Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the United States 2nd Air Division, U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force against North Vietnam from 2 March 1965 until 2 November 1968, during the Vietnam War.
The objectives of the operation were to boost the morale of South Vietnam; to force North Vietnam to stop sending soldiers and materiel into South Vietnam to fight in the communist insurgency; and to destroy North Vietnam's transportation system, industrial base, and air defenses. Attainment of these objectives was made difficult by both the restraints imposed upon the U.S. and its allies by Cold War exigencies, and the military aid and assistance received by North Vietnam from its communist allies, the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and North Korea.
The operation became the most intense air/ground battle waged during the Cold War period; it was the most difficult such campaign fought by the United States since the aerial bombardment of Germany during World War II. Supported by its communist allies, North Vietnam fielded a potent mixture of MiG fighter-interceptor jets and sophisticated air-to-air and surface-to-air weapons that created one of the most effective air defenses ever faced by American military aviators. The limited effectiveness of the operation and the pursuit of peace talks led to the scaling back of the operation in March 1968 and its cancellation in November 1968.
Gradually escalating action
Background
In response to President Ngo Dinh Diem's abrogation of the 1956 reunification election and suppression of communists during the late 1950s, Hanoi had begun sending arms and materiel to the Vietcong, who were fighting an insurgency to topple the American-supported Saigon government. To combat the VC and to shore up the government in the south, the U.S. initially delivered monetary aid, military advisors, and supplies. Between 1957 and 1963, the U.S. found itself committed, through its acceptance of the policy of containment and belief in the domino theory, to defending South Vietnam from what it saw as expansive communist aggression.U.S. policy was for a time dictated by its perception of improvement in the Saigon government. No further commitment by the Americans would occur without tangible proof of the regime's survivability. Events in South Vietnam, however, outpaced this plan. By the beginning of 1965, the policy was reversed in the belief that without further American action the Saigon government could not survive. As late as 8 February, however, in a cable to US Ambassador to South Vietnam Maxwell Taylor, Johnson stressed that the paramount goal of a bombing campaign would be to boost Saigon's morale, not to influence Hanoi, expressing hope "that the building of a minimum government will benefit by... assurances from us to the highest levels that we... intend to take continuing action."
Questions then arose among the U.S. administration and military leadership as to the best method by which Hanoi could be dissuaded from its course of action. The answer seemed to lie in the application of air power. By 1964 most of the civilians surrounding President Lyndon B. Johnson shared the Joint Chiefs of Staff's collective faith in the efficacy of strategic bombing to one degree or another. They reasoned that a small nation like North Vietnam, with a tiny industrial base that was just emerging after the First Indochina War, would be reluctant to risk its new-found economic viability to support the insurgency in the south. Constantly affecting this decision-making process were fears of possible counter moves or outright intervention by the Soviet Union, China, or both. The civilians and the military were divided, however, on the manner of affecting Hanoi's will to support the southern insurgency. The civilians thought in terms of changing the regime's behavior while the military men were more concerned with breaking its will.
In August 1964, as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, in which U.S. naval vessels were attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats, Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes launched against the north. This did not, however, satisfy the military chiefs, who demanded a wider and more aggressive campaign.
Implementation
In March 1964 the Commander in Chief Pacific began developing plans for a sustained eight-week air campaign designed to escalate in three stages. This was published at the end of August as CINCPAC OPLAN 37–64, which included the "94 target list". Bridges, rail yards, docks, barracks and supply dumps were all targeted, and selected based on a criterion system considering:There was widespread concern that an air campaign could lead to a wider conflict involving the Chinese or Soviets. Westmoreland referred to "an almost paranoid fear of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union" and a "phobia" that the Chinese would invade. Johnson later noted:
For a time, no overt action was taken, and the plans continued to evolve. A further refinement of the plan was developed by William and McGeorge Bundy on 29 November 1964, with a more moderate target list, which the Joint Chiefs opposed. No action was taken while these, and other, plans were considered. But matters came to a head with the attack on Camp Holloway on 7 February 1965, which demanded immediate action, and resulted in a reprisal raid known as Operation Flaming Dart. A sapper raid against an American enlisted men's billet at Qui Nhon on the 10th led to Flaming Dart II. These small-scale operations were launched against the southern region of the country, where the bulk of North Vietnam's ground forces and supply dumps were located.
These actions led to the plans for a sustained air campaign being reconsidered. On 13 February a new plan was approved and given the name "Rolling Thunder", merging targets and priorities from the lists produced by the Bundys and the JCS. This campaign was not aimed at specific actions on the part of the North Vietnamese, but was intended as a larger response to the growing hostilities as a whole. Although some within the administration believed that the campaign would be costly, and that it might not work, they reasoned that it was "an acceptable risk, especially when considered against the alternative of introducing American combat troops." Rolling Thunder called for an eight-week air campaign consistent with the restrictions imposed by that Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara. If the insurgency continued "with DRV support, strikes against the DRV would be extended with intensified efforts against targets north of the 19th parallel."
It was believed that selective pressure, controlled by Washington, combined with diplomatic overtures, would prevail and compel Hanoi to end its aggression. The military was still not satisfied, since, for the time being, the bombing campaign was to be limited to targets below the 19th parallel, each of which would have to be cleared individually by the President and McNamara.
The first mission of the new operation was launched on 2 March against an ammunition storage area near Xom Bang carried out by a strike package of 104 US aircraft containing B-57s, F-105s, and F-100s. On the same day, 19 RVNAF A-1 Skyraiders struck the Quang Khe Naval Base. The Americans were shocked when six of their aircraft were shot down during the mission. Five of the downed crewmen were rescued, but it was a portent of things to come.
Over the north
Strategic persuasion
Under the doctrine of "gradualism", in which threatening destruction would serve as a more influential signal of American determination than destruction itself, it was thought better to hold important targets "hostage" by bombing trivial ones. From the beginning of Rolling Thunder, Washington dictated which targets would be struck, the day and hour of the attack, the number, and types of aircraft and the tonnages and types of ordnance utilized, and sometimes even the direction of the attack. Airstrikes were strictly forbidden within of Hanoi and within of the port of Haiphong. A thirty-mile buffer zone also extended along the length of the Chinese frontier. According to U.S. Air Force historian Earl Tilford:Targeting bore little resemblance to reality in that the sequence of attacks was uncoordinated and the targets were approved randomly—even illogically. The North's airfields, which, according to any rational targeting policy, should have been hit first in the campaign, were also off-limits.
Although some of these restrictions were later loosened or rescinded, Johnson kept a tight rein on the campaign, which continuously infuriated the American military commanders, right-wing members of Congress, and even some within the administration itself. One of the primary objectives of the operation, at least to the military, should have been the closure of Haiphong and other ports by aerial mining, thereby slowing or halting the flow of seaborne supplies entering the north. Johnson refused to take such a provocative action, however, and such an operation was not implemented until 1972. There was also little consultation between Johnson and the military chiefs during the target selection process. Even the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Earle Wheeler, was not present for most of the critical discussions of 1965 and participated only occasionally thereafter.
The majority of strikes during Rolling Thunder were launched from four air bases in Thailand: Korat, Takhli, Udorn, and Ubon. The aircraft refueled from aerial tankers over Laos before flying on to their targets in the DRV. After attacking their targets the strike forces would either fly directly back to Thailand or exit over the relatively safe waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. It was quickly decided that, in order to limit airspace conflicts between air force and naval strike forces, North Vietnam was divided into six target regions called "route packages", each of which was assigned to either the Air Force or Navy and into which the other was forbidden to intrude.
Naval strikes were launched from the aircraft carriers of Task Force 77, cruising off the North Vietnamese coast at Yankee Station. Naval aircraft, which had shorter ranges than their air force counterparts, approached their targets from seaward with the majority of their strikes flown against coastal targets.
On 3 April the Joint Chiefs persuaded McNamara and Johnson to launch a four-week attack on North Vietnam's lines of communication, which would isolate the country from its overland sources of supply in China and the Soviet Union. About one-third of the North's imports came down the Hanoi–Lào Cai railway from China, while the remaining two-thirds came by sea through Haiphong and other ports. For the first time in the campaign, targets were to be chosen for their military, rather than their psychological, significance. During the four weeks, 26 bridges and seven ferries were destroyed. Other targets included the extensive North Vietnamese radar system, barracks, and ammunition depots.
The panhandle of southern North Vietnam remained the primary focus of operations, and total sorties flown there rose from 3,600 in April to 4,000 in May. Slowly moving away from the destruction of fixed targets, "armed reconnaissance" missions, in which small formations of aircraft patrolled highways, railroads, and rivers, searching for targets of opportunity, were authorized. These missions increased from two to 200 sorties per week by the end of 1965. Eventually, armed reconnaissance missions constituted 75 percent of the total bombing effort, in part because the system through which fixed targets were requested, selected, and authorized was so complicated and unwieldy.