62 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN Issue No 21
the total reunification of the country”, a task
presented to his people as a national crusade.
In the USA the Pentagon set about reorganising
its air tactics. From the first intermittent strikes
undertaken during the second half of 1964, the
attacks evolved into a sustained and continuous
day and night campaign. In April 1966 North
Vietnam was divided by the Americans into
tactical Route Packages (RPs), which delineated
the operational areas of the USAF and US Navy.
The latter was tasked with operations over
RP-II, RP-III, RP-IV and RP-VIB, which covered
the North Vietnamese coastal zones, including
Haiphong and the eastern part of the Red River
Delta areas. The USAF was to operate over
RP-I, just north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)
separating the two Vietnams; RP-V, covering the
western part of North Vietnam, and importantly,
RP-VIA, which included the well-defended
Hanoi area. In addition, two specially restricted
zones were put in place over the strategic harbour
of Haiphong and the North Vietnamese capital.
Strikes inside these zones required authorisation
from the highest American authorities. Finally,
a 9–12-mile (15–19km) no-fly zone was imposed
along the Chinese border after several accidental
crossings into Chinese airspace.
The USA’s strategy combined air attacks with
secret diplomatic missions to convince the Hanoi
leadership of the futility of its war aims, as a
prelude to imposing on it, by force if necessary,
an accord that guaranteed the survival of a non-
communist South Vietnam. Furthermore, the
purpose of the air campaign was to demonstrate
to the North Vietnamese that the more they
attacked in the south, the more they would be
exposed to greater destruction in the north.
One of the most significant escalations of the
American air offensive was the series of attacks
undertaken against petrol, oil and lubricant
(POL) depots throughout the country, along with
the bombing of storage areas, railway stations
and bridges in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas in
June 1966. However, after two years of incessant
American air strikes, many military and civilian
leaders in Washington DC began to doubt the
efficacy of the policy. Indeed, it was difficult
to evaluate the impact of these strikes on the
reduction of the military and economic capacities
of North Vietnam, a country that imported
most of its goods from its communist allies. The
same could be concluded about the impact of
the continuous air attacks on the morale of its
population, which was completely organised and
mobilised by a totalitarian state system.
Nevertheless, the USA’s Secretary of Defence,
Robert S. McNamara, one of the staunchest
supporters of the air offensive in Vietnam,
persisted with his strategy in the strong belief
that Hanoi was on the brink of total collapse.
McNamara had created a complex evaluating
system to assess the effectiveness of the cam-
paign, using the number of sorties flown and
targets attacked each week, as well as the tonnage
of bombs dropped, as a metric. However, using
such statistics as a basis for a coherent airpower
ABOVE The USA’s Secretary of
Defense, Robert S. McNamara, in
- An accountant by training and
temperament, McNamara was one of
the prime architects of the USA’s policy
in Vietnam and based his strategy on a
statistical approach, i.e. “they will run
MAP BY MAGGIE NELSON out of soldiers before we do”.
