Operation Rolling Thunder

Please read the attached documents on ORT. You need to make notes on the aims of ORT, successes and failures. Your essay is due in for two weeks time.

Edexcel AS History Unit 1 Ideology, Conflict and Retreat: the USA in Asia 1950-1973 by Geoff Stewart

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Operation Rolling Thunder
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Programme of bombing of North Vietnam authorised by Johnson on 13 February 1965 but not begun until 2 March. It was hedged about with restrictions and designed to slowly increase in intensity. This was against the advice of the Air Staff who favoured an all-out initial assault; the evidence from the Second World War indicated that this was likely to be more effective.

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Napalm
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Developed in the Second World War and used ;in Korea it was made from gasoline or kerosene mixed with thickening agents to form a highly inflammable gel, which stuck to objects and the human body and burned with a very hot flame. It was dropped from fighter-bombers in thin-shelled canisters or larger 55 gallon drums. Dropped in this way it could cove r a large area and was often more useful against unseen targets covered with foliage than conventional explosive. It inflicted horrific injuries.

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Defoliates
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A major problem in countering the Viet Cong was the plant cover. In January 1962, the USA began using herbicides to kill trees and plants in an effort to expose communist guerrilla fighters. The commonest herbicide used was Agent Orange, so called because of the colour of the drums containing it. 1967 was the peak year for spraying, with 1.5 million acres treated.

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Operation Steel Tiger
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Programme of bombing begun in April 1965 against targets along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos.

Reluctantly, in late 1964 and early 1965, plans were made for a bombing campaign on North Vietnam to try to halt the rot in the south. Johnson was reluctant to initiate it and sent yet another fact-finding mission under McGeorge Bundy to assess if it was really necessary. While he was in South Vietnam, Viet Cong troops attacked the US air base at Pleiku, killing and wounding US personnel and destroying some aircraft. The result was an immediate retaliation by air power. Bundy on his return urged a sustained campaign of bombing as being the only way to force the DRV to the negotiating table. The result was Operation Rolling thunder, which began on 2 March. This was supplemented by Operation Steel Tiger against the Ho chi Minh Trail in Laos. Over the next three years, more bombs were dropped by the US air force than in all the Second World War. Initially the strategy appeared to enjoy widespread public support, with a Gallup Poll reporting 67 per cent of Americans in favour of the USA’s war in Vietnam.

Popular it might be effective it was not. It has been calculated, based on the number of unexploded bombs, that the USA spent $9.60 to do $1 worth of damage. In fact, because many bombs did not explode, the USA effectively provided the Viet Cong and North Vietnam Army with explosives for booby traps. The Ho chi Minh Trail was not broken, and more and more men and supplies poured down from the North. Napalm and defoliates were used to little effect. Snake bite was probably as big a hazard on the long journey south as the chance of being hit by an American bomb. Within North Vietnam there were few suitable targets in an essentially rural society. Much of the military hardware came from or through China and bombing near the border or Haiphong Harbour was placed off limits as being too provocative to the communist superpowers of China and the Soviet Union.
Access to History: The USA and Vietnam 1945-75 by Vivienne Sanders
Johnson ordered massively increased air attacks on North Vietnam, even though Soviet premier Kosygin was visiting Hanoi. America no moved beyond occasional air-raid reprisals to a limited air war against more carefully selected parts of North Vietnam. Such was the intensity of the air strikes that by March they were known as ‘Rolling Thunder.’ Sixty-seven per cent of Americans approved. Bombing the routes taking men and materials to the South would hopefully secure the position of Americans in South Vietnam, decrease infiltration from the North, demoralise Hanoi, and revitalise Saigon where there was some strong middle- and upper-class pressure for negotiations with Hanoi and an end to the bombing.

In February 1965 the New York Times said, ‘It is time to call a spade a bloody shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam.’ However, Johnson refused to declare war. Why? He feared pressure from his own extreme Cold Warriors. They wanted to go all out, which would jeopardise the financing of the Great Society and lead to increased Soviet or Chinese involvement. ‘If one little general in shirtsleeves can take Saigon, think about two hundred million Chinese coming down those trails,’ said Johnson. ‘No sir! I don’t want to fight them.’ Johnson assured reporters there was no fear of Chinese intervention because he was seducing rather than raping the North: ‘I’m going up her leg an inch at a time.’ The next ‘inch’ would actually be a massive escalation: the commitment of thousands of American ground troops to Vietnam in order to protect the American bomber bases.
Essential Histories: the Vietnam War 1956-75 by Andrew West
To the North Vietnamese the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution appeared to be tantamount to a US declaration of war. As a result Ho and Giap chose to redouble their efforts in support of the Viet Cong and for the first time began to target American forces for attack. From November through February the VC pressed their advantage across South Vietnam, and launched terror attacks against US forces, culminating in a 7 February attack on the US airfield at Pleiku. Through such means the communists hoped to convince the US that continued support of South Vietnam would be costly in terms of American lives. Responding to this provocation, US presidential advisors, including McGeorge Bundy, urged Johnson to begin a sustained bombing campaign of North Vietnam to halt the imminent fall of the tottering South Vietnamese regime.

On 13 February a reluctant Johnson gave the go ahead for Operation Rolling thunder and on 2 March the first bombs struck North Vietnam. The bombing was conceived as a campaign of graduated escalation that would prove an active deterrent against North Vietnamese support for the insurgency in the south. This demonstration of US willpower was intended to bring North Vietnam to its senses and to the bargaining table, obviating the need to send US ground forces into South Vietnam. In the end Rolling thunder lasted three years and formed the most massive strategic bombing campaign in military history. The campaign was, though, misguided. For fear of provoking the Soviet Union and China US planners limited the targeting of Rolling Thunder and thus limited its effectiveness. In addition North Vietnam was pre-industrial country and as such was not an effective target for a strategic bombing campaign. The North’s war supplies came, in the main, from its communist allies, who the American bombers could not reach. Although the US dropped over 643,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam, the return on the investment was negligible. Estimates by 1967 suggested that it cost the US $9.60 to inflict $1 worth of damage. In addition the fighter-bombers that carried out the bulk of the bombing stood only a 50 percent chance of surviving their one-year tour of duty. The prodigious bombing did little to stem the tide of men and material headed south on the Ho chi Minh Trail, and North Vietnamese leaders rallied their population against the “American aggression.”

The beginning of Rolling Thunder did little to affect the ongoing fighting in South Vietnam. The Viet Cong continued to press the ARVN back ever further. The new commander of MACV, General William Westmoreland, now had an additional concern as well. Increasingly the US based its air forces engaged in Rolling thunder at airfields within the confines of South Vietnam. These bases, Westmoreland realized, made obvious targets for VC attack and were only defended by what he considered to be substandard ARVN units. As a result Westmoreland requested two battalions of Marines to defend the US airbase at Danang. Though some of Johnson’s advisors, notably Maxwell Taylor, disliked the idea, Johnson saw the request as reasonable. With little fanfare and little realization of the change it portended Johnson approved Westmoreland’s troop request. On 8 March 1965 the Marines landed at Danang. Their presence in South Vietnam illustrated the failure of American policy there. Since 1954 the US had been trying to establish a South Vietnam that could stand on its own in defense of containment. The mere presence of US ground forces showed that the efforts of 11 years had been a failure. American involvement in the Vietnam War had begun.
Rob Bircher and Steve May
History Controlled Assessment

US military tactics were designed to do two things: attack North Vietnam and defend South Vietnam.

Attacking North Vietnam:
Operation Rolling Thunder
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution had given President Johnson the opportunity to use the tactic of bombing North Vietnam. This operation was codenamed ‘Rolling thunder – regular air attacks on North Vietnam. The aim was to bomb key positions in North Vietnam, in order to cripple its economy and make it difficult for it to supply the Viet Cong. Viet Cong in the south were also regularly bombed. Operation Rolling Thunder was supposed to last for eight weeks, but it lasted for three years: from March 1965 to November 1968. Over one million tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam.

The new leader of the US military advisers in South Vietnam, General Westmoreland, told Johnson that his current force of 23,000 men was not enough to deal with the Viet Cong threat. On 8 March 1965, 3,500 US marines were sent to South Vietnam to strengthen the US effort. Johnson presented these actions to the US public as necessary, but more importantly, as ‘short-term’ measures. At this point US opinion polls showed that about 80% of the US public supported these actions.

A photograph of a US air force bomber during Operation Rolling thunder

Between 2 March 1965 and 1 November 1968 North Vietnam was repeatedly bombed by the air force. The aim was to: * Make the North Vietnamese give up the war and agree to South Vietnam being a separate country * Halt the flow of equipment and men to the Viet Cong in South Vietnam down the Ho chi Minh trail.

By December 1965 over 25,000 bombing missions had been flown and over 32,000 tons of bombs had been dropped on North Vietnam. This was hugely expensive for the USA, and it also cost the lives of many US airmen. By the time Operation Rolling Thunder was stopped (November 1968), 745 US crewmen had been shot down. Those who survived were kept as prisoners of the North Vietnamese.

As time went on the weaknesses of the US tactic of using large-scale bombing to achieve its objectives became clearer:
The USA had to be careful not to use too much force as this might tip the USSR or China into war to support North Vietnam. So at the start the bombing was carefully controlled – no bombing of major cities, no bombing of airfields and certainly no bombing anywhere near the border with China.
The USA did not anticipate the determination and resilience of the people of North Vietnam. Despite between 50,000 and 200,000 civilian deaths from the bombing, morale remained high. After every bombing mission, thousands of people volunteered to repair the damage. North Vietnam refused to give up.
Bombing missions were often flown in heavy rain and fog. The US air force was not used to these conditions.
The North Vietnamese were supported by the USSR, who supplied early warning radar stations.

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CIA document, 1965, about the damage from one air strike in North Vietnam. This document was top secret at the time – what do you think made this information so sensitive?
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Four specific buildings in Vinh Linh town destroyed; headquarters of district administrative committee; state trade office, theatre, and hospital.
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Grade school and two-thirds of houses in area destroyed.
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Barracks of 270th regiment destroyed.

Vietnam 1960-1975 by Steve Waugh and John Wright
What were the origins of the conflict?
In 1939 Vietnam was part of an area known as French Indo-China. This included contemporary Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
French rule was harsh and unpopular, leading to uprisings such as that of 1930, led by the Nationalist Party of Vietnam. Such attempts were brutally crushed by the French.
The impact of WWII
Japan invaded and occupied Indo-China in 1940. Some in Vietnam saw this as the ideal opportunity to overthrow French rule and achieve independence. In 1941 two leading Vietnamese communists, Ho Chi Minh and Nguyen Vo Giap, a history teacher, set up the League for the Independence of Vietnam (or Vietminh) in southern China. Their aim was to establish an independent Vietnam free from French and Japanese rule.
The US Intelligence Service helped by training and equipping the Vie3tminh and, by 1944, it was ready to begin guerrilla operations against the Japanese in North Vietnam. These were essentially small-scale attacks that were very successful and increased support for the Vietminh which, by 1945, had 5000 guerrilla fighters. In August 1945 the Japanese were defeated in WWII and forced to evacuate all their conquests, including Vietnam.
The Post-war settlement
In September 1945, Ho Chi Minh quickly occupied the two leading cities of Hanoi and Saigon, and announced that Vietnam was an independent and democratic republic. At first, the USA, who did not want to see the restoration of the old colonial empires, sympathised with Ho Chi Minh and the idea of an independent Vietnam.
The new independent republic was, however, short-lived, as within weeks the French had moved 50,000 troops into Indo-china. The French quickly restored control over South Vietnam, where the Vietminh were not strong, and drove Ho Chi Minh and his followers into the jungles of North Vietnam. For the next five years Ho chi Minh conducted another guerrilla campaign, this time against the French.
Developments in China
In 1949 the Chinese Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong, successfully won their civil war and established a communist government. This brought two major developments for events in Vietnam: * Mao supported the Vietminh with essential military supplies such as artillery. * A change in US policy. The USA now feared that communism would sweep across Asia and switched their support to the French. In 1950 President Truman agreed to send the French $15 million of supplies. Over the next four years the USA spent nearly $3 billion in helping the French.

What was the importance of Dien Bien Phu?
The Vietminh led by Ho chi Minh and Giap continued their guerrilla campaign against the French, although from 1951 they moved on from guerrilla-style fighting to big attacks on well-defended French positions.
The decisive battle for control of Vietnam took place at the French garrison of Dien Bien Phu. The French army established a fortified camp by air-lifting soldiers adjacent to a key Vietminh supply line to Laos. The plan was to cut off Vietminh soldiers fighting in Laos and force them to withdraw. The Vietminh, however, surrounded the camp and set up gun positions on the nearby hills, preventing the French from bringing in supplies. After two months, in May 1954, the French surrendered. After another two months, an armistice was signed and the French agreed to leave Indo-China. There had been 16,500 French troops at Dien Bien Phu. Only 3000 lived to tell the story.

Why did the USA become more involved in the 1950s?
During the 1950s the USA became far more involved in Vietnam as part of their policy of containment to stop the spread of communism. In the years after 1947, President Truman had become determined to ‘get tough’ on the Soviet Union and stop the spread of communism. This became known as containment and was stated clearly in the Truman Doctrine of 1947 which promised to support all ‘peoples who resist being enslaved by armed minorities or outside pressure’ or communism.
The Geneva Agreement
In May 1954, after Dien Bien Phu, Britain, France, China, the Soviet Union, the USA and Vietnam met in Geneva, Switzerland, to decide the future of Vietnam. The following points were agreed: * North Vietnam would be led by Ho chi Minh and the South would be led by Ngo Dinh Diem. * Vietminh forces would pull out of the South and French forces out of the North. * There would be early elections in July 19576 to elect a government for the whole of Vietnam and reunite the country.
What was the Domino theory?
Eisenhower explains the Domino theory:
You have a row of dominoes set. You knock over the first one. What will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. Asia has already lost some 450 million of its peoples to communist dictatorship. We simply can’t afford greater losses.

Eisenhower was determined to prevent the spread of communism to South Vietnam. He particularly feared that the joint elections, due to be held in July 1956, would lead to the election of Ho Chi Minh, whose popularity in the South had greatly increased since Dien Bien Phu. Ho chi Minh wanted a united, communist Vietnam. He was also supported by the Chinese. If South Vietnam became communist then it could be followed by Laos, Cambodia or other Asian countries.

Support for Ngo Dinh Diem
Eisenhower was determined to maintain the government of South Vietnam set up in 1954. This meant propping up the president, Ngo Dinh Diem. In October 1955 Diem was officially elected president of South Vietnam. However, the elections were rigged, with 605,000 people in Saigon voting for Diem. Saigon only had a population of 450,000. The USA knew the elections were rigged but did nothing. They needed Diem as president. In addition, the USA had no intention of following the Geneva Agreement for a reunification election in 1956. They were certain that Ho Chi Minh would win. The July date for this election came and went. Diem, supported by the USA, refused to allow the election in South Vietnam. Diem knew that the USA would go on supporting him because he prevented a communist victory in the South.
The USA sent aid and military advisers to train the South Vietnamese army.

Why was the Diem government unpopular?
Ngo Dinh Diem had served in the French administration of Vietnam in the 1930s. He emerged as a leader of South Vietnam in 1954. He was not a popular or successful president.
Diem was a Catholic while most Vietnamese were Buddhists. He packed his government with Roman Catholic landowners. He persecuted Buddhists, even going as far as banning the flying of the Buddhist flag on Buddha’s birthday. The Buddhist monk was Quang Due who was 73 who in June 1963, set himself alight as a protest against Diem’s religious policy. Madam Nhu, Diem’s sister-in-law responded by saying she hoped for more such ‘barbecues’.
Diem’s government was harsh, and he ruled as a dictator. He was only interested in hunting down supporters of the Vietminh and ‘re-educating’ them in prison camps. Thos who would not change their views were executed.
Eisenhower tried to encourage him to carry out land reform and give land to the peasants. However, Diem did quite the opposite. Land was taken from the peasants who were farming it at the time and given to Diem’s supporters. The landowners forced their peasant tenants to pay high taxes an even made them work for nothing at certain times of the year. The few peasants who were given land had to pay for it in instalments.
Ho Chi Minh and North Vietnam
In total contrast to Diem, Ho chi Minh carried out land reform and was a popular leader. He would almost certainly have won the reunification election of 19567. His major aim was to reunite North Vietnam and South Vietnam under communist rule.
The growth of opposition
By the end of the 1950s, Diem’s terror campaign had eliminated most of the Vietminh supporters in South Vietnam. In 1959 the communist government in the North issued orders to the Vietminh to begin a terror campaign against South Vietnamese officials. Over the next few years, an average of 4000 officials a year were assassinated.
In 1960 former members of the Vietminh in south Vietnam, supported by Ho chi Minh, set up the National Liberation Front (NLF) to oppose diem’s regime. It consisted of twelve different nationalist groups ranging from Buddhists to communists. The Front demanded the removal of diem and land reform, and began a guerrilla campaign against the regime. The group consisted almost completely of South Vietnamese.
To Diem and the USA, all opposition was communist. The opposition was labelled the ‘Vietcong’, a term of abuse that categorised all opponents as Vietnamese communists.
Vietnam, Korea and US Foreign Policy 1945-75 by Christine Bragg
Among Johnson’s policymakers there was a broad consensus about the aims of ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’. It was designed to coerce the North Vietnamese into stopping the infiltration of troops and supplies into South Vietnam and into negotiations for a peace settlement. In addition, it was one way of getting around the need to send US troops into Vietnam. The bombing was conceived as a campaign of graduated escalation. At each stage, targets were identified as an active deterrent against North Vietnamese support for the insurgency in the south.

* Stage 1: In 1964 and 1965, bombing was limited to North Vietnam’s industrial economy * Stage 2: In May 1965, bombing commenced against air defences and transportation, railways, roads and airfields * Stage 3: In August 1965 to winter 1966-7, air power was used to limit infiltration from the north of men and supplies to the NLF and the PAVN division’s operating in the south. In this period, attacks against petroleum refineries began. Most of the operations were concentrated at the DMZ and into North Vietnam as far as Thanh Hoa. * Stage 4: In 1967 to April 1968, attacks in and around Hanoi, Haiphong the main North Vietnamese port and the buffer zone along the Chinese border involved the highly controversial bombing of civilians in the major northern cities. * Stage 5: From April to November 1968 there was a de-escalation of bombing as Johnson had begun talks in Paris with the DRV. Bombing was now focused around the DMZ line and in the northern parts of South Vietnam.

The air war assumed massive proportions as bomb tonnage rose from 63,000 in 1965 to 136,000 in 1966 and to 226,000 in 1967. The average weekly bombing sorties also rose from 883 in 1965 to 3150 in April-June 1967. Yet studies by systems analysts working in the Secretary of State’s department showed that while bombing raids against North Vietnam had increased four times between 1965 and 1968, they had not significantly impaired Hanoi’s ability to supply its forces in the South.

However, according to Robert Pape, in Coercive Air Power in the Vietnam War (1990), ‘Operation Rolling thunder’ failed not because it was poorly executed but because most of the supplies to the insurgents in the south were not manufactured in North Vietnam but were coming from China after 1964 and the Soviet Union after 1966. Military supplies were also being transported via the Ho chi Minh Trail and the waterways, difficult targets for strategic bombing. In addition, the air attacks had a limited impact on guerrilla warfare and therefore no impact on the policies of the north. Insurgent attacks in South Vietnam in the period July 1965 to December 1967 increased on average five to eight fold.

The bombing is estimated to have done US $600 million worth of damage in the north, but at a cost of lost aircraft alone of US$6 billion. Sixty-five per cent of the bombs and artillery rounds expended in Vietnam were being used against unobserved targets at a cost of US $2 billion per year. In 1966, 27,000 tonnes of dud bombs and shells were used by the PAVN/Vietcong to make booby traps, and these accounted for 1000 American deaths in that year. In early 1968, systems analysts showed that despite 500,000 US troops, despite the expenditure on bombs and enemy casualties (many of whom were civilians_ of up to 140,0000, the PAVN could still send 200,000 men into South Vietnam. Major problems faced by Johnson’s administration were the lack of objective evaluation of the progress of the war and limited accurate intelligence.

Operation Rolling thunder was a campaign of heavy air bombardment of North Vietnam, in support of the regime in the south. It was an action that was to lead to further entanglement and greater involvement in the conflict.