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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04685 to 363-04695.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04685 to 363-04695
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Title
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Second article about Khe Sanh, focusing on US bombings
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Description
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Original title: "Air", Keever's title: "A Moonscape of U.S. Bomb Craters Marks Khe Sahn." Article draft about American aerial and bombing operations in and around Khe Sahn. 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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- Page 1
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Beverly Deepe
38. Vo Tanh; Saigon
Air-second of a three-part series
Page 1
(This is the second of a three-part series on past and present developments
in Khe Sanh).
KHE SANH, SOUTH VIETNAM, JUNE 12-A veteran American Army officer explained,
"As we flew over Khe Sanh, I couldn't believe my eyes. The bomb craters were
everywhere. It looked like a moonscape. I've never seen anything to equal it."
MREA
American Air Force pilots who remembered the San the Khe Sanh valley
last fall as a "Shendandoah Valley type of thing untouched by the war" now
966900
talk of its red pockmarks gorged out by 100 tons of bombs during the 77-day
Pilot
siege of Khe Sanh, "Now, it's just been beat to hell," one explained. We've
dropped so many bombs it is difficult for me to get an B eight-digit coordinate to
give my exact position on the grid system of the map.
re-routed because of the bomb craters, especially north of Hills 881 and 861. "
And,
Even the streams are became
some Air Force pilots, only half-jokingly, re-numbered Hill 471 to Hil1469,
denoting their assumption they had gouged two meters off of its peak.
-more
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- Page 2
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Deepe
Air-page 2
BECAME
The magnitude of the air operation--called Operation Niagara-because so massive it
befoggles the human mind. During the 77-day siege period, 96,000 tons of
bombers were dropped from 27,000 sortie runs-one plane on one d airstrike mission.
This averages 400 fighter-bomber sorties a day dropping 13,000 tons days daily-most
of it concentrated in a 25 square mile area around Khe Sanh. The 77-day total was
roughly equivalent in tonnage to five atomic bombs of Hiroshima vintage. It was
33 per cent greater than all American bombs di delivered in Europe during 1942 and
1943 combined. While the B-52 eight-engine B-52 bombing raids were not innovations
around Khe Sanh, it was the first time the strategic bombers were used on such a
sustained basis for the tactical supporter of American troops. The sheer weight of
American bombing around Khe Sanh has lead some air proponen advocates to a sse assert,
"Khe Sanh will probably go on down as the first major ground action won entirely or
almost entirely by airpower. There has never has been anything like it in the history
While many concede that Khe Sanh would have been lost without
declarin
of warfare...."
fighter and supply aircraft, some are more cautious in aserting that airpower
virtually won the battle.
-more R
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- Page 3
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Deepe
Air-page 3
Was American firepower-air plus artillery-decisive in convincing the North
Vietnamese to call of a ground assault on Khe Sanh, or in forcing them to withdraw
partially?
"Some pr NVA prisoners and captured documents spoke of the weight of
bombs and artillery," one informed source explained. "If these are ty-i typical
and if there's any authenticity in them, then it would follow the air and artillery
bombardment to an extent never seen before had a tremendous effect. But, was it
the reason they didn't attack? I don't know.
None of us will probably know for a
long time and even then we won't know definitely. A Hanoi will probably
come up with some face-saving reason like we distracted your troops and then
did something else'."
said,
How many NVA were killed in the air and artillery bombardment Again, the source
"I don't know. You can use the General Westmoreland formula based on the number
of secondary explosions witnessed by aimen and then say one or two NVA were killed
in each secondary. Or you can calculate maybe three or four more vere hurt.
But, we do know there were roughly 5,000 second explosions around Khe Sanh spotted
by American aerial observers, pilots or ground troops. Maybe we can say there were
three casal casualties--one killed and two wounded-for each explosion of supplies.
That's 15,000 people-or more than an NVA division. You can play this numbers game
forever. I don't know."
-more
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- Page 4
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Deepe
Air-page 4
presenting
, Captured NVA prisoners and documents do is present some glimmers into the
life of the Communist troops who felt the weight of bombs: suggests it was a tiring,
if not ghoulish, experience.
-was
One captured document describes the beginning of the Khe Sanh siege and subsquent
Communist activities. The dairy-notebook, believed to belong Nguyen Quoc Cuong,
who was thought to be a platoon commander.
in Chinese characters--follows:
Selected excerpts from his notes-some writte
January 21-enemy aircraft (helos, jets and B-52's) covered the sky. Our unit
is still in position waiting for the enemy. At what time the enemy will arrive is
unknown....
January 21-mission is to evacuate the wounded and dead. The enemy are not all
killed. They still hold tight positions in their trenches and bunkers (son-of-bitvhes).
bitches). So we did not win this battle. But, our unit has learned a good lesson.
January 22-attack the hoc and Ku Bac areas with 12 units. The enemy was defeated.
The defeated enemy was a brave unit.
Have been
January 23-24-The enemy haven't returned to recover their bodies.
waiting for three days for their return. Only planes fly over the sky. I led the
platoon into the Khe Sanh fort compound (Editor's note: an old French fort near Route 9)
and picked up captured loot....In the village among the captured loot, there is rice
win which is very strong. Only one glass of this wine makes us drunk. We do not have
much time, but we still enjoy canned meat and candy found in the village.
--more
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- Page 5
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Deepe
Air-page 5
January 2we have been waiting for three days.
January 27-Today, time is getting close. Three more days and we attack.
My family at home is gathered together to celebrate the attack. We are still in position
AWA.N
awaing the attack order. According to an evaluation by 8/3, the enemy can reinforce
with a cavalry division. The battle is going to be bad, but we must defeat them.
Ho Chi Minh's now (lunary) new year speech is a true ideal, "Co ae advance; victory
will come to us."
January 27-The enemy brought in troops and planes and attacked over 20 times.
But our troops still held their positions--these events will be written in the
memory of C-12.
January 28 TET-mother should think of me and love me very much. Planes disturb
us greatly. All day long we wait for the enemy.
January 29-...A B-17 plan has been flying overhead all day, so we had to stay
in the trenches.
30 Tet is over... (and) all we can do is stay in the trenches and sleep....
February 1-last night, air and artillery strikes last all night long. They
fired artillery like fireworks....According to the NFL NLF (the Vict Viet Cong Southern-
borne Viet Cong), today battles battles are all being fought all over the place. But
those NLF people I don't know about. There has been seven kinds of enemy aircraft
striking heavier all day.
February 2Today, no planes in the sky...Only waiting for a C-130 to arrive and
then we'll shoot it. 1200 hours, had victory information from down South. It filled
my body like flies in the sky. Hue city has already been liberated and we occupy the rad
station. At Danang, we are still in battle. I think the war will soon be over and
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- Page 6
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Deepe
Air-page 6
February 3-Today, our unit received the order to withdraw from the
battlefield and turn over this area to another unit. Our regiment will go to another
place to take part in another operation. Some of the troops do not feel happy. They
can not continue to fight this battle.
February we are still on the operation and the road is very hard to travel.
There are bomb craters everywhere.
February 5lle have dug fortifications all day long. The ground is hard...
Moment to moment we feel tired. Finally, we resat rest and eat rice with milk....
February 6This afternoon was used to resupply armo for the unit. between
the night of the 6th and the morning of the 7th, -155, the unit opened fire on Lang
Veit (Editor's note: the government Special Forces camp that was overrun with the
use of Soviet-made tanks)....
February 18-MSTEM TROMBshi Yesterday at 2000, went to the
battlefield storage area...the enemy discovered this storage three days ago...
The heavy bombing of jets and B-52 explosions are so strong our lungs hurt....
This document was captured by the 9th Marine Regimen Regiment on April 5 near
from
Hill 471, a kil mile west of the Khe Sanh base camp.
---more
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- Page 7
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Deope-
Air-page 7
Interrogations of prisoners also reflected a sizeable impact of from American
firepower.
One American intelligence officer sumed it up this way:
"One prisoner said his regiment replaced one that had been 90 per cent wiped
out by B-52's. He didn't know for sure whether this was true, but that was the
rumor in his regiment. He said everyone was worried about the B-52's...Another
prisoner said his unit was very, very afraid of the B-52's and that more morale
was bad because of them. More than anything else, the B-52's seemed to terrify them.
"We captured one letter written by an NVA trooper saying 'the filthy B-52S
Other POW's said many troops suffered
B-52's have been striking at us again'.
from bleeding noses and ears and maybe also internal damage caused by the concussion
waves of the B-52's.
Also, American ground troops which sept the area and are
continuing to sweep the outlying hills found a number of mass graves of dead NVS
NVA and there was visible evidence of the B-52's causing damage to supply caches."
During the siege, it became an exception, rather than the rule, when
low-flying pilots reported catching a large number of the NVS NVA in the open and
wiping them out with airstikres, airstrikes. It did happen occasionally. One
forward air controller recalled:
flying the low-altitude spotter planes, recalled:
"One day, my roomate and I were flying in separate planes. He radioed M me? 'we've
got the NVA in the open! I looked down and radioed back, 'No, I think they're
Marines. They have helenets on.' He said he'd go swoop down and check. As he
descended, the NVA waved at him--and when he was komix in range, they satr started
shooting at him. He got hit, but still pulled up and called in the fighters to
get most of them."
_more
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- Page 8
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Deepe
Air-page 8
A
But, one forward air controller, described his targeting missions as a "frustrating
experience." He was Capt. Gerald L. Harrington, 28, of Sm Sumter, South Carolina. KNO
He probably flew more FAC missions over Khe Sanh than any other pilot. "I knew that
area as well as I ne knew my wife," He explained. He had been assigned to the DMZ
area last September, then assigned to the "Tallyho" missions over North Vietnam,
then, in January, again ordered into the Khe Sanh area.
"Every day, I went up there and put bombs in on the NVS NVA and the next day
they're still in there digging trenches," he explained. "It appeared at one time
we were actually dropping bombs on them and helping them dig trenches at the same time.
They would simply dig through our bomb craters and keep on going-our bombs didn't
seem to slow them down at all....They were digging trenches like moles. When we
Coppe
dropped a bomb in one trench, it didn't stop them. We usually dropped at the terminal
end of the trenchline too, where they put their covered bunkers. The next day, I'd
see they went right on through our bomb crater. It was very frustrating....After awhile,
the area became so bombed up that the NVA just walked through the bomb craters and
the NEXT DAY.
I could see the footprints in the holes or if the bomb crater had cut a road, I could
see the tracks around the crater."
more
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- Page 9
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Deepe
Air-page 9
He continued, "It was easy to find targets. I had the biggest surprise.
Once I didn't go up (in the FAC plane) for three days, and after that puas
pause, it was unbelievable what I saw. If The trails looked like thousands of
troops had moved into the area-and they made no attempt at all at camouflage. They
k new we knew--and they had so many troops they didn't care. To find the targets,
the first thing you look for is troops movement, the second is billeting and
bivouack areas, things like mashed down grasses, like Indian Scouts watched for.
Semetimes they camouflaged their trenchlines and I could tell the camouflage from
foliage from the real foliage. If I had doubts I'd drop down and take a look.
Que
Sometimes we'd known knock down the trees with out bombs and then I'd go down and
see what was under them."
Sometimes, he, like other FACE pilots were called assigned to esta
estimate the "bomb damage assessment" (BDA) following a B-52 raid. The pilots
of the small, two-seat planes generall ha generally had to wait thirty minutes
after the raids before the dust settled d enough for them to take a good look at the
target area.
HE SAA
"If you've seen the World War II pictures of London and Berlina Ba B-52 raid
gives you the same impression, except they're not in the cities. If our intelligence
reports are accurate enough, then the B-52 gives gourmmosim overwhelming results.
But, sometimes, our intelle intelligence isn't as accurate as we'd like.
He continued:
"I'd like to say I saw 1000 NVA out in the open and they wee
all disappeared in a bombing raid-but it was nothing like that. Most of the times
I never estimated a bodycount on the 400 missions I flew around Khe Sanh. But,
I frequently listed destruction such as bunkers, getting secondary explosions,
trenchlines or road cuts.
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- Page 10
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Deepe
Air-page 10
"I made only BDA following a B- B-52 raid near the Co Roc mountain in Laos.
Frankly, I couldn't see it had done any damage at all. I just estimated that 85%
of the bombs were on target and there was neglible bomb damage because of smoke and
foliage. Of 400 missions over Khe Sanh, I can't recall an outstanding
bomb damage assessment, though some of the other FAC's reported seeing
catching the NVA out in the open." He said one of the problems in assessing
damage caused by a B-52 raid was the bombing power was so concentrated and
"destructive" if it did eliminate a valuable target, it would disintegrate and
Sec
en Existed.
No
FAC pilots wouldn't even be able to know that it had been hit.
The FAC pilots directed one of the three types of bombing missions over Khe Sanh--
•WHICH
the tactical fighters who needed good weather to visually drop their bombs, sometimes
right next to the American Marine trenchlines.
Khe Sanh were by this means.
About 40 per cent of all sorties over
The second type of bombing was called ground-controlled radar bombing. The
Air Force codename for it is "combat skyspot." The Marine Corps name is "TPC-10."
This system was used largely at night, by the B-52 bombers four to eight miles above
the target, and by regular fighter aircraft during the many days of
heavy cloud
cover and fog over Khe Sanh.
the ground-controllers directed the aircraft over the target, gave the pilots
Using wire mesh radar reflectors and electronic beacons,
which signalbed when the
plane crews a countdown of 5-4-3-2-1 and then "mark",
LINES.
bomb-loads were dropped! (Radar scope electronics built into the B-52 bombers was
considered too risky to use since the terrain features around Khe Sanh looked much like
hills in the general area). However, dxk on several occasions during the
ing the siege off
Khe Sanh, the ground-controlling apparatus was knocked out for short durations--which
Employed
eliminate complete assurance this system would could have been employed be counted on
at all times.
more
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- Page 11
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Deepe
Air-page 11
This "Skyspot". system is used extensively by the U. S. Air Force in its
North Vietnam bombing raids, but informed sources say with far less accuracy than
around Khe Sanh because bembing on target chances of bombing on target diminish
the further the plane travels from the ground-based radar mechanism. mechanisms.
The third type of bombing was exemplified by the A6 Intruder, a two-man,
sub-sonic, all-weather attack aircraft, which boo boasts of an "integrated
this translates AS.
attack-navigation system"--which means computerized bombing from "little black boxes"
within the individual aircraft, rather than depending on ground-controlled radar.
The plane,
CAS
one of the most so newest and most sophisticated in the aviation field,
1 the Grumman version competitor to the TFX; when the Air Force rejected it,
the Navy and Marines bought it. One Several nights during the dark siege-nights
at Khe Sanh, General Tompkins called the superior Marine Headquarters in Danang
and requested the Marine squadron of whenitr entire Marine squadron of Intruders
to be kept on all-night alert. If the NVA had assulated assaulted the
Khe Sanh during bad weather, and had succeeded in keepint keeping the ground radat
AND
controls knocked out, the Marine squadrer of Intruders and Navy squadrons PARINE
Intruders would have provided the most accurate bombing around the base camp.
at
The Combat CASE.
--end
(Hank: You'll probably either want to edit the NVA diary, or separate it and use it
as a box or something. I've included it almost in its entirety because it is the only
first-hand evidence I could get on the NVA reactions at Khe Sanh).
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Date
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1968, Jun. 12
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Subject
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Khé Sanh (Vietnam); Khe Sanh, 2nd Battle of, Vietnam, 1968; Tet Offensive, 1968; Vietnam War, 1961-1975; United States. Air Force; Bombing, aerial; Bombardment
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Location
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Khe Sanh, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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16.6193; 106.7323
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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
