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Stephen Browne
Mrs. Ziminski
English 12
11 April 2011

Operation: Rolling Thunder

Throughout our bleak history there have been many eras of wartime, and
hardship. Among these, the Vietnam War was one of the most gruesome and brutal. This
violent battlefield was also the first to be recorded and shown on national television. This
is the cause of much of the controversy that symbolized the Vietnam War. The American
public received much knowledge of the war and what was happening there on a day to
day basis. With that, came many disgruntled feelings towards some of the actions
performed by the American Armed Forces. Among these controversial actions was
Operation Rolling Thunder. In March 1965, under Operation Rolling Thunder, the
United States began the Bombing of North Vietnam. Its aim was to destroy the economy
of the North (Johnson 1) The choice to implement Operation Rolling Thunder
changed the Vietnam War and raised many questions about why the U.S. was really there.
Operation Rolling Thunder was the name given to Americas constant bombing
campaign against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Operation Rolling Thunder
was a demonstration of Americas near total air control during the Vietnam War. It was
started in an effort to demoralize the North Vietnamese people and to put down the ability
of the government in North Vietnam to govern. Operation Rolling Thunder was first
approved by the government, and officially started on February 24th 1965. The first attack

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did not occur until March 2nd though. On this day 100 US and VNAF planes attacked an
ammunition base at Xom Bang. The bombing campaign lasted until October 1968,
despite the fact that it was meant to have been, no more than an eight-week campaign.
(Tucker 4) This relentless attack on the Vietcong was the first sustained assault by the
United States on North Vietnam. This represented a major expansion of U.S. involvement
in the Vietnam War. The Operation Rolling Thunder campaign gradually expanded in
both range and intensity. At first, the air strikes were restricted to the southern portion of
North Vietnam, but U.S. leaders eventually moved the target area steadily northward to
increase the pressure on the Communist government. By mid-1966, American planes
were attacking military and industrial targets throughout North Vietnam. The only areas
considered off limits for the bombing raids were the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong and a
10-mile buffer zone along the border of China (History Channel 2). Shortly after the
operation began in 1965, Johnson sent the first U.S. ground troops to fight the Vietnam
War. Although their initial mission was to defend air bases in South Vietnam that were
being used in the bombing campaign, the troops soon found themselves engaging in
active combat with the Vietcong.
At first the idea of Operation Rolling Thunder seemed flawless due to North
Vietnams deficient Air Force, but all too quickly we were proved wrong. The following
excerpt explains:
North Vietnam did not have much of an air force, its leaders managed to mount an
effective defense against the bombing raids. With assistance from China and the Soviet
Union, the North Vietnamese constructed a sophisticated air-defense system. Using

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surface-to-air missiles and radar-controlled anti-aircraft artillery, the Communists shot
down hundreds of American planes over the course of the bombing campaign. (Wright 5)
North Vietnamese leaders also took a number of other steps to reduce the impact of the
American bombing raids. They constructed networks of bombproof tunnels and shelters,
for instance, and also dispatched crews by night to rebuild the roads, bridges,
communication systems and other facilities struck by bombs. Also, the Communists used
the destructive air strikes for propaganda purposes to increase anti-American sentiment
and patriotism among North Vietnamese citizens. The sustained bombing of North
Vietnam lasted for more than three years, with occasional brief interruptions. Johnson
finally halted the campaign on October 31, 1968, in order to pursue a negotiated
settlement with the Communists.
Historians have different assessments of the strategic value of Operation Rolling
Thunder. Some claim that the bombing campaign came close to crippling North
Vietnam's capacity to wage war. However, critics also say that the campaign's
effectiveness was limited. They argue that, rules of engagement put in place to avoid
provoking Communist China and to minimize damage to Hanoi and Haiphong made it
impossible for the U.S. air strikes to hit a number of important targets, including air
fields, shipyards, power plants and oil storage facilities (Stolley 3). They also believed
that U.S. leaders failed to coordinate the bombing campaign in North Vietnam with the
ground operations in South Vietnam.
Three months after being elected president, Lyndon B. Johnson launched
Operation Rolling Thunder. Unlike the single bombing raid in August 1964, this time the

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raids were to take place on a regular basis. The plan was to destroy the North Vietnam
economy and to force them to stop helping the guerrilla fighters in the south. Bombing
was also directed against territory controlled by the NLF in South Vietnam. The plan was
for Operation Rolling Thunder to last for eight weeks but it lasted for the next three years.
In that time, the US dropped 1 million tons of bombs on Vietnam. As a result from the
massive amounts of bombings and increased involvement in the war, many Americans
began to protest. Under Johnson, the Vietnam War cost the United States almost 6,000
lives and 350,000 wounded casualties. It also resulted in from one to two million
Vietnamese deaths. In the end, Operation Rolling Thunder did more to hurt our cause in
Vietnam than it did to help the situation. The destruction was unneeded and symbolized
the failure of the United States during this War.

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Works Cited

Johnson, Larry. "Operation Rolling Thunder." GlobalSecurity.org - Reliable Security

Information. Web. 29 Apr. 2011. <http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops
rolling_thunder.htm>. Web.
Operation Rolling Thunder. 2011. The History Channel website. Apr 26 2011, 1:38
http://www.history.com/topics/operation-rolling-thunder. Web.
Stolley, Richard B. Turbulent Years The 60s. Virginia: Timelife, 2003. Print.
Tucker, Spencer. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: a Political, Social, and Military
History. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.
Wright, David K. "Operation Rolling Thunder." JCS Group, Inc. - Utility, Building and
Excavating. U.S. Troops. Web. 29 Apr. 2011. <http://www.jcs
group.com/military/war1964/combat2.html>. Web.