Operation Niagara

The Target Intelligence Officer at Khe Sanh, Captain Mizra M. Baig, felt that Arc Lights were an accurate weapon which could be employed around Khe Sanh much the same as other supporting arms. However, since requests for B-52 strikes were submitted fifteen hours prior to the drop, Arc Lights could never be as responsive or flexible as tactical air and artillery. Techniques were developed by the FSCC to combine and compliment the strengths of aerial and artillery support. One such technique was the Mini-Arc Light.

When intelligence data indicated the presence of NVA units in a certain region, the FSCC computed a 500 by 1,000 meter box in the center of the suspected assembly area or likely route of movement. Two A-6 Intruders, each armed with twenty-eight 500-pound bombs, were placed on station. Army 175mm guns at the nearby artillery bases at Camp Carroll and the Rockpile initiated the Mini-Arc Light by pouring sixty 150-pound rounds into one half of the block. Thirty seconds later the A-6s unloaded their ordnance in the middle of the block. At the same time, the artillery at Khe Sanh poured an additional two hundred artillery and mortar rounds into the target area. Fire coordination was such that bombs and artillery shells hit at the same instant. When properly saturated with munitions, enemy soldiers caught in the zone "simply ceased to exist."

The Mini-Arc Light could be put into effect in about 45 minutes. To reduce reaction time even further, a Micro-Arc Light was executed. The block size was reduced to 500 by 500 meters. Any aircraft on station could be used for bombing. The Micro could be planned and executed within ten minutes. Twelve to sixteen 500-pound bombs, thirty 175mm artillery rounds, and 100 mixed lighter artillery rounds from Khe Sanh batteries could be unloaded on the target block within ten minutes. On an average night, three to four Minis and six to eight Micros were executed in the vicinity of the Khe Sanh Combat Base.

Because the Marines at Khe Sanh were surrounded by North Vietnamese, the base could neither be supplied nor evacuated by ground operations. Consequently, an effective method of aerial resupply was vital to the continued existence of the base. The principal source for supplies destined for Khe Sanh was Da Nang, a thirty minute flight. C-130s and C-123s provided the bulk of the supplies. Transport crews used speed offloading techniques to minimize the time they spent on the ground at Khe Sanh. When weather or hostile fire prevented transport aircraft from actually landing at the airstrip, parachute and various cargo extraction systems were employed to permit the unloading of cargo without putting the planes' wheels on the ground.

The Marine hill outposts, originally supplied from the base at Khe Sanh at the beginning of the siege, were thereafter served by externally-loaded helicopters flying from the Marine base at Dong Ha. Air Force and Marine crews en route to Khe Sanh flew the last few miles through a wall of enemy anti-aircraft fire - maintenance men at Da Nang noted 242 holes in one C-130 before they gave up counting.

As tactical air supported the Marines on the ground, so too did it accompany transport aircraft on their supply missions into the Khe Sanh TAOR. North Vietnamese antiaircraft guns in calibers up to 37mm were dug into the hills around Khe Sanh and menaced the existence of the aerial highway leading to the base. By March, the danger from enemy fire was so acute that all transports were provided with tactical air escorts. Air planners drew on their maps a line indicating the flight path of a cargo plane from the time it dropped below 3,500 feet above ground until it regained that altitude after disgorging its cargo. The potential danger area from which a 37mm gun could hit a plane was calculated. Fighter bombers were directed against known or potential enemy gun positions using 20mm cannon and fragmentation bombs. These attack runs commenced when the cargo planes reached an elevation of 1,500 feet above the ground.

In clear weather, two fighters laid down smoke screens for concealment on both sides of the flight path of the incoming transports. During the siege, every 37mm gun emplacement was repeatedly attacked until intelligence showed the gun to be destroyed or abandoned. More than 300 antiaircraft sites were reportedly destroyed. 20 When considered necessary, Air Force F-4 Phantoms equipped with cannon were kept in the area to provide combat air patrols to disincline the North Vietnamese Air Force from intervening in the fighting around Khe Sanh. Carrier-based aircraft bombed airfields in North Vietnam that short range enemy MiGs would have had to use to attack the Marine positions.

General Westmoreland was certain the North Vietnamese intended to overrun the Marine base at Khe Sanh as they had done at Dien Bien Phu. If so, air power was instrumental in denying victory to the Communist forces. Weather and other considerations prevented accurate measurement of the damage sustained by enemy forces from Operation NIAGARA. Photo reconnaissance and direct visual observation credited NIAGARA forces with causing 4,705 secondary explosions, 1,288 enemy killed, 1,061 structures destroyed, 158 damaged, 891 bunkers destroyed, 99 damaged, 253 trucks destroyed, and 52 damaged. Enemy personnel losses were estimates; they could not be confirmed since an actual body count was not possible. Westmoreland's Systems Analysis Office produced four models from which its analysts concluded that total NVA casualties - killed and wounded seriously enough to require evacuation - numbered between 9,800 and 13,000 men. The generally cited figure of 10,000 casualties represents half the number of NVA believed committed to attacking the Khe Sanh Combat Base at the beginning of the fighting there. 10,000 casualties represents fifty-nine percent of the number of enemy killed in all of I Corps during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

The one billion dollars worth of aerial munitions expended by the U.S. during the siege totaled almost 100,000 tons. That amount equaled almost 1,300 tons of bombs dropped daily, and represents an expenditure of five tons for every one of the 20,000 NVA soldiers initially estimated to be committed to the fighting at Khe Sanh. 22 This expenditure of aerial munitions dwarfs the amount of munitions delivered by artillery, which totals eight shells per enemy soldier believed to have been on the battlefield.

General Giap claimed Khe Sanh was never of particular importance to the North Vietnamese. According to Giap, it was the U.S. that made Khe Sanh important because the Americans had placed their prestige at stake there. 23 In the larger scheme of things, the fighting at Khe Sanh was of little lasting significance. Before the bombs and shells of Operation NIAGARA stopped falling on the Khe Sanh battlefield, U. S. President Johnson ordered severe restrictions on aerial and naval attacks against North Vietnam, declared the readiness of the U.S. to begin peace discussions to end the war, and declined to seek reelection to the presidency. In June 1968, the base at Khe Sanh was abandoned by the Americans. Ultimately, the U.S. would learn that it was unable to win at the conference table what it could not win on the battlefield.

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