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To add conventional bomb capacity, Project Big Belly modified all B-52Ds to enable them to carry 30 tons of conventional bombs. By mid-April 1966, all B-52Fs were redeployed back to the U.S. and were replaced by Big Belly-modified B-52Ds. [citation needed] Later in the Vietnam War, the B-52G was also deployed with the B-52D. [2]
Another 212 B-52 missions were flown within South Vietnam in support of ground operations during the campaign. [97] Ten B-52s were shot down over the North and five others were damaged and crashed in Laos or Thailand. Thirty-three B-52 crew members were killed or missing in action, another 33 became prisoners of war, and 26 more were rescued. [98]
Head, William H. War from Above the Clouds: B-52 Operations during the Second Indochina War and the Effects of the Air War on Theory and Doctrine. Maxwell Air Force Base AL: Air University Press, 2002. Nalty, Bernard C., Air War over South Vietnam, 1968–1975. Washington DC: Air Force Museums and History Program, 2000. ISBN 978-0-16-050914-8
The United States Air Force (USAF) Strategic Air Command (SAC) B-52D Stratofortress (serial number 55-0103) of the 4252d Strategic Wing had a full bomb load and broke up and caught fire after the aircraft aborted takeoff at Kadena Air Base while it was conducting an Operation Arc Light bombing mission to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. [4]
On the same day, at precisely 16:00, B-52's first wave of carpet bombings fell about 7 kilometers west of LZ X-Ray while the 32nd Regiment held its positions at 12–14 kilometers. [82] At 16:30, Brigadier General Knowles, 1st Air Cavalry Division Forward, landed at the LZ X-Ray to announce the withdrawal of the 1/7th Air Cavalry Battalion set ...
The bombing campaigns of the Vietnam War were the longest and heaviest aerial bombardment in history. The United States Air Force, the U. S. Navy, and U. S. Marine Corps aviation dropped 7,662,000 tons of explosives. By comparison, U. S. forces dropped a total of 2,150,000 tons of bombs in all theaters of World War II.
During the Vietnam War, B-52D tail gunners were credited with shooting down two MiG-21 "Fishbeds". On 18 December 1972 tail gunner Staff Sergeant Samuel O. Turner's B-52 had just completed a bomb run for Operation Linebacker II and was turning away when a Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) MiG-21 approached. [178]
The first mass B-52 raid directed against the north was conducted on 10 April when 12 B-52s, supported by 53 attack aircraft, struck petroleum storage facilities around Vinh. [31] By 12 April, Nixon had informed Kissinger that he had decided on a more comprehensive bombing campaign which would include strikes against both Hanoi and Haiphong.