Linebacker II

During the Linebacker II campaign, he was Wing Commander of the 43rd Strategic Wing, based at Andersen AFB, Guam. He was one of the planners of many of the 8-52 raids during that campaign and won the Air Force Cross as Airborne Mission Commander, flying in the lead bomber, on the spectacular mission of December 26, 1972. These are his recollections of the Linebacker II campaign:

“I think if you really want to see the significance of these raids, from an airmanship standpoint, you have to go back in history and compare them to some of the big raids of World War II. For the Ploesti raid, as an example, a complete mockup of the target was built in the Libyan desert, and the bomber crews practised and practised, and practised. Our raid of December 26, 1972 employed improved tactics. We had never practised them at all. (Author’s note: In many of the big raids of World War II, such as Ploesti, Regensburg, and Schweinfurt, losses of 20 to 30 per cent were experienced. The overall Linebacker II losses were about two per cent. ) The tactics were very complex, and the timing was plus or minus zero. Normal SAC crew training is plus or minus three minutes. This had to be zero. From that standpoint alone . . . to go up and do ii the first time around, without ever having had the benefit of practice, and to do it with some pretty junior, inexperienced guys flying, was pretty fantastic. As an example, I had one pilot who, on his fourth mission as an aircraft commander, flew this mission . . . at night, over North Vietnam. That’s calling for a hell of a lot of a guy, and he did a fine job!

There was a lot of controversy about whether you should be allowed to manoeuvre or not. An 8-52 is not like an F-4, for example. With an F-4 you could tuck it in close and fly a pretty good formation while manoeuvring. A 8-52, on the other hand, is very hard on the controls, so it takes a lot of physical power and co-ordination to wrestle it around the sky . . . sort of like driving a Mack truck. On the third night, we really got zapped badly, so as a concerted effort the command developed new tactics. We had been attacking from the northwest, down Thud Ridge. After hitting the target, we would make a hellacious turn to get out of the area. That gave us the minimum time in the lethal SAM zone. When an area is as heavily defended as Hanoi/Haiphong was, the lethal zone was pretty large. Naturally, you don’t want to spend any more time in that environment than is absolutely necessary. Well, all of our losses seemed to stem from that big turn, so tactics that eliminated the big turn wherever possible were developed. (Author’s note; Another bone of contention was the fact that these “new” tactics were not introduced until the sixth night of the 11-day campaign. This was not due to any lack of insight on the part of the commanders. It was more a result of the length of the missions. For example: The mission of the 1 9th would only be returning when the mission of the 20th was taking off. The distance from Guam to Vietnam made these some of the longest, if not the longest in the history of aerial warfare, sometimes lasting up to 18 hours. The 20th mission would be well on its way to the target before the previous day’s mission had debriefed. This, in effect, doubled the lead times needed to change tactics. ) Well, we knew we had to do something about that big turn, and we knew we had to stop driving in the same way every night. After all, those radar operators could just about draw a grease pencil line on their scopes, they knew our routes so well! The 36-hour stand-down for Christmas gave us the breather we needed to come up with new tactics.

The tactic SAC came up with was for four waves of 8-52s to hit four targets, which were relatively close to each other, in the Hanoi area, while other B-52s attacked targets in the Haiphong area. All of these attacks were to be carried out simultaneously. Many of the older 8-52D models struck the heavily defended areas around Hanoi. This was ironic, and I can recall thinking as we flew up that night how thankful I had been, back in 1960, when I transitioned to the 8-52, that I was flying the 8-52E instead of those tired old D models. And here I was, taking four waves of those old Ds, twelve years later, to the toughest targets we had ever attacked! Another change we made that night was to vary the altitudes we flew at. We were attacking the Hanoi railyards, while the wave which came in from the northwest was attacking a target just three miles away! True, they were at a different altitude than we were, but we were attacking simultaneously. The targets being struck by the two Southern waves, one from the southeast and one from the southwest, were only seven miles away, and they too were being struck simultaneously. The biggest fear we had was one of the bombers in the high waves being hit and falling through our wave.

At this point, I’d like to go back to the beginning of the Linebacker II campaign. It was eight days before Christmas, and a lot of the crews were scheduled, through normal rotation, to go back and spend Christmas with their families. In addition, we had worked out a plan whereby we could send extra crews home by doubling up on some of the flying. Well, when the word on Linebacker II came down, I had to call a meeting of all of the aircraft commanders. I told them that everyone was restricted to the base, that they were not going home, that they were not allowed to make any telephone calls, and that we were going to fly some extremely important missions.

Well, I had seventy-some crews, and as is normally the case, four or five were DNF (Do Not Fly) because of colds sinuses, or other minor ailments. The first question I got after breaking the news was; “Sir, those of us that are grounded . . . do we have your permission to try to talk the flight surgeon into letting us fly?” Well, that showed me a lot, and before the campaign was over, they gave me many more reasons to be proud of them. There were three 8-52 wings participating in Linebacker II. The 43rd, which I commanded, the 307th, which was based at Utapao RTAB, and the 72nd, also based at Andersen. The 43rd and the 307th were the “D” wings, while the 72nd flew the “G” models. During the entire operation, I did not have one guy who refused to fly, and when it was all over, we had the lowest loss rate of any of the B-52 wings. Naturally, we wanted to know why and conducted a “Monday morning quarterback” session after the campaign was over.

We had stressed mutual protection, distaining the hellacious types of manoeuvres some guys were making in an attempt to dodge the SAMs. You can’t dodge a SAM. At least, not in a 8-52. A lot of guys thought they could, and a lot of them tried. But we stressed basic air discipline, keeping the formation together. This takes a lot of guts because the miss distance the system is designed to give you makes it virtually impossible to tell if the SAM is going to fly right up your nose or miss you. So for a bomber pilot to keep boring in, straight and level when the SAMs are all around, takes a lot of intestinal fortitude. That’s not the same as a fighter. In a fighter, you could wait until the missile was within about a click of you, then break down into it. In a 52 you couldn’t do that . . . the aeroplane couldn’t take much of that kind of G force. So I told my troops: “If you break formation to dodge a SAM, I’ll court-martial you!”

Now, that didn’t go down too well at first, but after about four days they were coming to me and admitting that it was the best way . . . we were losing fewer aeroplanes, and getting our bombs on the targets better. Now, if a guy starts dodging SAMs, he not only highlights himself, he degrades the ECM effectiveness of the formation. We recovered one crew that was shot down, and the pilot admitted that he had been breaking left every time a SAM was fired at him. The first night he got away with ii, and thought he had the answer. Well, on the third night the SAMs were heavier, and he kept breaking left until he was about five miles out of the formation. He got zapped. Now, we did manoeuvre some, but it was a very gentle manoeuvre, and it kept the formation together. One of the advantages of the D model manifested itself here. We gave the tail gunners Aldis Lamps, and with their radar, they could pretty well tell where the trailing bomber was. When we manoeuvred, the gunner would flash his lamp to let the following 8-52 know which way to turn. And, if we kept the formation together, the burner cans of the eight engines would be visible to the trailing 8-52. This made a great attitude indicator, and we got so that we could make these manoeuvres and still keep the formation intact. This was no mean feat since many of those nights were moonless, and a lot of the guys were relatively low-time pilots. (1200 hours total time, with maybe 300 in the B-52) Now, you expect that kind of flying from a guy with four or five thousand hours, but to get it from inexperienced pilots is really fantastic! I attribute our success to their training, their native intelligence, and their attitude.

As for that training; at Andersen we had a requirement for two “over the shoulder” missions, one in the day and one at night, with an experienced aircraft commander and radar navigator, to make sure that he had the procedures down, before we let them go as aircraft commanders on their own. That was if he was doing good refuelling. A lot of the G and H model pilots had trouble transitioning. It was a much harder aeroplane to fly, particularly with bombs hanging on the external racks. And ii had less power than the G and H models, so the average guy might take three or four missions to get qualified in the D.

There was a significant change in attitude as the campaign progressed. Initially, I had a lot of guys come up to me and say; “Colonel, I don’t mind telling you . . . I’m really scared!” I’d have to tell them; “Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger, friend!” And here is where the value of having the wing commanders fly the missions really paid off. I’m from the old school. I believe a commander should be in the thick of it, leading his troops.

We, as high-ranking officers, had a lot of information that the enemy would dearly have loved to get and, normally speaking, we should never have been allowed to fly. But we discussed it, and decided that the value of the information was not as important as the morale factor which our flying would have. On every mission that we launched, we had an airborne mission commander, who had to be a full colonel and a deputy airborne mission commander. We took our turns on these missions, the duties being split between the Wing Commanders, their Vice Commanders and the DCOs.

The low point, attitude-wise, was just before the Christmas stand-down. We had lost a lot of aeroplanes, and then giving the enemy a chance to get set for us on the 26th really had the guys worried. But our tactics were more effective than we could have hoped they would be. By the night of the 28th, we noticed that the SAMs were far less accurate. They would launch them in salvoes, and they appeared to be unguided, coming up and going every which way. By the 29th the crews were saying; “Don’t stop now! We’ve got this thing won. Another week of this, and we can go up and do it in the daylight!”

The pilot of one of the crews who was shot down, and later recovered, told me how he was shot down. They were within seconds of bombs away when they picked up the SAM launch. This was the most critical part of the bomb run and they knew if they wavered, their bombs would be off target. They had all of the electronic indications that the SAM was indeed aimed at them, and in fact, they picked it up visually. It never wavered for a second . . . its relative position in the windscreen was constant as the rocket motor exhaust grew larger and larger. They knew it was going to hit them . . in fact, one of the calls on the intercom just before it hit was; “This one’s gonna get us!” It did. Just after bombs away. But they put their bombs on the target, and that’s what I call “guts”. Fortunately, they were able to bail out, and were recovered later.

The tremendous attitude of the crew was matched by the support people. Many times I saw bomb loaders or maintenance men work their own shifts, then stay on to help their buddies on the next shift. and when we took off on those missions we often had 15,000 airmen out there on the line, cheering us on. It was a tremendous team effort, and I can’t tell you how impressed I was by those young kids who, sensing the importance of these missions, and knowing how many lives were online, really worked their hearts out for us. It was a historic chapter in aerial warfare, and I’m glad to have had the chance to participate.

The mission of December 26, 1972 was a turning point in the Linebacker II campaign. It was a turning point for the B-52 crews because the tactics greatly enhanced their effectiveness, allowing them to penetrate the enemy defences with less chance of getting hit. It was a turning point for the North Vietnamese because it delivered a psychological blow that they were not equipped to handle.

The B-52 had long been one of the most feared weapons by the North Vietnamese. Colonel Robinson Risner, a POW of the North Vietnamese for seven years, stated that the enemy was not afraid to fight the fighter-bombers. The fighters came in low. They could be seen, and the enemy could fire at them with small arms. Even if they didn’t hit the fighters, they could see them and they felt they were able to resist. The B-52s came over at night, and at high altitudes. Often the enemy never knew he was under attack until the bombs started falling. And the bomb load of a B-52 is awesome. (Up to 60,000lbs in the D model. )

On the night of December 26, 117 B-52s hit their targets within 13 minutes. It was a cataclysmic experience for the North Vietnamese. One of the POWs later told General McCarthy that he had observed an enemy guard during the raid. The guard was standing in the compound staring at the sky. He had dropped his rifle and was shaking like a leaf, and he had wet his pants.

Major William F. Stocker flew the lead B-52 on this raid, and he was awarded the Silver Star for leading the mission. I interviewed him at Offut AFB, and these are his recollections of the mission; “During the Christmas stand-down, we didn’t really know if we would have to go back to war or not. We were all hoping that they would get together at Paris, and come up with some sort of an agreement. On Christmas night General (Colonel at the time) McCarthy invited several of us to his home for dinner. We all enjoyed a really nice dinner, and we were relaxing over a drink afterwards when the guests began to thin out. General Anderson was the first to go. He was the Division Commander, and we were still pretty busy recycling aircraft and crews, so we didn’t think much of it. Then Colonel McCarthy got up and announced that he was going to have to leave also. He urged us to stay as long as we liked, and to help ourselves to his bar . . . “All except you, Stocker. You’re coming with me. ”

When we got outside he broke the news to me that we would be going back to Hanoi the next day, and that I would be leading the mission and he would fly with me. He asked me to go down to the DOX (the planning area), and to look over the mission profile. If I saw anything that should be changed, I should get back to him and iron it out.

I’ll never forget the feeling of incongruity as I worked with the planners that night. I had dressed for the social occasion, and was wearing white slacks and shoes and a brightly coloured shirt I had made in Thailand. I was a sharp contrast to the uniforms around me, and the contrast highlighted the urgency of this mission.

The complexity of the actual attack created heretofore unheard-of logistics problems. The number of aeroplanes going required a massive logistics effort. We had never sent a raid that large at one time, and we didn’t have a briefing room large enough to hold all of the crews. As a result, we had to use several facilities, and the briefers had to go from one to the other, giving their portion of the briefings. Food service had never had to prepare that many flight lunches at one time, and they really had to work long and hard to accommodate all of us. Just to taxi that many aeroplanes at one time . . . to keep them all in the proper sequence, and to make sure that spares were in position to go if an aeroplane aborted, was a major feat of planning.

Normally, we made a rolling take-off, turning the corner from the taxiway and starting right into our take-off run. But since I was leading, and they had sterilised the runway, allowing absolutely no traffic, I requested permission to taxi into position and hold, awaiting my time out. They granted it, and in a minute or so before we took off, I was treated to the sight of one of the most awesome armadas ever assembled. As far as we could see there were B-52s lined up nose-to-tail. It’s difficult to describe the feeling of leading such an array of power.

Shortly after take-off, I heard a good friend of mine, who was trailing me on the launch, call an emergency. Captain Jerry Goodman called in with two engines on fire. Naturally, he had to abort, but the ordeal of the next few hours matched anything he would have gone through in the target area. He was diverted out over the ocean to burn off fuel and get down to minimum landing weight. (We had no provision for dumping fuel. ) During his orbit the other two engines on the same side caught on fire, and he had to shut them down. He got permission to jettison his bombs into the ocean, and did so. As is so often the case, one problem was compounded by another shortly thereafter. As he was cranking in the rudder trim to hold against the four dead engines, it broke! This is very rare . . . I had never heard of it happening, but our aeroplanes were old, and the corrosive atmosphere of Guam didn’t help in trying to maintain them in top condition. He and his co-pilot adjusted their seats for maximum leverage, and between them managed to stand on the rudder pedal hard enough to keep the aeroplane flying straight. (Not an easy job . . . there is at least 80 to 90 pounds of pressure. )

The people at Andersen talked it over and, considering the possibility of his dinging it on the runway, and concerned about all the returning aeroplanes they would have to recover, decided it would be best if he bailed out and let the aeroplane go. Jerry argued against this and convinced them that he could land it safely. When he was down to the minimum landing weight, he began his approach. (Minimum landing weight in the 8-520 is 280,000 pounds ).

At one time it had been considered a real bad idea to try to land the 8-52 without flaps . . . there just didn’t seem to be enough runway available to get one stopped without them. But eventually, someone had to try it, having had an engine blow up, which damaged the flaps and made them inoperable. After he got down, he reported that it was not nearly as bad as it was made out to seem, and that if he had to land with three or four engines out on one side, he would prefer to do it flaps up, since he would have less drag and more power to work with. Well, they did some studies on that, and decided that he was right. The technique was installed as an optional procedure.

Jerry was flying a D model, which has less available power than any of the 8-52s. The book says it doesn’t have enough power with four engines out to make a go-around if you get below 2000 feet AGL. On his first approach, Jerry was too high and too hot, but rather than force the landing, he coolly made the decision to go around before he descended below 2000 feet. On his second try he got it down and stopped safely. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for a superior piece of airmanship.

We had a set air refuelling area which, due to political considerations and civil air routes, could not be changed. In all of our previous missions, the position of the sun had not been a problem or, if it was, the area was large enough to allow slight alterations of the tracks. But with a strike this large, there was no room for manoeuvre, and we were forced to refuel into the sun. I had anticipated the problem and had made myself a cardboard shade, with a window cut in it, to block out the sun. By leaning a bit to one side I was able to get my gas without too much trouble, but we were very concerned about how the young crews would handle this situation.

Well, they handled it tremendously well, and I didn’t have a single plane that didn’t get his gas.

A little by-play that occurred during the launch illustrated the size of the force, and the time required to get it airborne. As I was in departure, a commercial airliner called Agana Approach Control. (Agana is the commercial airfield on Guam, and was the only other concrete available, so they were holding it open in case of emergencies. ) His conversation went something like this; “Agana approach, this is Pan Am flight so and so. Request landing instructions, over. ” “Pan Am, this is Agana. Descend to one zero thousand, proceed south and orbit at 70 miles, 180 degree radial, Agana, and say your endurance fuel. ” “Agana, this is Pan Am. We have . . . ah . . . three and a half hours fuel . . . Do you have an emergency? . . . How long a delay can we expect?” “Pan Am, this is Agana. You can expect up to a three-hour delay. No emergency. Tactical considerations!” His reaction was spontaneous and unprintable.

Our first big decision on whether to abort the mission was caused by tanker problems. A tanker cell which was supporting the bombers was delayed 20 minutes because of an emergency situation at Kadena. By all rights, this should have caused a mission scrub for one or two of the bomber cells. We felt that, going up against the targets we were attacking, it was of the utmost importance to have all of our briefed bomb tonnage. We had taken off one minute apart, five minutes between cells, (three aircraft) in order to spread the force out for refuelling. After refuelling we had to fly a complex series of boxes, which took about an hour, to get the force back together. The 20 minute delay on the aborted tanker cell could have been enough to destroy the timing. (Author’s note: Remember that 117 B-52s were over their targets within 13 minutes, which required exquisite timing.) Well, we did some quick and dirty flight planning, and Colonel McCarthy ordered the second wave leader to adjust his refuelling schedule to rendezvous with follow-on tankers. It worked and the aborted tanker cell finally made it off and took the second wave leader’s instructions to complete an effective offload. The second wave leader was a Major LeBar, and it is to his credit that he got his cells refuelled and back into the stream at the proper time, and in the proper sequence.

The force was together now, and we chased the setting sun westward. When it finally went down, we were confronted with a beautiful, clear, starry sky.

After nearly six hours of flying, we finally reached the coast of South Vietnam, and turned northward. As soon as we passed the DMZ, we began to get indications on the ECM gear that the enemy radars were looking at us, so we knew they would have ample warning in the target areas. We were flying almost due north, splitting the Gulf of Tonkin. I looked out the right front windscreen, and there was Hainan Island lit up like a Christmas tree. I said: “Gee, we’re awfully close to that dude!” I was thinking out loud, and I remember that when I had flown my 100 F-4 missions, we had always avoided Hainan because the Chinese would launch MiG-1 9s out of there to engage us if we got within their controlled airspace.

The navigator must have sensed my concern because he came back with; “Naw, we’ve got plenty of room”. Out in front of us was the coastline of China. It too was lit up, and you could pick out all the little coastal towns, gleaming like a string of gems in the clear night air.

On our left was the coast of North Vietnam and, as we watched, we could see that the F-111s and A-6s had begun their attacks on the SAM sites. All of a sudden, you would see a flare-up of AAA, then the bombs would go off. I knew their times on target, and as I consulted my watch, it was comforting to note that they were right on time. The Navy had guaranteed us that they would keep the SAM sites around Haiphong busy. We had replied with; “Fine, but don’t work them over too hard . . . they’re lousy shots, and if you get them all, they might be replaced by someone who is better!”

We cut short of the Chinese coast and headed inland.

When we got to the northeast railway, we cut to the south and headed for our target, which was the Hanoi railyards, right across the street from Gia Lam Airport. We could really tell when we had reached the SAM lines, for they started coming up almost faster than we could count them. A SAM launch at night is quite a sight. There was a low undercast, so we couldn’t actually see the ground. What we would see was a flash of light under the clouds, which was greatly diffused and spread by the clouds. It was almost like an explosion. Then, pretty soon, you would see this ball of fire come up through the clouds, accelerating at an amazing rate. You knew then that it was a SAM. What you didn’t know, and often couldn’t tell until it was too late, was whether or not it was ticketed for you, and, because of the convergence of the different waves, there was a startling number of them visible to us. I was pretty busy flying the aeroplane and keeping the cells together with the radio, so I didn’t have time to get too worried about them. Colonel McCarthy, riding in the IP seat just behind and between the pilots, had time to count them . . . for a while. By the time I made my 180 seconds to bomb release call, he had counted 26 in the air, visible to us in the windscreen. He gave up after that . . . they were just coming up too fast. We saw some triple-A, but it really didn’t concern us too much . . . it just wasn’t that accurate. In fact, we were almost glad to see it. For some reason, they never seemed to fire AAA and SAMs at the same time, so when we saw the AAA, we knew we were getting a breather from the SAMs. They came close though. One that we didn’t see coming couldn’t have missed us by more than 1 0 feet. It was just suddenly there and gone, but for a few seconds it was literally as bright as daylight in the cockpit. We were just damn lucky that the thing apparently malfunctioned and didn’t go off when it was supposed to.

The intercom communications during the bomb run and just before and after made an interesting contrast with the first few missions. When we first went to Hanoi, getting a SAM shot at you was enough to raise everyone’s voice a few octaves, and often you would hear the EW blurt out something like: “PILOT! SAM TWELVE O’CLOCK THREE RINGS COMING THIS WAY!!!” On the night of the 26th, I remember a call that went something like this; “Uh . . . Pilot, SAM . . . five o’clock, three and a half rings . . . uh . . . no biggie, press on. ” And on the bomb run, if you didn’t know better, (by looking outside) you would have sworn you were on a normal RBS back in the States. The guys were cool personified as they commented; (Looking at the radar scope) “Yeah, there’s the target . . . there’s the offsets . . . OK, no sweat. ” I guess it just goes to show you that you can adjust pretty quickly to any situation if you’ve had the training and experience.

But the strain sometimes manifested itself in spite of what a guy showed outwardly. My navigator had been in headquarters and had not been on a crew for about six years until he came to Southeast Asia. He had been on my crew for about five months, and it was apparent that he had not lost any of his expertise, because he did an outstanding job as lead navigator. As we came off the target that night, he called; “Pilot, left turn, two six zero. ” Well, 260 degrees was to the right, of course. So, to jab him in the butt a little bit, (We were the same rank, and were often ribbing each other about our respective jobs. ) I said; “You mean RIGHT TURN don’t you Nav?” . . . “No, DAMMIT! I said LEFT TURN!” . . . “Uh, Nav, You want me to make a 360-degree turn to come around to two, six, zero?” . . . pregnant silence . . . “Uh, well, do whatever you want to!” . . . Nav, you want me to give you a rock to hold in one hand?” Well, that cracked everyone up, coming as it did, just as we came off the target, with SAMs whizzing through the air all around us, and it really broke some of the tension.

As we came off the target, the sky to the northeast lit up with a tremendous flare, as a B-52 blew up in the air. We knew we were losing some, without even hearing the calls. When you eject, your beeper locator beacon on your survival radio automatically starts transmitting on the guard frequency. As I said, I had been in fighters and had heard a few of them. But when you lose a B-52, and everyone gets out, there are six of them going simultaneously. And if you lose two or three in the same time period, the beeping is enough to drive you bananas! You can’t shut it out, and you know you’ve lost a big one. Every now and then that sound will come back to me . . . like a song that reminds you of an event . . . I guess it’ll haunt me forever.

While we were in the predetermined threat area, (a set of geographical co-ordinates) it was hard to keep track of all of my aeroplanes on the common radio frequency, since there was a lot of traffic concerning SAM launches, MiG calls, “I’m hit” calls, beepers, etc. So, based on my experience from my two previous Linebacker II missions, I came up with the following procedure: As each cell entered the threat area, they would go to a discreet frequency, which would allow the cell leader to keep track of his aeroplanes and to call threats that applied to them without interference. Upon leaving the threat area, they would go back to the common frequency and automatically check in with me. I asked them to keep it brief, and just give me: “As briefed, (if they had gotten their bombs on the target) out with three”. (If they had their cell intact. ) If they had lost one, or had some other problem, they were to elaborate. Well, they started checking in, and you could just feel everyone holding their breath as the reports came in. When the last cell checked in “as briefed, out with three”, and we knew that we had gotten all the bombs on the target without losing anyone, I exclaimed; “SHIT HOTI Let’s ake em’ home!” That really broke the tension, and you could hear all kinds of chatter up and down the radio net. After a few seconds, I asked them to cool it and we set power and climbed for our recovery altitude of 41,000, heading back to Andersen.

I was exhausted, and I gave the aeroplane to the co-pilot, settled back in the seat, and went to sleep. He woke me about three hours later, as we flew into the sunrise. We were pretty far back in the stream, due to our post-target position, and as far as we could see, over the horizon, there were sets of three contrails, crisscrossing as the cell navigators made their minute corrections. It was an impressive sight, and once again brought home to me the power of that raid.

The last Linebacker II sorties were flown on December 29, 1972. In the brief time that the campaign had lasted, the B-52s had dropped more than 49,000 bombs on the enemy homeland. They had destroyed or damaged over 1600 military structures and 373 pieces of railroad equipment. An estimated three million gallons of petroleum products were destroyed. The rail system was interdicted in at least 500 places, and imports from Russia and China were reduced from 160,000 tons to 30,000 tons per month Additionally, enemy airfields were interdicted in at least 1 O separate places. No B-52s were lost to MiGs, and 8-52 gunners were credited with two confirmed MiG kills. Fifteen 8-52s were lost during Linebacker II, (an overall loss rate of two per cent) and eight crewmembers lost their lives. Twenty-five crewmembers are still carried as missing in action. Thirty-three were captured and subsequently released.

The raids had taken their toll on the enemy defences. In the last two raids, no B-52s were hit, and it was apparent that they were bombing the enemy homeland with virtual impunity at the end of the campaign.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger stopped short of categorically crediting Linebacker II with ending US participation in the war, but not by much. In his words; “There was a deadlock which was described in the middle of December, and there was a rapid movement when negotiations resumed on the technical level on January 3, and on the substantive level on January 8. These facts have to be analysed by each person for himself”.