The Air Force was was responsible for air support
during battles, air rescue and extraction...
USAF
involvement in Vietnam began as early as 1950 with support for
the French Armed Forces. After the French were defeated and had
left the country, the major powers of the day and representatives
of the Indochinese peoples gathered in Geneva, Switzerland and
Indochina was separated into the new countries of North and South
Vietnam, while also creating Laos and Cambodia. South Vietnam
became a republic and North Vietnam, under the leadership of Ho
Chi Minh became another Communist nation. At the same time, the
U.S. sponsored the creation of an eight-nation Southeast Asia
Treaty Organization (SEATO) to protect Cambodia, Laos, and South
Vietnam from the spread of Communism fearing the well espoused
“Domino Effect”.
Shortly thereafter North Vietnam declared its intention to reunite
the country by use of military force if necessary. By 1961 The
USAF was actively involved in training and advising in the field
the South Vietnamese to defend their new homeland and had further
begun to perform reconnaissance missions over Laos due to North
Vietnams incursions into Laos. North Vietnam began to improve
the Ho Chi Minh Trail which was a network of paths that worked
through the mountains and jungles of Laos and developed as a method
to attack the Japanese during WWII. During this period the USAF
developed night tactics using SC-47s to drop flares and by 1962
tests had begun on tactics to defoliate the jungle in an attempt
to deny the enemy cover. The results of this defoliation tactic
have had many long-term and unexpected results on both US forces
and the local peoples.
With the attack on the USS Maddox in August of 1964 by the Viet
Cong, for the first time direct US action was ordered and US Navy
planes attacked torpedo boat bases in North Vietnam. This also
resulted in USAF jet aircraft being sent into South Vietnam for
the first time.
