The Air Force In Southeast Asia

Recently declassified study written in January 1972. Describes the many problems which faced the first air controllers after their arrival in South Vietnam in early 1962. He discusses their efforts to overcome the language barrier and help train Vietnamese Air Force personnel, their role in establishing a centralized air control system, and the tactics and techniques they developed during the years prior to President Lyndon B. Johnson's decision in 1965 to dispatch large U. S. ground forces to Southeast Asia to help thwart the attempted conquest of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese.

This publication tells the story of the United States Ari Force's involvement in the region form the end of the second World War until the major infusion of American troops into Vietnam in1965. During these years, and most noticeably after 1961, the Air Force's principal role in Southeast Asia was to advise the Vietnamese Air Force in its struggle against insurgents seeking the collapse of the Saigon government. This story includes some issues of universal applicability to the Air Force: the role of air power in an insurgency, the most effective way to advise a foreign ally, and how to coordinate with other American agencies (both military and civilian) which are doing the same thing. It also deals with issue unique to the Vietnamese conflict: how to coordinate a centralized, technological modern air force with a feudal, decentralized, indigenous one without overwhelming it, and how best to adapt fighter, reconnaissance, airlift, and liaison planes to a jungle environment.