In our continuing desire to bring to the reader an in-depth look at the use of airpower in Southeast Asia, we present in this volume a truly monumental effort at recounting the myriad of widely separate but not unrelated events and operations that took place during the Spring Invasion of 1972. In this monograph, the authors from the Air War College present an illuminating story of the people and machines that fought so gallantly during this major enemy offensive. The authors' breadth of experience in and out of combat enables them to provide a penetrating account of how airpower was brought...

Air Leadership is part of a continuing series of historical volumes produced by the Office of Air Force History in direct support of Project Warrior. Since its beginnings in 1982, Project Warrior has captured the imagination of Air Force people around the world and reawakened a keener appreciation of our fundamental purpose as a Service: to deter war, but to be prepared to fight and win should deterrence fail. Military history helps provide a realistic perspective on warfare. Through the study of past events, we gain insight into the capabilities of armed forces and, most importantly, a sound...

The United States Air Force Historical Research Center and its predecessor organizations have over the years received thousands of requests for brief histories of Air Force organizations. Wing commanders ask for historical data that can be used to introduce the unit to new personnel, build morale, and improve "esprit de corps." Headquarters USAF and the major commands require historical information to plan organizational changes. Officers throughout the Air Force need historical material for public affairs purposes. Former members of the Army Air Forces and the Air Force are interested in the...

Like all chronologies, bibliographies, and encyclopedias, Air Force Combat Units of World War II serves a very special historical function. It traces the lineage of each Army Air Corps and U.S. Air Force combat group or higher organization active in World War II, from its origins to 1956. It is a concise official record of those units: their assignments, subordinate organizations, stations, commanders, campaigns, aircraft, and decorations. But it is more than that. As an important source of ready information, this volume not only serves as a reference tool for historians and researchers; but...

In April 1917, as the United States entered World War I, the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps had only a handful of usable flying fields. This number quickly grew, ultimately exceeding 40 by the end of the war. Several uncompleted fields at the time of the Armistice were abandoned, and in the period between the world wars, the number of fields decreased more until only a relatively few were in use in 1939, when the country again began to rebuild its land and air forces. By the end of 1943, these few fields had grown to an astounding peak of 783-345 main bases, 116 subbases, and...

This book explores the unique problem of defending air bases during the Vietnam War. It centers on the primary efforts of the United States Air Force and allied air units to defend 10 key air bases within the Republic of Vietnam. Bien Hoa, on 1 November 1964, was the first base to be attacked and until, the cease-lire in January 1973, these bases suffered a total of 475 attacks. ' Although there were initial deficiencies in staff support for base defense in such key areas as intelligence, motor vehicles, weapons procurement and maintenance, communications, and civil engineering, significant...

This analytical work by Dr. Eduard Mark of the Center for Air Force History examines the practice of air interdiction in three wars: World War II, the Korean war, and the war in Southeast Asia. It considers eleven important interdiction campaigns, all of them American or Anglo-American, for only the United States and Great Britain had the resources to conduct interdiction campaigns on a large scale in World War II. Dr. Mark proposes what he considers to be a realistic objective for interdiction: preventing men, equipment, and supplies from reaching the combat area when the enemy needs them...

In its first fifty years as an independent armed service, the United States Air Force (USAF) has fostered science and technology and-in partnership with the private sector-developed and produced the complex tools of aerospace power that helped the Free World prevail in the Cold War. The foundation for these extraordinary achievements was laid in the forty years before the Air Force separated from the U.S. Army in 1947. This booklet tells the story of how the air components of the Army and then the USAF organized and managed the activities required to get aircraft and other weapon systems from...

This book describes the struggle to desegregate the post-World War II U.S. Army Air Forces and its successor, the U.S. Air Force, and the remarkable advances made during the next two decades to end racial segregation and move towards equality of treatment of Negro airmen. The author, Lt. Col. Alan L. Gropman, a former Instructor of History at the U.S. Air Force Academy, received his doctorate degree from Tufts University. His dissertation served as the basis for this volume. In it, the author describes the fight to end segregation within the Air Force following President Harry S. Truman's...

This volume is the second in a series on active Air Force bases and a continuation of a recent line of works prepared for the Center for Air Force History under the Reference Series. These reference books contain specific information about a number of topics of interest to the United States Air Force and other arms of the Department of Defense. They are designed to present fundamental data about such diverse subjects as Air Force aircraft, combat action, unit lineage and honors, campaign medals and streamers, and air bases, for those who will write more extensive narrative accounts about Air...