AN OLD WARRIOR’S REMEMBRANCE OF THE VIETNAM AIR WAR OF 1965-1972 CONTINUES:

COMMANDO HUNT I THROUGH VII — BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW…

Good Morning. Humble Host is back in the saddle with a new set of eyes (cataract surgery) and revived motivation to keep the story of the nation’s heroic military aviators in the Vietnam war going. The Rolling Thunder archives of this website include more than 1,000 posts and more than 2-million words, plus a range of links, pictures and maps. They will continue to be updated and expanded. The format for COMMANDO HUNT will shift from daily to weekly posts with blogs planned for every Monday morning for the forseeable future (the Bear turned 84 last week and is in the zone). Readers are enjoined to read the excellent Wikipedia entry for Operation Commando Hunt available on the RTR Home Page as a preview of where the posts on this site are going for the next three years (God willing). The following summary has been purloined from an ancient JCS document, among other sources, and is presented here for the purpose of providing continuity and a warm-up, back-in-the saddle exercise for Humble Host as he transitions back to ye olde desktop from his iPad…

A BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW OF OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT (15 NOVEMBER 1968 through MARCH 1972)…

The infiltaration routes in Laos during the entire Vietnam air war were largely unpaved and the weather significantly influenced the years of American interdiction campaigns relentlessly waged 24/7 against the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Roads were open to traffic only during the dry season (the northeast monsoon), which typically lasted from October to April. During the wet season (the southwest monsoon), the unpaved roads became deep mud, rendering vehicular passage almost impossible.

Prior to the 1970 wet season, North Vlietnam used the dry season to infiltrate, and the wet season to stockpile materials in the border areas for the next dry season. Typically the enemy anti-aircraft artillery (primarily 37mm, 23mm, 14.7mm and 12.5mm) were pulled back to North Vietnam to guard the passes and stockpiles and for maintenance.

In November 1968 the United States and its allies began the COMMANDO HUNT campaigns, sometimes referred to as “the war against trucks,” which occurred every dry season until 1971-1972. These campaigns became more sophistocated technologically. During the 1970 wet season North Vietnam road crews and the AAA defenses were not withdrawn as they had been in the 1969 wet season (Nov 68-Apr 69) to North Vietnam. Rather, the road crews continued to work in Laos until the cumulative effect of rain and bombing forced them to cease. This new pattern of working through the rainy season resulted in the development of all-weather roads the length of the Ho Chi Minh Trail by the end of 1972.

From 1 November 1968 to 1 September 1971, United States levels of both men and aircraft decreased further. Their responsibilities were handed over the South Vietnamese as part of the “Vietnamization” program. While vietnamization of the air war was most pronounced in South Vietnam, some also occurred in Laos. In 1970, U.S. air forces–Air Force, Navy and Marine–were empowered to engage in “protective reaction” strikes in North Vietnam. Thus, if the North Vietnamese fired on a reconnaissance photo plane, the photo aircraft’s escorts were authorized to return fire, or a separate strike could be called in against the offending weapon site. Being illuminated by a fire control radar later sufficed to justify protective reaction strikes. The early protective reaction strikes were flown predominantly below 20-degrees North near the North Vietnam side of five of the mountain passes leading into Laos: Ban Raving, Ban Karai and Mu Gia in the south; Keo Nua and Barthlemy in the north. North Vietnam stockpiled material near these passes and placed SAMs near them to extend surface-to-air missile coverage into Laos.

By late 1971, the road network in Laos and Cambodia was extensive and of high quality. In conjunction with the stockpiling of supplies, including tanks and 130mm guns, on the North Vietnamese side of the mountain passes, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail infiltration routes and in South Vietnam, this roadwork foretold of a major North Vietnamese undertaking. Also, as the 1970-to-1972 dry season began in Laos, there was a major increase in the flow of both men and material into South Vietnam.

At the end of March 1972, North Vietnam openly and brazenly invaded South Vietnam across the Demilitarized Zone. Consequently, on 7 April 1972 the United States bombing of North Vietnam was resumed. By 8 May Haiphong harbor was mined and by 1 June the JCS limitations on the number of sorties and the types of targets was removed. Operation Commando Hunt was history. The code name of the renewed bombing campaign of North Vietnam was initially called Rolling Thunder 57. This was changed to Freedom Train, but by 10 May 1972 was code named Linebacker. The North Vietnamese were isolated from the sea by the mining campaign code named Pocket Money. End Overview of Commando Hunt.

THE COMMANDO HUNT POSTS…

Tomorrow, Monday, 11 February, begins the RTR commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Operation Commando Hunt, one week at a time. The weekly posts will include: a summary of world and national news from The New York Times; documents from the CIA Reading Room; pertinent items from President Nixon’s Daily Brief; documents from the State Department’s Foreign Relations folders; updates on peace negotiations in Paris and the war in South Vietnam; and, the weekly KIA/WIA casualty reports. At the end of 1968, 30,000 American lives had been lost in the Vietnam war. In 1969 another 11,780 American warriors fell. The final cost: the 58,220 whose names are etched into the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. Commando Hunt posts will honor and pay respect to every aviator lost in the “war on trucks.” 

Humble Host is pleased to report that a principle source for these posts will be the Headquarters, Pacific Air Force, monthly summaries of Southeast Asia Air Operations, declassified 1992, thanks to the great folks at the Air Force HRA at Maxwell. These documents are not available on the internet, yet.

Chris Hobson’s brilliant Vietnam Air Losses: United States Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973, will continue to be a daily resource, as will the seven “Project Southeast Asia Checo Reports of Commando Hunt.” Bernald C. Nalty’s THE WAR AGAINST TRUCKS: AERIAL INTERDICTION IN SOUTHERN LAOS, 1968-1972 is the premier book on Commando Hunt, and will be referred to regularly. Every post will conclude with a Ripple Salvo (Bear note–original or microfiched)… Humble Host invites you to join in remembering the history and the brave, bold heroes of the Vietnam war…

Lest we forget….         Bear