"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value" -French General Ferdinand Foch (1911)

During the Vietnam war the world was divided into two sides the US and the USSR. The French were attempting to regain total control of some of its countries, one of them being Vietnam, which currently was divided by the 17th parallel made by the Genova Accords agreement of 1954. North vietnam was on the Communist side and South Vietnam on the Capitalist side. In July 1950 the US came in and supplied the French with money and support to fight the Vietnamese forces led by the Communist Ho Chi Minh, and with this support came new aviation.

Each war in our history had a different utility for aviation. For instance, in WWI it was used for the basics such as reconnaissance and logistics. We then stepped it up a level, bringing in aircrafts closer to the action when sending them to bomb our enemy's in WWII. But we didn't stop there, within the Korean War with new innovations came a new type of aircraft called Jets.

Finally we arrive at Vietnam where aviation has taken a big part in many ways. In 1954 Geneva Accords, an international agreement, was made which stated that it was prohibited the use of fighter jets in Vietnam and the crossing of the 17th parallel located between North and South Vietnam. So in the beginning the US Air Force started training members of the South Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) to fly propeller aircraft which were pretty good for reconnaissance missions such as for spotting guerrilla movement. Fortunately we were able to find out that the North Vietnamese kept crossing the 17th parallel into South Vietnam which was a violation of the Geneva Accords agreement, so since they broke it, the rest did the same.

The US Air Force taught VNAF members how to fly jets instead. Although jets like the F-100F Wild Weasel were essential for making strategic air strikes and bombers like the B-52 and the F-105 Thunderchief for its strategic bombing that could cause massive damage, they were not the most popular of the Vietnam war aircrafts. It was indeed the UH-1 Huey Helicopter. Vietnam had seen new ways of using this helicopter, one of the ways included something they called "air calvary" which referred to the large amounts of helicopters transporting ground force units to battle grounds. Something else that made the helicopter more popular was its ability to land without much space, this meant landing in the middle of jungles to leave troops, supplies and quickly takeoff from the battlefield. Since it did not need a run way the helicopter could simply hoover over the battlefield and pick up the wounded, this helped save many lives and was something that no other aircraft could do. Unfortunately the military lost 5,000 UH-1 Huey helicopters, but in return it had proved to be very beneficial in the jungle. As General Ferdinand Foch said in the beginning, Nothing like time to show who is right!

By: Kayke Alves

Date: March/3/2013

IMPACT OF AVIATION ON VIETNAM WAR