POPE AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. -- Dec. 18, 1972, the 43rd Strategic Wing, based at Andersen AFB, Guam, started the 11-day offensive known as the Operation Linebacker II. The 43rd launched 33 B-52s against an airfield north of Hanoi.

Operation Linebacker II was ordered by then U.S. President Richard Nixon against targets in North Vietnam. Each of the B-52s carried 27 to 42, 750-pound bombs with each sortie flown over the 11 nights of air strikes against Hanoi and Haiphong. This operation was not meant to last the duration of the war, just long enough to convince the South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu that the United States was willing to apply a lot of pressure on Hanoi to defend South Vietnam.

The planning of Operation Linebacker II was accomplished at the Strategic Air Command headquarters, in Omaha, Neb. The plan was to send in three discrete waves per night, using identical approach paths at the same altitude. The B-52s would fly in three-plane loose formations known as "cells." It was considered more effective for electronic warfare jamming coverage. After the planes dropped their bombs, they executed what SAC termed "post-target turns" to the west. This turned out to be bad for two reasons: they turned into a strong headwind slowing their speed by 100 knots, which made them stay in the target area longer, and the jamming systems were pointed away from the radars they were supposed to jam, so their getaway was given away, which created a large cross-section to the missile guidance radars.

The first phase consisted of a fleet of B-52s, flying the plan sent down by SAC. In the first wave alone three planes were lost; two B-52G's from Anderson and a B-52D from U-Tapao, Thailand. Only one crew was rescued. The fleet was fired at with 220 surface-to-air missiles. During the second night, 93 sorties were flown and only 185 SAMs were fired; no planes were lost. On the third night, six planes were lost with more than 300 SAMs being fired at the fleet. Two of the crews were rescued. With losses such as these the wing commander at U-Tapao, Brig. Gen. Glenn Sullivan, sent a message to SAC headquarters, which resulted in SAC turning over planning to the 8th Air Force Headquarters in Guam. Lt. Gen. Gerald Johnson, 8th Air Force commander, told General Sullivan he saved Air Force lives with his moral courage to speak up.

The second phase was scaled down to four missions, with just 30 bombers each, only using B-52Ds. This was to have time to install jammers on the B-52Gs. Another big change was reducing the separation between cells and the time between each cell reaching the target. Only two bombers were shot down the first night, and no others were lost in this phase. During this second phase of Operation Linebacker II there was a 36-hour pause in the bombing to celebrate the Christmas holiday.

The final phase commenced Dec. 26, 1972. In this phase all the bombers would fly in and out within 20 minutes, instead of waves. The B-52 approached Hanoi from many different directions and at different heights, and then left in the same pattern. The North Vietnamese air defense system was overwhelmed by the amount of aircraft to track in that small window of time. They fired almost 950 SAMs at our planes. Two planes turned around due to mechanical problems, and as a result, each of those cells lost a B-52.

During the second night of this phase, 60 bombers flew, with only two lost. The two remaining nights of this phase progressed with 60 bombers flying in each night, and the North Vietnam hardly put up a fight.

A total of 15,000 tons of bombs were dropped on 18 industrial and 14 military targets. Only 10 B-52s were shot down over North Vietnam out of 741. There were 26 crew rescued, while 33 were killed or missing, and another 33 crews became prisoners of war. The Air Force flew a total of 769 sorties, with an additional 505 flown by the Navy and Marine Corps in support of the bombers.

Though President Nixon thought the bombings were successful because the North Vietnamese reopened talks, Hanoi denied that bombings had any effect on that decision. The Paris Peace Accords were signed Jan. 27, 1973, letting North Vietnamese Army remain in the South Vietnamese territories they captured.

The 43rd Strategic Wing lost two B-52s and had four others damaged, all by surface-to-air missiles. The 43rd Strategic Wing flew 170 sorties during Operation Linebacker II.