What You Need to Know: Operation Linebacker II, the "Christmas bombing" campaign of December 1972, was a significant effort by the U.S. to force North Vietnam back to peace talks. Employing over 200 B-52s and 1,077 tactical aircraft, the operation dealt devastating blows to strategic targets in North Vietnam.

-Though it led to the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, Watergate and reduced U.S. support hindered South Vietnam’s defense, culminating in a communist takeover in 1975.

-The campaign's success demonstrated the potential for a different Vietnam outcome if sustained U.S. support had continued.

Could Linebacker II Have Changed the Course of the Vietnam War?

Hard to believe as it may seem, it’s already been more than fifty years since the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps carried out Operation Linebacker II, the so-called “Christmas bombing” (exact dates December 18-29, 1972, with a single-day ceasefire on Christmas Day) of North Vietnam that drove the Communist regime back to the peace table. Contrary to the assertions of anti-American pundits in academia and the media, this operation nearly won the Vietnam War for the United States of America and its South Vietnamese ally.

Back during the actual fiftieth anniversary of Linebacker II, I was hoping to (1) publish a commemorative article in the publication I was writing for at the time and (2) convince the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to recognize the event in some way. Both of these efforts were for naught, but now’s as good a time as any to commemorate the upcoming fifty-second anniversary of the battle … which is rather poetically apropos considering that the B-52 bomber was the biggest player in this game.

The Mission

207 of those mighty B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers—nicknamed the “BUFF” (“Big Ugly Fat Fellow” in polite company, but “Big Ugly Fat F*cker” in reality)—embarked on the raid along with fourteen tactical air groups consisting of 1,077 aircraft of all types (including the F-4 Phantom II and F-111 Aardvark to name just a couple of examples).

In exchange for the loss of fifteen B-52s and twelve tactical aircraft shot down along with forty-three killed in action and forty-nine prisoners of war (POWs), the raids utterly devastated strategic targets in North Vietnam. As noted by Mark W. Woodruff in his excellent 1999 book Unheralded Victory: The Defeat of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army 1961 – 1973:

“Its antiaircraft system shattered, North Vietnam now lay defenseless to the American bombers, but the United States stopped the attack because there was nothing left worth attacking. Later, accounts began to surface from those with relatives in North Vietnam, who told them that ‘They were preparing white flags to surrender’ because they were convinced they were losing the war badly.”

For good measure, six North Vietnamese MiG-21 “Fishbed” fighters were shot down, including two by B-52 tail gunners Staff Sergeant Samuel O. Turner and Airman 1st Class Albert Moore.

American POWs at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison such as Medal of Honor recipient Admiral James Bond Stockdale noted how the raids blasted the arrogance out of their captors: “One look at any Vietnamese officer’s face told the whole story. It telegraphed hopelessness, accommodation, remorse, fear. The shock was there; our enemy’s will was broken.”

Meanwhile, Sir Robert Thompson, architect of the British victory in the Malayan Emergency anticommunist counterinsurgency campaign (1948-1960), was generally critical of the American war efforts, but lavished praise upon Linebacker II: “In my view…you had won the war. It was over! …They and their whole rear base were at your mercy.”

“Along came Kissinger and Tricky Dick/Hit ‘em where it hurt and it turned the trick/I’m an ever-lovin’ freedom-hooked Viet Vet”—Viet Vet by retired Lt. Col Dick Jonas, USAF.

The Aftermath (Short-Term and Long-Term)

Thus, as already noted, the North Vietnamese sued for peace, thus resulting in the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973, which in turn earned a joint Nobel Peace Prize for both Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (though the latter refused the prize).

Alas, thanks to Watergate, then-U.S. President Richard Nixon’s strong leadership on Vietnam didn’t last, and his successor, Gerald R. Ford, was unable to counter the Democratic-controlled Congress’ slashing of monetary support to Saigon, leaving our South Vietnamese allies stranded. The end result was the tragedy of the Communist takeover of Saigon that secured the North’s victory, the fiftieth anniversary of which took place this past April.

What Might’ve Been?

Maybe, just maybe, if the momentum from Operation Linebacker II and the resultant peace talks had been properly seized upon, and America was allowed to win, then the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) wouldn’t have fallen under the tyranny of the Communist jackboot, and perhaps a hypothetical present-day South Vietnam would’ve been analogous to the present-day Republic of Korea, a thriving free market democracy that makes its impoverished communist neighbor on the northern side of the demilitarized zone look like a joke by comparison. (In fairness, communist Vietnam did adopt the so-called “Doi Moi [innovation]” market reforms back in 1986, analogous to Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms for Communist China in the 1970s; however, both China and Vietnam remain communist countries, their longstanding mutual animosity notwithstanding.)

Maybe, just maybe, this could have prevented the mass murder of 2.5 million innocent South Vietnamese, particularly those of Han Chinese descent and/or those comprising Vietnam’s entrepreneurial class.

And maybe, just maybe, if the momentum from Operation Linebacker II and the resultant peace talks had been properly seized upon, the U.S. military wouldn’t have suffered a humiliating defeat—with insult added to injury by the knowledge that we’d won every major battle yet still lost the war—and the resultant loss of morale and reputation whose repair and healing didn’t start until the 1980’s Reagan administration and culminated in the George H.W. Bush administration’s 1991 Persian Gulf War (AKA Operation Desert Storm).

About the Author: Christian D. Orr, Defense Expert

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for the National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS)