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  • Coming Home: The U.S. Exits Southeast Asia

    "Good evening. I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia."- President Richard Nixon, Jan. 23, 1973The peace agreement signed in Paris in

  • F-111A in Southeast Asia

    At the start of Operation Rolling Thunder in 1965, the U.S. Air Force did not have an all-weather precision fighter-bomber. The highly-advanced F-111A provided this vital capability. Introduced to combat prematurely in 1968, the F-111A later returned triumphantly to play a key role in Linebacker

  • Loss of B-52G "BRASS 02"

    On the night of December 20, 1972, the crew of a B-52G (S/N 57-6481) was flying an Operation Linebacker II mission with the call sign Brass 02. Shortly after releasing its bombs over railroad yards in Hanoi and turning for the long flight back to Guam, the aircraft suffered severe damage from two

  • B-52 Tail Gunners 2 - MiGs 0

    Thirty-one B-52s were lost in Southeast Asia. Eighteen were lost to surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) or ground fire, and the other 13 were non-combat losses. No B-52s were lost to communist aircraft, but during Operation Linebacker II, two B-52D tail gunners, Staff Sgt. Samuel Turner and Airman 1st

  • B-52s and Linebacker II

    Operation Linebacker II was a complex, multi-service operation over North Vietnam in December 1972. The B-52 missions flown during Linebacker II became the best known B-52 operations of the Southeast Asia War. The first Operation Linebacker was the aerial interdiction campaign to halt the flow of

  • B-52D Battle Damage Report

    There are approximately 56 holes causing extensive damage to skin structures at the following locations: fuselage, left and right wings, nose radome, left aft wheel door, vertical stabilizer, left and right horizontal stabilizers, and the left and right drop tanks. (Damage indicated by yellow dots)

  • The "Big Belly" Bomber

    Dense foliage in South Vietnam made locating targets almost impossible, forcing the U.S. Air Force to use area, or "carpet," bombing. To support this tactic, the "Big Belly" program modified the bomb bays of many B-52Ds to carry more conventional bombs. Unmodified B-52Ds could carry only 27 even

  • Arc Light

    Beginning in June 1965, Strategic Air Command B-52s attacked communist positions in South Vietnam under the code name Operation Arc Light. Gradually, they also hit enemy strongholds in Laos, Cambodia and southern North Vietnam. Flying at altitudes where they could not be heard on the ground, the

  • B-52 Stratofortress in Southeast Asia

    The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress became a powerful weapon and an icon during the Southeast Asia War. Although the B-52 was developed to deliver nuclear weapons, its first combat mission took place in 1965 when it dropped conventional bombs on communist forces in South Vietnam. In Operation Arc Light,

  • Getting Closer: Precision Guided Weapons in the Southeast Asia War

    Despite early developmental problems, precision guided munitions (PGM) revolutionized the air war in Southeast Asia. By the war's end, laser guidance kits turned standard bombs into "smart bombs," making them 100 times more effective than free-fall, unguided bombs.At first, the U.S. Air Force's