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Encyclopedia entry: Vietnam War, U.S. Air Operations in The
- Article from:
- The Oxford Companion to American Military History
- Author:
Copyright© The Oxford Companion to American Military History 2000, originally published by Oxford University Press 2000. (Hide copyright information)
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Vietnam War, U.S. Air Operations in The.
During the Vietnam War, airpower commanded more American resources than any other aspect of the struggle. More than half of the hundreds of billions of dollars America invested in the war was devoted to
U.S. Air Force
, Army, and Navy air operations. The United States dropped over 8 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1962 to 1973 and lost over 8,588 fixed‐wing aircraft and
helicopters
. U.S. military air crew losses totaled 4,302 by 1973. For all this investment, airpower, while occasionally influential, was never decisive.
The U.S. Air Force dates its involvement in Vietnam to the summer of 1950, when it sent advisers to ...