T
“It was a near-run thing,” said the Duke of Wellington, after narrowly defeating Napoleon at Waterloo. The same could just as easily be said of Operation Linebacker II, what B-52 aircrews came to call the “11-Day War.” If not for the bravery and resilience of those American airmen, the operation might have ended in disaster.
Linebacker I had been mounted in response to the earlier 1972 Easter Offensive, the North Vietnamese Army's sudden invasion of South Vietnam, a campaign that failed largely because of massive B-52 bombing. It had been hoped the war could then be concluded through diplomacy, but by mid-December it was clear the enemy was stalling at the negotiating table. Forty years ago this month, President Richard M. Nixon's patience ran out and he issued this order to the Joint Chiefs: “You are to commence at approximately 1200 Zulu, 18 December 1972, a three-day maximum effort, repeat maximum effort, of B-52/Tacair strikes in the Hanoi/Haiphong areas. Object is maximum destruction of selected targets….Be prepared to extend operations past three days, if directed.”
Read Full Article »