Unique military arts in 1972 air-defense operations to protect Hanoi

PANO – In late 1972, the situation in the South was complex and peace negotiations in Paris were tense. The USA tried to resort to military power to improve the situation in South Vietnam and put pressure on our negotiators at the Paris peace negotiation. To realize its plan, the USA opened Operation Linebacker II, using 193 strategic bombers B52 and 1,000 tactical aircraft to strike Hanoi, Hai Phong and several other Northern cities. But Northern military and people did a miracle when shooting down 81 US aircraft, including 34 B52s (16 B52s crashed down on the spot,) captured a number of US pilots live, defeated a US large scale strategic airborne operation, forcing them to sign the Paris Peace Accords on ending the war in Vietnam and making a very important contribution to South liberation and unification of the South.

A missile ready to be launched in 1972. Photo: Archived photo

Our victory over the US air operation on Hanoi, Hai Phong and other Northern cities in 1972 demonstrated the unique military arts of the Vietnamese Army in general and Vietnamese Air-Defense and Air Force in particular. The unique military arts are stated as follows:

Uniqueness in preparing the battlefield

In the process of drawing up the plan to fight against B52s, what caused a headache to the leadership of the Air-Defense and Air Force was how to deal with the conflict between the operational principle and operational requirement. The operational principle defined that our forces had shoot down enemy bombers before they bomb to safely protect the target while the operational requirement was to shoot down B52s on the spot to gain advantages when negotiating with the US and Saigon Government at the ongoing negotiations in Paris.

Evidently, it was much better to shoot down B52s before they could bomb the target. But that was an impossible task as B52s often bombed at the altitude of 10km while the service had only three missile regiments. With a small number of missiles and radars systems, the farer the missile units were deployed way from each other and the protected targets, the more difficult for them to shoot down B52s.

Finally, the leadership decided to prioritize the operational requirement. That is to say, the missile units were deployed near the protected targets to fire at B52s when they were bombing.

Implementing the plan, our missile units concentrated in the main and important directions. With the deployment, the capacity of the force was multiplied. With the force deployment, which was later called the “B52 fighting force deployment,” our missile units shot down up to 16 B52 on the spot.

Uniqueness in using force

When Uncle Ho was alive, he forecast that the USA would sooner or later use B52s to attack Hanoi and he instructed the army and people to defeat the US Army in the Hanoi space. But in late 1972, the missile force had only thee regiments as mentioned above. Against this backdrop, the High Command of the Air-Defense and Air Force decided that missiles were only used to fire B52s, and that the anti-air artillery and gun force was used to protect our missiles and fight other aircraft. Under the decision, the service had enough missiles to shoot B52s.

Uniqueness in force preparation and deployment

Suffering a heavy loss, the enemy had to change the operational tactic. From the night of December 21^st, they conducted only 30 bombings in other Northern cities, namely Hai Phong, Thai Nguyen and Lang Son, and the periphery of Hanoi. However, the service’s High Command believed that was a deception. In fact, the enemy tried to draw our missile units out of Hanoi to protect other cities and then launch surprise massive attacks on an unprotected Hanoi.

Grasping the enemy’s plot, the service’s High Command posted more missile units to Hanoi. As predicted, from 9.49 pm, December 26^th, to 11.12 pm, the enemy conducted 66 bombings of the B52 and 70 strikes of the tactical aircraft on Hanoi. They attacked from three directions: Northwest, Northeast and Southwest. Due to our good preparation and appropriate force deployment, our air defense force shot down 8 B52s and dozens of tactical aircraft.

So with the timely force deployment, the air defense force mobilized the most force to defeat the enemy in the main battlefield.

Uniqueness in maneuvering missile force

One of the principles of the air-defense force is to relocate missile units after each battle when the missile positions were unveiled. But in the 1972 Hanoi-Hai Phong anti-air operations, all missile units were deployed near the protected targets so there was little space for the force to prepare reserved fields for missile systems. Therefore, after each battle against B52s, missile units moved to residential places to hide. With the approach, enemy reconnaissance and tactical aircraft could not detect our missiles in the fields. But when it got dark, the time of B52 operations, our missiles were quickly moved to the battlefields to fight B52s. and that was another uniqueness of the Vietnamese military arts in the 1972 Dien Bien Phu in-the-air campaign against the US Air Force destructive war on Hanoi.

In fact, during the US Linebacker-II airborne operation in 1972, the US concentrated a large number of its advanced aircraft in a short time in an attempt to ruin Hanoi, discourage our army and people and gain advantages in the peace negotiations in Paris. But they were defeated by our army and people with high resolve and fighting spirit, creativity and resourcefulness. The “Hanoi-Dien Bien Phu Airborne” Victory has entered the national history but it still serves as a valuable experience for our army to successfully fulfill its current mission of firmly protect the Fatherland.

Written by Pham Duc Truong