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01:00The American campaign against North Vietnam's transport system began on April 3, 1965.
01:10In a month-long offensive, Navy and Air Force planes hit bridges, road and rail junctions, truck parks, and supply
01:19depots.
01:27For the Americans, one of the most important targets was the Ham Rung Bridge across the Song Ma River.
01:33The bridge was a choke point for troops and supplies moving southwards.
01:44In spite of repeated attempts, the Americans failed to destroy the target.
01:49Two U.S. planes were lost to MiG fighters and more to anti-aircraft defensives.
02:00Although the bombing was meant to damage the North Vietnamese military transport system, it also had political aims.
02:07It was supposed to pressure the North to stop supporting NLF guerrillas fighting in the South.
02:24In spite of the mounting damage, Ho Chi Minh, the northern president, was defiant.
02:32In South Vietnam, the NLF were doing well on the battlefield.
02:37South Vietnamese government forces were on the defensive.
02:40Ho meant to continue supporting the war as long as his Chinese and Soviet allies provided the weapons and financial
02:47support to carry on.
03:06North Vietnam's war materials from the Soviet Union and China came overland by rail
03:12or by sea into the major ports of Haifeng, Honggai, and Kamphah.
03:25Supplies and troops destined for the war in the South were then sent on to staging areas, especially Donghui.
03:36From there, they traveled into Laos by truck and bicycle, and down the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam.
03:47More troops and supplies went south by sea.
03:56American aircraft had already attacked junctions, bridges, troop staging areas, and supply depots vital to the North's supply effort.
04:09However, the Northeast quadrant with the population centers of Hanoi and Haifeng would be left alone for the time being,
04:18at least.
04:22So, too, would the transport links to China, around which there were now heavy concentrations of Chinese anti-aircraft guns.
04:43As the Rolling Thunder campaign continued, opposition to the bombing grew in the United States and around the world.
04:55On May 13th, 1965, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson agreed to halt the bombing for five days.
05:03As Johnson had expected, North Vietnam firmly rejected his overture.
05:20In the months that followed the bombing pause, rolling thunder attacks were steadily intensified.
05:26Transportation was still the top priority, but the list of targets approved by the White House was steadily broadened.
05:33The planes also began to range further north than before.
05:44Soon, U.S. fighters had shot down their first MiGs of the air war.
06:09By July 1965, a ring of Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missile batteries surrounded key sites in North Vietnam.
06:18The SAM was 35 feet long and radar-guided.
06:23It could hit a target 20 miles away and was one of the most advanced anti-aircraft weapons in the
06:28world.
06:38If the SAM's warhead detonated anywhere within 200 feet of an aircraft, it would almost certainly bring it down in
06:44flames.
06:52The missile defenses destroyed their first U.S. Aircraft in late July 1965.
07:02In the coming months, one in every 20 SAM's fired would hit its target.
07:07By the end of 1965, they had lost 171 planes.
07:12For American air commanders, the SAM's were a nightmare.
07:16The only solution was to try and stay outside their range for as long as possible.
07:34American aircraft were now attacking some carefully selected targets inside the northeastern quadrant of North Vietnam.
07:46However, they had orders to avoid prohibited zones of 10 miles around the capital, Hanoi, and 4 miles around the
07:53port of Haifeng.
08:00In bigger zones, around both cities, attacks were severely restricted, and the aircraft also had to stay out of a
08:07buffer zone along the border with China.
08:22It was in the northeastern quadrant that the North Vietnamese had built up the heaviest concentrations of fighters and anti
08:29-aircraft missiles.
08:35The Americans knew the operating ranges of the MiGs and the SAMs.
08:42Attacking aircraft took elaborate measures to avoid them until the last possible moment.
08:56SAM missile sites were hard to find and even harder to destroy.
09:11To make the problem worse, those inside prohibited zones around Hanoi and Haifeng could not be attacked at all.
09:18It would be months before the restriction was lifted.
09:32Avoiding SAMs posed its own dangers for American pilots.
09:36The missiles were most dangerous to planes flying at 20,000 feet or above.
09:41A low-flying aircraft was less at risk, but then it was inside the range of the anti-aircraft guns.
10:12By this time, North Vietnam's MiG fighters were being sent into battle whenever the odds were.
10:17Seemed in their favor.
10:19Always, they fought under strict control from the ground.
10:23Their tactics were to approach from behind and above the Americans and then mount a sudden ambush.
10:34To the intense frustration of U.S. Air commanders, American planes were strictly forbidden to attack North Vietnamese fighter bases.
10:42The fear in the White House was that Chinese or Soviet advisers might be killed, provoking retaliation.
10:53An even bigger worry was that if the North's Air Force were destroyed, Chinese fighter units might take over the
10:59defense themselves.
11:18By September 1965, MiGs had destroyed 11 U.S. aircraft in combat, but more than 20 MiGs had been shot
11:25down by American planes.
11:27Nearly two-thirds of the whole North Vietnamese fighter force was gone.
11:33In October 1965, General Jap, the North Vietnamese defense chief, was forced to order the 921st Fighter Wing to cut
11:41back combat operations.
12:02On December 24th, 1965, President Johnson announced another temporary halt to the bombing of North Vietnam and offered talks.
12:14Meanwhile, the war in the South was gathering pace.
12:18By the start of 1966, 184,000 U.S. troops had arrived in-country.
12:33They were already launching big operations against the NLF guerrillas.
12:44Months before, American leaders had decided that the air war in the South would, if necessary, take priority over operations
12:51against the North.
12:52Hundreds of transport aircraft and fighter bombers supported American troops.
12:57Strike aircraft could be called in by any combat unit in the field.
13:01Time after time, their bombs, rockets, and napalm saved American units being overrun by the Viet Cong, but they also
13:09hit thousands of civilians in their homes.
13:20Against Viet Cong troops in the open, tactical fighter bombers were accurate and destructive weapons.
13:26However, against fortified guerrilla bases spread out under the forest canopy, they were almost useless.
13:38The solution suggested by the U.S. commander in Vietnam, General Westmoreland, was to carpet bomb with B-52s.
13:52The B-52 could carry 51, 750, and 500-pound bombs, a 13-and-a-half-ton payload.
14:01A modified version, the Big Belly, could carry 108, 750, and 500-pound bombs, a massive 31-and-three-quarter
14:10tons.
14:11A cell of three B-52s could obliterate an area three miles long and two miles wide.
14:22B-52 raids were codenamed Arclight.
14:32Each raid had involved a 12-hour round trip from Guam in the Pacific Ocean.
14:37The missions were possible only because for every bomber in the fleet, there was a tanker from Okinawa to refuel
14:45it in flight.
14:49The mission of the B-52 force was soon broadened to include the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and
14:56passes feeding the trail just inside North Vietnam.
15:04The bombers were also accurate enough to support U.S. troops on the ground.
15:09Radar could direct the B-52s to a target day or night up to 200 miles away and tell the
15:16crew exactly when to drop their bombs.
15:42The pause in the bombing that President Johnson had ordered in December 1965,
15:47lasted 37 days.
15:50When the bombing restarted, it had coincided with appalling weather.
15:57North Vietnam was given a priceless breathing space in which to boost its defenses.
16:12The North's most important installations were now defended by 5,000 anti-aircraft guns.
16:19They included new radar-guided 85 and 100-millimeter weapons able to bring down an aircraft at nearly 20,000
16:26feet.
16:30More SAM missile sites had also been put in place.
16:34By now, 30 new fighter pilots had come back from training in the Soviet Union and China,
16:39along with more aircraft to rebuild the fighter force.
16:52American aircraft losses were now 20 a month over North Vietnam.
17:08One in 40 planes flying into the heavily defended Northeast Quadrant was lost.
17:14Pilot Morrell was beginning to suffer.
17:17Most were in combat every second day and some even more often.
17:26Realizing that dangerous problems were developing,
17:29the Americans moved to send more carrier pilots to Southeast Asia.
17:33They also overhauled the supply system.
17:43At the same time, other changes were made to help reduce American casualties and boost morale.
18:00In April 1966, Yankee Station and the carriers of Task Force 77 were moved nearer to North Vietnam.
18:13At the same time, two new search and rescue stations were created, called North and South.
18:23The stations were placed on the routes most used by U.S. strike aircraft.
18:33Up to now, U.S. Air Force and Navy planes had taken turns to hit different areas of North Vietnam.
18:42There were always problems of coordination.
18:47Now, the system was improved by allocating route packages.
18:53Route package one was given to military assistance command in the South as part of the war on the demilitarized
18:59zone.
19:05The air force was assigned route packages 5 and 6A.
19:09The Navy concentrated its efforts on the route packages nearer the coast.
19:28The route package system allowed American pilots to learn the defenses of their own target areas.
19:34Combined with the area's search and rescue operations, it did help save pilots' lives,
19:39but did little to reduce aircraft losses.
19:42In May and June 1966, 18 planes were shot down.
19:50Seven pilots were picked up by the search and rescue forces.
19:59By now, every American raid included attacks to suppress anti-aircraft defenses.
20:05Strikes were also supported by a vast array of sophisticated technology.
20:13Early warning radar aircraft could alert pilots to MIGs or SAM launches.
20:18Electronic warfare planes tried to jam anti-aircraft radars.
20:23Wild Weasel strike aircraft, armed with the new Shrike radar-seeking missiles,
20:28were deployed to hit the SAM sites.
20:42The Americans also had a new and formidable attack aircraft.
20:46The A-6 intruder had the world's most sophisticated electronic navigation and targeting systems.
20:59It could find and hit targets, day or night, in any weather, and carried a six-and-a-half-ton
21:05bomb load.
21:06In poor conditions, a pair of intruders could destroy a target that a normal raid of 100 aircraft might fail
21:12to hit.
21:35More than a year after rolling thunder had begun, North Vietnam's leaders were gaining confidence.
21:41The bombing had unified the North Vietnamese people.
21:48Damaged railway stock, trucks, and industrial equipment were being replaced by the Soviet Union and China.
21:54Almost every day, a supply ship arrived in Haiphong Harbor.
22:06The Soviet Union had also supplied new advanced fighter aircraft, bringing the number of North Vietnamese planes to 70.
22:13The MiG-21, all-weather interceptor, was able to fly at twice the speed of sound and was highly maneuverable.
22:25It was armed with two cannon and two atoll infrared homing missiles, deadly weapons at medium ranges.
22:37In spite of the American bombing, the North Vietnamese had actually increased the flow of men and supplies to the
22:44southern battlefield.
22:45Destroyed bridges were bypassed by pontoons and fords, and trucks moved mostly at night.
23:16For months, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington
23:19had been urging the president to launch an all-out campaign against North Vietnam.
23:24Above all, they wanted to target petroleum and oil storage, the PAL system.
23:35U.S. commanders were confident that an offensive against PAL targets
23:39would deal a crippling blow to the North Vietnamese war effort.
23:47The offensive was put off again and again.
23:51President Johnson was waiting for an answer to peace feelers sent out to Hanoi.
23:57When there was no response, the president approved the attacks.
24:01The first PAL raids on North Vietnam's fuel storage system were launched on June 29, 1966.
24:22North Vietnam had 13 major oil storage facilities.
24:28Two had already been destroyed and another badly damaged.
24:36The new American campaign was launched by U.S. Air Force planes flying from Thailand
24:42and by the Navy carriers, Ranger, Constellation, and Hancock.
24:51In the first strikes, tanks at Hanoi, Haiphong, and Dosong were hit.
25:01The following days saw attacks on yet more sites.
25:08The remaining facilities and fuel-carrying trains from China were next.
25:25The American attacks were completely devastating.
25:28The North's biggest facility at Haiphong was totally destroyed.
25:35Smoke from the burning tanks reached 20,000 feet into the sky.
25:47The Paul strikes lasted for several weeks.
25:5176% of the designated oil facility targets in North Vietnam's main storage and pumping facilities were wrecked.
25:58So were half the barges used to ferry oil from tankers offshore.
26:06The reaction from North Vietnam's air defenses was furious.
26:10Sam's and anti-aircraft guns were reinforced as the raids went on.
26:23The MiGs, flying from airfields still off-limits to U.S. bombs, could attack at will.
26:39In spite of the massive size of the Paul campaign and the heavy cost in downed aircraft, the American raids
26:46had a limited effect.
26:48The big oil tanks had been destroyed, but long before the North had dispersed its stocks in smaller tanks and
26:55bunkers.
26:57Some had been hidden in residential districts, places the Americans might avoid attacking.
27:05The Americans launched a massive effort to try and eliminate the dispersed oil stocks.
27:20After heavy losses of planes and men, they had destroyed only a fraction.
27:28North Vietnam still had more than enough to supply its own needs and the needs of the trucks supplying the
27:34southern battlefield.
27:53In October 1966, the U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara paid a visit to the American carrier fleet off the
28:01shores of North Vietnam.
28:03With him was General Wheeler, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Sharp, the Pacific Fleet commander.
28:22Over the past few months, McNamara had grown more and more disillusioned with the Rolling Thunder campaign.
28:28The North Vietnamese still showed no signs of abandoning the war.
28:34The failure of the Paul Offensive had been the final straw.
28:39By now, the cost of Rolling Thunder had soared to $1,247,000,000,
28:45and more aircraft and crew lost every month.
28:58McNamara now favored curtailing the bombing.
29:01He argued that U.S. aircraft should concentrate on attacking the supply routes from North Vietnam to the south,
29:07at a much lower cost in lives and cash.
29:12Military leaders were dismayed.
29:15Their argument was that Rolling Thunder had failed because, with all the restrictions,
29:19it had never been given a chance to succeed.
29:41During 1966, as Operation Rolling Thunder intensified,
29:46American and Australian warships joined in the campaign against North Vietnam.
29:57Operation Sea Dragon attacked more than 3,500 land targets, including bridges, railroad yards, and truck parks.
30:09More than 300 coastal defense and radar installations were damaged or destroyed.
30:20The attacks were fiercely resisted by North Vietnamese coastal artillery batteries.
30:32During the two years of Sea Dragon attacks, the guns would hit 19 ships.
30:37None were sunk, but several suffered serious damage.
30:44In early February 1967, President Johnson declared a six-day halt in attacks on North Vietnam.
30:52The North Vietnamese immediately raced supplies and men to the south as they had done during every pause before.
31:06Po Chi Minh replied to Johnson's offer of negotiations with a demand that the bombing stop completely.
31:13Ho made no promise that even then he would talk.
31:23Ho's rebuff left Johnson frustrated and angry.
31:26It was now a contest of wills.
31:29To increase the pressure on North Vietnam, Johnson sanctioned attacks on a new list of bombing targets.
31:44American planes would attack the North's airfields, power plants, and industries, while the Navy's Operation Sea Dragon would be expanded.
31:52It was a major step towards an all-out campaign.
32:08The U.S. and Australian warships of Operation Sea Dragon were allowed to extend operations from 19 to 20 degrees
32:15north.
32:22Aircraft were sent to mine river mouths and later inland waterways as well, up to the same line.
32:35Haifong Harbor, however, the North's most important port, would not be mined until 1972 to avoid the risk of sinking
32:42Soviet ships.
32:49The new targets for U.S. bombers were the airfields, power plants, and industries of the northeastern quadrant.
32:59Some targets were inside the previously prohibited zones around Hanoi and Haiphong.
33:18The American attacks on North Vietnam's airfields began on April 24, 1967.
33:24By the end of the year, all but one of the North's MiG bases had been hit.
33:30The attacks inflicted heavy damage on runways and installations.
33:34There were furious air combats over Hanoi and Haiphong as every available MiG was thrown into action.
33:51After the airfield attacks came the strikes on industrial targets and power plants.
33:56Thirty-two percent of the North's electrical power generating capacity was cut, but the remaining plants were adequate to supply
34:04most of the North's small industrial plants.
34:15By now, the weather had improved, and the bombers now ranged freely, hitting old and new targets again and again.
34:21In May 1967, as desperate battles raged in the skies over Hanoi and Haiphong, the Americans shot down 26 North
34:31Vietnamese fighters.
34:32North Vietnam's pilot strength had been halved.
34:54While the latest offensive against North Vietnam was still underway,
34:58in Washington, a bitter argument was raging about strategy in Vietnam.
35:07President Johnson's civilian and military advisers were now completely at odds.
35:11The military wanted a major escalation of the air and ground war in an all-out push for victory.
35:19The civilians, especially Robert McNamara, were calling for the war effort to be leveled off.
35:32In August 1967, the pressure on President Johnson to side with his military commanders sharply increased.
35:39A Senate subcommittee was about to call for much heavier bombing of North Vietnam.
35:48To head off criticism, Johnson approved a sharp escalation in rolling thunder.
36:00For the defense secretary, Robert McNamara, the decision to escalate was the end of the road.
36:06His advice had been ignored, and plainly, he no longer had the confidence of the president.
36:12McNamara had no option but to resign.
36:24American aircraft now hit a whole list of previously banned targets, including power plants and rail yards inside the Hanoi
36:32circle.
36:33The Paul Dumers bridge, linking Hanoi and Haifeng, was attacked, and two of its spans dropped into the Red River.
36:40However, engineers hastily carried out temporary repairs, and the bridge continued to carry traffic until it was hit again in
36:47October 1967.
36:51Targets inside the Chinese border buffer zone were also hit.
36:56American planes attacked to within eight miles of the frontier.
36:59Two American aircraft strayed into China and were shot down by Chinese Meigs.
37:06The attacks of late 1967 were so intense that, for a time, the northern air defenses ran desperately short of
37:13SAMs and anti-aircraft ammunition.
37:23Almost all important targets, except Haifeng port, had been hit repeatedly.
37:38The Americans were now using a new generation of smart bombs, including the walleye television-guided weapon, which had been
37:45operational in Vietnam since 1966.
37:48It took many fewer aircraft to destroy a target, which meant, in theory, that precision attacks could be made, even
37:55in densely populated areas.
37:59There was little the North Vietnamese air defenses could do to stop the havoc.
38:03However, northern leaders still had no intention of giving in to U.S. demands.
38:11In their view, the best way of stopping the bombing was to win the war in the South in the
38:16shortest possible time.
38:30In January 1968, 84,000 NLF and North Vietnamese Army troops launched their long-planned Tet Offensive.
38:39They attacked towns and cities all over South Vietnam and held huge tracts of Saigon, the capital, for weeks.
38:55In the end, the Tet Offensive was a military disaster for the Viet Cong.
39:03Forty thousand were killed in more than a month of savage fighting.
39:07However, in a way that had never been planned, the offensive was a political triumph.
39:21In the United States, public opinion had been turning against the war for months.
39:25The sheer scale of the latest offensive now seemed to confirm that U.S. strategy had failed.
39:32The pressure on President Johnson to look for a negotiated settlement grew irresistible.
39:45On March 31st, 1968, Johnson announced that, as a goodwill gesture,
39:50he was restricting the bombing campaign to the extreme south of North Vietnam.
40:00On April 3rd, Hanoi Radio announced that, if bombing ceased unconditionally, the talks could begin.
40:11The Paris peace process began on March 10th, 1968.
40:16Almost at once, they stalled hopelessly.
40:25Meantime, U.S. aircraft and warships continued to attack transportation targets below the 20th parallel.
40:41In October 1968, after several months of wrangling and on the eve of the U.S. presidential elections,
40:47there was a breakthrough.
40:52The North Vietnamese agreed that, in exchange for a complete halt to the bombing,
40:57they, for their part, would no longer infiltrate troops across the DMZ
41:01or shell major cities in the south.
41:05Johnson knew that being seen to oppose peace
41:08could damage his party's chances in the coming elections.
41:12Reluctantly, he agreed to stop the bombing.
41:20Operation Rolling Thunder came to an end on November 1st, 1968, after three and a half years.
41:27The campaign had cost more than 900 American aircraft.
41:34818 pilots were dead or missing, and hundreds were in captivity.
41:45On the northern side, nearly 120 North Vietnamese planes had been destroyed in air combat,
41:51in accidents or by friendly fire.
41:54On the ground, according to McNamara's estimates,
41:58182,000 civilians had been killed during Operation Rolling Thunder.
42:0320,000 Chinese support personnel had also been casualties of the bombing.
42:26With the end of Rolling Thunder,
42:28North Vietnam immediately set about rebuilding its shattered transport system.
42:32In spite of the talks still going on in Paris,
42:36the northern commander, General Jaap,
42:38was already planning his next offensive in the south.
42:45He sharply increased the flow of supplies and men down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
42:53With thousands of U.S. aircraft and pilots no longer tied up attacking North Vietnam,
42:59U.S. commanders could concentrate massive air power on Laos.
43:03The main aim was to find and destroy the truck convoys moving south.
43:12Special forces teams had always scouted into Laos to guide attack aircraft onto targets.
43:19But by this time, the U.S. had also deployed the world's most sophisticated electronic surveillance system.
43:40Between 1966 and 1971,
43:43in Operation Igloo White,
43:45American aircraft laid a sophisticated system of electronic sensors down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.
43:56The targets were the truck convoy streaming south from North Vietnam.
44:04Signals from the sensors were picked up by orbiting aircraft
44:07and relayed to a listening center in Nakhonpanan in Thailand.
44:12Other aircraft carried instruments to detect the electrical activity of truck engines.
44:17When a convoy was detected,
44:18the Americans would launch a raid by B-52s or fighter bombers into the target area.
44:38In 1968 alone, U.S. strike aircraft flew 88,000 strikes against targets in Laos.
44:45The planes dropped high explosives, cluster bombs, and mines.
44:50They were also equipped with new, highly accurate laser-guided bombs.
45:03In the front line of the war against the trucks,
45:06the formidable gunships, known as Spooky, played a vital part.
45:16The gunships carried three miniguns, each able to fire 6,000 rounds a minute.
45:22Flying in a circular pattern over the target,
45:24the gunship would rain down an awesome weight of fire.
45:35In 1969, the gunships alone claimed more than 10,000 trucks destroyed.
45:44However, the North Vietnamese had built 400 miles of new roads in Laos,
45:49and not even American electronics and computers could cover it all.
46:00Still, U.S. aircraft would drop three-quarters of a million tons of bombs on Laos,
46:06ten times the weight dropped on Japan in World War II.
46:26In January 1969, Richard Nixon took office as the new president of the United States.
46:32Nixon had promised to achieve what he called peace with honor.
46:41The aim was to negotiate a settlement that would allow the half million U.S. troops in Vietnam to be
46:46withdrawn,
46:47while still allowing South Vietnam to survive.
46:55The American plan was to prepare the South Vietnamese to take over their own defense.
47:01Officials called it Vietnamization.
47:03The regular armed forces would be built up to over 420,000 men.
47:08They would get modern weapons, including large numbers of tanks, guns and aircraft.
47:25The North's strategy for 1969 was to keep up the pressure in South Vietnam.
47:31While negotiations were going on, they meant to improve their position on the battlefield.
47:44On the 22nd of February 1969, in a major offensive, assault teams and artillery attacked American bases all over South
47:53Vietnam, killing 1,140 Americans.
47:56At the same time, in an echo of Tet a year earlier, a hundred towns and cities were hit.
48:03The American reaction was swift.
48:05Arclight strikes by B-52s were launched on guerrilla base areas.
48:10Armor-piercing bombs dropped from 30,000 feet, annihilated bunker and tunnel complexes.
48:19On the ground, American units launched spoiling attacks on guerrilla staging areas and captured enormous quantities of supplies.
48:41The heaviest fighting was around the capital, Saigon, but fights raged all over South Vietnam.
48:47In the first three weeks of battles, the Americans lost 1,100 men.
48:54However, American artillery and air power overwhelmed the Viet Cong offensive.
49:18In the White House, there was anger and deep frustration at the latest campaign against South Vietnam.
49:28President Nixon and his advisors were determined to retaliate to show that the U.S. was serious about defending its
49:35ally.
49:35The problem was that going back to bombing North Vietnam would cause an outcry in the United States.
49:48Nixon's plan was to bomb Viet Cong staging areas in Cambodia.
49:57For years, they had been the springboards for attacks against Saigon.
50:01These jungle areas held tens of thousands of troops and vast stores of supplies and weapons.
50:17But Washington had forbidden U.S. forces to attack the Cambodian bases.
50:23Legally, Cambodia was a neutral state and there was a risk that American action could draw Cambodia into the war.
50:30However, Nixon did not mean to hold back.
50:33Operation Menu, the bombing of Cambodia, was to be kept a strictly guarded secret.
50:39It was dubbed Menu because the first attack on base area 354 had been decided at a breakfast briefing at
50:46the Pentagon.
50:48The operation was to continue for 14 months.
51:08As well as the Ho Chi Minh Trail running from North Vietnam,
51:12NVA forces were also supplied by North Vietnamese and Soviet ships,
51:17which were allowed to dock at Sihanoukville.
51:25From here, they fed war materials to the main base areas.
51:35The biggest Viet Cong strongholds were west and north of Saigon in the areas known as the Parrot's Beak and
51:42the Fish Hook.
51:45The bases were run by North Vietnamese troops and the NLF.
52:00Starting in February 1969, American B-52 bombers from Thailand launched devastating strikes against each of the base areas in
52:10turn.
52:30Operation Menu saw more than 4,000 B-52 missions dropping 120,000 tons of bombs.
52:46In later campaigns, B-52s supported American and South Vietnamese ground incursions into Cambodia and backed Cambodian government forces against
52:56the Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
52:59Altogether, in four years of bombing, U.S. aircraft would unload more than half a million tons of bombs on
53:05Cambodia.
53:14On orders from the White House, extraordinary measures were taken to keep the Cambodian bombing a secret.
53:20Defense Department officials always claimed the raids were over South Vietnam.
53:25Because the planes were guided to their target by radar at the Ben Hoa airbases,
53:29and orders to drop the bombs were also issued from there,
53:32often the pilots themselves did not know they were bombing Cambodia.
53:36Those that did were ordered to falsify their flight logs upon returning to base to maintain the secrecy.
53:53In spite of the elaborate precautions, in May 1969, reports of the secret bombing were published in the American press.
54:02Nixon was furious.
54:07Only recently, the American public had learned of the My Lai Massacre,
54:12in which over 200 South Vietnamese villagers had been killed by U.S. troops back in 1968.
54:26Anti-war feeling had also been fueled by news of the bloody battle of Hamburger Hill.
54:33American troops had suffered heavy casualties capturing the hill, only for it to be abandoned later.
54:57On June 8th, 1969, President Nixon met with South Vietnamese President Nian Van Thieu on Midway Island in the Pacific.
55:11Nixon announced that 25,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam immediately.
55:18The 9th Marines would be the first to head for home.
55:22It was the first U.S. troop reduction in the history of the war in Vietnam.
55:34By the fall of 1969, Nixon's initiatives had succeeded in quietening public opposition to the war.
55:42To keep up the momentum, the President announced a second batch of troop withdrawals and promised to reduce the draft
55:48call.
55:57In October 1969, an opinion poll gave Nixon an approval rating of 71%, an almost unprecedented figure.
56:11Although Nixon was preparing to pull out American troops, he had no intention of giving up on Vietnam.
56:18His plan was that even when most American troops had been withdrawn,
56:22Americans would continue to supply, train and arm the South Vietnamese.
56:27Most important of all, a formidable shield of American air power would remain to deter communist attacks.
56:43As ground combat in South Vietnam fell to its lowest level in six years, the prospects for success looked increasingly
56:51good in Washington.
56:56What U.S. officials did not know was that in North Vietnam, the greatest offensive of the whole war was
57:03being prepared.
57:04The plan was to use nearly 200,000 troops and hundreds of tanks in a full-scale invasion of South
57:12Vietnam.
57:29The plan was to use over 250,000 troops for this whole plan.
57:29The plan was to use 500,000 troops in a full-scale invasion of Mount Vietnam,
57:31the strength of the other ship was taking place.
57:31The plan was built in this entire town
57:31The plan was designed for the earthquake in a full-scale invasion of young people in a small-scale invasion
57:33of the people in Egypt.
57:33The plan was thrown around by the entire town.
57:34The plan was passed down by the door.
57:35The plan was made with the farmers who had to use the Freem toute the town.
57:35The plan was not one day before the test,
57:39The plan was made with the plan was made with the plan.
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