Operation Linebacker Ii 1972

After the failed April 1972 invasion of South Vietnam and the heavy US tactical bombing raids in the Hanoi area, the North Vietnamese agreed to return to the Paris peace talks, yet very quickly these negotiations stalled. In an attempt to end the war quickly and 'persuade' the North Vietnamese to return to the negotiating table, President Nixon ordered the Air Force to send the US' ultimate conventional weapon, the B-52 bomber, against their capital, Hanoi. Bristling with the latest Soviet air defence missiles, it was the most heavily defended target in Vietnam. Taking place in late December, this campaign was soon dubbed the 'Christmas Bombings'. Using specially commissioned artwork and maps, ex-USAF fighter colonel Marshall Michel describes Linebacker II, the climax of the air war over Vietnam, and history's only example of how America's best Cold War bombers performed against contemporary Soviet air defences.

At Easter 1972, North Vietnam invaded the South, and there were almost no US ground troops left to stop it. But air power reinforcements could be rushed to the theater. Operation Linebacker's objective was to destroy the invading forces from the air and cut North Vietnam's supply routes – and luckily in 1972, American air power was beginning a revolution in both technology and tactics. Most crucial was the introduction of the first effective laser-guided bombs, but the campaign also involved the fearsome AC-130 gunship and saw the debut of helicopter-mounted TOW missiles. Thanks to the new Top Gun fighter school, US naval aviators now also had a real advantage over the MiGs. This is the fascinating story of arguably the world's first “modern” air campaign. It explains how this complex operation – involving tactical aircraft, strategic bombers, close air support and airlift – defeated the invasion. It also explains the shortcomings of the campaign, the contrasting approaches of the USAF and Navy, and the impact that Linebacker had on modern air warfare.

In December 1972, with an increasingly dovish Congress preparing to cut off all funding for the war in Vietnam, President Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of Hanoi by the Strategic Air Command's "big stick," its fleet of B-52 bombers. Never before had a B-52 been lost in combat, but the North Vietnamese SAM missile crews knocked them out of the sky in the first days of the engagement. Despite the losses, the surviving bombers kept coming, inflicting huge losses on the North Vietnamese. For eleven days the momentum swung back and forth, moving from what appeared to be a certain U.S. triumph, to a possible North Vietnamese victory, to the ultimate ambiguous denouement in which both sides won and lost.

The account of the 1972 twelve-day assault by the U.S. on targets around Hanoi and Haiphong is provided through the personal words of the pilots and crew who flew the missions

After the failed April 1972 invasion of South Vietnam and the heavy US tactical bombing raids in the Hanoi area, the North Vietnamese agreed to return to the Paris peace talks, yet very quickly these negotiations stalled. In an attempt to end the war quickly and 'persuade' the North Vietnamese to return to the negotiating table, President Nixon ordered the Air Force to send the US' ultimate conventional weapon, the B-52 bomber, against their capital, Hanoi. Bristling with the latest Soviet air defence missiles, it was the most heavily defended target in Vietnam. Taking place in late December, this campaign was soon dubbed the 'Christmas Bombings'. Using specially commissioned artwork and maps, ex-USAF fighter colonel Marshall Michel describes Linebacker II, the climax of the air war over Vietnam, and history's only example of how America's best Cold War bombers performed against contemporary Soviet air defences.

When the wolf rises was a term used by Theodore Roosevelt to describe "Fear" as experienced in life situations, to include combat and other extreme happenings. This term is applied to the role of the B-52s and the effect on the crews, flying out of the island of Guam and from U-Tapao, Thailand during the eleven days starting on December 18th, 1972. This personal account is a graphic description on the results of those raids from a commander of a B-52 squadron during the raids which led to the end of the Vietnam War and its aftermath.

For the last decade, Dr. Albert Atkins has conducted extensive research on the Vietnam War. This research has taken him to the cockpit of a B-52 where he could see and feel the cramped battle stations for the pilot and co-pilot. As a former military pilot, he saw and understood the complexity of the eight engine bombers' instrument panel, hundreds of switches, and the circuit breaker panels that these B-52 pilots had to master to fly a successful combat mission. He attended reunions and seminars where he had the opportunity to listen and talk to general officers and combat crew members of the Strategic Air Command relate their personal experiences in the air war over North Vietnam. Dr. Atkins researched material relating to decisions made by presidents and their National Security Advisors during the Vietnam War. Under the freedom of Information Act, he obtained CIA documents with information about North Vietnam and China that could have altered the course of the war. He has uncovered new material on Operation Linebacker II, the B-52 bombing missions of Hanoi that were responsible for freeing our Prisoners of War. Dr. Atkins is to be commended for his 10 years diligent research. He makes a strong case that after 11 Days of the B-52 bombing the Hanoi area, "WE HAD WON THE WAR." The problem was the only people that understood this were the combat crews who flew the missions and support personnel who made Linebacker II a success. Unfortunately no one in Washington asked their opinion. As Dr. Atkins book points out, a similar mistake happened in another war. James R. McCarthy Brig. /Gen. (USAF ret.)