Saturday, May 6, 1972
Escalation Of Air War Seen
SAIGON (UPI) --President Nixon apparently has ordered a gradual escalation of the air war against North Vietnam much as President Johnson did at the beginning of "Operation Rolling Thunder" in 1965, U.S. command communiqués indicated Thursday.But the command's latest report on the bombing campaign, which began April 6, also showed that the North Vietnamese apparently are beefing up their air defenses and dispersing their supplies just as they did in 1965, to make themselves less vulnerable.The latest U.S. command report on the bombing showed that American warplanes flew an average of 125 strikes a day in North Vietnam during the four days that ended at sundown Wednesday.The 500 strikes destroyed or damaged at least 93 enemy trucks, seven tanks, 18 boats and 30 sheds and warehouses, the command said. A total of 253 secondary explosions and fires were set off.By comparison, Air Force and Navy planes averaged 77 strikes a day during the nine days from April 20 to 29, 70 strikes a day between April 15 and 29, and only 42 strikes a day from April 9 to April 15, previous communiqués showed.Although bad weather in the early days of the new "air war north" may have cut down the number of strikes during the earliest reporting period -when they were at only one-third the current level -the latest communiqué showed a pattern of steady escalation in the 28 days since the bombing was renewed.This was the same pattern followed by former President Lyndon Johnson, who ordered sporadic strikes at targets near the Demilitarized Zone in the first few days of the Original "Rolling Thunder," and then gradually increased both the frequency of bombing and the number of strikes, until hundreds of U.S. planes were hammering North Vietnam each day.Johnson's plan was to force North Vietnam to negotiate an end to the war on U.S. terms by threatening destruction of its economy as well as its war-making potential.Nixon appears to be following much the same pattern, the communiqu&eatute;s indicate. Although many of the targets listed for the first month of bombing are military -missile and antiaircraft sites, supply dumps, airfields and military buildings -American warplanes also have concentrated on destroying economic assets.Among these are fuel supplies in the Hanoi-Haiphong areas, port and warehouse facilities, railroad lines, locomotives and rolling stock.But just as they did in 1965, the North Vietnamese have stepped up their antiaircraft and missile fire, and taken other measures to decrease their vulnerability to attack, the communiqués showed.The command said antiaircraft fire continues "heavy" over the north, and that more than 750 SAM missiles have been launched, constituting a major problem for U.S. aircraft.As a result, the latest series of raids appears -on the basis of the incomplete bomb damage reports issued by the command -to have declined somewhat in effectiveness.In the early raids, U.S. planes knocked out an average of 30 trucks and 20 buildings a day, even though they were flying only 60 per cent as many raids. The latest report shows an average of 20 trucks and only eight buildings a day destroyed, even with more airplanes in the sky."Escalation of Air War Seen", by Kim Willenson, published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Saturday, May 6, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.