A–37: 161, 162, 163, 213, 222, 333, 408 rocket watch role: 67
AC–47: 34, 161, 162, 223 at Thuong Duc: 86, 87
AC–119: 162, 333, 355, 375, 415 AC–119: 88, 89, 300
C–7: 224 aircrew training for South: 218–19
C–47: 33–34, 184, 222, 224, 299, 407 in Ap Bia offensive: 156
C–119: 34, 172, 184, 224, 299, 350, 389 at Ben Het: 159
C–123: 224 delivery to South Vietnamese Air
C–130: 224 Force (1972): 350, 351
CH–47: 167, 213, 226, 282 funding reduction effects: 140
EC–47: 225, 350 transfer to South Vietnam: 285, 299
F–5: 33, 162, 171, 213, 225, 333, 352 AC–123: 88, 389
H–34: 167, 171 AC–130: 88, 300, 376, 395
O–1: 209 at An Loc: 394, 396
O–2: 170 downed by SA–7: 369
RC–47: 214, 350, 356 in Mayaguez incident: 427, 432, 433,
RC–119: 406–7 440, 445, 446
RF–5: 162, 225, 299, 356, 414 Military Region II defense (1972):
U–6: 299 375, 376, 379–81, 385–387,
U–17: 209 391, 396
UH–1: 34, 161, 167, 168, 213, 223 Phnom Penh evacuation: 413
Aircraft, Thailand at Thuong Duc: 87
C–123: 150–51 B–26: 3
O–2: 150 B–52: 82, 244, 279, 288, 364. See also
Aircraft, United States Operation Menu
A–1 in Operation Alpine: 160
delivery to South Vietnamese Air at An Loc: 386, 395, 396–97
Force (1972): 351 Arc Light: 329, 364, 396
use in Cambodia: 207 Operating areas: 261–62, 266
weakness due to age: 407 tactics during Lam Son 719: 266
A–4 in A Shau Valley: 64, 153, 155–56,
augment Constant Guard: 344 243, 287, 325, 364, 370
reinforcement role: 45 authorized sorties: 27
A–6 at Ben Het: 158, 159
in A Shau region: 152–53, 153 Bugle Note procedures: 28–29
in Cambodia: 200 Bullet Shot deployments: 336–37,
at Thuong Duc: 86, 87 338
A–7: 347 in Cambodia
Constant Guard deployments: 346 1970 invasion: 186–91, 194
in Lam Son 719: 262 1971: 279–80, 282
in Mayaguez incident: 427, 434, 440 1972: 398
Phnom Penh evacuation: 413 1973: 410–11
A–37: 68, 137, 408 at Kompong Cham: 208
514
Index
counteroffense support role: 26 A Shau Valley: 64, 65

damage assessment difficulties: 28, Kham Duc evacuation: 108, 109–10
29, 192 Khe Sanh relief: 56
debate over number of authorized in Lam Son 719: 253, 261
sorties: 136, 141–43, 149 role in Tet offensive: 32–33
enemy knowledge of strike plans: Thai pilots use of: 150–51
29–30 transferred to South Vietnam: 162,
expansion outside South Vietnam: 224, 299, 307
149 withdrawal from Labansiek/Ba Kev:
over Hanoi: 348 202
interdiction missions: 76–78, 297–98 C–124
Kham Duc support: 105 replaced by C–5: 233
Khe Sanh attacks by: 26–27 use in Lam Son 719: 258
Kontum City defense: 378, 380 C–130: 201, 271
Lam Son 719 support: 254, 259, as airborne battlefield command and
261–62, 263, 265, 266, 270, control center: 106, 111, 210,
272 342, 413, 439
Menu bombings. See Operation Menu adverse-weather aerial delivery
Military Region I: 364, 368–72 system: 380–81
Military Region II: 244, 373–74, 378, An Loc supply drop tactics: 390–92
380–81 in A Shau region: 62–64, 63, 154
mini-Tet defense: 72 in Cambodia: 184, 191, 193, 224,
operation modifications (1970): 242 282–83, 412
in Operation Patio: 185, 188 Cam Ranh Bay: 31
Operation Pegasus role: 57 Constant Guard movements: 343–44
post-Tet operational sorties: 19 delivery to South Vietnamese Air
preparation for North Vietnam attack Force (1972): 351
(1972): 328–29 Enhance Plus: 351
reductions, 1970: 239, 241–42 ground radar air delivery system use:
sorties in 1969: 149 380–81
strain of high sortie level: 47 helicopter landing zones, bomb drops:
tandem tactics adoption: 143–44 62, 89, 154, 189, 256, 272,
target selection procedures: 27–28 434, 443
Tet offensive sorties: 16 Kham Duc evacuation: 104–10
in Operation Thor: 118 Kontum City nighttime operations:
Thuong Duc counterattack role: 87 379
B–57: 3, 89, 239, 240, 304 in Lam Son 719: 252–53, 258
C–5: 343, 351 in Military Region II: 375, 378–80
replacement for C–124: 233 in “Napalm Sunday”: 66
use in evacuations: 420 reduction in strength (1970): 233
C–7: 85, 204 role in Tet offensive: 32–33, 33
A Shau Valley: 64 Saigon evacuation: 421
at Ben Het: 158, 159 tear gas drops: 76
Duc Lap supply drops: 86 Tri Ton drop: 82–83
maintenance problems (1973): 409 C–133: 258
transferred to South Vietnam: 224, C–141: 148
350 Constant Guard movements: 340,
withdrawal from Labansiek/Ba Kev: 343–44
202 Enhance Plus equipment transport:
C–47: 3, 33–34, 184, 222, 224, 299, 351
333, 407 Lam Son 719, transport relief for: 258
C–123: 31 Mayaguez incident troop transport:
515
Index
431 in Cambodia: 186, 191, 192

in Saigon evacuation: 421 deployment after Pueblo capture: 39,
troop withdrawal role: 146 43–44, 45
CH–46: 104, 236, 421–22 funding reduction effects: 140
CH–47: 283 at Kham Duc: 107
Delivered to South Vietnamese: 283 post-Tet deployment: 44
Duc Lap supply drops: 86 reinforcement role: 45
Enhance Plus logistics: 406–7 sorties flown during mini-Tet: 70
in Kham Duc evacuation: 106 use during Lam Son 719: 269
CH–53 withdrawal from South Vietnam: 232
at Koh Tang Island: 430–31, 436–47 F–102: 92
napalm drop: 124 F–105: 239, 341
in Phnom Penh evacuation: 413 in A Shau region: 61
in Saigon evacuation: 422 Constant Guard movements: 340
EB–66: 339, 340, 341–42. See also Bat North Vietnam attacks on: 291
21 rescue Wild Weasels: 239, 339–40
EC–47 F–111: 346, 347, 410, 427
over Cambodia: 209 H–34: 167, 171
damaged at Pleiku: 246 HC–130: 342, 413, 431, 439
delivery to South Vietnamese Air HH–53: 394, 444
Force (1972): 350 at Koh Tang Island: 430–31, 436–47
EC–121: 176, 209 Phnom Penh evacuation: 413
as airborne battlefield command and in Quang Tri City rescue: 365–66
control center: 210 Saigon evacuation use: 422
over Cambodia: 184, 209 KC–135: 47, 91, 339
with Igloo White: 176 in Bullet Shot deployments: 329, 337
F–4: 86, 104, 146, 151, 190, 233, 328, Constant Guard movements: 343
347, 410 in Mayaguez incident: 440
1971 reinforcements: 328 sorties flown (1970): 242–43
1972 reinforcements: 338–40, 342–45 O–1: 105. See also Forward air
anti-helicopter operations: 90, 91 controllers
in A Shau region: 61 in rocket watch: 67
at Ben Het: 158 in Tet action: 23–24
over Cambodia: 192, 200, 207 transferred to Cambodia: 279
Commando Flash: 338 transferred to South Vietnam: 172,
Constant Guard movements: 340 233, 237
deployment after Pueblo capture: 39 O–2: 30, 142. See also Forward air
F–102 replacement: 92 controllers
in Lam Son 719: 262 to Air National Guard: 233
during Mayaguez incident: 440 loss at An Loc: 397
in Military Region I (1972): 355, 368 in A Shau Valley: 60
in Military Region II (1972): 375 Enhance Plus transfers: 351
in Military Region III (1972): 397 Mekong River convoy escorts: 284
National Guard squadrons in mini-Tet: 69
replacements for: 136–40 in Rocket watch: 67
North Vietnam attacks on: 291 in Tet action: 30
retention in South Vietnam (1970): OV–1: 146, 160
232 aerial photography role: 147
Thieu requests: 164–65 in A Shau region: 153
F–84: 44 OV–10: 90, 91. See also Forward air
F–100: 33, 46. See also United States controllers
Air National Guard over Cambodia: 207
516
Index
in Lam Son 719: 263 C–130 supply drop tactics: 390–92

in Mayaguez incident: 442, 445–48 end to AC–119 use: 394
Mekong River convoy escorts: high altitude delivery techniques:
284–85 392–93
in Phnom Penh evacuation: 413 high-velocity drops successes:
RC–47: 350 393–94
RF–4: 145, 192. See also Aerial reluctance to fly rescue helicopters:
reconnaissance 389
RF–101: 146, 237. See also Aerial results of: 397
reconnaissance South Vietnam counterattack (1972):
T–28: 3 395–96
U–2: 131, 430 supply drop losses: 389–90
U–8: 148 United States command of defenses:
U–21: 148, 434 386–87, 389
UC–123. See also Defoliation Anti-war sentiments: 22, 144
conversion to transports: 31–32, 140 against bombing of North: 129
funding reduction effects: 140 among college students: 4–5, 197
herbicide spraying use: 61, 234, 235 demonstrations (1970): 197–98
UH–1 increasing unpopularity of War (1971):
at An Loc: 394 306
Phnom Penh evacuation: 421 influences on: 25
Saigon evacuation: 421 Johnson’s reaction to: 46
transferred to South Vietnam: 167 protests of air war intensification
Air Force, United States. See United States (1972): 348–49
Air Force reaction to reinforcement news: 43
Air Force Advisory Group: 166, 211, 352, reaction to Tet offensive: 22, 332
353. See also Vietnamization in South Vietnam: 274
Air Force Weapons Laboratory: 92 Viet Cong prisoner execution incident:
Air National Guard. See United States Air 70
National Guard Apache Snow (Operation): 155–56
Air Staff desire to bomb North: 133–34 Ap Bia: 155–56
Air traffic controllers in Lam Son 719: 258 Arc Light. See also B–52
Air war extension into Cambodia. See Lam Son 719 tactics: 266
Cambodia operating areas: 261–62
Allied Air Operations Coordinating Area source program: 36–37
Center: 276 Arends, Leslie: 129
Alpine (Operation): 160 Army, United States. See United States
A Luoi: 59, 61, 62, 259 Army
American public opinion. See Anti-war Army of the Republic of Vietnam. See
sentiments South Vietnamese Army
Amnesty program for drug users: 317 A Shau Valley
Anders, Lloyd J.: 430 aerial reconnaissance: 59–61
Andersen Air Force Base, Guam: 333, 336, Apache Snow: 155–56
337, 346 casualties: 65
Anderson, A. V. P. III: 65 hostile fire types: 60
Anderson, Norman J.: 95, 102, 114 interdiction mission (1968–69): 152–53
Angkor Wat: 200 interdiction options: 58–59
An Loc offensive description (1968): 61–62
B–52 protection for: 337 political impact of offensive: 156–57
division of strike coordination: 387 strategic importance: 58
Easter invasion (1972): 330–31, 337, supply drops: 62–64
344, 370, 384–97 tactical importance: 55
517
Index
“A to Z” group recommendations: 43 advisory group participation: 166

Australia: 24 aerial photography efforts comments:
air force. See Royal Australian Air 147
Force budget constraint comments: 238
force reductions (1971): 307 F–4 retention (1970): 232
HMAS Hobart accident: 91 freedom of action for Marines: 124
opinion on herbicide spraying: 234–35
Babylift (Operation): 420 opposition to reductions: 134, 136
Bai Thuong airfield: 335 recommended budget savings: 140
Ban Dong: 261–62. See also A Luoi role in Vietnamization: 212
Ban Me Thuot: 419 single manager for tactical aviation
Barthelemy Pass: 193 arguments: 120
Base Area 350: 189 sortie ceiling repercussion position: 239
Base Area 354: 189 Brown, Leslie E.: 344
Base Area 367: 186 Bugle Note: 28–29
Base Area 609: 152 Bullet Shot deployments: 329, 336–37,
Base Area 702: 189–90 338
Base Area 706: 183, 186 Bunker, Ellsworth: 5
Bassac River: 13, 79, 181 discussions with Thieu: 182
Bat 21 rescue: 359–61 truce negotiations (1968): 121
Battambang, Thailand: 205, 210 Bu Prang: 159, 160
Baxter, Walter H., III: 430 Burns, John J.: 422, 429
Battle death reduction (1971): 275 Buse, Henry W., Jr.: 116
Ben Het
control by North Vietnam: 383 Calley, William F.: 306
mission description: 158–59 Ca Lu: 56–58
offensive (1968): 152 Cambodia
rules of engagement: 157 aerial interdiction, 1971
sortie counts: 159 aerial interdiction contribution:
Bennett, Steven L.: 369, 370 276–77
Ben Tre: 21–22 air power support: 281–82
Be, Tu Van: 354 attempts to coordinate allies: 277
Bien Hoa Air Base lack of formal advisory group: 276
air base transfer: 216 Mekong River defense: 283–85
casualties: 246 motivation for support: 278–79
Constant Guard movements: 344 rules of engagement: 277–78
mini-Tet defense: 71 aerial interdiction, 1972: 285–86
post-Tet attacks against: 66 aerial interdiction, 1973
Tet offensive: 31, 33, 35, 39 end of funding for: 411
Viet Cong Tet offensive: 10–12, 12, 40 inadequacy of Khmer forces: 412
Binh Tay (operations): 189, 190, 191, 202 reliance on U.S. air power: 410
Binh Thuy Air Base: 13, 169–70, 215–16 Ben Het shelling: 152
Birdair: 412 conflicts over bombing plans: 129
Black, Reece B.: 105 conflicts with South Vietnam: 209
Bong Son: 374, 383 dry season offensive (1970–71): 279–81
Bong Son Pass: 375 efforts to expel North Vietnamese: 184
Boston, USS: 90 Fishook operations: 52, 129, 133, 183,
Bowles, Chester: 49–50 184, 187–88
Bradley, Omar N.: 44 ground war expansion (1970): 189–90
Brezhnev, Leonid I.: 334, 350 hatred of South Vietnamese: 278
Brookbank, David A.: 359, 361, 363, 364 inadequacy of Khmer forces: 412
Brown, George S.: 118, 205 invasion by United States, 1970
518
Index
aircraft available: 208 noncombatant safety precautions:

close air support continuation: 203–4 191, 277–78
congressional moves for withdrawal: post-cease-fire rules: 405
198 prohibition to cross border: 180
damage assessment difficulties: 192 U.S. advisory help: 210
domestic opposition to expansion: secret bombings. See Operation Menu;
204 Operation Patio
expansions of invasion: 205–7 Sihanouk overthrown: 180
extension beyond Mekong River: South Vietnamese ground support
201–2 (1970): 183
forward air controller duties: 200 Support Activities Group plans: 404–5
Freedom Action: 202 Toan Thang 43 operation: 186–90
ground invasion plans: 181–83 tri-border interdiction missions: 77
language barrier considerations: 200 Cam Lo rescue operation: 359
liaison officer difficulties: 200–201 Camp Carroll: 359
principal U.S. objective: 193–94 Camp Evans: 60, 64, 69
purpose of: 210 Camp Horn: 117
reconnaissance efforts: 192–93 Cam Ranh Bay Air Base: 13, 30–31
rescue mission extension: 201–2 casualties: 245
results evaluation: 195 drug abuse problem: 314, 317, 318
rules of engagement: 199–200 offensives (1968): 151
sortie rate: 191 post-Tet attacks against: 66
support options: 180–81 Viet Cong offensive (1971): 289
troop withdrawal: 190 Cao Van Vien: 215, 248, 250, 418, 426
Kompong Cham: 208 Capital Military Assistance Command: 73,
Labansiek/Ba Kev defensive: 202 74
lack of coordination with South Carey, Richard E.: 422, 423, 448
Vietnamese: 277 Casualties
Lon Nol. See Lon Nol Ap Bia: 155–56
Mayaguez capture. See Mayaguez A Shau Valley: 65
incident Bien Hoa: 11–12, 246
Menu bombings. See Operation Menu Cam Ranh Bay: 245
Military Region IV fighting: 398–99 civilian: 22, 24, 69, 72, 73, 79, 151, 306,
multi-country coordination problems: 389
209–10 Da Nang: 246
Neak Luong bombing error: 411–12 Kham Duc: 110–11
Nixon. See Nixon, Richard M., Koh Tang Island: 447
Cambodia Lam Son 719: 273
North Vietnam and mini-Tet: 70, 71–72
ambushes from North: 280–82 Nha Trang: 245
bases in: 51–52 Phan Rang: 245
relations with (1968): 48–49 Phu Cat: 244–45
relations with (1969): 179–80 Pleiku: 246
resupply route significance: 75–76 Tan Son Nhut: 10
Operation Patio: 185–86 Tet offensive: 35
Operation Vesuvius intelligence: 50–51 Thuong Duc: 86
Phnom Penh evacuation: 412–13, 414 U.S. forces in 1971: 275
restoration of diplomatic ties: 133 U.S. forces in Cambodia: 198
rules of engagement Cease-fire talks: 46
beyond border region: 193 1968 Paris: 73, 120–21, 401
buffer zone use: 194, 199–200 1972: 400–401
cross-border firing permission: 152 1973: 383, 403
519
Index
truce: 401, 402 Menu bombing role: 130

Centralized air control. See Single removal from South Vietnam: 410
manager for tactical aviation tandem tactics use: 143–44
Central Office for South Vietnam Combined Campaign Plan: 294
December resolution: 326 Combined Interdiction Coordinating
difficulties in locating: 194 Committee: 295
Tet offensive comments: 35 Commando Flash: 328, 338
as U.S. objective: 193 Commando Fly: 328, 338
Chaisson, John R.: 26–27, 94 Commando Hunt operations: 293, 295, 297
Chapman, Leonard F.: 99–100, 113–14, Communist forces. See Khmer Rouge;
115 North Vietnam; Viet Cong
Chau Doc Province: 82, 159, 189 Concerned Officers Movement: 313–14
China Consolidated RVNAF Improvement and
establishment of relations with United Modernization Program. See
States: 426 Vietnamization
importance of: 44, 426 Constant Guard movements: 340–41, 342,
intervention by, concerns about: 44 343–44, 346
Nixon’s visit to: 326 Constellation, USS: 321, 337
Ching Chuan Kang Air Base, Taiwan: 343, Cooper, John Sherman: 198, 276
344 Cooper-Church amendment: 250, 253, 276
Cholon District, Saigon: 20, 22 Coral Sea, USS: 430
Chu, Earl M.: 312 Corps Tactical Zones. See also Military
Chui Lang Special Forces Camp: 160 Regions I, II, III, IV
Chu Lai Air Base: 31, 42, 92 I Corps
Church, Frank: 198, 276. See also Cooper- force deployments: 94
Church Amendment mini-Tet attacks on: 69
Citadel (Hue): 13, 24–26, 35 new headquarters: 95
Civilian contractors in South Vietnam: Thuong Duc: 87
225, 301, 352, 354, 412 II Corps
Air America: 420–21 degree of South Vietnamese control
Birdair: 412 (1969): 174
civil engineering firms: 217 mini-Tet fighting: 69–70
Lear Sigler Incorporated: 407, 409, 416 III Corps: 10
Pacific Architects and Engineers: 217 degree of South Vietnamese control
Philco-Ford: 217, 301 (1969): 174
TransAsia: 217 dry season offensive (1970–71):
Civilian population protection: 16, 26, 74, 279–81
151, 183, 194, 200, 278 IV Corps
Clark Air Base, Philippines: 219, 343, 344 Alpine operation: 160
Clay, Lucius D., Jr.: 215, 254 civilian population in: 79
Claymore mines: 83 command changes: 366
Cleland, John R.D., Jr.: 410 degree of South Vietnamese control
Cleveland, USS: 283 (1969): 174
Clifford, Clark: 41, 46 river force missions: 79–82
Close air support. See also Aerial Tri Ton drop: 82–83
interdiction Cost of Vietnam War
mission distribution (1968): 55 amount requested (1975): 420
post-Tet operational sorties: 19–20 end of funding for Cambodia: 411
Collins, Arthur B., Jr.: 220, 222, 283 impact on troop withdrawal decisions:
Combat Skyspot radar: 28, 131 236–37
Alpine operation: 160 impact on Vietnamization: 236–37, 238,
in Cambodia: 200 295–96
520
Index
increased aid to South (1972): 349–50 Diem, Ngo Dinh. See Ngo Dinh Diem
Mayaguez incident: 447 Dien Bien Phu: 16, 17, 95, 233
Project 703: 140, 143 Dillon, C. Douglas: 44
recommended expansion of aid to Dinh Tuong Province: 399
Cambodia: 285–86 Direct air request network: 173–74
support of South Vietnamese Air Force Direct Air Support Centers
(1974): 415–16 I: 253, 372
Credible Chase: 349, 350 Hambleton rescue: 359–61, 363
Cua Viet River: 119, 364 single manager for tactical aviation
Cushman, Robert E., Jr.: 101, 220, 222 procedures: 113
Hue offense role: 25 transfer to Hue: 366
Khe Sanh relief operation: 56–57 II: 191, 194
post-Thor request for control: 119 III: 10, 191
single manager for tactical aviation and: IV: 81, 191
100–101, 114, 126 V: 98, 113, 253, 254
Cuu Long operations: 189 contribution to Cambodia offensives:
191
Dai Loc: 286 Horn: 117
Dak Seang: 244 Khmer: 404–5
Dak To villages: 288, 374–75, 383 South Vietnamese: 173, 221, 365, 366,
Da Lat: 23–24 372, 377
Dambe: 280 Dolvin, Welborn G.: 287, 327
Da Nang Air Base: 16, 286 Dong, Du Quoc: 254
casualties: 246 Don Muang: 344
Constant Guard movements: 344 Doumer Bridge (Paul Doumer Bridge):
housing program: 214 336
lack of U.S. readiness for attack: 13–14 Drug abuse
mini-Tet attack: 69 amnesty program for drug users: 317
offensives (1968): 151 attitude of individuals and: 314
Viet Cong offensive: 13 availability of drugs: 315–16
Dang Dinh Linh: 354 contribution to theft: 320–21
Dao Mong Xuan: 23 disciplinary breakdown symptom:
DART (deployable automatic relay 312–13
terminal): 175–76 drug testing program: 320
Davidson, Phillip B.: 399–400 education and rehabilitation program:
Davison, Michael S.: 220, 268 320
Deane, John Gunther: 413 impact of public opposition to war:
Defense Attaché Office: 405–6 313–14
Defense Race Relations Institute: 323–24 job tension related: 314–15
Defoliation: 235 marijuana use: 311, 315
Agent blue: 234 prevalence of: 319–20
Agent orange: 234, 235 response to problem: 316–18
Agent white: 234 security measures: 318, 319
missions: 31 Drug smuggling: 315–16
reduction in program: 234–35 Duc Co: 383
safety of agents: 234 Duc Lap: 83, 84, 159
Delaware (Operation). See A Shau Valley Dung, Van Tieng: 419
Delta Military Assistance Command: 220 Duong Van Minh: 424
Deployable automatic relay terminal Du Quoc Dong: 254
(DART): 175–76 Dzu, Ngo. See Ngo Dzu
Dewey Canyon. See Operation Dewey
Canyon Eagle Pull (Operation): 412–13
521
Index
Easter invasion (1972) FACs. See Forward air controllers

An Loc. See An Loc Fire bombings: 66–67
basic defensive plan, United States: 329 Fire Support Bases
battlefield strategy, United States: 401 Bastogne: 368, 371
buildup: 373–74 Charlie-2: 286
evaluation of North Vietnam effort: losses of: 263–64
399–400 Mary Ann: 286
Kontum City: 375, 377–382. See also North Vietnamese attacks: 262–63, 269
Kontum City O’Reilly: 244
political impact of North Vietnamese Ripcord: 243
victory (1972): 333–34 Fishook operations: 52, 129, 133, 183,
Quang Tri City. See Quang Tri City 184, 187–88
results: 383 Flower soldiers: 418
scope of attacks: 330–31, 374–77, Force reductions
384–87, 398–99 Australia: 307
U.S. response to B–52 reduction (1970): 239
B–52 attacks: 335–37 bomber sortie cuts (1970): 241–42, 243
base overcrowding: 344–45 budget deficit impact on forces (1969):
electronic warfare aircraft 139–40
deployments: 341–42 budget’s impact on withdrawals (1970):
extension of North Vietnam strike 235, 236–37, 238
region: 335 F–100 withdrawal from South Vietnam:
final aircraft totals: 346–47 232
Haiphong harbor mining: 335–36 fighter-bomber strength: 136–37
logistics problems: 341, 342–43 force reduction decision (1970): 230–32
tactical aviation expansion: 337–41 manpower withdrawals (1971): 275
Thai base use: 346 Marine Corps: 237, 304
transport and tanker expansion: New Zealand: 307
343–44 options in 1968: 136–37
Eglin Air Force Base, Florida: 342 overall effect of deployments (1972):
Eighth Air Force. See United States Air 346–48
Force, Air Divisions, 3d phase I plan: 161
Electronic surveillance methods: 175–76, phase II plan: 162–63, 177–78
407 phase III plan: 211
Elephant’s Foot: 399 phase IV plan: 232–34, 235–36
Ellsberg, Daniel: 306 phase V plan: 237
Enthoven, Alain: 4–5 political pressure for withdrawals
Equal Opportunity and Treatment program (1971): 301–4
(EOT): 312 Seventh Air Force: 139–41, 305
Equipment, North Vietnam sortie ceilings and reductions (1970):
AK–47: 184 239–43
MiGs: 242, 291, 292, 415 South Korea: 307
PT–76: 257, 268–69 Thailand
SA–2: 359, 360, 369 1970: 237, 238
SA–7: 356, 369, 393 1971: 307
surface-to-air missiles: 291, 359, 360, troop reductions (1972): 305, 306–7
369, 393 Ford, Gerald: 129
T–54: 268–69, 375 abandonment of South Vietnam: 420
T–55: 332 assurances to Thieu: 417
wire-guided antitank missiles: 374 response to Mayaguez capture
ZSU–57–2: 375 decision to act quickly: 429
Erdle, Philip: 23–24 on inapplicability of War Powers Act:
522
Index
428–29 Ap Bia fortress: 155–56

Foreign journalists secrecy breeches: 252 armored forces in Laos: 256
Forward air controllers artillery fire effectiveness: 367
aerial interdiction campaign in A Shau region repair activity: 153
Cambodia: 191–92, 200 A Shau Valley weapons used: 60, 62–64
anti-tank strategies: 364 Ben Het: 152, 157
in A Shau region: 60, 154–55 Bien Hoa: 151
Ben Het contribution: 158 Bu Prang: 159
dangers involved: 65 Cambodia ambushes: 280–82
friendly fire accidents: 64 casualties
ground support role: 79–81 Ap Bia: 155–56
interdiction missions: 76–77 Fire Support Base O’Reilly: 244
Lam Son 719 contribution: 253–54, 272 Lam Son 719: 273
limited knowledge of gunships: 385 Thuong Duc: 86
rocket watch: 67–68, 73 control of Dak To-Tan Canh area: 383
rules of engagement in Cambodia: 284 Duc Lap: 84–85, 159
rules of engagement role: 26 Easter offensive. See Easter invasion
South Vietnamese marginal ability: (1972)
219–20, 406 fire support base attacks: 269, 286, 288
success with arming: 207 O’Reilly: 244
Tet offensive role: 30 Ripcord: 243
tri-border fighting role: 75 Kham Duc: 104–5
use of OV–10: 90 Lam Son 719. See Lam Son 719, North
IV Corps. See Corps Tactical Zones, IV Vietnam response to
Corps Long Binh attack (1969): 151
Fracture Deep: 292 Military Region I
Fragmentary order Camp Carroll capture: 359
procedures used: 98, 102 offensives (1971): 286
in single manager for tactical aviation: Quang Tri City (1972): 286, 371–72
114 Military Region II
Freedom Action: 202 Kontum City (1972): 377–80
Freedom Deal: 199, 200, 205 offensives (1971): 287–88
Freedom Deal Alpha: 207 Military Region III
Frequent Wind. See Operation Frequent An Loc loss: 384, 385–87, 396
Wind Military Region IV
Friedheim, Jerry W.: 205 Kompong Trach (1972): 398
Friendly fire accidents: 64, 73, 91 push into Mekong delta: 398–99
Fuel-air munitions: 89 mini-Tet
Fulbright, J. William: 156 offensive description: 69–71
political motives for: 71
Gayler, Noel A.M.: 348, 429 psychological aspects: 68
Geneva Accords: 247 no-fire zone advantages for: 360–61
Giai, Vu Van. See Vu Van Giai operations (1974): 416
Giap, Vo Nguyen. See Vo Nguyen Giap Phu Nhon attack: 288
Gillem, Alvan C.: 130, 241 post-truce attacks (1974–75): 419
Ginsburgh, Robert N.: 14, 15 SA–2 use: 359, 360, 369
Gio Linh: 69 SA–7 use: 356, 369, 393
Goodell, Charles E.: 144 Saigon capture: 420, 421
Gravel mines: 76 tanks and infantry use during Lam Son
Ground air delivery system: 390–91 719: 262–63
Ground offensives, North Vietnamese Tet offensive. See Tet offensive
325th Division in Cambodia: 75, 79 Thuong Duc attack: 86–87
523
Index
Ground offensives, South Vietnamese Hillsboro: 254

1972: 325–26 Hinh, Nguyen Duy. See Nguyen Duy Hinh
in A Shau Valley (1971): 286–87 Hoang Xuan Lam: 248, 364
Ben Het passive defense: 158 Lam Son 719 tactics: 264, 266, 270
Chau Doc ambushes: 160 loss of command: 366
Cuu Long I operation: 189 objection to preparatory strikes: 256–57
expansion in Cambodia (1970): 189–90 Hobart, HMAS (Australia): 91
Fire Support Base counterattacks: 288 Hobo Woods: 328
Fishook operations: 187–88 Ho Chi Minh: 16–17
Ho Chi Minh Trail attack plans Ho Chi Minh Trail: 149, 296
aerial interdiction cancellation: 336 aerial interdiction cancellation: 336
code name decision: 251 attack designation decision: 251
joint phase planning: 250 attack proposal beginnings: 247–48
proposal beginnings: 247–48 attack secrecy attempts: 251–52
secrecy attempts: 251–52 Commando Hunt operations: 293, 295,
strategic importance: 249 297
support of military leaders: 248–49 Dewey Canyon II. See Operation Dewey
United States on air support: 250–51 Canyon II
weather considerations: 249 Lam Son 719. See Lam Son 719
Lam Son 207: 56, 57 North Vietnamese reestablishment of
Lam Son 719. See Lam Son 719 traffic (1974): 418–19
Lam Son 720: 286–87 strategic importance: 249
Lam Son 810: 286–87 support of military leaders for attack:
Plei Trap Valley offense: 287–88 248–49
Toan Thang operations: 186, 188, 189 U.S. reliance on air support: 250–51
training with river force: 82 United States/South Vietnam joint phase
Ground radar air delivery system: 380–81 planning: 250
Gunships, fixed-wing. See Aircraft, United weather considerations: 249
States, AC–47, AC–119, AC–130 Hoi An: 13, 16
Gunships, helicopter: 23, 70, 79, 103, 104, Hollingsworth, James F.: 358, 394
109, 149, 151, 223, 250, 259, 283, command of Military Region III: 386
284, 287, 384 response to North Vietnamese attacks:
386–87
Haig, Alexander M., Jr.: 248, 268 Holloway, Bruce K.: 47, 130, 241
Haiphong: 335–36, 336, 348, 349, 361, Holt, USS: 435
403 Homestead Air Force Base, Florida: 342
Haldeman, H.R.: 197 How the Americans Killed a Vietnamese
Hambleton, Iceal E., rescue of: 359–61 President: 418
Hamburger Hill: 156. See also Ap Bia Hue: 17
Hanoi: 56, 335, 336, 348, 349, 361, 403 I Direct Air Support Center transferred
Hardin, Ernest C., Jr.: 293 to: 366–67
Harold E. Holt, USS: 430 communist activities in: 18
Hassayampa, PS (Philippines): 321 Easter invasion (1972): 330–31
Hau Nghia Province: 416 mini-Tet attacks: 69
Helms, Richard M.: 41 rules of engagement: 24–25
Henry B. Wilson, USS: 430, 435, 442 Viet Cong seizure of: 13
Herbicide spraying. See defoliation Hung, Le Van: 385
Heroin: 316, 318. See also Drug abuse Huston, Tom Charles: 197
Herring, John H., Jr.: 235, 252
High-altitude drop delivery techniques: I Corps. See Corps Tactical Zones, I Corps
392–93 Igloo White: 176
High-velocity drop delivery technique: 393 Imperial City. See Citadel
524
Index
Initial objective of the war, United States: Kham Duc

3, 46, 157, 229, 306, 424 attack: 104
Insecticide spraying: 234. See also casualties: 110–11
Defoliation communication difficulties during
Interdiction campaigns. See Aerial evacuation: 111
interdiction defense coordination: 104–5
International Control Commission: 49–50, evacuation description: 105–10
51 mini-Tet attack: 69
Interrogation of enemy prisoners: 14, 29, and single manager for tactical aviation:
50, 51, 75, 244, 384, 395 111–12
Iosue, Andrew P.: 390 Khang, Le Nguyen: 269–70
Island Tree plan: 295 Khe Sanh Marine combat base: 29, 260
Iwakuni Air Base, Japan: 339 B–52 activity against: 26–27
Dewey Canyon II plan: 257–58
Jackson, Joe M.: 110, 111 divisional tactical operations center: 253
Janca, R.B.: 430 importance of: 16, 58
Johnson, Lyndon B.: 6, 15 mini-Tet attacks: 69
decision not to seek reelection: 45–46 relief operation: 56–57, 58
early view of the war: 5–6 Tet offensive and: 15, 15–16
force deployment decisions: 41, 42 Khmer Republic. See Cambodia
hesitancy to bomb North: 128–29 Khmer Rouge
reluctance to add troops: 43–44 activities in Cambodia: 195
Joint Chiefs of Staff growing strength: 285
Cambodian aid expansion Mayaguez incident: 427, 432, 447
recommended: 285–86 Kien Hoa Province: 82
debate over B–52 sortie rate: 143 Kien Phong Province: 399
dynamic defense strategy: 275 Kien Tuong Province: 180, 398–99
Freedom Deal expansion: 206 King, Martin Luther, Jr.: 311, 312
Menu request approval: 130 Kissinger, Henry
opposition to reductions (1971): 302, comments on weather effects: 358
303 desire for dry season offensive (1970):
phase II plan recommendations: 162–63 128–29
phase IV ground force reductions: force reductions: 236
235–36 hesitancy to bomb North: 128–29
post-Tet sortie authorization: 27 Mayaguez advisor: 427
reinforcement program: 40–41, 42 political impact of North Vietnamese
review of Vietnamization (1971): 298 victory (1972): 333–34
single manager for tactical aviation proposal to end war: 133
indecision: 99–100 secret negotiations with Hanoi: 335
sortie requests (1972): 307–9 sortie rate study call (1971): 309
South pressure on North recommended: view on Cambodia bombing proposal:
325 129
Jones, David C.: 427 Kitty Hawk, USS: 321
Jumper, Jimmy J.: 406–7 Koh Tang Island. See Mayaguez incident
Komer, Robert W.: 5
Kadena Air Base, Okinawa: 242, 261, 329, Kompong Cham: 205, 208
333, 337, 343 Kompong Som: 48, 195
Karnow, Stanley: 274 Kompong Thom: 202, 205, 206, 281
Kennedy, Edward M.: 156 Kompong Trach: 398–99
Kennedy , John F.: 186 Kong River truck park attack: 188
Kent State University: 197, 231 Kontum City: 16, 376
Kerwin, Walter T., Jr.: 102 airlift operations: 379, 380
525
Index
Easter invasion (1972): 375, 377–82 impact of attack: 272

supply drops: 380–81 Landing Zone Lolo capture: 267
Korat Air Base, Thailand: 341, 342 Route 9 ambushes: 268–69
Korea. See North Korea; South Korea outposts: 259
Krek, Cambodia: 282 task force activities: 261
Kroesen, Frederick J.: 363 Tchepone raid: 264–65
Krulak, Victor H.: 113, 115 Thieu’s reluctance to continue: 259–60
Ky, Nguyen Cao: 24–25, 224 U.S. sorties flown: 258
Vietnamization inadequacies shown:
Labansiek/Ba Kev defensive: 202 274
LaHue, Foster C.: 25 weather complications: 258
Laird, Melvin Lam Son 720: 286–87
Cambodia attack plan (1970): 183 Lam Son 810: 287
debate over B–52 sortie rate: 143 Landing Zone English: 375, 383
deployment decisions (1972): 339–40 Landing Zone Lolo: 265, 267
emphasis on rapid South strength Lang Vei: 83, 248, 270
buildup: 163–64 Laos
financial ceiling support: 238 air attacks (1968): 149
on funding for Vietnamization: 211 Dewey Canyon II. See Operation Dewey
launch of improvement program: 212 Canyon II
prediction of end of war: 297–98 Ho Chi Minh Trail. See Ho Chi Minh
sortie averaging suggestion: 308 Trail
troop withdrawal recommendations: 302 Lam Son 719. See Lam Son 719
U.S. troop reduction agreement: 134 Vietnamization of attacks: 297
Vietnamization objective: 165 Laser-guided bombs: 89, 257, 336
view on Cambodia bombing proposal: Lavelle, John D.: 328, 330, 331
129 deployment decisions (1972): 339–40
Lam, Hoang Xuan. See Hoang Xuan Lam reasons for dismissal: 357
Lam Son 207: 56, 57 Lear Sigler Incorporated: 407, 409
Lam Son 216. See A Shau Valley Le Duan: 229
Lam Son 719. See also Operation Dewey Le Nguyen Khang: 269–70
Canyon II; Ground offensives, Le Van Hung: 385
South Vietnamese Lien, Nguyen Ba. See Nguyen Ba Lien
aircraft sorties flown: 272–73 Limited Privileged Communication
air support request procedures: 253–54 Program: 317
Arc Light tactics: 266 Linebacker (Operation): 336, 357
B–52 sorties: 259, 261–62 Linebacker II (Operation): 401
casualties: 273 Linh, Dang Dinh: 354
designation as Ho Chi Minh Trail attack: Loan, Nguyen Ngoc. See Nguyen Ngoc
251 Loan
equipment losses: 271 Loc Ninh: 330–31, 384–85
final raids: 270–71 Loi Phong operation: 367
fire support base abandonments: 269–70 Long Binh
helicopter control: 255 ammunition dump attack: 12
impact on North: 272 North offensive (1969): 151
loss of Fire Support Base 31: 263–64 racial tensions: 321
need for centralized control: 254–55 Lon Nol
Nixon’s defense of results: 271 diminished health: 285
North Vietnamese response to Freedom Action comment: 202
anti-helicopter tactics: 256 inability to lead: 410
casualties: 273 inadequacy of forces: 279
counterattacks: 262–63 inadequacy of government: 285
526
Index
restrictions set on invasions: 280 aviation: 116–17

rise to power: 179–80 use of Thailand bases, desire for: 304
Loran: 145, 410 McConnell, John P.
Luat, Nguyen Trong. See Nguyen Trong criteria for Vietnamization: 135
Luat force reduction proposal: 137
strategy recommendation: 48
MAC. See Military Airlift Command McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas: 340
MACV (Military Assistance Command, McCutcheon, Keith B.: 123, 125
Vietnam): 95, 235, 403 McMillan, William: 66, 92
Mansfield, Mike: 144, 156 McNamara, Robert S.: 41–43
Map making: 145 McNickle, Marvin L.: 328
Marijuana use: 311, 312, 313, 315. See Mekong River. See also Military Region
also Drug abuse IV
Marine Corps, United States. See United defense of (1971): 283–85
States Marine Corps extension of Cambodia invasion: 201–2
Martin, Graham: 405 Mobile Riverine Force
Massachusetts Striker (Operation): 154–55 aerial support for: 79–82
Matak, Sisouth Sirik: 179 Kien Hoa mission: 82
Mayaguez incident Operation Cuu Long I: 189
applicability of War Powers Act: rules of engagement: 284
428–29, 447 Menu bombings. See Operation Menu
availability of ships and aircraft: 430–31 Metzger, Louis: 344
boarding party transfer: 434–35 Meyer, John C.: 238–39
casualties: 447 Midway, USS: 337, 422
command and control structure: 429–30 Mieu Giang River: 359
cost to United States: 447 MiGs
critique of U.S. response: 447–48 Cambodian use of: 208
decision to act quickly: 429 North Vietnamese use of: 242, 291, 292,
helicopter units: 430–31 415
Khmer Rouge capture of ship: 427 Military Airlift Command
Koh Tang Island assault and evacuation of wounded: 147
withdrawal: 438 Saigon evacuation: 420, 421
15,000-pound bomb drop: 443 troop withdrawal role: 145–46
assault planning: 433–35 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam:
assault troops offensive: 440 95, 235, 403
landing: 435–39 Military Equipment Delivery Team: 285
Naval fire support: 442–43 Military Region I: 213. See also Corps
second offensive wave: 441–42 Tactical Zones, I Corps
withdrawal: 444–47 aircraft losses in: 369
movement of prisoners: 432 anti-tank successes: 364, 368
Naval fire support: 442–43 command changes: 366
rescue command structure: 439 counterattack successes: 368–69
rescue troops: 431–32 Easter invasion (1972). See Easter
U.S. advisory staff: 427 invasion (1972)
McCain, John S., Jr. impact of U.S. air power: 372
budget’s impact on withdrawals (1970): Loi Phong operation: 367
236 North Vietnamese ground offensives
Cambodian threat concerns: 51 (1971): 286
Ho Chi Minh Trail offensive, desire for: Quang Tri City. See Quang Tri City
247 sorties flown (1972): 369–70
Island Tree plan: 294 weak South Vietnamese reconnaissance
review of single manager for tactical in: 329
527
Index
Military Region II: 213. See also Corps Moorer, Thomas W.: 116, 187, 203
Tactical Zones, II Corps Mu Gia Pass: 291, 329
Easter invasion (1972). See Easter Muong Nong: 270
invasion (1972) Murray, John E.: 405, 416
Kontum City attack. See Kontum City My Chanh River: 368, 369, 370
North Vietnamese attacks (1971): My Lai: 306
287–88
probability of attack (1972): 327 Nakhon Phanom Air Base, Thailand
Military Region III: 213. See also Corps intelligence center: 175, 176, 293
Tactical Zones, III Corps Mayaguez incident and: 431
An Loc. See An Loc Support Activities Group base: 403
attack on enemy bunkers: 328 Nam Lyr Mountains: 51
defensive plan: 373 Napalm: 62, 66, 70, 85, 107, 123, 124,
forward air controller contributions: 220 156, 262, 265, 272
Tonle Cham: 408 Napalm Sunday: 66
Viet Cong attacks: 290 National Security Council: 427
Military Region IV. See also Corps Navy, United States. See United States
Tactical Zones, IV Corps Navy
Kompong Trach defense: 398–99 Nazzaro, Joseph J.: 28, 136
Easter invasion (1972). See Easter Neak Luong, bombing error at: 411–12
invasion (1972) New Zealand: 149, 150, 307
Mines Nghi, Nguyen Van: 398
in Cambodian rivers: 207 Ngo Dinh Diem: 418
gravel: 76 Ngo Dzu: 373, 377
in North Vietnam harbors: 335–36 Ngok Tavak: 104, 105, 110
Minh, Duong Van: 424 Ngo Quang Truong
Minh, Nguyen Van. See Nguyen Van Minh command changes: 366
Minigunships: 294, 296, 349 comments on Military Region IV
Mini-Tet defense: 399
casualties: 70, 71–72 counterattack successes: 368–69
counteroffensive: 69, 70–71 Quang Tri City counterattack: 371
Da Nang attack: 69 Nguyen Ba Lien: 158
evaluation of U.S. response: 72 Nguyen Cao Ky: 24–25, 224
mining of North Vietnam harbors: Nguyen Duy Hinh: 252
335–36 Nguyen Hue (Operation). See Easter
offensive description: 69–71 invasion (1972)
political motives for: 71 Nguyen Ngoc Loan: 70
psychological aspects: 68 Nguyen Trong Luat: 268
rules of engagement: 71 Nguyen Van Minh: 383
Saigon defensive moves: 70 Nguyen Van Nghi: 398
Mobile defense plan: 48 Nguyen Van Thieu
Mobile Riverine Force abandonment of northern provinces
aerial support for: 79–82 (1975): 419–20
Kien Hoa mission: 82 discussions over Cambodia: 182
Momyer, William W.: 100 modernization request: 164
arguments for single manager for plans for Ho Chi Minh Trail attack: 249,
tactical aviation: 99, 103 250
central authority argument: 94 reaction to cease-fire agreement (1972):
modified single manager procedures: 400
114–15 reluctance to continue Lam Son 719:
rocket watch order: 67 259–60
Moore, Joseph H.: 311 resignation: 420
528
Index
South Vietnamese dissatisfaction with: overthrow: 180

418 restoration of diplomatic ties: 133
suggested assistance from United States: returning popularity (1971): 285
46–47 silence over Menu attacks: 179
Nha Trang Air Base: 13, 16 Norris, Thomas R.: 360, 361
air base transfer: 215 North Korea: 39, 428
casualties: 245 North Vietnam. See also Viet Cong
transfer to South Vietnamese: 169–70 battle tactics: 331–32
Night operations Cambodian support of (1968): 48–49
attack aircraft: 88–89 cease-fire conditions (1972): 400, 401
operations with C–130s: 379 effectiveness of tactics: 289–90
Nitze, Paul: 36 force buildup (1971): 291–92
phase II plan approval: 162 goal of 1972 offensive: 334
and single manager for tactical aviation: ground offensives, See Ground
103 offensives, North Vietnamese
Nixon, Richard M. helicopter operations: 90–92
Cambodia Hue occupation: 18
air strike permission: 276 knowledge of B–52 strike plans: 29–30
attack plan (1970): 181–82 lack of reaction to Menu bombings:
defense of Lam Son 719 results: 271 132–33
invasion announcement: 193 leadership coalition (1970): 229
invasion decision: 187 military doctrine: 17
Menu bombing decision: 129 preparations for invasion (1972): 329
overestimation of Cambodian leaders: probability of large offensive (1972):
197 326–27
policies after ground withdrawal: refusal to leave Cambodia: 180
202–3 relations with Cambodia: 179
proposed bombing of: 127–28 resistance to peace: 306
reversal of invasion plans: 183 Saigon offensive (1969): 151
support for: 186 units/bases in Cambodia: 51
cease-fire negotiations (1972): 400–401 O’Donnell, Andrew W.: 345
force reduction decision (1970): 231–32 O’Reilly Fire Support Base: 244
force reduction plans: 134–35 Office of Special Investigations. See
instructions to Vogt: 357 United States Air Force, Office of
political impact of North Vietnam Special Investigations
victory (1972): 333–34 Offset aiming point: 411
reaction to student demonstrators: 197 Operation Alpine: 160
resignation: 417 Operation Apache Snow: 155–56
Thieu meeting (1969): 164 Operation Babylift: 420
troop level objectives (1972): 348 Operation Binh Tay I: 189
troop withdrawals: 306–7, 334 Operation Cuu Long I: 189
Vietnamization Operation Delaware. See A Shau Valley
criteria for: 135 Operation Dewey Canyon: 153–54
emphasis after Ap Bia: 157 Operation Dewey Canyon II. See also Lam
force reduction options: 136–38 Son 719
troop reductions: 138–39 advance on Khe Sanh: 257–58
Norodom Sihanouk: 181 attack plan preparation: 252–53
difficulties of position concerning ban on U.S. ground forces: 250, 253
United States: 196–97 designation as Ho Chi Minh Trail attack:
negotiations with United States: 49–50, 251
51 sorties flown: 258
neutrality on Menu bombings: 132 Operation Eagle Pull: 412–13
529
Index
Operation Frequent Wind. See Saigon drug abuse problem: 314, 317
evacuation offensives (1969): 151
Operation Lam Son 207: 56, 57 Philco-Ford: 217, 301
Operation Lam Son 216. See A Shau Philippines: 32, 219, 343, 344
Valley Phnom Penh
Operation Linebacker: 336, 357 advisory group location: 276
Operation Linebacker II: 401 evacuation: 413, 414
Operation Massachusetts Striker: 154–55 fall of: 413
Operation Menu Photo reconnaissance. See Aerial
addition of tactical air strikes: 185 reconnaissance
bombing procedures: 129–30 Phu Bai: 95, 271
Bu Prang: 159 Phu Cat Air Base: 13, 151, 416
duration: 133 Phu Nhon attack: 288
end to secrecy: 188 Phuoc Le: 23
limited effectiveness of: 195 Phuoc Long Province: 419
need for secrecy: 132 Phu Tho racetrack: 20
neutrality of Sihanouk: 132, 179 Pich Nil Pass: 283
Nixon’s decision on: 129 Plain of Reeds: 48, 399
as preparation for ground attack (1970): Pleiku Air Base: 13, 16
182–83 air base transfer: 216
reconnaissance: 131–32 casualties: 246
results of: 132 drug abuse problem: 318
security procedures: 130–31 North Vietnam offensive (1972): 374
Operation Nguyen Hue. See Easter offensives (1969): 151
invasion (1972) Plei Trap Valley offensive: 287–88
Operation Patio: 185–86, 188 Polei Kleng: 376–77
Operation Pegasus: 56, 98 Pol Pot: 410, 413
Operation Rolling Thunder Alpha: 336 POWs release negotiations: 403, 404, 406
Operation Shoemaker: 187 Prey Veng: 190
Operations Plan 732: 294 Project 703: 140, 143
Operation Thor: 118–19 Project Enhance. See Vietnamization,
Operation Vesuvius: 50–51 Project Enhance
Opium availability: 315–16 Proud Bunch: 292
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Proud Deep Alpha: 292
Countries: 417 Psychological warfare: 72
in Cambodia: 193
Pacific Architects and Engineers: 217 funding reduction effects: 140
Packard, David: 164, 177–78 Public opinion, United States. See Anti-
Pannell, William P.: 430 war sentiments
Parrot’s Beak: 48, 51, 52, 82, 186 Pueblo, USS: 27, 39, 428
Partridge, Earle E.: 93
Patio (Operation): 185–86, 188 Quang Tri City
Paul Doumer Bridge: 336 Easter invasion (1972): 330–31, 364.
Peak manpower strength: 122 See also Easter invasion
Pegasus (Operation): 56, 98 Camp Carroll loss: 358–59
Pentagon Papers: 306 cost of rescue operation: 360–61
People’s Army of Vietnam. See Ground no-fire zone rescue operation: 359–60
offensives, North Vietnam; North recapture of: 371
Vietnam rescue of trapped personnel: 365–66
Pham Van Dong: 181, 229 supply drop losses: 365
Phan Rang Air Base: 13 mini-Tet attacks: 69
casualties: 245 offensive (1971): 286
530
Index
Qui Nhon Air Base: 16 civilian population in towns: 26

civilian structure targets in South
Racial tensions Vietnam: 20–21
Air Force Freedom Deal: 205
black vs. white awareness: 321–23 Hue: 24–25
counseling and discussion efforts: 323 Mekong River: 284
disregard of surrounding problems: mini-Tet: 71
311–12 reemphasis of: 74
education program: 323–24 rocket watch: 67
Navy: 321 Rusk, Dean: 70
Rain of Fire: 361 Russell, Richard: 129
RAND: 47 Russia. See Soviet Union
Reconnaissance. See Aerial reconnaissance Ryan, John D.: 226, 238, 299, 304, 330,
Reed, Robert R.: 430 345
Refugee problem: 72
Rehabilitation programs: 317, 318 SAC. See Strategic Air Command
Republic of Korea. See South Korea Saigon
Republic of Vietnam. See South Vietnam air offensive (1969): 151
Rescue operations: 342, 436–47 apathy of citizens: 17–18
Hambleton rescue: 359–61, 363 defense strategy for: 14
operational command structure: 439 evacuation
performance by United States: 362–63 fixed wing aircraft use: 420–21
Phnom Penh: 413, 414 helicopter phase: 422–24, 423
Saigon fall: 420–21, 422–24, 423 mini-Tet defensive moves: 70
Ripcord Fire Support Base: 243 Viet Cong offensive: 10
Rivers, Mendel: 129 Salem House probes: 184, 206, 207
Rocket Ridge: 374 Sann, Son: 49, 50
Rocket watch Saratoga, USS: 337
coerced collateral damage: 73 Schlesinger, James R.: 427
defensive measures: 67–68 Scowcroft, Brent: 427
forward air controller duties: 73 Seamans, Robert C.: 215, 224, 237
ground safety concerns: 72–73 Search and rescue operations. See Rescue
Rockpile: 376 operations
Rogers, William P.: 129 Selective service: 349
Rolling Thunder Alpha (Operation): 336 Selin, Ivan: 136
Rome Air Development Center: 367 Senate Armed Services Committee: 132
Rosson, William B.: 117 Sensors
Rostow, Walt W.: 14, 15, 41 acoustic: 81, 367
Route 9: 257 on aircraft: 87–89, 140, 200, 207, 339,
Royal Australian Air Force. See also 377, 379, 394, 396
Australia electronic, on ground: 160, 175–77, 207,
aerial reconnaissance: 150 272, 293, 327, 329
Caribou transport use: 150 lacked by South Vietnamese: 294, 295,
Canberra use: 21, 149 296
post-Tet operational sorties: 19 “people sniffers”: 81
sortie average: 149 seismic: 81
sorties flown (1968): 56 shortcomings: 368, 446
Royal Thai Air Force. See Thailand Seven Mountains: 82, 244, 290
Rules of engagement Seventh Air Force: 6. See also United
at Ben Het: 157 States Air Force
Cambodia. See Cambodia, rules of anti-tank successes: 368
engagement artillery location attempts: 367
531
Index
A Shau Valley offensive: 58 case for centralized control for Lam Son
bomber sorties: 241–42, 243 719: 254
Cambodia missions (1970): 190–91 centralization argument: 93–94, 95, 122
change in leadership (1972): 330 changes to: 97–98
changes due to reductions: 140 conflicting views of: 99, 114–16
Fishook assistance: 188–89 effectiveness of: 114–15, 126
force composition (1970): 230 Kham Duc airlift application: 111–12
force reductions (1970): 230 Marines and
force reductions (1971): 305 acceptance of (1972): 357
ground support role: 148 assessments of: 100–101
harassment by Viet Cong: 244–46 changes to: 97–98
headquarters location: 7 criticism of: 99
interdiction missions tactics and desire to circumvent: 119–20
effectiveness: 76–78 latitude with: 123–24
Lam Son 719 sorties: 272 need for air-ground coordination: 95
Lam Son 810 air support: 287 rejection of: 113–14, 115–16, 117
Mekong River convoy escorts: 284 mission direction and: 96, 112, 125
Military Region I aircraft losses: 369 post-review procedures: 113
mission of: 90 procedure changes: 98–99, 102–3
operational control scope: 125 refinements to: 121–22
Operations Plan 732: 294 shift in I Corps forces: 94–95
phase IV reductions: 232–33 Sisouth Sirik Matak: 179
post-Tet operational sorties: 19 Skyspot radar. See Combat Skyspot radar
retention of control (1971): 299 Smith, Donavon F.: 34
rocket watch rules of engagement: 67 Smothermon, Philip R.: 107, 109, 111
single manager for tactical aviation: 98, Snoul: 199, 279–82
101 Soc Trang Air Base: 214–15, 215
sortie bank proposal: 240–41 Son Sann: 49, 50
strike report procedures: 203–4 South Korea
support strikes in South Vietnam: 191 contribution to air war: 150
Tactical Air Control Center: 102 force reductions (1971): 307
tactical sortie ceiling final policy (1970): Pueblo crisis and: 39
240 South Vietnam. See also Ground
Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North offensives, South Vietnamese;
Carolina: 340 South Vietnamese Air Force
Shadow. See Aircraft, United States, air power emphasis: 425
AC–119 air support complaints (1971): 286–87
Sharp, U.S. Grant: 28, 101 apathy of citizens: 17–18
centralization decision: 95–96 blame of United States for defeat: 426
force deployment decisions: 44 Cambodia
response to coordination request: 93 conflicts with: 209
single manager for tactical aviation dry season offensive (1970–71):
concessions: 103 279–81
view of single manager: 114 efforts to expel North from: 184
Shoemaker (Operation): 187 ground support (1970): 183
Sihanouk, Norodom. See Norodom impact of fall: 414
Sihanouk lack of coordination with: 277
Sihanoukville: 48, 195 view of: 278–79
Single manager for tactical aviation clashes with Viet Cong (1971): 289–90
A Shau Valley application: 152–53 corps headquarters: 173
assessments of: 100–101 Easter invasion (1972) defensive effort:
budget cut effects: 122–23 399–400
532
Index
inability to conduct large operations: aircrew: 218–19

325–26 efforts in (1969): 169, 179, 217–18,
Krek defense: 282 222–23
military aid, increased U.S.: 349 flight crew transitions (1972): 352–53
Military Regions. See Military Region I, language: 217–18
II, III, IV in maintenance: 226
reliance on United States: 264–65 night flight: 222–23
self-reliance assistance from United training and logistics problems
States: 47 (1973): 408–9
target selection authority: 24–26 weaknesses in: 409–10
truce negotiations (1968): 121 Tri Ton drop participation: 82–83
U.S. assessment of capabilities (1974): Vietnamization. See Vietnamization
414–15 withdrawal from Labansiek/Ba Kev:
U.S. troop reduction agreement: 134 202
Vietnamization endorsement: 138–39 South Vietnamese Army
Vietnamization final capabilities: 401–2 1st Infantry Division: 252, 256, 259–61,
worldwide influences on economic 263, 264
support: 417–18 1st Ranger Group: 256
South Vietnamese Air Force. See also 3d Infantry Division: 330, 358–59, 361,
South Vietnam; Ground offensives, 363–65, 367, 369
South Vietnamese 22d Infantry Division: 288
33d Wing: 172, 214 Souvanna Phouma: 258, 297
accident rate: 34 Soviet Union
aircraft losses (1974): 415 political impact of North Vietnam
Air Divisions victory (1972): 333–34
1st: 213, 216 tanks supplied to North: 256, 257, 268,
2d: 169–70, 213, 215 332
3d: 213, 216, 364–65 Spectre. See Aircraft, United States,
4th: 213 AC–130
5th: 213–14 Spooky. See Aircraft, United States,
Air Logistics Command: 226, 409 AC–47
Air Training Command: 409 Steel-roofed shelters: 36
Cambodian invasion participation: 208 Stennis, John C.: 47, 129
cost of U.S. support (1974): 415–16 Strategic Air Command
Defense Attaché suggested Advance Echelon: 27
improvements: 416 Bullet Shot deployments: 329, 337
Direct Air Support Center (IV): 81, 221 Constant Guard movements: 343
force composition (1972): 333 debate over B–52 sortie rate: 142
increased role (1971): 291 reduction in forces (1970): 242–43
increase in sorties (1969): 149 strain of B–52 sortie rate: 47
Lam Son 719 sorties: 272–73 Studies and Observations Group: 131–32,
Operations Plan 732: 294 184
sorties flown (1968): 55–56 Subic Bay, Philippines: 338
support role: 87–88 Sullivan, Leonard: 294, 295
Tet offensive. See also Tet offensive Support Activities Group, United States
casualties: 35 Cambodia air strikes: 404–5
operational sorties during: 33–34 function of: 403
performance during counteroffensive: response plans for possible North
34 Vietnamese invasion: 403–4
post-Tet operational sorties: 19 Surface-to-air missiles: 291
response: 8–10, 9, 33 SA–2: 359, 360, 369
training SA–7: 356, 369, 393
533
Index
Sutherland, James W., Jr.: 123, 222 Da Lat: 23–24

Swank, Emory: 411 Da Nang: 13
Sweet, Charles: 74 force deployments
“A to Z” group recommendations: 43
Tactical Air Control Center: 102 new maximum: 45
Marine apportionment: 123 number of troops used: 4
and single manager for tactical aviation: Pueblo crisis, impact of: 39
98, 113 reinforcement program: 40–42
South Vietnamese adoption of: 173 reservist mobilization: 45
Tactical reconnaissance. See Aerial “Wise Men” ceiling recommendation:
reconnaissance 44
Takhli Air Base, Thailand: 342–43 holiday cease-fire agreement: 15–16
Tan Canh: 374–75, 383 Hue
Tandem targeting tactics: 143–44, 239. See communist activities in: 18
also Arc Light rules of engagement: 24–25
Tan Son Nhut Air Base: 322. See also Tet Viet Cong seizure of: 13
offensive, Tan Son Nhut Air Base Khe Sanh and: 15, 15–16
air base transfer: 170, 216 lack of U.S. readiness for attack: 13–14
drug abuse problem: 316 objectives of United States after: 46
evacuation: 422–24 photo reconnaissance role in collapse:
mapping support services: 145 30
mini-Tet attack: 71 Phuoc Le recapture: 23
North Vietnamese air attack (1975): 421 political results: 38, 332
photo processing center: 145, 147 post-Tet counteroffensives
post-Tet attacks against: 66 fire bombings: 66–67
use as training center: 218–19 rocket watch: 67–68
Tarr, Curtis W.: 177 psychological impact on U.S. leaders:
Tarpley, Thomas M.: 398 38, 424
Task Force Oregon: 93 rationale for North Vietnamese loss: 35
Tavak, Ngok. See Ngok Tavak Saigon: 10, 11
Taylor, Maxwell D.: 41, 44 scope of attacks: 12–13
Tay Ninh City: 383–84 Tan Son Nhut Air Base
Tchepone importance of: 7
objective of Laos attack: 248, 253–54, response to assault: 8–10, 9
264, 288 results of attack on: 10
raid during Lam Son 719: 264–65 Viet Cong offensive: 7–10
results of failure to take: 274 transport sorties affected by: 31–33
Thieu’s reluctance to continue toward: U.S. response: 19
259–61 base defense improvements: 35–36,
Tear gas use: 76 37
Tet offensive. See also Mini-Tet; Ground civilian targets: 20–22
offensives, North Vietnamese intelligence role: 14–15, 36–37
air base defense improvements after: Thach Han River: 365, 371
35–36, 37 Thailand
air crews trapped by: 31 aircraft based in: 239, 333, 431
air strike allocations: 16 air operations out of: 188
apathy of Saigon citizens: 17–18 Constant Guard movements: 340
Ben Tre destruction: 21–22 contribution to air war: 150–51
Bien Hoa: 10–12, 12, 40 force reductions (1971): 307
casualties during: 35 force withdrawals (1970): 237, 238
characteristics of: 24 limitations on assigned manpower: 304
civic action program affected by: 37–38 U.S. aircraft deployed to: 342–44
534
Index
view of Cambodia: 278–79 Airlift Command; Seventh Air

Thanh Hoa: 335 Force; Strategic Air Command
Theus, Lucius: 323 Advisory Group: 166, 211, 352, 353
Thieu, Nguyen Van. See Nguyen Van Air Divisions
Thieu 3d: 19, 59
III Corps. See Corps Tactical Zones, III Bugle Note procedures: 28–29
Corps Menu bombings: 130
Thompson, Sir Robert: 195 tandem tactics use: 143–44
Thor (Operation): 118–19 target selection role: 27–28
Thrash, William, G.: 124 834th: 31
Thua Thien Province: 30, 327, 329, 359 C–130 use in Cambodia: 282–83
Thunder Hurricane: 367 defoliation mission: 235
Thuong Duc: 86–87 Dewey Canyon II plan: 252
Tilford, Earl H., Jr.: 363, 447 Air Forces
Toan Thang operations: 186–91 Eight. See United States Air Force,
Tolson, John: 56 Air Divisions, 3d
Ton Duc Thang: 229 Seventh. See Seventh Air Force
Tonkin Gulf resolution: 198, 302, 425 air power roles: 83
Tonle Bet: 280 anti-tank strategies: 364
Tonle Cham: 408, 416 A Shau Valley offensive: 61–62
Tonle Sap: 206 in Cambodia. See Cambodia
Tra, Tran Van: 419 combat and logistics support: 4
Training. See also South Vietnamese Air decline in planned strikes (1971):
Force, training 286–87
after 1973 cease-fire: 409 Dewey Canyon. See Operation Dewey
budget constraints: 228 Canyon
language barrier considerations: 167–69, diminished resources in South Vietnam
200 (1971): 287–88
Project Enhance Plus: 406–7 equipment innovations
Tranh Van Minh: 175, 227 anti-helicopter operations: 90–92
Tran Van Tra: 419 bombs
Travis Air Force Base, California: 147, 10,000-pound: 89, 154
314, 323 15,000-pound: 189, 256, 265, 272,
Tripartite Deputies Working Group: 277 434, 443
Troop withdrawals. See Force reductions CBU–55: 294, 297
Tropic Moon: 88–89 cluster: 257
Truce: 401, 402. See also Cease-fire talks fire bombings: 66–67
Truong, Ngo Quang. See Ngo Quang fuel-air munitions: 89. See also
Truong CBU–55, above
Turley, Gerald H.: 363 laser-guided: 89, 257, 309, 336,
Tu Van Be: 354 368, 376
Tuy Hoa Air Base: 13 rockeye: 89–90
II Corps. See Corps Tactical Zones, II night attack aircraft: 88–89
Corps observation planes: 90
Enhance Plus contribution: 351
Ubon Air Base, Thailand: 340, 341, 345 force composition (1970): 230
Udorn Air Base, Thailand: 340, 345, 431 force composition (1972): 333
U Minh Forest: 290 force deployment contribution: 44
Unger, Leonard: 188 force redistribution (1969): 141
Unified air control. See Single manager for force reduction options (1968): 136–37.
tactical aviation See also Force reductions
United States Air Force. See also Military force transfers due to Vietnamization:
535
Index
309 555th: 141

ground support role (1969): 147 Reconnaissance Intelligence
independent strategy review: 47–48 Technical
Kontum City airlift operations: 379–80 12th: 225
Mayaguez. See Mayaguez incident Security Police
mission distribution (1968): 55 377th: 8
Office of Special Investigations 656th: 431
area source program: 36–37 Special Operations
drug abuse/racial tension 4th: 140
investigations: 318–19 5th: 140
intelligence efforts: 289 8th: 344
personnel contributions to ground 12th: 234
forces: 18 21st: 430–31, 436–47
post-Tet strength: 45 71st: 45
preparation for North Vietnamese attack 90th: 232
(1972): 328–29 Tactical Airlift
racial tensions. See Racial tensions, 310th: 234
United States Air Force Tactical Air Support
security police 20th: 339
base defense improvements: 35–36, Tactical Bomber
37 5th: 140
Binh Thuy defense: 13 Tactical Electronic Warfare
defensive actions in Tet offensive: 8, 42d: 342
11 Tactical Fighter
mini-Tet defense: 71 35th: 338, 345
Seventh Air Force. See Seventh Air 58th: 342, 346
Force 90th: 140
single manager for tactical aviation. See 120th: 45
Single manager for tactical 136th: 45
aviation 174th: 45
sortie rate approval (1972): 309–10 188th: 45, 46
sortie requests (1972): 307–9 308th: 342, 346
sorties flown (1968): 56 334th: 340, 341
sorties flown (1969): 149 336th: 340, 341, 345
sorties flown (1971): 307 388th: 340, 341
Special Forces support 390th: 345
Duc Lap: 83–86 480th: 304–5
Thuong Duc: 86–87 510th: 140
Squadrons 523d: 328, 338
Aerospace Rescue and Recovery 561st: 340–41
40th: 430–31 Tactical Reconnaissance
Airborne Command and Control 45th: 237
7th: 342, 413 strike planning philosophy: 97
Air Refueling strike planning procedures: 27–28
11th: 343 tactical air strikes types: 57
Air Rescue and Recovery tactical aviation expansion (1972):
39th: 342 337–41
Attack tactical sortie ceiling implications
5th: 140 (1970): 238–39
8th: 232 troop reductions (1971): 304–5
90th: 140, 232 Wings
Civil Engineer Special Operations
536
Index
12th: 218 helicopter sorties: 272–73

Tactical Fighter Kham Duc support: 104
3d: 191 mission coordination with Air Force:
8th: 341 148
12th: 7 participation in interdiction efforts
45th: 237 (1971): 283
49th: 343, 345 Provisional Corps, Vietnam
347th: 434 selective service discontinued: 349
354th: 346 single manager for tactical aviation
366th: 338, 345 procedures: 113
432d: 434 Special Forces
Tactical Reconnaissance attacks: 84, 160, 244–46
432d: 342 Chui Lang camp: 160
United States Air National Guard Duc Lap mission
force reduction plans: 136 counteroffensive: 84–85
O–2 transferred to: 233 defenses: 83, 84
post-Tet strength: 45 North Vietnamese attack on: 84
Tactical Fighter Squadrons: 39 supply drops: 85–86
136th: 45 North Vietnamese attacks (1970):
174th: 45 244–46
188th: 45, 46 Thuong Duc: 86–87
United States Army Task Force Oregon: 93
1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division: Tet offensive
62, 66 Bien Hoa: 11
1st Calvary Division: 56, 58, 122, 187 Hue: 24
1st Squadron, 9th Calvary: 56, 59, 61 Phuoc Le airstrip: 23
2d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division: Tan Son Nhut defense: 8–10
157 triborder region advance: 77–78
3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division: United States Marine Corps
155, 157 1st Battalion, 4th Marines: 153–54, 431,
9th Calvary Division: 56, 59 434
9th Infantry Division river force: 79–82 1st Marine Aircraft Wing: 114, 123,
XXIV Corps: 123 124, 304
Dewey Canyon II plan: 251–52 2d Battalion, 9th Marines: 431, 434,
Lam Son 719 role: 255 435–39, 436
support of fire support base: 244 III Marine Amphibious Force: 100
25th Infantry Division: 8, 10 scope of commander’s control: 125
82d Airborne Division: 41 single manager for tactical aviation
101st Airborne Division: 61, 62, 77, procedures: 102, 113
155, 157 3d Marine Division: 118
in A Shau Valley: 59 9th Marines: 153–54, 431, 434
helicopter control in Lam Son 719: Marine Aircraft Group 12: 344
255 Marine Aircraft Group 15: 339
Ripcord base: 243 27th Marines: 41
aerial reconnaissance in A Shau: 59 Marine Air Refueler Transport Squad-
Air Force support of: 4 ron 152
Americal Division: 93, 104 aircraft in South Vietnam (1971): 307
A Shau Valley offensive role: 64 air power support role: 87–88
availability for service: 39 An Loc defense: 396
comments on forward air controllers: 80 availability for service: 39
dissatisfaction with Air Force aerial Constant Guard movements: 344–45
photography: 147 contribution to U.S. response (1972):
537
Index
339 Viet Cong. See also North Vietnam

coordination with Air Force: 93–94 attack on Saigon: 10
daytime airborne alert procedures: 117 Bien Hoa attack (1969): 151
deployment after Tet: 41 Binh Dinh Province attacks: 375
Dewey Canyon: 153–54 Cam Ranh Bay offensive (1971): 289
final aviation arm withdrawals: 304 Chau Doc Province operations: 159–60
Fire Support Base evacuation: 269 knowledge of B–52 strike plans: 29–30
force composition (1970): 230 Long Binh attack (1969): 151
force reductions (1970): 237 Military Region IV attacks: 244–46,
Khe Sanh relief operation: 56–57 290, 398–99
Mayaguez. See Mayaguez incident mini-Tet. See Mini-Tet
mini-Tet counteroffensive: 69 support of North Vietnamese: 331
post-Tet operational sorties: 19 Tet offensive. See Tet offensive
post-Tet strength: 45 Viet Minh: 248
single manager for tactical aviation. See Vietnamization. See also Force reductions
single manager for tactical absence of an aerial command: 406
aviation, Marines and aerial interdiction capability
sortie ceiling (1970): 240 budgetary considerations: 295–96
sortie control (1970): 123 equipment options: 294
sorties flown (1968): 56 Ho Chi Minh Trail importance: 293
strike planning philosophy: 96–97 Island Tree plan: 294
tactical aviation expansion (1972): lack of antipersonnel objective: 296,
337–41 297
United States Navy Laos attacks: 297
IV Corps zone flotilla: 79 need for B–52 substitute: 297–98
An Loc defense: 396 Operations Plan 732: 295
availability for service: 39 aircraft received in 1971: 299, 307
force composition (1970): 230 aircrew performance: 226–27
forces in South Vietnam (1971): 307 aircrew training: 218–19
Mekong River convoy escorts: 284–85 air divisions (1970): 213
post-Tet operational sorties: 19 air logistics conversion: 170–71
racial tensions: 321 base security: 214
share of sorties (1972): 310 base transfers: 169–70, 214–16, 215,
sortie ceiling (1970): 240 301
sorties flown (1968): 56 budget impact on U.S. withdrawals
support of Military Region I operations: (1970): 236–37, 238, 295–96
372 centralization issues: 213
tactical aviation expansion (1972): competency of aircrews: 221–22
337–41 conflicting U.S. views of progress: 163
Vietnamization of operations: 294 control over tactical air strikes: 174
U-Tapao Air Base, Thailand: 188, 242, credibility of air liaison officers: 174–75
431 Credible Chase: 349
criteria for: 135
Vann, John Paul: 327 cultural/physical differences with
death of: 381 United States: 227–28
Kontum City fight: 377 direct air request network: 173–74
Military Region II defensive plan: 373 electronic intelligence decline: 406–7
use of air power: 378 electronic surveillance methods: 175–76
Van Tieng Dung: 419 equipment options: 297
Vega, USS: 430 final capabilities: 402, 426
Vesuvius (Operation): 50–51, 75, 182 flight crew transition training: 352–53
Vien, Cao Van. See Cao Van Vien force acceleration program (1970):
538
Index
212–13 doubt about U.S. commitment: 401

helicopter program: 166–67, 223 instructions from Nixon: 357
housing problems: 214 scope of authority: 357
importance in 1971: 292 Vo Nguyen Giap
inadequacy of efforts at Cua Viet: battle tactics: 331–32
364–65 goal of 1972 offensive: 334, 383, 399
intelligence and reconnaissance: 224–25 leadership position: 229
interdiction: 295 strategic errors: 370
lack of interdiction skills: 178 Vu Van Giai
lack of technical expertise: 353–54 court-martial of: 366
lack of trained civil engineers: 216–17 Military Region I defense: 364
Lam Son 719 lessons learned: 274 Quang Tri City defense: 359, 365
language barrier considerations: 167–69
language training: 217–18 Wagstaff, Jack J.: 282
maintenance/logistics management: Warehouse 54: 155
225–26, 354–55 War Powers Act: 428–29
modernization compromise: 165 Watergate: 411
needed scope for effort: 165 Weather effects on air power: 24
night flight training: 222–23 Alpine operation: 160
Nixon and in A Shau region: 59, 61–62, 64
criteria for: 135 at Ben Het: 158
emphasis after Ap Bia: 157 C–130 tactics: 380–81
force reduction options: 136–38 considerations for Ho Chi Minh Trail
troop reductions: 138–39 attack: 249
objective of: 165 Hue attack: 24
phase I plan: 161 during Lam Son 719: 258, 267
phase II plan: 162–63, 177–78 October 1970 storms: 243
phase III plan: 211 strike cancellations against North
phase IV plan: 232–37 (1972): 358
phase V plan: 237 Tchepone attack: 250–51
Project Enhance: 350–52 Wells, Selmon W.: 27
Project Enhance Plus: 351 Westmoreland, William C.: 100
reconnaissance abilities: 301, 356 I Corps headquarters established: 95
reductions in sorties flown: 142–44 ambiguity in reinforcement requests: 41,
sortie counts (1969): 177 42
South Vietnamese avoidance of tasks arguments for centralization: 95
and responsibilities: 298–99 B–52 supervision: 27, 29
South Vietnam budget constraints: 228 desire to attack Ho Chi Minh Trail: 248
strategy for: 164 early view of the war: 5
tactical air control responsibility: Khe Sanh defense strategy: 15–16
219–20 proposed control of Marines: 93–94
tactical aviation/air defense weaknesses: reinforcement program: 40–42
355 reservists bank proposal: 42–43
training efforts: 169, 179, 217–18, rocket watch cautions: 68
222–23 Saigon defense strategy: 14
transport units: 223–24 Weyand, Frederick G.: 348
Vinh: 335, 336 delegation of duties: 74
VNAF. See South Vietnamese Air Force expectation of Tet attacks: 14, 16
Vo Dinh: 376 rocket watch cautions: 72
Vogt, John W.: 330, 331 Wheeler, Earle G.
command of Support Activities Group: Cambodian threat concerns: 51
403 reinforcement offers: 39–40, 42
539
Index
and single manager for tactical aviation: Xepon River: 260, 268, 269
103 Xuan, Dao Mong: 23
Wild Weasels. See F–105
Wire-guided antitank missiles: 374 Young, Kendall S.: 166–67, 177
“Wise Men” advisor group: 44 Young Tiger Task Force: 344
540

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Air War over South Vietnam

Air Force History and Museums Program

DS558.8 .N35 2000 00-028867

Before retiring in 1994, Bernard C. Nalty was a senior historian in the

In writing this volume, my efforts benefitted from the help of numerous

Effects of bombing on the Ho Chi Minh Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

South Vietnamese personnel carrier in Laos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

honor its commitments in Southeast Asia and elsewhere; to resist aggression

The Tet Offensive Begins

Air Force Security Police and South Vietnamese soldiers

Bunker at Bien Hoa bears the scars of the Tet attack.

President Lyndon Johnson, Brig. Gen. Robert N. Ginsburgh, and Walt

of any civilian populace.” Westmoreland tried to limit the cease-fire, where it

The Enemy Repulsed

propaganda leaflets, close air support, or aerial interdiction — served as the

A Royal Australian Air Force Canberra over South Vietnam.

Devastation from the Tet attacks in the Cholon district of Saigon.

The Imperial Palace in Hue, damaged during the Tet fighting.

Reconversion of the UC–123s represented one means of coping with the

A load of cargo is pulled from an Air Force C–130 at Khe Sanh by a

South Vietnamese UH–1 helicopters landing to pick up

to dramatize a number of weaknesses in air base defenses, including the poor

Facing Some Hard Decisions

An aircraft destroyed during the Tet attacks at Bien Hoa.

F–100s of the New Mexico Air National Guard’s 188th

Other Vesuvius packages followed at fairly regular intervals during the

The Air War from Tet to Mini-Tet

Members of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

bombing pattern in which detonations were separated too widely to reinforce

namese of thousands of weapons and thousands of tons of food, munitions, and

Circling AC–47s gunships fire on Viet Cong targets near Saigon.

The accident sent tremors through a Department of Defense already con-

Above Highlands, Plain, and Delta

Bombing on this section of the Ho Chi Minh Trail has removed

In terms of effort, if not necessarily results, the three-month bombing cam-

South Vietnamese troops taking part in an operation in the Mekong Delta.

As Army helicopters released smoke to blind hostile gunners, the C–130s

Duc Lap Special Forces camp.

An Air Force C–7 landing at Duc Lap Special Forces Camp.

The night observation device on an AC–119.

Testing the Single Manager Concept

responsibility for processing strikes requested by elements of Provisional Corps,

by contacting the appropriate direct air support center, sometimes by means of

Gen. William C. Westmoreland, Commander, U.S. Military

Adm. U. S. Grant Sharp, Commander in Chief, Pacific (left),

General Momyer agreed to a further adjustment to the single manager sys-

Jeannotte made the usual steep approach, escorted by fighter-bombers to

Lt. Col. Joe M. Jackson received

Although General Momyer hailed the Kham Duc evacuation as a vindica-

Unified Management takes a Final Form

Vietnam receive unrestricted control over 70 percent of their weekly sorties.

Gen. Leonard F. Chapman, Jr., Commandant of the Marine

Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, Commander, U.S. Military

advance. Within twenty-four hours of the impending attack, General Suther-

Secret Bombing and Troop Withdrawals

After taking office in January 1969, President Nixon began setting up a

The suggestion to bomb targets in Cambodia remained in limbo until late

Combat Skyspot installation at Da Lat, South Vietnam.

an estimated 70 percent of the Menu bomb damage assessment, reporting move-