To begin with, we must know some of the previous history behind the famous carpet bombings. Towards the beginning, the way that the United States was aiming South Vietnamese was by sending in military advisers. These advisers helped train South Vietnamese soldiers in fighting tactics such as "guerilla warfare" and how to use aviation in combat as well. This is when bombing North Vietnam came in to place. It is said that the bombings were called "strategically targeted surgical strikes" meaning that the bombs were only sent to military bases. These bombings, for the most part, were carried by the planes F-5, F-4, and A-6. With time, the United States progressed to using B-52 bombers in which hundreds of missiles would be able to be fired at once. Because of this, the term "carpet bombing" came into place in which they stated that, like a carpet, the bombings would go from one end to another.
Document Analysis
To begin with, I found this document in the CIA archives. What this means is that this was documented by someone that was there at the events first hand. This makes the document a primary source, and further adding credibility to the document as a whole. The Central Intelligence Agency was one that has kept the documents secret until they were released a few years back. This document was written and stored on October 18, 1968. This goes to show that this document was written at the time of the event and further ads to the credibility once again.
If you read carefully, you can begin to see details about what happened that day. It is stated in the first paragraph that the North Vietnamese have suffered a great number of deaths because of the bombings. This information was said to have been obtained by a prisoner that they have. One of them stated that they had lost up to half of their troops when the bombings occurred. They finish the report by stating that the Regiment 101st had been "severely impaired". This goes to show that the massive bombings that they had called "carpet bombings" created a massive amount of destruction. One that generally did impair the North Vietnamese troops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQjdNK6lhdM (Bombing of Battle of Khe Sanh)
I think it's a positive thing if the bombs were "strategically targeted surgical strikes" (only for military bases) because it shows that maybe they did care a bit about the innocent people.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alison; too many bombs are sent out and more innocents than targets are hit.
ReplyDeletenapalm was also a bombing technique the united states had introduced in vietnam
ReplyDelete