Posted on Dec 18, 2022
'Like walking on missiles': US airman recalls the horror of the Vietnam 'Christmas bombings' 50...
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It was one of the heaviest bombardments in history. A shock-and-awe campaign of overwhelming air power aimed at bombing into submission a determined opponent that, despite being vastly outgunned, had withstood everything the world’s most formidable war machine could throw at it.
Operation Linebacker II saw more than 200 American B-52 bombers fly 730 sorties and drop over 20,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam over a period of 12 days in December 1972, in a brutal assault aimed at shaking the Vietnamese “to their core,” in the words of then US national security adviser Henry Kissinger.
“They’re going to be so god damned surprised,” US President Richard Nixon replied to Kissinger on December 17, the eve of the mission.
In what would become known as “the Christmas bombings” in America and “the 11 days and nights” in Vietnam (no bombing took place on Christmas day), swathes of Hanoi were obliterated.
An estimated 1,600 Vietnamese were killed amid some of the most harrowing scenes of the conflict, in an operation likened by some to the Hamburg raids of World War II for the sheer scale of the destruction and civilian death toll.
Operation Linebacker II saw more than 200 American B-52 bombers fly 730 sorties and drop over 20,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam over a period of 12 days in December 1972, in a brutal assault aimed at shaking the Vietnamese “to their core,” in the words of then US national security adviser Henry Kissinger.
“They’re going to be so god damned surprised,” US President Richard Nixon replied to Kissinger on December 17, the eve of the mission.
In what would become known as “the Christmas bombings” in America and “the 11 days and nights” in Vietnam (no bombing took place on Christmas day), swathes of Hanoi were obliterated.
An estimated 1,600 Vietnamese were killed amid some of the most harrowing scenes of the conflict, in an operation likened by some to the Hamburg raids of World War II for the sheer scale of the destruction and civilian death toll.
'Like walking on missiles': US airman recalls the horror of the Vietnam 'Christmas bombings' 50...
Posted from cnn.comPosted in these groups: 
Vietnam War
Vietnam War
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good day Brother William, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Winners and winners (and losers)
What is not in dispute is that the Paris Peace Talks resumed on January 8, 1973, and an accord was signed on January 27 that ushered in the beginning of the end to US involvement in the war.
It was signed not only by the US and North Vietnam, but also by the South Vietnamese who had been convinced by Linebacker that, “if North Vietnam attacked again the US would return to bombing Hanoi,” said Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer.
With the accord behind them, both Washington and Hanoi then claimed themselves the victors of Operation Linebacker II.
Airman Wallingford and others are emphatic about a US victory.
“It was the operation that ended the Vietnam conflict and that freed our 591 POWs,” he said. (Those American prisoners of war were released in February and March after the accords were signed.)
But even in America, some had their doubts.
Robert Hopkins, a former US Air Force pilot, cautioned against falling into the “Linebacker II was a success trap,” saying that for the B-52 pilots it “deeply hurt morale for years to come.”
There was a more immediate problem, too.
Three years on, with the Communist forces largely replenished and US forces largely out of Vietnam, Hanoi launched the large scale invasion of the South that led to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.
“Linebacker II ended the American phase of the war, but its impact only lasted three years. Linebacker II did not bring lasting peace,” Layton said.
In Hanoi, “the story of the events of late December 1972 was a tale, not of massive loss and destruction, but of heroic resistance by Northerners,” wrote the historian Asselin.
“In fact, the toll on the US forces had been such that it had forced Nixon to beg Hanoi to resume the peace talks, and to unilaterally and unconditionally end the bombing,” he wrote.
Or as Kissinger, the US national security adviser of the time, was reported to have said:
“We bombed the North Vietnamese into accepting our concessions.”
..."Winners and winners (and losers)
What is not in dispute is that the Paris Peace Talks resumed on January 8, 1973, and an accord was signed on January 27 that ushered in the beginning of the end to US involvement in the war.
It was signed not only by the US and North Vietnam, but also by the South Vietnamese who had been convinced by Linebacker that, “if North Vietnam attacked again the US would return to bombing Hanoi,” said Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer.
With the accord behind them, both Washington and Hanoi then claimed themselves the victors of Operation Linebacker II.
Airman Wallingford and others are emphatic about a US victory.
“It was the operation that ended the Vietnam conflict and that freed our 591 POWs,” he said. (Those American prisoners of war were released in February and March after the accords were signed.)
But even in America, some had their doubts.
Robert Hopkins, a former US Air Force pilot, cautioned against falling into the “Linebacker II was a success trap,” saying that for the B-52 pilots it “deeply hurt morale for years to come.”
There was a more immediate problem, too.
Three years on, with the Communist forces largely replenished and US forces largely out of Vietnam, Hanoi launched the large scale invasion of the South that led to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.
“Linebacker II ended the American phase of the war, but its impact only lasted three years. Linebacker II did not bring lasting peace,” Layton said.
In Hanoi, “the story of the events of late December 1972 was a tale, not of massive loss and destruction, but of heroic resistance by Northerners,” wrote the historian Asselin.
“In fact, the toll on the US forces had been such that it had forced Nixon to beg Hanoi to resume the peace talks, and to unilaterally and unconditionally end the bombing,” he wrote.
Or as Kissinger, the US national security adviser of the time, was reported to have said:
“We bombed the North Vietnamese into accepting our concessions.”
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Remember this well. Was home on leave at the time. But, I don’t think it should be compared to Hamburg. Many more died there.
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