The Air Force History and Museums Program has prepared accounts of
the United States Air Force and the war in Southeast Asia according
to a design that reflects the compartmentalized nature of the
conflict itself. Besides the special studies like the illustrated
history (The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973:
An Illustrated Account) and the monographs, some of them quite
lengthy, on topics like rescue or tactical airlift, the Air Force
history program has published volumes on the air wars over South
Vietnam and Cambodia, North Vietnam, and Laos. This book is the
last of three recounting operations in Laos, one of them dealing
with the war in the northern part of that kingdom and the other two
with aerial interdiction in the south. This history covers the
critical years from 1968 through 1972, when the Air Force carried
out the Commando Hunt series of aerial interdiction campaigns
against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos, trying, in
conjunction with ground actions, to use air power and electronics
to impede the movement of men and supplies from North Vietnam to
the battlefields of South Vietnam. Conducted during the time the
United States was withdrawing ground forces and turning the war
over to the greatly strengthened armed forces of South Vietnam,
Commando Hunt sought to prevent a North Vietnamese offensive that
would take advantage of the declining U. S. presence. That attack
did not come until March 1972 and not only stopped short of
overrunning South Vietnam, but also was a setback for the Hanoi
government and a cease-fire agreement. The invasion, however,
signaled the end of Commando Hunt, for the South Vietnamese did not
take over the electronic surveillance network-with its computer,
sensors, and communications equipment-that made the series of
aerial interdiction operations possible. "The real war," said Walt
Whitman, "will never get in the books." Yet, even though they
cannot conjure up the realities of death and suffering, heroism and
sacrifice, books like this have a purpose, offering the counsel of
the past to help today's policy makers. What useful principle can
they derive from an account of the events of a few years in a
unique part of the world? Stripped of all that links it to a
particular time, place, and strategy, this narrative warns them
that a determined enemy may be able to use geography, climate, and
ingenuity to blunt the cutting edge of technology. Against such a
foe, what seems flawless in theory or has succeeded brilliantly in
tests may fail in actual combat, but what fails on one battlefield
may succeed years later on another. In the last analysis, military
genius does not reside in compiling lists of lessons learned, but
in analyzing the past and applying its distilled wisdom in new,
perhaps unique, circumstances.
General
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