Merry Christmas Hanoi!

Linebacker II 45 years later

USS Midway (CV-41) heading for the Tonkin Gulf

It was 45 years ago this night December 24th,1972 that the US launched the largest mass bombing of North Vietnam. Operation Linebacker II began on the 18th of December after the North Vietnamese communists refused to continue peace talks in Paris, France and with the US presidential elections looming on the horizon, Richard Nixon was determined to keep his promise to pull all American troops out of Southeast Asia and free the American POW's being held by the Hanoi regime. Linebacker II was pure unrestricted Strategic bombing; US Air Force B-52 Bombers backed by the US 7TH Fleet were to "Grand Tour" North Vietnam and bomb the infrastructure to a pulp.

A fully loaded Intruder with 23 500 pound bombs.

The A-6 Intruder had two roles in Linebacker II, the destruction of North Vietnamese air defenses and the mining of Hyphong Harbor. Hyphong had long been a restricted target to US attack planes because of the international shipping present. Actually what was present in Hyphong were communist cargo ships loaded with the guns and missiles being used by the North to take down American pilots. Until Richard Nixon became president, US officials feared what would happen if one of their bombs made a lucky hit on a Soviet or Eastern block ship. Linebacker II ended that idiotic restriction.

      Linebackers strategic bombing, while it did bring the North Vietnamese back to the negotiation table, did more harm in world opinion than it did to the morale or fighting spirit of the North Vietnamese. In fact when one examines the condition of North Vietnam before Linebacker II it is clear that their ability to continue any effective fighting in late 1972 was more a staged appearance for the world media than an actual fact. The North Vietnamese military was in shambles, the air force ineffective and the welfare of material support from equally financially strapped Communist states was about dry.

      Earlier in 1972, Richard Nixon made his historic visit to Communist China to open diplomatic relations and strike an important strategic coup on the Hanoi regime. The cultural and ideological war between China and Vietnam goes back thousands of years when two famous Vietnamese sisters led a national rebellion against the hated Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. Nixon used this long seething feud to his advantage, swaying Mao Tse Tong to pull Chinese protection over Hanoi in turn for US political and economic favors. Without the support and potential threat of this critical Communist ally to their North; The North Vietnamese could not continue their resistance long even without Linebacker II.

     Once again, Strategic bombing DID NOT cause the North Vietnamese to surrender, they simply chose to capitulate knowing that the United States would soon leave Southeast Asia and soon after abandon their corrupt South Vietnamese allies. The Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973 and by July of that year, almost all American forces were gone from Southeast Asia. As expected, the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam in late March of 1975 and by April 30th the South Vietnamese Capital of Saigon had fallen. Strategic bombing did not prevent the eventual collapse of South Vietnam nor the sweep of Communism that rolled through Cambodia and Laos soon after.

     The most effective weapon of Linebacker II was not the B-52. December 24th saw the most terrible loss of Air Force bombers in a single day since the early days of the Allied raids against Germany in World War II. No the most effective weapon of Linebacker was the aircraft carrier and her arm of tactical attack aircraft which did more precise damage and incurred less losses of lives than their big fat expensive cousins. It was the tactical aircraft who struck the bridges, the roads, the army camps, the power plants, the factories and the supply trains that forced the North Vietnamese to end their embargo of the Paris Peace talks.

     The low casualties among the Navy attack crews is not only a credit to their magnificent training, it is positive proof of the continued folly of having a bloated and ineffective service like the "United States Air Force" still around in this era of modern war. The Navy pilots who flew these dangerous missions into the teeth of the "Hanoi ring of steel" deserve to be remembered for having at long last brought America's abysmal war in Vietnam to a swift conclusion.