You would think that years of bombing would cripple a nation, the rolling roar of thunder enough to force them to surrender against the power of the United States. Not the North Vietnamese, read on to find out just how and why this operation failed.
Operation Rolling Thunder Definition
Operation Rolling Thunder was the secret name which the United States used to refer to their bombing campaign against North Vietnam. It was their first assault on North Vietnamese territory, and its primary aim was to lessen the ability of the communists to be effective in the battle against their South Vietnamese counterparts. By destroying infrastructure and transport links through strategic bombing, they hoped to avoid large-scale involvement on the ground.
Operation Rolling Thunder Date
Operation Rolling Thunder began on the 2nd March in 1965. It gradually increased and went on for three and a half years until November 1968. Why did the United States feel the need to bomb such a faraway land? We need to rationalise Operation Rolling Thunder within the context of the Cold War.
Operation Rolling Thunder Background
Before we can get a clear picture of Operation Rolling Thunder and the extent of the US bombing campaign, we should examine some more key definitions.
Domino theory
The belief, popular in the United States during the start of the Cold War, was that if one nation-state fell to communism, then its neighbour would also be under threat of communist influence and invasion. The phrase was first coined by President Eisenhower in 1954.
Vietcong
Vietnamese soldiers who were loyal to the Communist North. They waged guerilla warfare (warfare fought by small units through ambush) throughout the jungles of South Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and the United States.
The United States had been keeping an eye on the situation in Vietnam ever since The Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 when the French decisively left what had been Indochina. Presidents such as Eisenhower believed in the domino theory. As such, they were extremely paranoid that should one country fall to communism, so may the surrounding others. This concern was heightened because of Vietnam's proximity to communist China and the Soviet Union. The United States had been propping up the South Vietnamese government with weapons and advisors since the mid-1950s. They had also been using toxic herbicides such as Agent Blue and Agent Orange that would destroy crops to cripple the Vietcong.
What was the trigger for America's escalation of the Vietnam War?
n August 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident provided President Johnson with the flimsy pretence that he required to escalate United States involvement in Vietnam. It is said that North Vietnamese boats commanded by Hanoi fired two torpedoes on US military boats. How this actually occurred has regularly been questioned. However, the effects of it cannot be. It gave Johnson the alibi to launch a full-scale conflict, passing the ability to retaliate against North Vietnamese forces through Congress.
By November and December of the same year, the United States had begun bombing targets in Laos and Cambodia. These were part of the infamous Ho Chi Minh trail, which allowed the North Vietnamese to transport supplies to their Vietcong allies in the south. To nurture these concerns, Johnson was careful with how he used the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The way (the United States government) portrayed Hanoi as the aggressor effectively created a linguistic cocoon which enveloped the speakers and their listeners in a skewered sense of reality.
- Moya Ann Ball, 'Revisiting the Gulf of Tonkin crisis: an analysis of the private communication of President Johnson and his advisors', 19911
The philosophy behind Operation Rolling Thunder had a similar rationale. It would reduce the possibility of transportation and may bring Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader, to the negotiation table.
President Lyndon Johnson.
With the Vietcong assault on a US airbase at Pleiku in the Central Highlands in 1965, they had another example of North Vietnamese aggression to help mould their narrative. So how did an operation that should have lasted eight weeks end up lasting three and a half years?
Effects of Operation Rolling Thunder
It is widely agreed that Operation Rolling Thunder was a failure for the United States. But why? Surely, they had the might to bomb the North Vietnamese into submission? We can understand the effects of Operation Rolling Thunder by looking at three key issues.
| Factor | Effect |
| The stop-start campaign | Though the notion of Rolling Thunder was to cause the collapse of Hanoi's war effort through the destruction of infrastructure, this was never achieved. The US had specific military and industrial targets but never committed to sustained bombings, always maintaining the false hope that the North Vietnamese would come to negotiate a treaty to legitimise a capitalist South Vietnam. After the first bombings in 1965, it was two weeks before the raids resumed. |
| The Soviet Union and China | Another factor that minimised the effectiveness of the operation was the support that communist China and the Soviet Union provided to North Vietnam. This curtailed many of Johnson's aims. He was unwilling to directly target important northern cities, such as the capital Hanoi and the port of Haiphong, along with a buffer zone by the Chinese border, as seen in the graphic below. In addition, the US was unwilling to risk attacks on bases with Surface-to-Air missiles (SAM) and other sophisticated anti-aircraft systems of Soviet origins, as it could risk Soviet deaths. The other unforeseen effect of Rolling Thunder was that the more tonnes of bombs the US dropped, the more justified Hanoi's requests for military equipment and assistance became. |
| United States aircraft | The United States primarily used F-105 and F-4 planes during Operation Rolling Thunder. These were ineffective against the Soviet MiG and the changeable South East Asian conditions. The F-105 was particularly poor, with the Air Force losing more than half of its fleet by the end of the operation. Unfortunately, this accounted for 75% of the strikes.2The best all-weather plane (B-52) could only be used under very specific conditions, due to Johnson's regulations. Again, the Soviet and Chinese anti-aircraft bases came in handy for the North Vietnamese, with their radar technology making low-flying planes easy pickings. |
It is clear to see that Operation Rolling Thunder was ill-conceived. When it finally ended in November 1968, the US were on the back foot and had a large military presence on the ground who were not used to the climate or guerilla warfare.
Map depicting the lack of sustained threat from United States targets in North Vietnam, including the buffer zone with China.
After failed bombing campaigns and the Tet Offensive, public opinion back home had begun to turn.
Operation Rolling Thunder Facts
With that in mind, let's dive in to see the extent of the mission and understand the facts that defined it.
The United States spent around $900 million on the campaign and only caused around $300 million worth of damage.
Almost 900 US aircraft were shot down.
There were a total of 150,000 attacks against North Vietnam by the US Air Force during the operation.
643,000 tonnes of bombs were dropped during Rolling Thunder by the United States. The total for the entire Vietnam War was more than World War II and the Korean War combined.
There were 52,000 casualties, 30,000 of which were civilians.
New President Richard Nixon resumed the bombing of Cambodia in 1969 and subsequently Vietnam in 1972.
Given the lack of progress that the United States made during Operation Rolling Thunder, these figures are staggering. During the campaign, the US Air Force also made use of Agent Orange, Agent Blue and napalm, a chemical agent that is extremely flammable. Each had a terrible impact on the environment, destroying crops and causing deformations in future generations.
F105s in Operation Rolling Thunder.
Operation Rolling Thunder Summary
How could Operation Rolling Thunder have gone so wrong? Well, the numbers show it wasn't through a lack of effort from the United States. In fact, Wilson asserts that the failure of the US to adapt pragmatically to the new Vietcong guerilla soldier is what cost them above the other factors we have discussed.
American leaders incorrectly assumed that an enemy fighting by unconventional means could be defeated with a conventional military response.
-Stephen W. Wilson, 'Taking Clodfelter One Step Further: Mass, Surprise, Concentration, and the Failure of Operation Rolling Thunder', 20013
Certainly, an enemy that is practically invisible cannot be targeted. In a new theatre of war, brute force was not enough.
Operation Rolling Thunder - Key takeaways
- Operation Rolling Thunder was a stop-start bombing campaign over targets in North and Central Vietnam between March 1965 and November 1968.
- It had a huge financial and human cost.
- The Operation was borne out of President Johnson's desire to stop North Vietnamese resistance, cut off their supplies and bring them to the negotiation table.
- It was unsuccessful due to a combination of factors including its stop-start nature, the looming shadow of Chinese and Soviet aid and the quality of United States aircraft.
- The failure of the United States politicians to adapt to their unconventional opponents continued to cost them after the operation as Nixon continued bombing when he came into office in 1969.
References
- Moya Ann Ball, 'Revisiting the Gulf of Tonkin crisis: an analysis of the private communication of President Johnson and his advisors', Discourse & Society, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1991), pp. 281-296.
- John T. Correll, 'Rolling Thunder', Air Force Magazine, (1 March 2005).
- Stephen W. Wilson, 'Taking Clodfelter One Step Further: Mass, Surprise, Concentration, and the Failure of Operation Rolling Thunder', Air Power History , Vol. 48, No. 4 (Winter 2001), pp. 40-47
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