The involvement of the US Air Force in the Southeast Asian Wars began in 1962 with crews sent to Vietnam to train Vietnamese pilots, and with conflict in Laos, and finally ended in 1972 with the B-52 bombing of Hanoi, though there were Air Force pilots unofficially flying combat in Laos up to the end in 1975.
The missions flown by USAF aircrews during those years in Southeast Asia differed widely, from attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail at night with modified T-28 trainers, to missions “Downtown,” the name aircrew gave Hanoi, the central target of the war. All were deadly. Many of these events have only in recent years emerged from the fog of “secret operations” in which the “secret” was US violation of international law and treaties, such as the continuing involvement in Laos after the 1964 agreement that allegedly neutralized the country, to the massive bombing in Cambodia, a country that was not involved in the Vietnam War, which led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and their incredible crimes of mass murder following the end of US involvement in 1975. One cannot speak of a war in Vietnam regarding US Air Force operations. The war the Air Force fought was a war in Southeast Asia.
Downtown will integrate the history of all those separate “wars” into a thorough account of an air war that still has many missing pieces. The book is based on personal accounts by participants on both sides of the war, including accounts of the “secret” wars that have never been told before.
