On November 11, 1968, the United States military initiated Operation Commando Hunt aimed at stopping the flow of men and supplies through the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. Operation Commando Hunt lasted until March 1972 and consisted of bombing and strafing air attacks on enemy targets inside the thickly forested Ho Chi Minh Trail. Throughout the war, the U.S. military launched similar aerial operations (Steel Tiger, Tiger Hound) on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, all of which ultimately proved unsuccessful. From the outset, U.S. military planners viewed these campaigns as incapable of completely stopping infiltration, but were meant to inflict as much destruction to the logistical system and tie down as many North Vietnamese units in static roles. In this way, it was hoped that North Vietnam would be forced to abandon the route. To counter the U.S. air attacks, which intensified as the war progressed, North Vietnam massively fortified the Trail system, which eventually was bristling with 1,500 anti-aircraft guns. Supply convoys also traveled only at night to lessen the risk to U.S. air attacks.
Because the United States used massive air firepower, North Vietnam, eastern Laos, and eastern Cambodia were heavily bombed. U.S. planes dropped nearly 8 million tons of bombs (twice the amount the United States dropped in World War II), and Indochina became the most heavily bombed area in history. Some 30% of the 270 million so-called cluster bombs dropped did not explode, and since the end of the war, they continue to pose a grave danger to the local population, particularly in the countryside. Unexploded ordnance (UXO) has killed some 50,000 people in Laos alone, and hundreds more in Indochina are killed or maimed each year.
(Taken from Vietnam War – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia)
Ho Chi Minh Trail Throughout the war, the United States launched other aerial operations (Steel Tiger, Tiger Hound, and Commando Hunt) on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to try and stop the flow of men and materiel from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, but all of these ultimately proved unsuccessful.
Over the course of the war, the Ho Chi Minh Trail system expanded considerably into an elaborate network of small and wide roads, foot and bike paths, and concealed river crossings across a vast and ever-increasing area in the eastern regions of Laos and Cambodia. With 43,000 North Vietnamese and Laotian laborers, dozens of bulldozers, road graders, and other road-building equipment working day and night, by December 1961, the Trail system allowed for truck traffic, which became the main source of transporting men and supplies for the rest of the war. Apart from construction crews, other units in the Ho Chi Mnh Trail were tasked with providing food, housing, and medical care, and other services to soldiers and transport crews moving along the system. To counter U.S. air attacks, which intensified as the war progressed, the Trail system was massively fortified with air defenses, eventually bristling with 1,500 anti-aircraft guns. Supply convoys also traveled only at night to lessen the risk of U.S. air attacks.
But because of the U.S. air campaign, American bases came under greater threat of Viet Cong retaliatory attacks. Thus, in March 1965, on President Johnson’s orders, 3,500 U.S. Marines arrived to protect Da Nang air base. These Marines were the first U.S. combat troops to be deployed in Vietnam. Then in April 1965, when the U.S. government’s offer of economic aid to North Vietnam in exchange for a peace agreement was rejected by the Hanoi government, President Johnson soon sent more U.S. ground forces, raising the total U.S. personnel strength in Vietnam to 60,000 troops. At this point, U.S. forces were authorized only to defend American military installations.
Then in May 1965, in a major effort to overthrow South Vietnam, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces launched attacks in three major areas: just south of the DMZ, in the Central Highlands, and in areas around Saigon. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces repulsed these attacks, with massive U.S. air firepower being particularly effective, and in mid-1965, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces retreated, and the danger to the Saigon government passed. By that time also, President Johnson agreed to the U.S. military’s request and sent more troops to Vietnam, raising the total to 184,000 by the end of 1965. More crucially, he now authorized U.S. forces to not merely defend U.S. facilities, but to undertake offensive combat missions, in line with American military doctrine to take the war to the enemy.
Meanwhile in June 1965, South Vietnam’s political climate eased considerably with the appointment of Nguyen Cao Ky as Prime Minister and Nguyen Van Thieu as (figurehead) Chief of State. The new South Vietnamese regime imposed censorship and restrictions on civil liberties because of the unstable security situation, as well as to curb widespread local civilian unrest. In 1966, Prime Minister Ky quelled a Buddhist uprising and brought some stability to the South Vietnamese military. Ky and Thieu were political rivals, and after Thieu was elected president in the 1967 presidential election, a power struggle developed between the two leaders, with President Thieu ultimately emerging victorious. By the late 1960s, Thieu had consolidated power and thereafter ruled with near autocratic powers.
During the Vietnam War, the United States, which soon was joined with combat forces from its anti-communist allies Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines, began to take direct command of the war in what was called the period of the “Americanization” of the war, relegating the South Vietnamese military to a supporting role. Nevertheless, President Johnson imposed restrictions on the U.S. military – that it was to engage only in a limited war (as opposed to a total war) that was sufficiently aggressive enough to deter North Vietnam from attacking South Vietnam, but should not be too overpowering to incite a drastic response from the major communist powers, China and the Soviet Union.
The United States was concerned that China might intervene directly for North Vietnam (as it had done for North Korea in the Korean War), or worse, that the Soviet Union might invade Western Europe. A consequence of U.S. policy in Vietnam to not incite a wider war with China and the Soviet Union meant that U.S. forces could not invade North Vietnam, and that U.S. bombing missions in North Vietnam were to be screened so as not to kill or harm Chinese or Soviet military personnel there or destroy Chinese and Soviet assets (e.g. ships docked at North Vietnamese ports). Thus, U.S. ground forces were limited to operating in South Vietnam, where subsequently nearly all of the land fighting took place. Even then, the U.S. high command was confident of success, and General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, predicted American victory over the Viet Cong/NLF by the end of 1967.
To achieve this goal, the U.S. military employed the “search and destroy” strategy (which was developed by the British in the 1950s), where U.S. intelligence would locate large Viet Cong/NLF concentrations, which would be destroyed using massive American firepower involving air, artillery, infantry, and in some cases armored, units. U.S. military planners believed that the use of overwhelming force would inflict such heavy losses that the Viet Cong would be unable to replace its manpower and material losses, ultimately leading to the defeat of the southern insurgency.