Operation Rolling Thunder

The commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, General William Westmoreland, requested and got the means to perform the actions that he thought would lead him to victory.

It began in early March 1965 attacking targets in North Vietnam and reducing or eliminating the incursions of its units in the South. As demonstrated later, it was one of the first failures in both the objectives achieved (aimed to reduce North Vietnamese industry in a few days) and caused civilian deaths.

Besides being a constant headache for the families of the pilots missing in action. It also cut the arrival of supplies from the North. This intensified the actions of the Green Berets in the Central Highlands from the militia (some authors think that was the most efficient U.S. action). At the same time the U.S. fleet blocked almost all sea shipments.

Attacking the enemy in his own backyard resulted in intensified search and destroy operations, patrol boats of the Mekong Delta were formed and the SEALs for counterinsurgency operations was dispatched.

The developing Hearts and Minds campaign was so successful that the British were reported in Malaysia, for attracting people with the reconstruction of villages, health care or delivery of agricultural machinery. The United States and its allies launched a mission after another and fought one battle after another, from which you can highlight (some already mentioned):

Operation Starlight to corner the Vietcong.
Battle of Ia Drang to locate and destroy the regiments of EVN harassing his forces in the mountainous area.
Operation “Rolling Thunder” to destroy the military industry and other targets.
Operation “Market Time” to cut supplies arrived by sea.
Operation “Prairie” where battles were fought extremely hard in the so-called Hill of whispers in order to stop infiltration by the Demilitarized Zone.
The use of Agent Orange to kill vegetation that protected the dens and the positions from which the guerrillas attacked the regular troops.

Also in December 1965 the Air Force launched the program to allow Big Belly B-52, transporting nearly 10,000kg of bombs and in April the following year were moved to the island of Guam to reach South Vietnam. There was 300 departures a month on average. With this new weapon they, in 1966 defeated the Ninth Vietcong Division.

Operations, bombings and the victories gave a sense of public opinion to pacify the country, especially the United States, but the image had yet to reach any part of the South Vietnam era of insecurity. This was found when the Spanish soldiers arrived in Saigon in April 1966.

The government buildings were protected by sand bags, the bus had iron bars covering the windows to keep out of grenades. Even within the Peninsula hotel where they stayed they had to interrupt the broadcast of a film because of nearby explosions and the subsequent counter-attack with helicopters.

With this campaign, missions and attacks by the communist advance stopped almost dry. However, the U.S. military saw several problems, Westmoreland himself acknowledged in 1965 that the number of U.S. casualties was disproportionately high, in 1966 the number of wins was reduced (the Vietnamese were beginning to take the lead) to what Westmoreland responded by requesting, and getting more troops and continue to use artillery, aviation, high explosives and other means devastating to them.

This kept happening one after another:

Operation Cedar Falls that would destroy the infrastructure of the Vietcong, inflicting heavy losses and open the way to victory.
Operation Junction City to locate and destroy the headquarters of the Vietcong course in a conventional battle.
Raise the McNamara Line to detect and neutralize any attempt to enter the demilitarized zone.
Moving the B-52s to Thailand to carry out missions without refuelling in flight.
Increased outputs of the B-52 at an average of 800 per mission

Develop Mobile River Force patrolling the Mekong Delta in order to patrol, locate and clean the Vietcong sanctuaries and any shipment of arms and supplies to attempt to infiltrate this huge river.

With all this support and effort the Saigon government was recovering much of the territory lost in previous years and in 1967 in the United States believed that victory would be on their side before long. But the excessive firepower used often backfired. One villager said, “The village no longer exists. It was destroyed by the Americans, then rebuilt and again destroyed by them. After this it became a free-fire zone. They said that with the village dead, there was no reason for anyone to go there, even to visit the tomb of our ancestors.”

Similarly, the use of a weapon as devastating as the B-52 caused rejection in much of the world, including the U.S. itself.