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The Eleven Days of Christmas: America's Last Vietnam Battle

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Marshall L. Michel's new book covering America's last great air battle in Vietnam, `The 11 Days of Christmas' is an excellent and gripping book telling the story of `Linebacker II'. I started reading this book on a Saturday and finished it by Sunday, the next day. The narrative was spellbinding; I was glued to the book and found it hard to put down.

The author offers a nice mix of in-depth research intermixed with first hand accounts of those involved, at every level and on both sides. This is a great book, easy to read and hard not to enjoy. I have read only a few books on the air war in Vietnam, `The Ravens' by Christopher Robbins, `The Rescue of BAT-21' by Darrel Whitcomb and `One Day in a Long War by Jeffrey Ethell and Alfred Price'. However I still have no hesitation in recommending this book to any one who enjoys a well-written historical account of air warfare.

The author takes the reader through the background and events leading to the decision to carry out America's Linebacker II campaign. Covering points both from the political and military aspects of this campaign he shows the faults uncovered during the bombing campaign both with SAC and their political masters. It is surprising to read of the inadequacies uncovered and the stupidity behind some decisions.

By the time you get to the end of the book you come away with nothing but praise for the air crews involved in this battle regardless if you agree with the strategy of this bombing campaign or not. Further, the author offers you a rare insight into the North Vietnamese crews defending Hanoi and Haiphong during the bombing.

Not only does Michel offer you an excellent historical account of this campaign but you really get drawn into the story as you follow the crews of the B-52's as they make their way to their targets during the dark nights of December 1972. This is a great book that offers excellent story telling backed by in-depth research and numerous first-hand accounts from the participants of the campaign. Well done to the author.

Michel provides a solid, nuanced coverage of the December 1972 Lineback II air campaign against North Vietnam. Accessing extensive US Air Force operational files, previously unpublished North Vietnamese Air Defense histories and files, and numerous live and email interviews with air crews, planners and North Vietnamese air defense officers, Michel provides the best "both sides" perspective of not just this air campaign, but any air campaign that I have read.

Items I found interesting, of note:
-- After the Pentagon argued for years that it need to go "all the way" to take the war to Hanoi, when President Nixon asked for an all out air campaign on North Vietnam, the Joint Chiefs of Staff voted in secret against the campaign, the SecDef opposed it, as did Strategic Air Command (SAC).

-- The first three nights of the campaign were planned (if that is the appropriate word) at the HQ of SAC in Nebraska, primarily by officers who had never been in the skys of North Vietnam. This was despite the fact that the USAF had been flying missions "downtown" since 1965. The advice and feed back of the B-52 crews in Guam and Thailand was ignored, as were inputs from the 7th Air Force in Saigon. Michel explains the former as a result of the top down decision making culture at SAC instigated by General Curtis LeMay. He explains the later as SAC arrogance that they had anything to learn from Tactical Air Command (TAC)

-- Despite being the primary strategic weapons for penetrated Soviet air space in the event of a US-USSR nuclear war, SAC had never flown the B-52 against captured SA-2 surface-to-air missile radars. The SA-2 was one of the primary elements of the Soviet Air Defense network, and the back bone of the NVA air defense. But SAC had never tested the radar signature of the B-52 with its bomb-bay doors open or in different flight profiles.

-- Between the first and third night of raids, the technical and tactical staff of the Vietnamese air defense forces effectively out thought,out innovated the tactics of the SAC planners and the USAF. On night 3 the NVA downed or severely damaged 6 B-52s over Hanoi.

-- The officer who ultimately challenged SAC's tactics, and who was most responsible for the change in tactics beginning on night 4, General Sullivan -- who commanded the B-52 wing flying out of Thailand -- was passed over soon after for promotion by SAC and asked retire.

-- The commander of the three engaged B-52 wings who showed the most tactical inflexibility and flew missions on only 3 of the raids north was one of only two officers awarded the Air Force Cross (the highest USAF award for valor) during the campaign. In contrast, the other recipient successfully recovered heavily damaged B-52s twice and on a third missions flew his crippled aircraft across the Thai border, enabling all his crew to successfully bailout prior to it crashing. The wing commander with the Air Force Cross was promoted to General, served much longer in SAC than General Sullivan, and later wrote the "SACimized," official whitewash USAF version of the campaign.

Impressive. Highly encourage any serious amateur or professional historian of air combat, the Vietnam war, or combat decision making to pick it up.

I doubt if I could ever be as unbiased and methodical as Michel in approaching this shamefully long overdue air campaign, which was the only truly unrestricted heavy strategic air campaign of the entire 10,000 day war, going beyond even Linebacker I, which effectively ended the NVA spring offensive.

Though not without its losses (15 of the 26 aircraft lost were B-52s) the results were such that by the end of Linebacker II (which paused on Christmas Day) the USAF had effectively run out of major targets.

In the light of so many good overall reviews, I will just focus briefly on the actual bombing ops. It is both disturbing and intriguing to discover the reasons for those losses. While some of the downings were almost 'chance' hits, where the Enemy had fired volleys of SAM-2s ballistically i.e. unguided (due to the ECW assets being employed), many occurred due to precision hits.

Where this was the case, it was sometimes due to 'burnthrough', where the Enemy ground radar signal nullified or overwhelmed the ECM cell being generated by the BUFFs. This sometimes occurred due to onboard E/F generator failures (all too common), due to an aircraft straying outside the cell during a maneuver, or in the case of the B-52Gs, simply not having enough ECM power to cope with the signal strength from the SAM site radar emmitters.

Six B-52Gs were shot down while making high banking turns at the end of the bombing run, which created an acquirable radar cross section (the plane's ECM was no longer pointing straight downwards, opening up a chink in the electronic armor). After this, the Gs were re-assigned to ARC Light Missions (standard B-52 bombing support missions). Ironically, the older D models had more powerful ECM capabilities. The defense package that they carried included all manner of ECW countermeasures plus onboard chaff dispensers.

The external chaff dispensing was also problematic as the high winds were causing the chaff (foil strips) to disperse prematurely and provide too narrow a corridor for the following bombers. Additonal chaffing aircraft (who also flew forward CAP) were allocated and altitude adjustments were made to compensate.

At least two MIG 21s were shot down by tail gunners, with their radar directed .50 cal quad packs, as the MIGs were believed to be spotting altitudes and attack vectors for the ground radars. Not too hard when you could see a sea of upper rotating (anti-collision) beacons ahead of you.

While the B-52 losses were heavy, the success rate of the SAM-2 in terms of aircraft downed per number of missiles fired was extremely low - perhaps 3 or 4% at the most. The Enemy had basically used up their entire supply of SAM-2s by the end of the campaign, and the last two missions were flown without any losses whatsoever.

A great campaign, carried out with tremendous courage and skill by hundreds of B-52 and bomber support crews, (the tankers, the fighter escort, the EW jammer aircraft etc.)and one that actually achieved something in short order. The final Peace accord was signed just a few weeks later.

By nature a bureaucracy is rule-oriented, intransigent, and usually impenetrable. This describes the Strategic Air Command during Operation Linebacker II. Richard Nixon's audacious campaign to return the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table, end US involvement in South Vietnam, and get our POWs back. General John Meyer, top honcho at SAC, was originally a fighter pilot in WWII. As a tactical fighter pilot, Meyer was one of the best. However, as chief decision maker during the operation, Meyer proved himself to be in over his head, completely ignoring feedback from the pilots after the disastrous first three days of the operation. SAC picked targets and planned routes of entry and exit from halfway around the world at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska. Ordering aircraft commanders to make post-bombing turns over heavily defended terrain allowed the communists to shoot down an alarming number of aircraft. These turns not only blanked out the BUFF's radar jamming, but also forced the big bombers to turn into a headwind, slowing them down and making them big juicy targets for the Hanoi Air Defense Command. The guy that saved the day for Linebacker II was General Glenn Sullivan, stationed at Utapao. On day four, Sullivan sent a message simultaneously to General Johnson (his superior) at Eighth Air Force on Guam, as well as to SAC, suggesting a revision of the colossally stupid SAC attack plans. (General Sullivan was subsequently "punished" for this message, never receiving credit for his snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, and never rising above the rank of Brigadier General). An interesting sidebar is how the Air Force savaged Dana A. Drenkowski for an article he wrote in the Armed Forces Journal, charging that "SAC's mistakes had caused most of the losses in the early days of Linebacker II." Do not believe official Air Force histories of this titanic struggle in the skies. (The North Vietnamese to this day tout their "victory" as the "Dien Bien Phu of the skies"). Michel documents his sources carefully and shows that US Air Force higher-ups engaged in revisionism when they wrote their official history of Linebacker II. In any case, and in spite of SAC's subterfuge to undermine Nixon's orders, the North Vietnamese returned to the bargaining table in Paris and signed a "peace" agreement. We disengaged from Vietnam and got our POWs back, something Nixon was determined to accomplish. In my view, President Nixon ordered the two most successful campaigns of the war: Linebacker II and the spring, 1970, Cambodian incursion. With this kind of determination and aggressiveness, Vietnam could have been won. Sullivan takes you inside the White House, inside SAC, inside the briefing rooms on Guam and at Utapao, and most grippingly, inside the planes as they carried out their dangerous missions. Through lengthy and meticulous research, Michel has written a book that can't be put down. Highly recommended.

Any reader with a military background or an interest in military history will appreciate Michel's insight. This is a sobering look at just how close the both sides narrowly averted military disaster. The focus is mainly upon the long-distance micro management by HQ Strategic Air Command of the B-52 raids over Hanoi. Michel (a fighter pilot who was there) explains the dismay of bomber crews ordered to comply with ill-conceived and untested tactics dictated by "staff pukes" at Offutt AFB. This was a complex issue based upon SAC culture. Michel also explores the polar opposite approach to the lousy SAC plans by Commanders at Andersen AFB and U-Tapao AB. The post-war "revisionism" by SAC concerning their plans and tactical flexibility is illuminating. SAC privately acknowledged their shortcomings (destroyed the evidence) and promptly proclaimed their triumphs. Clearly Linebacker II was not SAC's finest moment.

This is no hatchet job, it's a great piece of scholarship. "Eleven Days," clearly leaves for the reader to decide which side was luckier, and which side won America's last battle in Vietnam.

Highly Recommended

A must read for every combat leader. If it were not for the Christmas bombing of Hanoi, the courage of Richard Nixon to order it and the [courage] of the men who flew the missions, I would still be in the Hoa Lo, Hanoi prison even to this day. This is a must read for all who were there and who might be in a similar situation, in the air and on the ground, years from now. The MacNamara era political Admirals and Generals just about did us all in with arrogance, inflexibility and micromanagement. Are the Clinton Flag and General Officers Messes doing it to us again? Read about Vietnam in December of 1972 in this well researched work and then ask the question - where are the warriors today?

I am very impressed with this book. It is a combination of history, great story telling, and analysis of the huge air battle fought over N. Vietnam during Nixon's "Christmas bombing." And if you like the mighty B-52, its even better.

It gives a brief background of SAC, and how LeMay's thinking carried over into the Vietnam War. He was, like anyone, flawed at times, and he left SAC in something of a tight spot. It only did things one way. Flexibility was lacking when it would have been very helpful. The bombers over North Vietnam did things in a set pattern, and that went back to SAC, and the days of LeMay. Someone should have been able to look ahead, and change the path of the bombers as they left their bomb runs.

It also gives the reader a good look at the bureaucratic bungling, micro-management, and political thinking which increased the losses of the B-52 crews. That is hardly new in war. It still hurts and frustrates to have to see the results. Lives could have been saved with a realistic response from those who should have known better. Careers can end up being more important than lives. Too bad it has to happen in the military, where some wonderful people risk so much for their country.

This was a huge, and terribly dangerous undertaking. The B-52 crews flew into some very tough air defenses, and risked a great deal to help bring the U.S. involvement in Vietnam to an end. One cannot help but wish it had been done years before. Think of the lives and heartache decisive action could have saved.

It also made me miss the good qualities of Nixon--and yes, he had them. The man was willing to show great courage when he finally unleashed the B-52s, and let them do their work. If only it had been done much, much sooner.

A great read--techinical details which interest and add, political backgrouind which is useful, and a damned good story as well. First rate.

Colonel Michel's "The 11 Days of Christmas," is a powerful sequel to his previous work "Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam 1965-1972." I found "11 Days" to be almost impossible to put down, finishing the book in two days. If you are interested in the conduct of the air war in Vietnam this book is required reading.

"11 Days" is a no holds barred look at Operation Linebacker II, the December 1972 bombing of North Vietnam, the performance of the B-52s, their crews, and the Strategic Air Command (SAC). It also covers, in a limited way, President Nixon's less than totally successful efforts in getting SAC to execute the operation as he desired. "11 Days" illustrates that while many aspects of Nixon's Presidency can be debated, his assessment regarding the results of massive air strikes into the heart of North Vietnam cannot and the release of 591 American POWs serve as proof of that conviction. "11 Days" also provides a view of the operation as seen by the North Vietnamese, with excellent discussions in each mission on the employment of the SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) and the Fan Song radars and how the North Vietnamese determined exactly when to launch their missiles that resulted in the lost of 15 B-52s.

While SAC might have been the capable of professionally executing a retaliatory nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, "11 Days" aptly demonstrates how ill prepared the organization was in conducting massive conventional bombing strikes against a technologically challenged third world nation. There were a variety of reasons for the near failure of Linebacker II, but the principal one, as shown by Colonel Michel, was that of weak and near fatally flawed leadership at SAC and its staff. Fortunately for the crews of the B-52s and the POWs, the North Vietnamese were not equipped with the Soviet Union's latest SAMs, otherwise even their best efforts would probably not have been sufficient to overcome the shortcomings and shortsightedness within SAC.

My one complaint (far too strong a word) about "11 Days" is that Colonel Michel did not include, as an appendix, the article by Dana Drenkowski's "The Tragedy of Linebacker II."

This is a fascinating and well-written picture of the final major air campaign of the VietNam war. Like Waterloo, it was "a close run thing." Linebacker II, which began on 18 December 1972 (hence the book title) saw the wide use of the B-52 against targets in North VietNam and thrust the bomber crews into a combat environment they were ill-prepared to survive. The strongly held belief that the Strategic Air Command could do anything and win any war was tested to the extreme. Not only were the SAC tactics found to be unsuitable for the mass bombing war they found themselves in, but the micromanaging from SAC headquarters almost assured their destruction. For example, the required "post target turn," a steep bank away from the target used in nuclear strikes, blanked the B-52 electronic countermeasure arrays and made them sitting ducks for the NVA SAMs. The differences in the -D and -G model bombers and their dangerous shortcomings in the North VietNamese theater are documented. Add that to flying the same mission profile at the same times... the miracle is that the losses weren't higher.

This is an even-handed account and reveals much about how the North VietNamese fought their war. They saw themselves as being at the mercy of the B-52s and were literally incredulous when they actually shot their first one down.

The politics of the war are not neglected either. The campaign was rushed so that it could be accomplished while an increasingly non-supportive Congress was on recess and over the objections of the secretary of defense. There were command failures too and they are recounted. Hesitancy, distance from the battle and inflexibility by commanders are almost always fatal combinations. As usual, it was the aircrews and other combatants who paid the price.

This book also has the advantage of being written by a former F-4 pilot who flew during the campaign, but there is not TAC vs. SAC slant. There is even an appendix that deals with the "urban legends" that have grown from the campaign. It is a great story of brave men who were given a hard task, hampered by their own commanders and a largely critical homefront, and who persevered against incredible odds.

In reading "Eleven Days," I was pleased to come to an understanding of what the bombing of North Viet Nam meant to the end of the Viet Nam War. Author Michel has done an excellent job and I particularly liked the researching of both sides of the battle. He is objective and does not preach which makes for a compeling story to read. I was in the Air Force during Viet Nam (stateside) and I always questioned why our military did not pursue the war to a successful conclusion. I found the politics and the communications factor very interesting. In the end, I feel that this bombing campaign and, and indeed, the entire war would have been over much sooner if we would not have tied the hands of our military. I highly recommend this book as a unique part of contemporary American history.