On this day in 1972, American B52 Bombers for the first time dropped ordnance on North Vietnam. Although initially denying the operation, the United States government later confirmed that B-52s had targeted AA defences around 145 miles north of the DMZ. The SAM sites were described by U.S. officials as “…the most sophisticated air defence systems in the history of air warfare”
Presumably these air defences were not manufactured locally, given Vietnamese military technology had only recently attained the level of ‘matching black pyjamas’ for their armed forces. Suspicion was directed towards the Soviet Union regarding the supply of SAM missile batteries, compounded by the fact that 17,000 Soviet ‘missile technicians’ coincidentally happened to be vacationing in North Vietnam at the time.
Vietnam. The war voted Best Soundtrack by fans of wars.
history for morons 