Word: 52s
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Allies have been hitting the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese reinforcements where they live (see map), seizing enemy stockpiles of rice and salt and weapons. Even in the enemy redoubts where ground forces have not yet penetrated, the threat of the bombs from high-flying Guam-based B-52s, falling like rain from a silent sky, haunts the Communists' sleep, keeps them on the move...
Route to the Interior. The airfield itself will be ready this summer, large enough to hold at one time three squadrons of fighter-bombers, 20 KC-135 jet transports, one squadron of air-defense fighters and 120 C-123 transport planes, not to mention the B-52s which could fly from its extra-thick runways. Sattahip's fuel pipeline system will eventually extend to Korat, where the U.S. Army's 9th Logistical Command has already stockpiled enough guns, tanks, trucks and ammunition for a full division. U.S. and Thai engineers are constructing the Bangkok Bypass, a strategic highway...
...most likely explanation: in severing Hanoi's rail links to China, the U.S. was hitting so uncomfortably close to home that every defense had to be employed. Under the high drama of last week's dogfights, the workhorse bombers were busy as ever. Guam-based B-52s unloaded 300 tons of high explosives on the Mu Gia Pass infiltration route into South Viet Nam; Navy jets hit a SAM site near Vinh and sank 248 junks moving men and arms south by convoy. Whether the MIG commitment could partially turn that aerial tide remained to be seen...
Fertilizer Deal. In fact, allied air force commanders in South Viet Nam can draw from ample stockpiles of bombs-though some specific categories, notably 750-pounders, which B-52s have used so effectively against Viet Cong entrenchments, are in short supply. Officers in the field concede that the U.S. has recently cut back on some of its "preplanned bombing strikes"-missions that are called on the slightest suspicion of Communist military activity in an area. However, military men in Saigon say they might have curtailed those raids anyway, since they were not causing enough measurable damage to be worthwhile...
...south. The bombs sent huge avalanches cascading into the pass, blocking the vital artery. As a bonus, some of the bombs were equipped with time fuses set to explode days after impact and thus inhibit digging-out operations. The word was that from now on, the B-52s will be used over the north whenever needed. Taking advantage of the traffic piled up behind Mu Gia by the avalanches, U.S. planes periodically bombed and strafed stalled convoys, sending gigantic fireballs into the air and, in one raid, destroying 42 trucks-a record number...