1972
Vietnam War Timeline
1972 |
Vietnam War Timeline |
Dr Henry Kissinger, US National Security Adviser
"Peace is at Hand".
January
13 - President Nixon announce that US troops withdrawals will reduce US commitment to
69,000 .
29 - The RAAF 35 Sqn Caribou flights cease except a daily courier run to
Saigon.
February
13 - All RAAF No 35 Sqn Caribou flights cease and to the unit prepares to depart for
Australia.
19 - 4 Caribou aircraft from No 35 Sqn depart Vung Tau arriving at the Richmond Air
Base, Sydney on the 26 Feb 1972. During their tour of 7 years No 35 Sqn established an
outstanding record, having flown 80,000 sorties totalling 47,000 hours in the air, carried
more than 677,000 passengers, 36 million kg of freight and 5 million kg of mail.
29 - The last of the Australian troops depart Vietnam on HMAS Sydney.
March
2 April 1972, soon after it became apparent that a major Communist
effort was underway, President Nixon ordered his Pacific forces to strike that region of
North Vietnam nearest to the DMZ by air and sea.
17-3-72 Wallis D.A.B. Sig 3794885 110SIG 24 RASIG * At RGH Heidelberg . VIC .
24-3-72 Butlin R.R. Sgt 12890 102 F DWKSP 52 RAEME * At Camden Hosp. NSW
30 - North Vietnamese forces invade South Vietnam. The U.S. Navy gave its sister
service some of this additional time when the fleet sortied into Southeast Asian waters to
help stem the Communist Easter Offensive that began on 30 March 1972. This massive,
three-pronged enemy attack, which broke across the DMZ, through the Central Highlands, and
toward Saigon from the north, sparked an immediate American response. Seventh Fleet
cruisers and destroyers steamed into the coastal waters off I Corps and added their 8-inch
and 5-inch guns to the South Vietnamese defense of Quang Tri and Thua Thien Provinces.
Each day, between 15 and 20 U.S. ships poured fire into the ranks of the North Vietnamese
divisions striking for Hue. Navy and Marine Corps spotters ashore or in the air called in
heavy bombardment. On occasion gunfire support ships fired directly at enemy troops and
tanks on the beach. Expending thousands of rounds each month, 117,000 in June alone, the
fleet surface force was a prime factor in the successful South Vietnamese defense of Hue
and subsequent counterattack to retake overrun areas.
April
5 - US Air Force fighter bombers reinforce units in Thailand.
6 - US Admiral Moorer announces the resumption of aerial and naval bombardment
against North Vietnam.
During April, the first month of operations, the Seventh Fleet resumed the interdiction
campaign that ended in November 1968. Task Force 77 swelled to include five carriers, Constellation,
Kitty Hawk, Hancock, Coral Sea, and Saratoga (CVA 60). The
addition of Midway to the task force in May would make this the largest
concentration of carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin during the war. The air squadrons, massed
for multi aircraft strikes in Operation Freedom Train, hit key military and logistic
facilities at Dong Hoi, Vinh, Thanh Hoa, Haiphong, and Hanoi. Smaller flights attacked
enemy troop units, supply convoys, and headquarters in the areas around the DMZ. Also
taking part in Freedom Train were the fleet's gun cruisers and destroyers, which ranged
the southern North Vietnamese coastline, shelling transportation routes, troop
concentrations, shore defences, and Communist logistic installations. Joseph Strauss
(DDG 16) and Richard B. Anderson (DD 876) opened this renewed operation on 5 April
when they fired on the Ben Hai Bridge in the northern half of the DMZ. Then on the 16th
for the first time, cruiser Oklahoma City and three destroyers obliterated targets
on the Do Son Peninsula, which guarded the approaches to Haiphong.
From April through September, the cruiser destroyer group fired over 111,000 rounds at the
enemy, destroying or damaging thousands of bunkers and buildings; knocking out tanks,
trucks, and artillery sites; killing 2,000 troops; and sinking almost 200 coastal logistic
craft and 4 motor torpedo boats. In August, Newport News, destroyer Rowan
(DD 782), and naval air units sank two of the PT boats that attacked the American ships
off Haiphong.
| The battle for An Lộc began on April 13 with a North Vietnamese artillery barrage. At dawn the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong infantries attacked with support from Soviet-made T-54 and PT-76 tanks as well as American-made M-1 captured during Operation Lam Son 719. North Vietnamese tank crews, fresh from training centres in the Soviet Union, rolling into the streets of An Loc without their infantry escorts were destroyed amid the confusion by M-72 LAW rockets deployed by ARVN infantry. |
May
1 - Quang Tri City falls to the North Vietnamese.
8 - President Nixon announces the mining of North Vietnam harbors.
From May through December 1972, no large merchant vessels entered or left North Vietnamese
harbors. An attempt by the Communist to lighter cargo to shore from ships in international
waters was foiled when fleet ships and aircraft, including Marine helicopter gunships,
intercepted and destroyed the shuttling craft. The deployed American fleet even curtailed
the enemy's intra coastal movement.
Complementing this effort at sea was the massive aerial offensive by the U.S. Navy and
U.S. Air Force named Linebacker. In contrast to the earlier Rolling Thunder campaign, in
Linebacker Washington gave operational commanders authority to choose when, how, and in
what order to strike and restrike targets. Commanders could adjust to changing weather and
the enemy's defences and concentrate their aerial firepower to best effect. As a result,
American air squadrons interdicted the road and rail lines from China and devastated North
Vietnamese warmaking resources, including munition stockpiles, fuel storage facilities,
power plants, rail yards, and bridges.
Using Boeing B-52 bombers and new, more accurate ordnance, such as laser guided bombs and
advanced Walleye bombs, the Air Force and the Navy hit targets with great precision and
destructiveness. For instance, the U.S. air forces destroyed the Thanh Hoa and Paul Doumer
bridges, long impervious to American bombing, and the Hanoi power plant deep in the heart
of the populated capital city. They also knocked out targets as close as 10 miles to the
centre of Hanoi and 5 miles from Haiphong harbour.
Between 9 May and the end of September, the Navy flew an average of 4,000 day-and-night
attack sorties each month, reaching a peak of 4,746 in August. This represented over 60
percent of the American combat support sorties during the same five-month period.
The North Vietnamese attempted to counter the American onslaught. Employing thousands of
antiaircraft weapons and firing almost 2,000 surface-to-air missiles in this period, the
enemy shot down 28 American aircraft. In one day alone, the Communist air force challenged
U.S. aerial supremacy by sending up 41 interceptor aircraft. On that day, 10 May, Navy
pilot Lieutenant Randy Cunningham and his radar intercept officer Lieutenant (jg) William
Driscoll became the war's only Navy "aces," adding three kills to the two
already credited to them. American air units destroyed a total of 11 North Vietnamese
aircraft that day, but lost 6 of their own. The Navy's ratio of kills to losses had
improved by the end of air operations on 15 January 1973, when the total stood at 25 MiGs
destroyed in air-to-air combat for the loss of 5 naval aircraft. During the Linebacker
campaigns, the fleet's SAR units rescued 30 naval air crewmen downed for various reasons
in the North Vietnamese theatre of operations.
The nature of the campaign changed in May when President Nixon ordered the virtual
isolation of North Vietnam from external Communist support. Aside from the obvious
military rationale, the President sought by this action to end North Vietnamese
intransigence at the stalled Paris negotiations. For the first time in the long Southeast
Asian conflict, all of the Navy's conventional resources were brought to bear on the
enemy. On 9 May, in Operation Pocket Money, Coral Sea's A-6 Intruders and A-7
Corsairs dropped magnetic-acoustic sea mines in the river approaches to Haiphong, North
Vietnam's chief port. Shortly thereafter, the other major ports were mined as well. Over
85 percent of the country's military imports passed through these ports. Washington gave
foreign ships three days to depart the country, after which the mines armed themselves.
Despite this advance notice, 32 foreign, mostly Communist ships elected to remain trapped
in North Vietnamese waters.
On 10 May the 8-inch guns of heavy cruiser Newport News bombarded
targets near Hanoi from a position off Do Son while guided missile cruisers Oklahoma
City and Providence and three destroyers suppressed the enemy's counter battery
fire from the peninsula. Normally three or four U.S. ships made up the surface action
group that cruised along the coast ready to provide air-spotted or direct fire.
13 May, in order to frustrate Communist attack plans, Marine helicopters
from the amphibious ready group's Okinawa (LPH 3) landed South Vietnamese marines
miles behind Communist lines in I Corps. On 24 May and again on 29 June, the amphibious
task group deployed South Vietnamese troops on the enemy's exposed coastal flank and rear.
These actions and strikes by naval air and gunfire support units eventually helped force
the North Vietnamese in retreat.
June
21-6-72 Hewitt R.D. LAC A118817 2SQN 22 RAA F * At RGH Greenslopes. Qld.
July
15-7-72 Gibson A.J. Pte 218450 7RAR 28 RAIN F * At Liverpool Hosp. NSW
August
12 - The last American ground combat troops leave Vietnam. 43,500 airmen and support
personnel remain.
September
By the end of September 1972, the North Vietnamese diplomats in Paris were much more
amenable to serious negotiation than they were at the end of March. Allied air, naval, and
ground forces had repulsed the Communist offensive in South Vietnam and in I Corps even
regained much lost ground. After drastically reducing the enemy's reinforcements and
munitions infiltrated into the South, the U.S. air and naval campaign in the North
gradually destroyed Hanoi's ability to prosecute the war.
October
Believing that a negotiated settlement of the Southeast Asian conflict was within reach in
Paris, on 11 October the Nixon administration ordered U.S. Pacific forces to cease bombing
in the vicinity of Hanoi. Then on the twenty-third, Washington restricted allied strikes
to targets below the 20th parallel. Nevertheless, negotiations with the North Vietnamese
again bogged down in Paris while the enemy strengthened the air defenses of the capital
and Haiphong and restored the rail lines to China. The Communist once more stockpiled war
reserves. In response to these developments, President Nixon ordered a massive air assault
by Air Force B-52 bombers, tactical aircraft, and the Navy's carrier attack units against
military targets deep within Hanoi and Haiphong.
December
5 -Australian Labour Government elected under Gough Whitlam. Conscription ends.
18 December the joint attack, designated Linebacker II, fell on the enemy
capital. That night and on succeeding nights of the operation, wave after wave of B-52
bombers and supporting aircraft struck Hanoi, hitting command and communication
facilities, power plants, rail yards, bridges, storage buildings, open stockpiles, truck
parks, and ship repair complexes. Because of the precision of the air crews and their
weapons, there was minimal damage to non military property. The North Vietnamese met the
Linebacker II attack with 1,250 surface-to-air missiles, which brought down 15 of the big
American bombers and 3 supporting aircraft; antiaircraft defenses and MiG interceptors
destroyed another 4 carrier planes.
20 - Australian Army Assistance Group (AAAG) departs Vietnam, on the last
two RAAF C130 flights in support of Australian troops. This now leaves a small
Australian Embassy Guard as the last of the Australian troops in Vietnam.
President Nixon orders the resumption of bombing north of the 20th parallel.
Peace talks in Paris are suspended.
The loss of six B-52s on 20 December alone, however, called for a change in tactics and
more reliance on technologically superior equipment. Thereafter, the American air forces
employed the most advanced precision-guided weapons and electronic countermeasure, target
finding, and other equipment. They also concentrated on the destruction of the enemy's
missile defence network, including command and control facilities, missile assembly and
transportation points, and the missile batteries themselves. To spread thin Communist
defences, the American command broadened the operational arena to include not only Hanoi,
but Haiphong, Thai Nguyen, Long Dun Kep, and Lang Dang. This redirection of effort
succeeded. Not surprisingly, at year's end the North Vietnamese resumed serious
discussions in Paris.
29 December, the last day of Linebacker II, U.S. forces had neutralized
the enemy's surface-to-air missile system while reducing friendly losses to a minimum.
30 - Bombing of North Vietnam ceases. North Vietnam agree to negotiate a peace
settlement.