THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

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 preparationsfor the encirclement-greatly increased truck traffic and enemy troop movements-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 economicheartland 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

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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

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