how many bombs were dropped on vietnam

losses. He proposed that MacArthur announce that UN forces would employ the firebombing methods that "brought Japan to its knees" during the Pacific campaign of World War II. Journalist Seymour Hersh reported a letter sent by a GI to his family, and published in a local newspaper: Today we went on a mission and I am not very proud of myself, my friends, or my country. For a fuller, History of the widespread mutiny of US troops in Vietnam that brought the world's most powerful military machine to its knees. A key interservice issue (and one which was not solved until 1968) was the command and control arrangement in Southeast Asia. Robertson uses the tool to keep track of ordnance used in the United States's ongoing wars -- Iraq, Afghanistan -- which can in turn be used as evidence for investigations into the many civilian deaths associated with those wars. No action was taken while these, and other, plans were considered. According to the memoirs of Soviet advisers, on average before an anti-aircraft missile unit was put out of action it destroyed five to six American aircraft. From May to December 1966, the U.S lost 47 aircraft in air battles, destroying only 12 enemy fighters. In the three months following the start of Linebacker in May 1972, the U.S. lost 48 aircraft, 21 to VPAF MiGs and 27 to improved ground defenses. [46] The loss of the oil storage tank farms and refineries proved to be only a short-term inconvenience for North Vietnam, however, since Hanoi had anticipated just such a campaign and had during that time dispersed the majority of its POL stocks in 190-litre (50USgal) drums across the length of the country. Show publisher information The following year, without American troops, the United States supported a South Vietnamese invasion of Laos. None in the Air Force high command foresaw that the war would drag on for nearly a decade. [6], During this period, the official U.S. policy was to pursue precision bombing aimed at communication centers (railroad stations, marshalling yards, main yards, and railways) and industrial facilities deemed vital to war-making capacity. Contrary to opinion, the U.S. public still supported the American effort in South Vietnam. By early 1968, there were more than 500,000 American troops there, and the US Air Force was dropping bombs at a rate unequalled in history. Also struck were the Thai Nguyen steel complex (origin of the Pardo's Push), thermal and electrical power plants, ship and rail repair facilities, and warehouses. [10], On 3 November 1950, General Stratemeyer forwarded to MacArthur the request of Fifth Air Force commander General Earle E. Partridge for clearance to "burn Sinuiju". Rusk proposed limiting the campaign to the panhandle of North Vietnam without preconditions and awaiting Hanoi's reaction. [77], North Vietnam's deployment of SAMs forced American pilots to make hard choices: either approach targets at higher altitudes (to avoid anti-aircraft fire) and become prey to SAMs, or fly lower to avoid the missiles and become the target of anti-aircraft batteries. On the morning of 27 July, 48 F-105s were to participate in the strike, designated Operation Spring High. Soviet and Vietnamese calculations claimed the destruction of 31 aircraft, the Americans acknowledged the loss of 13 aircraft. This exacerbated a growing lack of experienced aircrews. This also helped account for the lower number of aircraft and pilot losses suffered by the navy. Despite official U.S. government denials and downplaying during the Vietnam War from 1964 to '73, the United States dropped more bombs per person on Laos than have been dropped on any country in . [45], On 29 June 1965, airstrikes against the North's petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) storage areas were authorized by Johnson. [27], In May 1951, an international fact finding team from East Germany, West Germany, China, and the Netherlands stated, "The members, in the whole course of their journey, did not see one town that had not been destroyed, and there were very few undamaged villages. Until December 1965, according to American data, eight SA-2s systems were destroyed. By the beginning of 1965, the policy was reversed in the belief that without further American action the Saigon government could not survive. [a], U.S. policy was for a time dictated by its perception of improvement in the Saigon government. [124] The Navy concluded that the primary problem was that their pilots had not been given proper air combat maneuvering training, and were forced to rely on missiles that were not performing as expected. [13], On 25 June 1951, General O'Donnell, commander of the Far Eastern Air Force Bomber Command, testified in answer to a question from Senator John C. Stennis ("North Korea has been virtually destroyed, hasn't it? . Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch, 2005. ", The CIA in Vietnam, in a program called "Operation Phoenix," secretly, without trial, executed at least 20,000 civilians in South Vietnam who were suspected of being members of the Communist underground. The process of the campaign became an end unto itself, with sortie generation as the standard by which progress was measured. In 1968 the Navy introduced the TOPGUN program, a move that was welcomed by the F-8 pilots who had been campaigning for this all along. Head, p. 23. [15], At the conclusion of the war, the Air Force assessed the destruction of twenty-two major cities as follows:[16], The bombing campaign destroyed almost every substantial building in North Korea. Between 1965 and 1975, the United States and its allies dropped more than 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodiadouble the amount dropped on Europe and Asia during World War II. [66] That estimate was later revised downward from a high of 7,000 in early 1967 to less than a thousand by 1972. [104], Disappointed by perceived political defeats at home and hoping that Hanoi would enter into negotiations, President Johnson announced on 31 March 1968, that all bombing north of the 19th parallel would cease. Lyndon Johnson had escalated a brutal war and failed to win it. . North Vietnam ruled by Ho Chi Minh South Vietnam, hostile to Ho and supported by the USA. In December 1966 the MiG-21 pilots of the 921st FR downed 14 F-105s without any losses. Indeed, war displaces population, destroys capital and infrastructure, disrupts schooling, and can produce negative environmental impacts, damage the social fabric, endanger civil liberties, and create health and famine crises. [22], North Korean factories, schools, hospitals, and government offices were forced to move underground. 864,000 tons of bombs and missiles dropped; 152,399 attack sorties from Navy and Marine Corps aircraft; 153,784 attack sorties from Air Force . Following the partitioning of Vietnam into the pro-independence Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the North, and the US puppet state the Republic of Vietnam in the South in 1954 (see our short history of Vietnam from 1945 to 1957) elections were due to be held on re-unification. [30] The flood from the destruction of the Toksan dam "scooped clean" 27 miles (43km) of river valley. General William C. Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, chose the code name 'Operation Niagara' for the coordination of available firepower at Khe Sanh. It possessed the only all-weather bomber in the U.S. inventory in the new A-6 Intruder and was also responsible for the development of the F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber, which became ubiquitous during the Vietnam War. Although some within the administration believed that the campaign would be costly, and that it might not work, they reasoned that it was "an acceptable risk, especially when considered against the alternative of introducing American combat troops. (U.S. Air Force photo) The situation reversed again when Chinese troops entered the conflict on 19 October, triggering a retreat by UN troops until early 1951. Tet merely served notice to the administration that the public wanted either victory or an end to the open-ended commitment of American resources and manpower. But three out of four patients seeking treatment in a Vietnamese hospital afterward for burns from napalm, or jellied gasoline, were village women. The higher rate of anti-aircraft artillery is partially caused by the fact gun units received data from the S-75 radar stations that significantly improved their effectiveness. unless food is provided-which we could offer to do "at the conference table." Yale biologists, using the same poison (2,4,5,T) on mice, reported defective mice born and said they had no reason to believe the effect on humans was different. Find your information in our database containing over 20,000 reports, fourth most deadly conflict in its history, support to any regime threatened by communist forces, Indochina (Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam) had been a colony of France, U.S. congress to give President Lyndon B. Johnson the power to employ conventional military force in Southeast Asia, more and more U.S. soldiers would be deployed to fight, Public opinion in the United States began to turn against involvement in the war, scaling down its bombing campaigns in Vietnam, the U.S. began withdrawing troops from Vietnam, lead to President Nixons resignation in 1974, capital of Saigon being taken by communist forces on April 30, one of the world's fastest growing economies, use of chemical agents such as Agent Orange. For the past six years, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jenns Robertson has been compiling a database of the bombs the U.S. military has dropped since World War I. The database offers a blueprint for the governments of Southeast Asian countries, as well as NGOs from the U.S. and elsewhere, to work from as they try to locate as-yet-unexploded ordnance -- thus preventing further injuries and deaths. [71], The northern economy was decentralized for its protection, and large factories, located in the heavily populated Red River Delta region, were broken up and scattered into caves and small villages throughout the countryside. "[24], It was believed that selective pressure, controlled by Washington, combined with diplomatic overtures, would prevail and compel Hanoi to end its aggression. [65], Since gaining air superiority over U.S. forces was out of the question, the northern leadership decided to implement a policy of air deniability. In addition, poisonous sprays were dropped by planes to destroy trees and any kind of growth - an area the size of the state of Massachusetts was covered with such poison. Statista assumes no sapper raid against an American enlisted men's billet at Qui Nhon, "China's Involvement in the Vietnam War, 196469", "LBJ approves 'Operation Rolling Thunder,' Feb. 13, 1965". On 1516 May, two groups of F-84s attacked the Chasan Dam. [g] The aircraft refueled from aerial tankers over Laos before flying on to their targets in the DRV. The most complete treatment of the search for peace is Allen E. Goodman. This policy was ultimately unsuccessful. After shooting down a few American planes and forcing some of the F-105s to drop their bombs prematurely, the MiGs did not wait for retaliation, but disengaged rapidly. The US dropped more bombs on Afghanistan in 2019 than any other year since the Pentagon began keeping a tally in 2006, reflecting an apparent effort to force concessions from the Taliban at the . Under present circumstances this is not the case. [37] Eventually, armed reconnaissance missions constituted 75 percent of the total bombing effort, in part because the system through which fixed targets were requested, selected, and authorized was so complicated and unwieldy. and over 1Mio. data than referenced in the text. From the beginning of Rolling Thunder, Washington dictated which targets would be struck, the day and hour of the attack, the number, and types of aircraft and the tonnages and types of ordnance utilized, and sometimes even the direction of the attack. [41] The mission of the ground forces was expanded to combat operations, and the aerial campaign became a secondary operation, overwhelmed by troop deployments and the escalation of ground operations in South Vietnam. On 8 April, responding to requests for peace negotiations, North Vietnamese premier, Pham Van Dong, stated that they could only begin when: the bombing was halted; the U.S. had removed all of its troops from the south; the Saigon government recognized the demands of the VC, and it was agreed that the reunification of Vietnam would be settled by the Vietnamese themselves. [2] Armstrong did not separately determine how many of these deaths were among civilians or caused by U.S. bombing. And yet not all of those bombs actually detonated. A Communist insurgency erupted in 1957, which was largely kept under control until 1963 when the pro-independence Viet Cong inflicted a large defeat on South Vietnamese forces at the Battle of Ap Bac and full-scale war began to break out. The Tet Offensive concluded as a military disaster for North Vietnam and the VC, but it also adversely affected U.S. public opinion, which in turn affected the will of Washington. [111] On 31 December 1967, the Department of Defense announced that 864,000 tons of American bombs had been dropped on North Vietnam during Rolling Thunder, compared with 653,000 tons dropped during the entire Korean War and 503,000 tons in the Pacific theater during the Second World War. After running low on urban targets, U.S. bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops. OCRed by Linda Towlson and lightly edited by libcom - US to UK spelling, additional details, clarifications and links added, with a short introduction, also by libcom. [51], The Navy's Task Force 77 took its orders via 7th Fleet from CINCPAC, a Navy admiral based in Honolulu, through his subordinate, the Air Force commander of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF). According to military analyst Taewoo Kim, the apparent contradiction between a policy of precision bombing and reports of high civilian casualties is explained by the very low accuracy of bombing. This was published at the end of August as CINCPAC OPLAN 37-64, which included the "94 target list". on the Vietnam War went to support Air Force, Navy, and Army aerial operations.1 The air forces of the United States and its allies dropped nearly 8 million tons of bombs on Indochina, well over twice the tonnage dropped by the Allied powers in all of World War II. It reported to the Seventh on operational matters and to the Thirteenth Air Force (whose headquarters was in the Philippines) for logistical and administrative concerns. The Vietnam War was a civil war that North Vietnam launched against South Vietnam in 1959. Nearly 7 million tons of bombs were dropped in Vietnam, and the B-52 carried roughly a third of these. [98] The Secretary of Defense marshaled his objections to an indiscriminate air war and adeptly rebutted the charges of the military chiefs. Between 1965 and 1975, the United States and its allies dropped more than 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodiadouble the amount dropped on Europe and Asia during World War II. [121], Along the way, Rolling Thunder also fell prey to the same dysfunctional managerial attitude as did the rest of the American military effort in Southeast Asia. VanDeMark, p. 69. By the end of the war, 7 million tons of bombs had been dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia - more than twice the amount of bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in World War II. US aerial bombing campaign against North Vietnam (196568). To use individual functions (e.g., mark statistics as favourites, set For such a target, 99.3 percent of bombs dropped did not hit the target. North Korea: 14 pilots killed[8]. Having soon established air supremacy by the destruction of the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force in the air and on the ground, FEAF bombers encountered no resistance and "the sky over North Korea was their safe front yard. The civilians, moreover, did not understand air power well enough to know that their policies might be crippling it; second, the American military leadership failed to initially propose and develop, or later to adapt, an appropriate strategy for the war. 153154. The history of war, as told from the perspective of the weapons themselves. The United States officially entered the war in 1965 when the North Vietnamese attacked the USS Maddox, backing South Vietnam. Directly accessible data for 170 industries from 150+ countries Get the best reports to understand your industry. These two boys were playing in Xuan Vien village . MiG-21 intercepts of F-105 strike groups were effective in downing US aircraft or forcing them to jettison their bomb loads. One cell of F4 Phantoms could be 60 bombs. The United States withdrew its forces, continuing to give aid to the Saigon government, but when the North Vietnamese launched at tacks in early 1975 against the major cities in South Vietnam, the government collapsed. I recently programmed an interactive timeline for the web that aims to detail as many events as possible during the Vietnam War in a chronological order. Its data are up-to-date. "[53][k] To complicate matters, the U.S. ambassadors to Thailand (Graham Martin) and Laos (William H. Sullivan) exerted undue influence over operational and command arrangements. Villages suspected of harbouring Viet Cong were subject to "search and destroy" missions - men of military age in the villages were killed, the homes were burned, the women, children, and old people were sent off to refugee camps. In, Rutgers University. [20], The panhandle of southern North Vietnam remained the primary focus of operations, and total sorties flown there rose from 3,600 in April to 4,000 in May. He suggested instead: Destruction of locks and dams, however-if handled right-might . [78], The nature of the gradual escalation had given Hanoi time to adapt to the situation. and over 1Mio. However, not infrequently American aircraft fiercely bombed dummy positions that were equipped with fake missiles made of bamboo. [17][18] The war's highest-ranking U.S. POW, U.S. Major General William F. Dean,[19] reported that the majority of North Korean cities and villages he saw were either rubble or snow-covered wasteland. Within one year, however, the U.S. estimated that the number had grown to over 5,000 guns, including 85 and 100mm radar-directed weapons. In addition, poisonous sprays were dropped by planes to destroy trees and any kind of growth - an area the size of the state of Massachusetts was covered with such poison. [61] During 1967 U.S. losses totaled 248 aircraft (145 Air Force, 102 Navy, and one Marine Corps). There were no more targets in Korea. The answer came back, under the carpet again, that there would be too many civilian casualties; we couldn't do anything like that. [76], On 24 July 1965, four USAF F-4C Phantoms took part in an airstrike against the Dien Bien Phu munitions storage depot and the Lang Chi munitions factory west of Hanoi. Large areas of South Vietnam were declared "free fire zones," which meant that all persons remaining within them-civilians, old people, children-were considered an enemy, and bombs were dropped at will. According to VanDeMark, Rolling Thunder failed to achieve any such objective. [86], While F-105s did score 27 air-to-air victories, the overall exchange ratio was near parity. [73], Perhaps North Vietnam's ultimate resource was its population. After attacking their targets (usually by dive-bombing) the strike forces would either fly directly back to Thailand or exit over the relatively safe waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. This page includes content from the SourceWatch page Bombing of North Korea 1950-1953 under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. This also meant the SAM site's tracking radar could be turned off, which prevented Shrikes from homing in on it. In his diary, Stratemeyer summarized the instructions as follows: "Every installation, facility, and village in North Korea now becomes a military and tactical target." By 1967, the North Vietnamese Air Force was maintaining an interceptor force of 100 aircraft, many of which were based on Chinese airfields and out of reach of American air attack. I would say that the entire, almost the entire Korean Peninsula is just a terrible mess. This brought them within the reach of Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns. A sophisticated cat and mouse game then ensued between North Vietnamese radar operators and the Wild Weasel pilots. The woman had two of her children killed in the air strike that maimed her.". [36] Other targets included the extensive North Vietnamese radar system, barracks, and ammunition depots. [16] The civilians and the military were divided, however, on the manner of affecting Hanoi's will to support the southern insurgency. He states: "During the war, American military and civilian officials stretched the term "military target" to include virtually all human-made structures, capitalizing on the vague distinction between the military and civilian segments of an enemy society. [59][p] Conversely, the Navy tended to maintain its aircrews within the same community for the duration of their careers, thereby retaining their expertise, but also incurring greater losses among experienced crews undergoing multiple combat tours. The Americans have at least 200 USAF F-4s and 140 USAF F-105s, plus at least 100 U.S Navy aircraft (F-8s, A-4s and F-4s) which operated from the aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin, plus scores of other support aircraft. In response to President Ngo Dinh Diem's abrogation of the 1956 reunification election and suppression of communists during the late 1950s, Hanoi had begun sending arms and materiel to the Vietcong (VC), who were fighting an insurgency to topple the American-supported Saigon government. Get quick analyses with our professional research service. However, after an SA-2 shot down some U.S aircraft, the U.S bombers began to descend below three kilometers. Morocco, p. 142. The RVNAF had contributed 682 missions with unknown ordnance tonnages. [2][29][36] Historian Bruce Cumings has likened the American bombing to genocide.[37]. Get in touch with us. Over a period of three years, this seemed to be acceptable to everybody, but to kill a few people at the start right away, no, we can't seem to stomach that.[24][22], Pyongyang, which saw 75 percent of its area destroyed, was so devastated that bombing was halted as there were no longer any worthy targets. Vietnam War: bomb tonnage dropped by the U.S. military from 1965 to 1970 Published by Statista Research Department , Apr 15, 1970 The bombing campaigns conducted by the U.S. military and its. The newer missile-armed F-4 Phantom would become the Americans' primary dogfighting platform. [4], Between June and October 1950, USAF Far East Air Force (FEAF) B-29 bombers carried out massive aerial attacks on transport centers and industrial hubs in North Korea. During the campaign, conventional weapons such as explosives, incendiary bombs, and napalm destroyed nearly all of the country's cities and towns, including an estimated 85 percent of its buildings. Click here to return to the B-52 Stratofortress in Southeast Asia index. Beyond its direct uses, though, the database is also powerful as a political and historical statement. On 13 May 1953, 20 F-84s of the 58th Fighter Bomber Wing attacked the Toksan Dam, producing a flood that destroyed seven hundred buildings in Pyongyang and thousands of acres of rice. The Americans had a multiple numerical advantage. Overall, an estimated 800,000 tons of unexploded ordnance remained in Vietnam after the fighting stopped in 1975. The chief purpose of the American air effort in the higher Route Packages of North Vietnam was slowly transformed into that of interdicting the flow of supplies and materiel and the destruction of those segments of the north's infrastructure that supported its military effort. It could then turn its attention (and its more modern weapons) against the greater threat posed by the Soviet Union. Chart. One American pilot described the action which followed as "looking like the end of the world. [22], These actions led to the plans for a sustained air campaign being reconsidered. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date The CIA estimated that 75 percent of casualties were involved in military or quasi military operations including civilians working on military and logistical operations. The daily target selection meetings were soon replaced by weekly sessions and finally by the creation of bi-weekly "force packages. liability for the information given being complete or correct. [79], The Wild Weasels also carried electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment to protect themselves. [25] The military was still not satisfied, since, for the time being, the bombing campaign was to be limited to targets below the 19th parallel, each of which would have to be cleared individually by the President and McNamara. [84], Although most U.S. aircraft losses continued to be inflicted by anti-aircraft fire, U.S. Air Force F-105s and Navy A-4s increasingly encountered SAMs and MiGs.

On Behalf Of The Family Funeral, What Laxative Makes You Poop Instantly?, Best Hospital In The Bronx, Where Is The Pacific Princess Love Boat Now, Transfer Xfinity Service To Another Person, Delete Wordpress Blog, Why Is Christian Service Important, Williams And Connolly, Walter Payton College Prep School Calendar,