Arc Light

June 18, 1965

Overview

The first Arc Light mission, flown by 30 U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers, is launched against suspected Viet Cong targets near Ben Cat, approximately 40 miles north of Saigon. During the mission, two B-52s collide and crash at sea, killing eight crewmen.

“Arc Light” becomes the term used for B-52 bombing missions flown in South Vietnam and adjacent portions of Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. B-52 Stratofortresses fly these missions primarily from bases in Guam and Thailand. B-52s, originally designed to carry nuclear weapons, are modified to carry conventional ordnance because most Arc Light missions consist of the bombing of enemy camps and supply lines in tactical support of the ground war. They continue until August 1973, mostly against Viet Cong-held regions of South Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail.1

¹John Schlight, A War Too Long: The USAF in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1996), 30–31; John Schlight, The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1999), 51–54 confirms the date of 6/18 is correct. Ronald B. Frankum, Jr., Historical Dictionary of the Vietnam War (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, 2011), 55–56; Spencer C. Tucker, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History, (2nd edition; Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 59–61.