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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-52s gave the enemy little warning. Often, the first the communists knew they were under attack was when bombs exploded around them. If the B-52s hit enemy forces concentrated for an attack, like during the siege of Khe Sanh and the North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam in April 1972, the results were devastating.

The first Arc Light B-52s were deployed to Andersen AFB on Guam, but the 2,600-mile flight from Guam to South Vietnam took six to seven hours. This distance made it difficult to attack the mobile enemy forces, and the aircraft required aerial refueling. To reduce the response time and lessen the need for aerial tankers, B-52s were also stationed at the U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield, Thailand.

Throughout the war, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) had to provide B-52s for operations in Southeast Asia while also keeping B-52s on nuclear alert duties. To meet both requirements, SAC rotated B-52 aircrews into Guam and Thailand on temporary duty status, which meant the aircrews did not receive official credit for combat missions. Still, when Arc Light operations ended in August 1973, B-52 aircrews had flown about 125,000 sorties (one sortie equals one aircraft on one mission) and dropped almost 3.5 million tons of bombs. Over half of all Arc Light missions were flown over South Vietnam, and the rest struck targets in Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam.

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