"Target Hanoi" Topic

"On 10 May 1972 US Air Force and Navy planes resumed their attacks on targets in North Vietnam, following a bombing pause lasting more than 3˝ years. That day Air Force F-4 Phantoms delivered set-piece attacks on two targets in the vicinity of Hanoi, one of them with the newly developed ‘smart' weapons fitted with electro-optical and laser-homing heads. This article describes these actions and the force package tactics employed by the attacking planes. An important innovation during this war, from the point of view of historians, was the installation of a tape recorders in combat aircraft; the action conversations reproduced in this article all come from this source.

During the US Air Force raids on North Vietnam in the spring of 1972 the attacking planes flew from bases in Thailand. The F-4 Phantoms configured as bombers came from the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ubon; the Phantoms configured for reconnaissance and air-to-air combat came from the 432nd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing at Udorn; and the EB-66 radar jamming planes, F-105F ‘Wild Weasel' defence-suppression aircraft and EC-121 Warning Star airborne command and control planes came from the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Korat. Rescue and recovery planes to pick up crews who had been shot down came from the 56th Special Operations Wing at Nakhon Phanom, whilst the KC-135 tankers that supplied fuel for the high-speed jets before they entered enemy airspace and as they withdrew came from U Tapao and Don Muang.

On 10 May the Air Force's targets were the important Paul Doumer Bridge over the Red River, immediately to the east of Hanoi, and the nearby Yen Vien railway sorting yard. At 7.30 a.m. that morning the initial wave of seven KC-135 tankers (six aircraft required, plus an airborne reserve) began taking off from U Tapao each carrying 75 tons of fuel. As this was happening, an RF-4C Phantom conducted a weather reconnaissance of the Hanoi area; its coded radio report of clear skies over the targets allowed the preparations for the attacks to go ahead…"
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