Museum Audio Tour 37: Modern Flight Gallery: SEA War Easter Offensive

DAYTON, OH, UNITED STATES

12.31.1969

Audio by NMUSAF PA 

National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

With the majority of U.S. troops out of South Vietnam, the North Vietnamese sensed an opportunity to end the war with a conventional invasion. On March 30, 1972, North Vietnam launched the Easter Offensive—a large, three-pronged drive into South Vietnam using heavy tanks and mobile units. U.S. airpower played an essential role in stopping the attack. The biggest battle occurred during the North Vietnamese siege of An Loc. Airpower not only supplied materiel to the encircled ground forces, but it also destroyed nearly all of the North Vietnamese tanks and artillery. When the Easter Offensive came to a halt North Vietnam controlled much of South Vietnam near the Demilitarized Zone, along with a strip of land along South Vietnam’s border with Laos and Cambodia.

• Date Taken: 12.31.1969
• Date Posted: 09.02.2015 13:25
• Category: Newscasts
• Audio ID: 41954
• Filename: 1509/DOD_102704336.mp3
• Length: 00:00:48
• Album: Museum Audio Tour
• Track #: 37
• Location: DAYTON, OH, US