THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA The War in South Vietnam The Years of the Offensive 1965-1968 John Schlight Al R FORCE Histbru and 9 Museums PROGRAM 1999 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Schlight, John The war in South Vietnam: the years of the offensive, 1965-1968 (The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia) Bibliography: p. 385 Includes Index 1. Vietnamese conflict, 1961-1975-Aerial operations, American. 2. United States. Air Force-History-Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975. I. Title. 11. Series. DS558.8.S34 1988 959.704'348"~ 19 88-14030 ISBN 0-912799-51-X ii Foreword This volume, the latest published by the Office of Air Force History in the United States Air Force in Southeast Asia series, looks at the Air Force’s support of the ground war in South Vietnam between 1965 and early 1968. The book covers the period from the time when the United States began moving from an advisory role into one of active involvement to just before the time when the United States gradually began disengaging from the war. The final scene is the successful air campaign conducted during the Communists’ siege of the Marine camp at Khe Sanh. While the actual siege lasted from late January to the middle of March 1968, enemy preparations for the encirclement-greatly increased truck traffic and enemy troop move- ments-were seen as early as October 1967. A subsequent volume in the Southeast Asia series will take up the story with the Communists’ concurrent Tet offensive during January and February 1968. Air Force assistance in South Vietnam during the war was principally of two kinds: close air support of troops on the battlefield, by both tactical fighters and B-52s, and the airlift of supplies and personnel. In addition to close air support and airlift, the Air Force performed many other important missions ancillary to the ground war, including reconnaissance, intelligence, psychological warfare, defoliation, destruction of enemy reinforcements and supplies, medical evacuation, and pacification and civic action. Historically, close air support has occupied a lower priority in the hierarchy of Air Force missions than strategic bombing and interdiction. In theory since the 1930s, and in actuality since World War 11, the Air Force has seen itself primarily as the strategic deliverer of destructive force on the industrial and economic heartland of an enemy. Preventing the flow of enemy reinforcements by interdicting them far from the battlefield was also considered an inherently important and effective function of air power. Close air support, for a variety of historical and doctrinal reasons, had been deemed a less fruitful use of air resources. As a consequence, more attention has been paid by historians of the conflict in Southeast Asia to the bombing campaigns against North Vietnam and the interdiction efforts against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos than to the less dramatic but no less important air efforts within South Vietnam. In this volume Col. John Schlight, formerly Deputy Chief of the Office of Air Force History, describes the many issues that were ... 111 FOREWORD awakened when the Air Force was forced to adapt some of its resources and doctrine to a jungle war in South Vietnam. Among these issues was the question of who would command and who would control the air instrument. The Southeast Asia war was the second major test of America’s unified command structure for theater warfare since its formal adoption in the National Security Act of 1947. The earlier test in Korea had shown the command structure to be effective but cumbersome and had resulted in some serious disagreements between the services. It was hoped that the unified command system could be improved in Vietnam and that American air resources could be kept intact for more effective use. As this volume shows, several major obstacles rendered this search for unity and centralization extremely difficult. The use of airlift was a less contentious issue, but it shared somewhat in the command and control tension. The creation since Korea by the U.S. Army of an airmobile division with its own helicopters presented a serious challenge to the Air Force’s airlift mission. Colonel Schlight traces the stages by which accommodation was reached on this issue as the war progressed. The Air Force adapted to the realities of Vietnam on many levels. In some cases, long-abandoned production facilities had to be resurrected. Aircraft, weapon systems, and munitions were modified to meet the demands of the alien environment. Personnel and training practices, geared for nuclear warfare, were revamped for a war that harked back to an earlier age. Jet fighter pilots, trained for nuclear war, flew observation planes at 100 miles an hour; fighter-bombers and B-52s, designed for nuclear strikes, dropped iron bombs on enemy troops; training planes served as fighter-bombers; transport planes were employed as gunships, dropped flares, and defoliated the thick jungle underbrush; and radar for scoring practice bombing from the ground was used in reverse to direct fighters and bombers to their targets. These and other anomalies form the basis of the jet-age Air Force conducting a limited war against an enemy fighting an insurgency in a jungle environment. The study of this war, particularly that portion fought in the skies over South Vietnam in the years 1965 to 1968, has much to teach those who will apply air power into the twenty-first century. RICHARD H. KOHN Chief, Office of Air Force History iv In times of war, air power contributes to a nation’s objectives in a variety of ways. It is used to disrupt the enemy’s psychological equanimity at home, observe his military preparations and activities from above, impede his movement of military resources to the battlefield, strike his ground forces as they close with friendly troops, ward off his attacks from the skies, and transport friendly troops and supplies to and from the battlefield. During four air wars in Southeast Asia between 1961 and 1973, American aircraft, at different times and in different arenas, performed the functions of strategic bombing, reconnaissance, and interdiction over North Vietnam; reconnais- sance and interdiction of the trails in southern Laos; reconnaissance, interdiction, and close air support in the war waged by Laotian tribesmen against the Communists in northern Laos; and close air support, airlift, reconnaissance, air defense, and attacks against enemy supply lines and reinforcements in support of American and South Vietnamese ground forces in South Vietnam. This volume describes the U.S. Air Force’s roles in the latter of these four air wars during the period of greatest intensity, between 1965 and early 1968. Other volumes in this series round out the story. Before the war, close air support, because it ceded much control of aircraft to ground commanders, was not a favored mission of the Air Force. Anchored for decades in the strategic nuclear mission, many airmen viewed direct support of ground forces as the least efficient use of the air weapon. Despite their conviction that enemy resources were more effectively dealt with before they arrived at the battlefield, it became necessary from time to time and for a variety of reasons to use aircraft for close air support. The conflict in South Vietnam was one of those occasions. This study examines not only the results of employing air power this way, but also the tactics and techniques that evolved in an unfamiliar jungle environment, the relationship of the close air support mission to other types of missions being flown, and the interplay between the Air Force’s activities and those of the other air forces that were fighting the Communists. A special word of thanks is due to John Huston and Dick Kohn, who, as directors of the Air Force’s history program, provided a sufficiently contemplative atmosphere for research and writing. David Chenoweth labored mightily in making the text publicly presentable. A special tribute is V PREFACE in order here for Ken Sams, without whose imaginative historical work in Southeast Asia the story of the Air Force in South Vietnam would be incomplete. John Schlight vi The Author From the early 1950s, when he flew aircraft in support of the French in Indochina, through his final assignment as Deputy Chief of the Ofice of Air Force History, Col. John Schlight’s 3 1-year Air Force career bracketed America’s involvement in the Southeast Asia conflict. In Southeast Asia again in 1969 and 1970, he was in Vietnam as Deputy Director of Project CHECO (Contemporary Historical Evaluation of Combat Operations), one of the Air Force’s historical efforts in the war. Possessing the MA and PhD degrees from Princeton University, he has taught military history at the United States Air Force Academy, the National War College in Washington, D.C., and at several universities in the United States and overseas. From 1977 to 1981 he directed the Vietnam War section at the Air Force History Office. In addition to articles in both medieval European and modern American military history, he is the author of Monarchs and Mercenaries (1968) and Henry II Plantagenet (1973) and the editor of The Second Indochina War (1985). He is currently Chief of the Southeast Asia Branch at the US. Army’s Center of Military History. vii United States Air Force Historical Advisory Committee (As of December 1, 1987) Mrs. Anne Foreman Dr. Norman A. Graebner The General Counsel, USAF University of Virginia Dr. Dominick Graham Dr. Ira Gruber University of New Brunswick Rice University Lt. Gen. Charles R. Hamm Dr. Haskell Monroe USAF (Committee Chairman) Superintendent, USAF Academy University of Missouri-Columbia Dr.