To Hanoi And Back The United States Air Force And North Vietnam 1966 1973 Illustrated Edition

Includes 3 maps and 40 photographs No experience etched itself more deeply into Air Force thinking than the air campaigns over North Vietnam. Two decades later in the deserts of Southwest Asia, American airmen were able to avoid the gradualism that cost so many lives and planes in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Readers should come away from this book with a sympathetic understanding of the men who bombed North Vietnam. Those airmen handled tough problems in ways that ultimately reshaped the Air Force into the effective instrument on display in the Gulf War. This book is a sequel to Jacob Van Staaveren’s Gradual Failure: The Air War over North Vietnam, 1965-1966, which we have also declassified and are publishing. Wayne Thompson tells how the Air Force used that failure to build a more capable service-a service which got a better opportunity to demonstrate the potential of air power in 1972. Dr. Thompson began to learn about his subject when he was an Army draftee assigned to an Air Force intelligence station in Taiwan during the Vietnam War. He took time out from writing To Hanoi and Back to serve in the Checkmate group that helped plan the Operation Desert Storm air campaign against Iraq. Later he visited Air Force pilots and commanders in Italy immediately after the Operation Deliberate Force air strikes in Bosnia. During Operation Allied Force over Serbia and its Kosovo province, he returned to Checkmate. Consequently, he is keenly aware of how much the Air Force has changed in some respects-how little in others. Although he pays ample attention to context, his book is about the Air Force. He has written a well-informed account that is both lively and thoughtful.

After nearly eighteen months of the largely unsuccessful bombing campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder, the US Air Force began to look for ways to overcome technological, geographical, and political challenges in North Vietnam and use limited air power more effectively. In 1972 the two Linebacker campaigns joined with other air operations to make a dramatic, although temporary, difference. While they unleashed powerful B-52 area bombers, the campaigns also demonstrated the efficacy of newly developed laser-guided precision bombs. Drawing upon twenty years of research in classified records, Wayne Thompson integrates operational, political, and personal detail to present a full history of the Air Force role in the war against North Vietnam. He provides an unprecedented view of the motivations and actions of the people involved—from aircrews to generals to politicians—in every phase of the air campaigns. He outlines, for instance, the political reasons for President Johnson's reluctance to use B-52 bombers against major North Vietnamese targets. He also examines how the media influenced US policy and how US prisoners became the war's most celebrated heroes. The war in Southeast Asia ultimately pushed the Air Force toward adopting more flexible tactics and incorporating increasingly sophisticated weapons that would shape later conflicts.

Drawing upon 20 years of research into classified records, Thompson integrates operational, political, and personal detail to present a full history of the U.S. Air Force's role in North Vietnam from 1966 to 1973. 32 photos.

No experience etched itself more deeply into Air Force thinking than the air campaigns over North Vietnam. Two decades later in the deserts of Southwest Asia, American airmen were able to avoid the gradualism that cost so many lives and planes in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Readers should come away from this book with a sympathetic understanding of the men who bombed North Vietnam. Those airmen handled tough problems in ways that ultimately reshaped the Air Force into the effective instrument on display in the Gulf War. This book is a sequel to Jacob Van Staaveren's Gradual Failure: The Air War over North Vietnam, 1965-1966, which we have also declassified and are publishing. Wayne Thompson tells how the Air Force used that failure to build a more capable service-a service which got a better opportunity to demonstrate the potential of air power in 1972. Dr. Thompson began to learn about his subject when he was an Army draftee assigned to an Air Force intelligence station in Taiwan during the Vietnam War. He took time out from writing To Hanoi and Back to serve in the Checkmate group that helped plan the Operation Desert Storm air campaign against Iraq. Later he visited Air Force pilots and commanders in Italy immediately after the Operation Deliberate Force air strikes in Bosnia. During Operation Allied Force over Serbia and its Kosovo province, he returned to Checkmate. Consequently, he is keenly aware of how much the Air Force has changed in some respects-how little in others. Although he pays ample attention to context, his book is about the Air Force. He has written a well-informed account that is both lively and thoughtful.

No experience etched itself more deeply into Air Force thinking than the air campaigns over N. Vietnam. Two decades later in the deserts of SW Asia, American airmen were able to avoid the gradualism that cost so many lives and planes in the jungles of SE Asia. You should come away from this book with a sympathetic understanding of the men who bombed N. Vietnam. Those airmen handled tough problems in ways that ultimately reshaped the Air Force into the effective instrument on display in the Gulf War. Chapters: New Tactics, Old Strategy; Gradualism on Trial; Season of Discontent; Rolling Thunder Subsides; Protective Reaction; Prisoners and Other Survivors; The Lavelle Affair; B-52 at Last; Maps; Statistics; Glossary; and Bibliography. Photos.

No experience etched itself more deeply into Air Force thinking than the air campaigns over North Vietnam. Two decades later in the deserts of Southwest Asia, American airmen were able to avoid the gradualism that cost so many lives and planes in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Readers should come away from this book with a sympathetic understanding of the men who bombed North Vietnam. Those airmen handled tough problems in ways that ultimately reshaped the Air Force into the effective instrument on display in the Gulf War. This book is a sequel to Jacob Van Staaveren's Gradual Failure: The Air War over North Vietnam, 1965-1966, which we have also declassified and are publishing. Wayne Thompson tells how the Air Force used that failure to build a more capable service-a service which got a better opportunity to demonstrate the potential of air power in 1972. Dr. Thompson began to learn about his subject when he was an Army draftee assigned to an Air Force intelligence station in Taiwan during the Vietnam War. He took time out from writing To Hanoi and Back to serve in the Checkmate group that helped plan the Operation Desert Storm air campaign against Iraq. Later he visited Air Force pilots and commanders in Italy immediately after the Operation Deliberate Force air strikes in Bosnia. During Operation Allied Force over Serbia and its Kosovo province, he returned to Checkmate. Consequently, he is keenly aware of how much the Air Force has changed in some respects-how little in others. Although he pays ample attention to context, his book is about the Air Force. He has written a well-informed account that is both lively and thoughtful.

Includes over 100 maps, plans and illustrations The United States Air Force reached its nadir during the opening two years of the Rolling Thunder air campaign in North Vietnam. Never had the Air Force operated with so many restraints and to so little effect. These pages are painful but necessary reading for all who care about the nation’s military power. Jacob Van Staaveren wrote this book in the 1970s near the end of his distinguished government service, which began during the occupation of Japan; the University of Washington Press published his book on that experience in 1995. He was an Air Force historian in Korea during the Korean War, and he began to write about the Vietnam War while it was still being fought. His volume on the air war in Laos was declassified and published in 1993. Now this volume on the air war in North Vietnam has also been declassified and is being published for the first time. Although he retired to McMinnville, Oregon, a number of years ago, we asked him to review the manuscript and make any changes that seemed warranted. For the most part, this is the book he wrote soon after the war. Readers of this volume will also want to read the sequel, Wayne Thompson’s To Hanoi and Back: The U.S. Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966-1973, which tells the more encouraging story of how the Air Force employed airpower to far greater effect using a combination of better doctrine, tactics, technology, and training.