Day 5 - Dec. 22-23, 1972

On the fifth day of Operation LINEBACKER II B-52's did not strike targets in Hanoi. Their focus was more like a LINEBACKER I mission repeat from April of 1972. All the targets selected for B-52 strikes were in the Haiphong area. All the aircraft were from the 307th Strategic Wing out of U-Tapao, Thailand. Planners for the mission devised a route where 30 B-52Ds would bomb two targets in the Haiphong area. Twelve B-52Ds were targeted against the Haiphong railway side tracks. The remaining eighteen bombers struck the Haiphong Petroleum Products Storage facilities.




The B-52s approached Haiphong with a westerly heading from over the Gulf of Tonkin. After bombing their targets they exited the area again over the Gulf of Tonkin. To confuse the Vietnamese the B-52s entered the target area from six different directions crossing the coastline south of Haiphong. None of the routes indicated where their possible target may be. To the Vietnamese it appeared that the B-52s were heading on into Hanoi. At approximately 30 miles south of their intended bomb release points the cells of B-52s turned north and headed to their intended targets in the Haiphong area.

Chaff had been effectively laid by 16 F-4 chaff bombers over the intended trek of the B-52s about ten minutes before the BUFFs arrived over their targets. Twenty SAMs were fired into the attacking force. None of the SAMs hit any of the B-52s.

Day 5 marks the second day that no B-52s were damaged or lost.


Hpasp
Free SAM Simulator, "Realistic to the Switch"

(U-2 over Sverdlovsk, B-52's over Hanoi, F-4 Phantoms over the Sinai, F-16's and the F-117A Stealth bomber over the Balkans.)
http://sites.google.com/site/samsimulator1972/home

Book from the author - Soviet Nuclear Weapons in Hungary 1961-1991
https://sites.google.com/view/nuclear-weapons-in-hungary/

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