Source 1: An excerpt from the pentagon papers
VII. ROLLING THUNDER BECOMES A CONTINUING PROGRAM
A. MCNAMARA’S CONCERN OVER COST-INEFFECTIVENESS OF STRIKES
As has been indicated, ROLLING THUNDER was finally inaugurated, after much delay and postponement, on March 2. On that day, 104 USAF aircraft (B-52’s F-100’s F-105’s and refueling KC-135’s) struck the Xom Bang Ammo Depot, while 19 VNAF A-1H’s hit the Quang Khe Naval Base. This was the first strike on the North in which USAF aircraft played the dominant role. Although the attack was officially proclaimed “very successful,” the loss of four USAF aircraft, three to antiaircraft fire, intensified earlier OSD concern over the effectiveness of the strikes and over the vulnerability of US aircraft.
Shortly after the first two February reprisal raids, the Secretary of Defense had received some disturbing bomb damage assessment reports that indicated that,
. . . with a total of 267 sorties (including flak suppression, etc.) directed against 491 buildings, we destroyed 47 buildings and damaged 22.
The reports caused McNamara to fire off a rather blunt memorandum to the CJCS, dated 17 February 1965, which stated in part:
Although the four missions left the operations at the targets relatively unimpaired, I am quite satisfied with the results. Our primary objective, of course, was to communicate our political resolve. This I believe we did. Future communications of resolve, however, will carry a hollow ring unless we accomplish more military damage than we have to date. Can we not better meet our military objectives by choosing different types of targets, directing different weights of effort against them, or changing the composition of the force? Surely we cannot continue for months accomplishing no more with 267 sorties than we did on these four missions.
Analysis:
Operation Rolling Thunder was notorious for its extravagant scale and want on destruction. Nearly 650,000 tons of bombs were dropped over the course of the operation, reducing wide swathes of the Vietnam landscape to ash. However, what most people don’t know or simply fail to recognize is that despite the massive scale of Rolling Thunder, it ultimately failed at crippling the North Vietnamese war machine.
At the inception of the program, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed a short but seemingly effective plan of action. Over the course of no longer than six weeks, they planned for the operation to destroy communication lines, railways and roads, as well as perform attacks on ports, supply depots, ammo dumps and industrial sites. Three years later, and the operation was still ongoing. One glaring reason for this was the lack of properly trained US pilots. In the above document, it is stated that “…with a total of 267 sorties (including flak suppression, etc) directed against 491 buildings, we destroyed 47 buildings and damaged 22.” It doesn’t take an expert to see that these success rates were shockingly low. The planes doing most of the bombings were large B-2’s whose pilots were experienced with nuclear payloads rather than conventional explosives. This resulted in an average radius of error of 750 feet, as opposed to the desired 365 feet. While pilots eventually received the additional training they needed, the lack of proper experience meant that Rolling Thunder got off to a rather lack-luster start.
Source 2: Operation Rolling Thunder Strike Map
Analysis:
Another major problem with Rolling Thunder were the policy issues that came along with running a major bombing campaign in an already controversial war. Even though the purpose of Operation Rolling Thunder was to attack critical North Vietnamese targets in an effort to cripple their war effort, there were many restrictions placed on the campaign that inhibited its ability to strike certain targets. As you can see in the above photo, two large circles and a red line seem to outline large areas of land. These lines and circles represent areas that the US was not allowed to bomb. The White House had prohibited the bombing of any areas within a 30 nautical mile radius of Hanoi, a 10 nautical mile radius of Haiphong, or any areas north of the dotted red line. Since the Vietnam War was taking place during the Cold War, the United States didn’t want to risk aggravating any of the communist superpowers (namely China) by showing too much aggression.
Source 3: Excerpt From New York Times Article
The Kennedy years: These were time of significantly deepening U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict, the study says. It cites covert actions authorized by President against North Vietnam and asserts “complicity” of the Kennedy Administration in the coup against Diem “inadvertently” enlarged U.S. commitment.
And, the agency’s estimate continued, “The air strikes do not appear to have altered Hanoi’s determination to continue supporting the war in South Vietnam.”
In the analyst’s view, “The idea that destroying, or threatening to destroy, North Vietnam’s industry would pressure Hanoi into calling it quits, seems, in retrospect, a colossal misjudgment.”
Analysis:
As hinted at in this excerpt from a New York Times article, Operation Rolling Thunder was originally created as a sort of diplomatic effort. The White House hoped to persuade North Vietnam to back down from fighting and come to the negotiating table. However, North Vietnam wouldn’t back down so easily. As stated in the article, the hope that North Vietnam would be intimidated by the bombings were completely false. Instead of looking to negotiate, North Vietnam responded to the bombings by focusing their attacks on air bases in South Vietnam. In addition to all of the other reasons why Rolling Thunder didn’t work, the US also forgot to consider the determination of the Vietnamese. Not only had they fought for their independence from France, but they also fought off aggression from Japan during the second world war. Unsurprisingly, the bombings did not make North Vietnam quit. Instead of backing out of the operation, the US instead decided to escalate the situation, which ultimately ended up hurting the US economy more than it hurt North Vietnam.
Citations:
Source 1:
United States, Congress, “The Pentagon Papers.” The Pentagon Papers, Gravel ed., vol. 3, Beacon Press, 1971, pp. 332–333.
Source 2:
Rolling Thunder 53 Strike Map; 1/1967; Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, TX. [Online Version, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/rolling-thunder-53-strike-map, December 14, 2019]
Source 3:
“Bombing and a Pause.” The New York Times , 2 July 1971.
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