Since the 1950s the United States has helped the Southern Vietnamese government resist the power of communist Northern Vietnam. During 1962 is when the U.S. began using air forces to help combat in the war. The U.S. was to help destroy the Viet Cong bases and the jungle cover which they would hide in. The Viet Cong were using guerilla warfare style tactics, which the U.S. was not used to.

In August 1964 President Lyndon B Johnson increased its Air attacks and ordered regulatory air strikes against and on Northern Vietnam following the attack on U.S. warships located in the Gulf of Tonkin. In the coming months, President Johnson called for flyovers and bombings on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This trail was a network of trails, roadways, and footpaths going through the dense Vietnam Jungle. The Ho Chi Minh trail carried many tons of military weapons, equipment, and reinforcements across the Vietnam war front. The bombings were intended to destroy the flow of supplies from the Northern Vietnamese communists to its Viet Cong allies.

Operation Rolling Thunder officially commenced on March 2, 1965, in response to a Viet Cong attack on U.S. airbase located in Pleiku. President Johnson saw this as a way to stop North Vietnams way of producing and transporting supplies to its allied Viet Cong. Johnson also hoped that this would improve morale across South Vietnam while diminishing the Northern Vietnams will to fight. While the bombing strikes started as a limited campaign they continued to grow larger and more aggressive. The bombings started to target the Nothern Vietnamese communist government and the areas surrounding. Now the only restricted areas left where the 2 major cities of Hanoi and Haiphong, and a 10-mile buffer zone around the Chinese border.

In 1967, two years after the operation commenced, President Johnson gave the orders to increase airstrikes in the Hanoi-Hai Phong area. This area which was previously part of the restricted area was now open to attack by U.S. bombing runs. Allowing attacks on the Hanoi-Hai Phong zone allowed the military to attack many key infrastructures like bases, factories, and bridges, which were essential for the North Vietnam government and military.  U.S. military leaders say that the increased bombing runs were causing serious damage to the North Vietnamese cities and say that their economy and transportation systems where near collapse. Even though the more aggressive bombing strikes were working well, Johnson called off all bombings just a year later. He did this because he was working on a “serious negotiation” in Paris.

Operation Rolling Thunder is considered by many Americans to have been a failed mission. It cost the United States nearly 900 million in aircraft damage while only costing North Vietnam 300 million dollars worth of damage. A common saying from most people is that “It cost American 10 dollars for every dollar worth of damage they did”. The Operation was such a failure because the Vietnamese developed radar controlled anti-aircraft weapons which were able to shoot down hundreds of American aircraft during the bombing strikes. The attacks also killed 90,000 Vietnamese, 75,000 of them being civilians.