Operation Linebacker

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Operation Linebacker was the name of a United States military operation during the Vietnam War. It encompassed bombing and other interdiction operations conducted by the United States Air Force and the United States Navy from May 9 to October 23, 1972. Its purpose was to stop a North Vietnamese Army offensive (see Eastertide Offensive) launched on March 30, 1972 against South Vietnam and to interdict its supplies.

At the time of the North Vietnamese invasion less than 100,000 U.S. troops remained in South Vietnam, and most of those were support troops scheduled to leave within six months. The numbers of combat aircraft stationed in Southeast Asia was less than half of its peak strength in 1968-69, approximately 75 fighter aircraft in South Vietnam, and 180 fighters and 50 B-52 bombers at U Tapao RTAFB, Thailand. Task Force 77 had four aircraft carriers assigned, but at any one time only two were in the Gulf of Tonkin for operations, their carrier air wings totalling approximately 140 aircraft.

Air strikes against the North Vietnamese offensive were initially authorized under the name Freedom Train on April 2. These strikes were in support of South Vietnamese forces, including those of the carriers Coral Sea and Hancock, but restrictions against attacking targets in North Vietnam were gradually removed and the bombing effort changed to interdiction of NVA supply lines. The first raid against North Vietnam was conducted by 15 B-52s against railway yards and oil storage facilities at Vinh. Three days later, the airfields at Bai Thuong were attacked. On the weekend of April 15 - April 16 targets near Hanoi and Haiphong were struck. By mid-April, nearly all of North Vietnam had been cleared for bombing raids for the first time in over 3 years.

The United States immediately began a rapid build-up of airpower. The USAF deployed 176 F-4 Phantoms and 12 F-105G Wild Weasels from bases in South Korea and the United States to Thailand between April 1 and May 11, in Operation Constant Guard. Between April 4 and May 23, in Operation Bullet Shot, the Strategic Air Command dispatched 124 of its stateside B-52s to Anderson Air Force Base, Guam. These combined with the 35 already there and the 50 at U Tapao RTAFB, Thailand brought the total available for operations in Southeast Asia to 209. The Navy cut short its in-port period for the carriers Kitty Hawk and Constellation and ordered the Midway and Saratoga to augment the fleet so that four or more carrier wings could conduct missions simultaneously.

The North Vietnamese offensive had become a massive conventional military campaign conducted on four fronts, involving the equivalent of 20 divisions and 600 tanks--a force comparable in size to that of Germany in the Battle of the Bulge. As it continued to gain ground in three of South Vietnam's four military regions, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff updated their contingency plan for resumption of bombing in North Vietnam, Operation Linebacker, and recommended it to President Richard M. Nixon, who approved it May 8.

Operation Linebacker began with the mining of seven North Vietnamese harbors at 0800 local time May 9, 1970, by A-6 and A-7 aircraft from the Coral Sea. On the morning of May 10, large-scale bombing operations by tactical fighters of the U.S. Seventh Air Force and Task Force 77 were launched against North Vietnam. A total of 414 sorties were flown on the first day of Linebacker, 120 by the Air Force and 294 by the Navy, and encountered the heaviest single day of air-to-air combat during the Vietnam War, with 11 Vietnamese MiGs and two U.S. Phantoms shot down. Anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) and over 100 surface-to-air missile firings also brought down two other U.S. aircraft.

The intensity of the campaign is reflected by the sharp increase of numbers of monthly strike sorties flown in Southeast Asia as a whole: from 4,237 for all services, including the South Vietnamese Air Force, in the month preceding the invasion to 18,444 in the first month of Linebacker (7,239 of them Navy) and 15,951 in the second. From its date of inception to the end of the year, mining of North Vietnamese waterways resulted in more than 11,000 being planted, effectively blockading all maritime commerce.

Linebacker missions included the first widespread use of precision-guided munitions, the electro-optical guided bomb and the laser-guided bomb. In addition to interdicting the road and rail system of the North, Linebacker also systematically attacked their air defense network. The North Vietnamese Air Force, with approximately 200 interceptors, strongly contested the attacks throughout the campaign. The Navy, fighting primarily F-4s, enjoyed a 4:1 advantage in kill-to-loss ratio in May and June, after which the North Vietnamese rarely engaged them. The Air Force, opposed by MiG-21s and F-6s (the Chinese version of the MiG-19), experienced a virtual 1:1 ratio through the first three months of Linebacker. In August the introduction of real-time early warning systems reversed that trend to a favorable 4:1 for the remainder of the war.

Concurrently, negotiations were conducted in Paris between National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho in an effort to establish a framework under which the US could disengage from the war and still maintain military parity between North and South Vietnam.

On October 22, progress in the Paris peace talks led the US to curtail all air operations above the 20th parallel, again placing Hanoi and Haiphong off-limits, and halting Operation Linebacker. The bombing pause allowed the North Vietnamese time to strengthen their air defenses and repair damage to their key lines of communication. Subsequently air operations were resumed against North Vietnam in December as Operation Linebacker II. A total of 39,420 sorties were flown over North Vietnam.

Aircraft losses from April 1 to October 22 were 80 USAF, 58 USN, and 63 North Vietnamese MiGs. Of the 138 U.S. losses, 31 were shot down by MiGs, 44 by SAMs, and 63 by AAA.

[edit] U.S. Air Order of Battle

• Task Force 77

USS Constellation, Carrier Air Wing 9 (F-4, A-6, A-7)

USS Coral Sea, Carrier Air Wing 15 (F-4, A-6, A-7)

USS Hancock, Carrier Air Wing 21 (F-4, A-4)

USS Kitty Hawk, Carrier Air Wing 11 (F-4, A-6, A-7)

USS Midway, Carrier Air Wing 5 (F-4, A-6, A-7)

USS Saratoga, Carrier Air Wing 3 (F-4, A-6, A-7)

• Seventh Air Force

8th Tactical Fighter Wing, Ubon RTAFB, Thailand (F-4)

+ two Constant Guard squadrons from 4th TFW, Seymour-Johnson AFB. North Carolina

49th Tactical Fighter Wing, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand (F-4)

56th Special Operations Wing, Nakhon Phanom RTAFB, Thailand (A-1, HH-53)

366th Tactical Fighter Wing, Danang AB, RVN (F-4)

+ one Constant Guard squadron from 3rd TFW, Osan AB, Korea

388th Tactical Fighter Wing, Korat RTAFB, Thailand (F-4, F-105G)

+ one Constant Guard squadron from 23d TFW, McConnell AFB, Kansas

432d Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, Udon RTAFB, Thailand (F-4, RF-4)

+three Constant Guard squadrons

--one squadron from 405th TFW, Clark AB, Philippnes

--one squadron from 31st TFW, Homestead AFB, Florida

--one squadron from 33d TFW, Eglin AFB, Florida

43d Strategic Wing, Andersen AFB, Guam (B-52)

72d Strategic Wing (Provisional), Anderson AFB, Guam (B-52)

307th Strategic Wing, U Tapao RTAFB, Thailand (B-52)

[edit] References

• Ethell, Jeffrey, One Day in a Long War, (1989) ISBN 0-394-57622-5
• Francillon, René J, Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club US Carrier Operations off Vietnam, (1988) ISBN 0-87021-696-1
• Nordeen, Lon, Air Warfare in the Missile Age, (1985) ISBN 1-58834-083-X