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Operation COMMANDO HUNT Begins

November 1, 1968

1968-11_OpCommandoHunt_aerial
1968-11_OpCommandoHunt_aerial
Aerial surveillance photos showing North Vietnamese Army trucks loaded with crates and boxes (top), a petroleum storage area (center), and an open storage supply dump (bottom), 1968–1972. (Air Force Historical Studies Office)

The aerial interdiction campaign known as Operation COMMANDO HUNT begins. The operation’s objective is to stem the flow of enemy troops, vehicles, and supplies that continue to move down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and into South Vietnam. U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine aviators conduct both day and night strikes against the trail with the help of data from electronic anti-infiltration ground sensors. COMMANDO HUNT sorties increase in tempo during the dry season between November and April, when traffic on the trail is heaviest. The campaign ends by April 1972 after having only limited success.1

1Carl Berger, ed., The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1977), 109–11, 117–19; John Schlight, A War Too Long: The USAF in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1996), 58, 69, 70–71; John Darrell Sherwood, Nixon’s Trident: Naval Power in Southeast Asia, 1968–1972, U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War (Washington, D.C.: Naval History and Heritage Command, 2009), 1–2, 9, 12–13, 21; Charles R. Smith, High Mobility and Standdown, 1969, U.S. Marines in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Marine Corps History and Museums Division, 1988), 231.