Top 5 Historic Missions Of The B-52 Stratofortress

To repeat what I’ve said on my Simple Flying author bio page, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress AKA the “BUFF (“Big Ugly Fat Fellow” in polite company, but in reality, it’s “Big Ugly Fat F*cker”) is one of my Top 2 personal favorite warplanes of all time (the other being the Douglas SBD Dauntless). If you will indulge me in a moment of Yank flag-waving here, nothing says “Don’t Mess With The US of A” quite like a B-52 carpet-bombing raid does.

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Back when I was a young Airman 1st Class (A1C; pay grade E-3) stationed at Minot AFB, North Dakota, I had the honor and pleasure of seeing my favorite warbird take off and land on a regular basis. However, I was ineligible to be a pilot or Navigator on the B-52 or any other aircraft, due to a depth perception deficiency. So, nowadays, as a consolation prize, I get to do the next best thing, which is getting paid to write about my beloved BUFF.

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Bayou Vigilance: Why The USAF Landed 2 B-52 Bombers At Chennault International Airport

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5

Operation Linebacker (Vietnam War)

The battle wherein the B-52 nearly won the Vietnam War for America

Let me stir the proverbial pot a bit here by asserting that, contrary to what ivory tower academics and “mainstream” media pundits assert, the Vietnam War **was** in fact winnable for the United States, and thanks to engagements such as Operation Linebacker II (the so-called “Christmas bombing” of Hanoi in December 1972), America came a lot closer to winning the war than those pundits are willing or able to admit.

In addition to the physical destruction of military targets in North Vietnam, these raids tremendously boosted the morale of American POWs like Medal of Honor recipient Admiral James Bond Stockdale whilst concurrently blasting the arrogance and morale out of their communist captors at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison. Moreover, the raids drove the North Vietnamese back to the peace table.

In case you don’t want to take my word or any other “biased” American, then pay heed to the words of Sir Robert Thompson – architect of the British victory in the Malayan Emergency counter-insurgency operation – who was generally critical of American war efforts in Vietnam, but lavished praise upon Linebacker II. Sir Robert was quoted accordingly in two highly underrated books on the Vietnam War, namely “Unheralded Victory: The Defeat of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, 1961-1973” by Mark Woodruff, and “A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam” by Lewis Sorley:

4

Operation Arc Light (Vietnam War)

Not as strategically significant as Linebacker II, but still a proud moment for the BUFF

If Lineback II was the biggest strategic victory for the B-52 crews during the Vietnam War, then the Arc Light missions of 1965 to 1973 were the BUFF crews’ biggest tactical victories, providing some heavy-duty close air support (CAS) to American grunts on the ground while inflicting sheer devastation upon the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC).

This rang especially true during the B-52s’ key role in Operation Scotland, the relief of the besieged US Marine Corps at Khe Sanh in 1968. To cite Mr Woodruff again:

“Directed onto target by radar while flying at 30,000 feet, the first sign of their presence was the sound of the huge bombs crashing to earth…’Damn it,’ said the colonel. ‘For every round they drop on us, we drop a whole planeload of bombs on them.’”

3

Operation Desert Storm (1991 Persian Gulf War)

The carpet bombing of Saddam’s elite Republican Guards created psychological effects far and beyond the physical damage

While the “smart bombs” dropped by high-tech aircraft like the F-117 Nighthawk “Stealth Fighter” on Iraqi command & control targets captured the American public, the non-precision carpet bombing (AKA saturation bombing raids) performed by B-52s were arguably every bit as important — if not more so — in driving then-Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait. The Republican Guards were Saddam’s most elite troops, but the BUFFs made these troops’ lives a living hell with seemingly incessant raids.

Mind you, the actual physical damage inflicted by these carpet-bombing raids was relatively modest, with maybe of their vaunted T-72 main battle tanks (MBTs) destroyed. But the psychological damage inflicted by the American heavy bombers was disproportionately impactful; I daresay that during this conflict, the B-52 proved itself to be a veritable PSYOP weapon. Case in point: one captured Republican Guard officer said he surrendered his unit because of B-52 strikes; upon being informed by his interrogator that his unit was never hit by B-52s, he replied, “But I saw one that *had* been attacked.”

2

Operation Allied Force (1999 NATO Kosovo air campaign)

Arguably, the B-52 was the single most effective weapon at ending the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian populace.

Operation Allied Force coincided with the timeframe in which I decided to enlist in the USAF, and during the initial months, I recall being frustrated with the manner in which this NATO air campaign was being fought, i.e. pinprick, piecemeal strikes here and there that did little to nothing to deter then-Serbian strongman Slodoban Milosevic’s troops from their attacks on the Kosovar Albanians. (Oh yeah, not to mention the “accidental” bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade).

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25 Years Ago Today: The US Air Force Accidentally Bombs the Chinese Embassy In Belgrade

This day in history in 1999, the U.S. Air Force accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Serbia. Some still suspect it wasn’t really an accident.

Then, in 1999, America’s war planners finally came to their senses and decided to bring the full brunt of the B-52 against the Serbian troops in the same manner that was seen against the NVA, VC, and Republican Guard in the previous three examples – in other words, carpet-bombing the living hell out of them. As per a Washington Post report, a single such B-52 attack against a massed Serb troop formation of roughly 800 to 1,000 soldiers on June 8, 1999, wiped out more than half their number and left the rest to flee in abject terror. Finally, the Serbian soldiers’ smugness was erased, and they had the proverbial fear of God put into them.

1

Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) (Afghanistan 2001)

The early days of the Global War On Terror (GWOT) were quite successful, thanks in no small part to the B-52

America’s humiliating exit from Afghanistan in 2021, followed by the Taliban’s recapture of power in Kabul immediately thereafter notwithstanding, the early days of OEF 20 years earlier were a very successful undertaking for the US Armed Forces against the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda allies, and the BUFFs were a major reason for this. As noted by the official USAF Fact Sheet:

“In 2001, the B-52 contributed to the success of Operation Enduring Freedom, providing the ability to loiter high above the battlefield and provide close air support through the use of precision guided munitions.”

Indeed, in late 2001, the B-52s dropped a third of the total bomb tonnage in Afghanistan.