Sunday, January 16, 2005
Vietnam
I got a book out of the library this weekend about the air war in Vietnam. (Air War in Vietnam by Phil Chinnery) I enlisted in the air force in 1973 - right at the end of the war. I knew a lot of guys who had spent time there and elsewhere in SEA theater. The book's copyright is 1987 and there are two postscripts in it. The first was about the POW/MIA problem of 2500 GIs still missing at the time of publication.
The second was a table about the aircraft loses from 1962-1973. I won't include all the listing, but just a few listed. The Air Force lost 2251; the Navy 878; the Marines lost 700; and the Army 4760. The Army total included 2590 Huey helicopters. Two of my favorite aircraft, the F-4 and F-105 lost a total of 669 and 397 respectively. 26 B-52s and 56 B-57s were lost along with 55 C-130s. That quantity is quite amazing.
The totals were 3720 fixed wing and 4868 helicopter losses, with a total of 8588 for a total cost of $6907 million. That's a lot of aircraft.
2fers: USAF and Vietnam Air War
