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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04414 to 363-04422.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04414 to 363-04422
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Title
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Article about bombing raids in the Vietnam War
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Description
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Original title: "raids", Keever's title: "Communist-Hunted[?] 'Filthy B-52s' Moonscape Vietnam's Jungles." Article draft about the effects of bombing raids in the Vietnam War. Written for the Christian Science Monitor
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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raids 1 (normass/deepe)
SAIGON, AUGUST 23--Insiders call them HAP's repeat HAP's high-altitude
plows which furrow gruesome moonscapes in South Vietnam's jungles.
American ground commanders and troops call them by the codename of
"arc lights."
Captured Viet Cong documents have referred to them
as the "filthy B-52's", which attack Communist base areas from soundless,
invisible heights.
More frequently and in greater concentrations than every before
in the Vietnam war, General Creighton W. Abrams has been calling on
the eight-engine Stratofortresses to forestall, stop or roll back the
long predicted Communist ground offensive.
more reuter
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"General Abrams uses the B-52's
in a much different way than
one informed
General est (William C.) Westmoreland (his predecessor),"
source explained.
"Westmoreland used the B-52's more for political purposes.
Maybe one of his field commanders had not had a B-52 in his corps area
for weeks--so Westmoreland would give him a raid and then forget about
that area.
for sending out an
"But Abrams calls in wave after wave of B-52's for days on an
area where his intelligence people report a buildup of Communist
main forces. He uses the B-52's as a substitute
Army division to search through the area on the ground. Not long ago
a Viet Cong defector told Abrams' intelligence officers that an important
Communist conference was to be held in a certain area on a certain day.
About the time the meeting had been scheduled to begin, Abrams had
B-52 bombs dropping ten kilometers (six miles) on all sides of t
conference table."
RAT
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During the three-year period following the first B-52 raid in
South Vietnam on June 18, 1965, the huge bombers have flown 25,000
sorties (one aircraft on one flight) to Vietnam. During that time,
This total tonnage
they have dropped 625,000 tons of lethal bombs.
is the equivalent of thirty atomic bombs of the Hiroshima vintage;
but it is only one two-hundredth
the explosive power of the 10 tah
lethal 100 et megaton bomb recently detonated by the Soviet Union.
Generaleestmoreland once price-tagged
a B-52 raid at $30,000
repeat
30,000 dollars a sortie-- meaning the B-52 committment thus far has
totalled 750 repeat 750 min ab
==Bore reuter
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raids 4 (normass/deepe)
These days, between ten and twelve B-52 missions hit South
Vietnam or southern North Vietnam in a 24-hour period. Generally,
three aircraft--but occasionally more-comprise a mission.
GROUPINGS
Much of this
B-52 power is directed at Communist troop concentrations--and hence
many missions fall into patterms of concentrations in Communist
jungled be base areas and strongpoints.
These include the demilitarized
zone and Ashau Valley; the Kontum and Pleiku jungled region along the
Tayninh along an Binh Long and Hau Nghia provinces
Cambodian border;
bordering Cambodia in the Saigon area.
And more than ever,
an
occasional raid is being dropped into the Communist swampland zones
in the once-quiet Mekong Delta.
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raids 5 (normas//deepe)
In the Saigon area,
three or four missions are heard nightly,
causing windows and doors to rattle as though a tha miniature ou
ERUPTED
earthquake had occurred. The rumbling noise of the bombardment is heard
BY
first to the Saigonese-followed by the
slower-moving vibrations of the
shockwaves pulsating through Saigon's under-girdings, which causes the
flimsy buildings to quiver. Semin The maximum thre thirty-ton
bombload-called a "stick"--of each of the three planes in a mission can be
heard impacting separately. in three waves. Generally, 15 minutes 60
fifteen to twenty minutes later, another three-plane flight also begins
dumping its bombs. The missions into one geographic area are often
close together in time beezu because
A
all the airwaves under the
B-52 flight must be cleared of all other aircraft. A transport plane
carrying former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to Vietnam was once
delayed in the Pacific so that a a Guam-based B-52 mission could
proceed to Vietnam on schedule.
Sometimes the flashes of the strings of
bursting B-52 bombs can be seen from the hotel rooftops by Saigon's
"war watchers."
The closest raid to Saigon to date in the war has been
most of the raids these days are
ten miles from the center of the city;
a dozen or so miles from the capital; some raids as far as 30 miles from
MONSOON RANY
the city can be heard in Saigon during the proper weather conditions.
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raids 6 (normass/deepe)
During most of these missions, the B-52 Strategic Air Command
bombers are used against tactical-not strategic
targets, a quirk
in the Vietnam war that the B-52 pilots often discuss among
themselves.
"We hit very, very few strategic targets," one SAC commander explained.
"And even those are of a limited stateti strategic nature."
During the battle of Khe Sanh earlier this year, the eight-engine
jets were tactically used in direct support of American troops on a sustained
hasis,
another unusual utilization of the aircraft.
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raids 7 (normass/deepe)
The dust and debris from a B-52 raid am mushrooms more than a
half-mile in the air-sometimes floating there for half and hour; the craters
POUND
created by the individual craters created by the 500 or 750-bomb bombs are
so huge that
PULVERIZED
37-ton American caterpillars, clearing the jungles once
-DER-HODEN
bombed by the SAC planes, vanish into the elephantine holes without warning.
the war "a remote, automated flying up to six-
For the B-52 crews,
miles above Vitn Vietnam,
RADS
the war their automated, computerized bombing
runs seem remote from the ground war below.
"Most of our missions are just like training exercises," explained
Lt. Col. Edward F. Gehrke, Warner Robins, George Georgia (108 Nancelon
Circle), the home base of his
465th Bombardment Wing, now operating
"But, there's one difference. Over here,
once you realize you're carrying
out of southern Til Thailand.
SAC won't tolerate any mistakes. Also,
bombs into a high-threat area, it's not really an ordinary mission either."
Along the demilitarized zone with North Vietnam,
AND TRACKED
a SAC bomber has
is occasionally locke "locked-in") on Communist radar-controlled anti-aircraft
guns, but none thus far have been hit. The SAC bombers carry counter-o
dvices
electronic mesures to outfox Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles possi
positioned in south the southern part of North Vietnam. The huge bombers
ordinarily fly well above
despread automatic weapons and small
arms fire.
Thus far
combety o
tto in combat due to
mid-air two mid-air collisions,
= MORE Rentix.
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Thus far, none of the SAC bombers have been lost due to Vietnam
ono
combat. However, four have been lost in two mid-air collisionst
crashlanded at the Danang Airbase for mechanical reasons and was later
shell during
demolished by the first rotem of a Viet Cong rocket attack.
Some of the most stupri od persons
startled persons hearing a B-52
raid outside of Saigon were a visiting crew of B six-man B-52 crow.
1. Col. Gohrke, a B-52 pilot and SAC officer for 16 6 years,
was asleep in a small hotel outside noer Seigon's Tan Son Nhut airport,
when a B-52 redd desoon night raid descended on Long Anik and Hau Nghia
provinces, 16 miles southwost of the city.
"All of a suddon, I heard the doors rattling," the tell, confidont
colonel laughed. "I had no idea what was going ono I thought w someone
mom was knooking at the door and. I went to open it but no one was there."
During the one day Vietnam visit, of the six-man crew was transported
TAL.
in an Army holicopter to watch a B-52 raid outside of Saigon.
"Another thing that really surprised us when the helicopter engine
stopped,"
D.
the protem SAC pilot explained. "We heard the chopper pilot
radioing 'mayday mayday', meaning we were going to crash. We had just
watched the first SAC strike
and the chopper pilot was worried wo wouldn't
be ablo to-got out of the area whore the second strike was about to come in.
But,
then the ongine came back on and wo watched the second strike without
incident."
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Several
Some high-ranking Communist defectors have said that the Viet Cong
Quan-based B-52's
High Command used to notify them several hours before a B-52 raid
hit their bivouack areas The American military command here has
vigor emphatically denied this, although some news correspondents have
HAVE
reported fua Russian trawlers in the Pacific could possibly communicate
Sely
the transiting of the huge bombers across the oce enroute to Vietnam.
Some defectors described surviving a close B-52 raid as horrible experience,
collapsing underground tunnels and with
with the shock waves sounding like a typhoon, jungle trees wounding the
gaminx Communist fighters.
(Hank President Thieu is making a tv address tonight. If he says
or if there's more military action
anything of political importance,
overnight, we'll file a short story tomorrow. Harga Minami At this point
If there is a Tet-styled ground
the Saigon mood seepager is still usable.
offensive before August 28, you'd have to change the tenses. But, I think
it will hold up. Regards Bevlond router
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Date
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1968, Aug. 23
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Bombing, aerial; Bombardment; United States. Air Force; United States. Navy; B-52 bomber
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B10, F38
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
