The Joint Chiefs Had a Bold Plan for Airpower, but Political Leaders Chose Gradualism Instead
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Photo via Jack Broughton The Joint Chiefs had a bold plan for airpower, but political leaders chose gradualism instead. The Vietnam War By Jack Broughton That Wasn’t 68 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2014 s the US fi rst became involved of their tactics and lack of understanding Instead, Operation Rolling Thunder was in direct combat with North of Vietnamese society. designed to be the effective air campaign Vietnam, America’s airpower In 1964 the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed against the North, but was constantly resources were used sparingly, the development of a list of strategic hobbled by President Johnson’s frequent Aspastically, and less than effi ciently. Many targets in North Vietnam. The 94 targets invocation of the “China Card”—a pro- observers pronounced the mere threat of US they identifi ed were considered to have nounced fear of a large-scale Chinese airpower might bring the North to its knees. a direct relationship to the North’s war- intervention in Vietnam, much like in That did not happen. America’s formidable making capabilities and will to fi ght. Ad- the Korean War. But this fear ignored the and available airpower arsenal was only ditionally, Air Staff planners had designed historic enmity between the Chinese and tentatively committed and was shackled by an air campaign that Air Force Chief of Vietnamese, and the frequent analogy gradualism and micromanagement from Staff Gen. John P. McConnell considered with the Korean War was seriously fl awed. the highest levels of government. capable of knocking out those 94 targets In the fall of 1950, US forces had pushed Because of this, the scene was set for a in 28 days. invading North Korean forces back over the string of reports on airpower’s ineffective- By all accounts, American airpower 38th Parallel and had advanced to the banks ness, that it was failing to “win” the war. was capable of immediately implementing of the Yalu River, the border with China. Many historians still cling to this view. the plans. There was a fully combat ready Gen. Douglas MacArthur was threaten- But a good number of those who fired F-105 fi ghter-bomber wing at Yokota AB, ing to enter China, so the Chinese responded shots, and got shot at, believe to this day Japan, and another at Okinawa, prepared by simply marching their assembled forces that had US military capabilities been to deploy to operating bases at Takhli and across the border into the Korean War. better utilized, the outcome of the war Korat in Thailand. Tactical Air Command In Vietnam, US ground units were never in Vietnam would have been dramati- fi ghter squadrons were routinely accom- closer than 400 miles from the Chinese cally altered. plishing trans-Pacifi c fl ights for temporary border and never threatened to enter North As early as 1962, Vietnam scholars duty deployments to Southeast Asia. B-52 Vietnam—much less China. Had Chinese such as Bernard B. Fall, arguably the most bombers were in position to engage, and ground forces chosen to enter the ground prominent war correspondent, historian, aerial refueling tankers were prepared to war in South Vietnam, such action would political scientist, and expert on Indochina operate out of Bangkok. Naval carrier air not only have widened the war substan- during the 1950s and 1960s, spoke of the wings were on, or en route to, “Yankee tially, but the Chinese would have faced North’s fear that American retaliation to Station”—their operating position in the US airpower that would have forced their military action by Hanoi would destroy South China Sea, well within range of forces to pay dearly en route to South their emerging economy and lead to post- Hanoi and Haiphong. Vietnam. Also, as the Cultural Revolution war Chinese occupation. Ho Chi Minh began in 1965-66, the Chinese were too had cleverly extracted a great deal of as- STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT bound up with their own internal diffi cul- sistance from both the Soviet Union and The White House announced to the ties to respond militarily except to a direct China, resulting in an industrial complex world in August 1964 that the US would threat to their national security interests. that was the only real economic entity in strike fi rmly if the North or their allied China was under additional stress due to Southeast Asia at the time. Viet Cong units chose to attack any US the worsening diplomatic friction in the In less than 40 years, Ho and his follow- facilities in South Vietnam. 1960s between China and Russia. ers had gained the freedom from China that The reply came with a mortar attack on Johnson and Secretary of Defense Rob- had eluded their ancestors for the preceding the US air base at Bien Hoa, South Viet- ert S. McNamara used the China Card to two thousand years. The leadership and the nam in November, killing and wounding justify their preferred gradualist approach. people of North Vietnam were fanatically Americans, and destroying aircraft just 20 They advocated short periods of limited air proud of this accomplishment. miles north of Saigon. strikes followed by a unilateral cease-fi re Ho himself had spent enough time in In the aftermath of the attack, the John- declaration, to allow the North to assess Korea to know what air strikes had done, son Administration professed concern the situation and in theory beg the US for and he was hesitant to trade the glory of over Chinese reaction should America peace talks. conquering the South for sacrifi cing his do what it had said it would do. The The North took advantage of this ap- national pride and economic potential President, ignoring the JCS and US proach and used the cease-fi res to repair to American bombs. The fact that the Ambassador to South Vietnam Maxwell strike damage, improve and practice tac- leadership in Hanoi was smart enough to D. Taylor, decided to take no retaliatory tics, perfect their communications, further fear a determined assault by US airpower action. disperse MiGs and associated fuel and was lost on American leadership. The In his book Strategy for Defeat, Adm. munitions, build new surface-to-air mis- US leadership also ignored the historical Ulysses S. Grant Sharp Jr., commander sile sites, and strengthen readiness for the advice of theorist Carl Von Clausewitz, of US Pacifi c Command from 1964 to next push southward. Rolling Thunder, as who professed that if you have to go to 1968, said that the President should have it unfolded, struggled for effectiveness. war, victory is all that counts, and using initiated the JCS plan. Sharp stated air North Vietnamese ground forces, em- the maximum amount of force as quickly attacks “would have had a major effect powered from ending French colonial as possible is the preferred path to victory. on North Vietnam and might well have rule at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, were Washington also paid little attention been the very thing needed to stop North certainly a dominating force in the war when Fall, from his on-scene combat Vietnamese aggression in the south and to against South Vietnam, but were not a perspective, predicted that both France bring Southeast Asia back to a peaceful, large factor in the JCS plan for aerial and the US would suffer defeat because stabilized situation.” Some 11 years before action against the North. The North’s A post-strike photo showing a target in the war’s end, he argued, the US may well anti-aircraft capability at the initiation North Vietnam destroyed with no col- have prevented the costly and drawn-out of hostilities was minimal and in no That Wasn’t lateral damage. war that followed. way resembled the fi ercest air defenses AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2014 69 Photo via Jack Broughton Jack via Photo in history that materialized later in the same fighters could also have crippled the An aerial photograph of Thai Nguyen war—after a massive Russian and Chinese docking and storage facilities of Haiphong shows an unprotected cluster of indus- infusion of equipment, communications, harbor, without damaging international trial targets. training, and technical assistance. shipping vessels. Adequate warnings to At the beginning of the air war, there the nations sponsoring the shipping, plus Hanoi’s roundhouse and disabling the were no SAMs to contend with, the North the strategic sowing of mines by B-52s in nearby Gia Lam airfield. Supply inroads Vietnamese MiG interceptor aircraft pro- the waters surrounding Haiphong, would to the North would have been virtually gram was practically non-existent, and certainly have hindered ship traffic bound nonexistent. anti-aircraft guns were mostly limited for the North. An ideal strategic mission awaited B-52 to what was left over from the French The next step in the North’s isolation bombers, at the Thai Nguyen steel mill defeat at Dien Bien Phu. could have been the crippling of the main complex, 50 miles north of Hanoi. It was There was a high probability that aggres- source of supply input from China, the a large, modern, self-contained industrial sive US Air Force and US Navy aviation air northeast rail line that ran from the Chinese complex. If there was a single, meaningful attacks could have changed the calculations border to downtown Hanoi. This was a symbol of the North’s industrial sophistica- in Southeast Asia. 140-mile, single railroad track, allowing tion, Thai Nguyen was it. It was bordered Initially USAF and Navy fighters only one-way traffic. One end of the line on the north by the relatively accessible could have disabled all of the North’s was supply and transshipment facilities on Highway 3 and the Hanoi/Thai Nguyen communication and warning facilities, the Vietnamese-Chinese border, while the rail line and on the south by extensive coke plus anti-aircraft gun positions.