Books by Office of Air Force History

Detailed first-hand accounts by U.S. Air Force fighter pilots who flew combat missions over North Vietnam. This is a reprint of a 1976 work. During the war in Southeast Asia, U.S. Air Force fighter pilots and crewmen repeatedly were challenged by enemy MIG fighters in the skies over North Vietnam. The ensuing air battles were unique in American history because U.S. fighter and strike forces operated under stringent rules of engagement and faced extremely formidable antiaircraft defenses. Despite these constraints, American airmen managed to emerge from their aerial battles with both victories and honor. ¿Aces and Aerial Victories: The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1965¿1973" is a collection of firsthand accounts by Air Force fighter crews who flew combat missions over North Vietnam between 1965 and 1973. They recall their air battles with enemy MIGs, the difficult and dangerous tactical maneuvers they had to perform to survive, and their victories and defeats. The narratives are taken directly from aircrew after-action reports. The book points out that U.S. pilots did not amass the high victory scores common in World War II and Korea because of North Vietnamese efforts to conserve scarce aircraft, their reliance on Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft artillery units, and the 3 ¿-year stand-down in American air operations over North Vietnam from December 1968 until spring 1972. Yet despite these constraints, three Air Force pilots were credited with five victories each, thus becoming aces. ¿Aces and Aerial Victories¿ also illuminates the role of Air Force airmen flying support missions such as aerial refueling, as well as the electronic warfare crews, SAM missile-hunting Wild Weasel aircraft, search and rescue units, reconnaissance aircraft, weather men, and the indispensable maintenance and supply units. Historians, aviation buffs, and anyone interested in the bold exploits of Air Force fighter pilots in combat will find much to learn and admire in this exciting book.

During World War II, the American and British intercepted and read hundreds of thousands of their enemies¿ secret military and diplomatic message transmitted by radio. ULTRA was the designation for the signals intelligence derived from German radio communications encrypted by the ENIGMA cipher machine. At the British Government Code and CipherSchool at BletchleyPark, British and American military personnel, including a young officer named Lewis F. Powell, were indoctrinated in ULTRA intelligence. In "ULTRA and the Army Air Forces in World War II: An Interview with Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Lewis F. Powell, Jr.", Justice Powell describes in detail his experiences at Bletchley Park and subsequent role in evaluating the use of ULTRA intelligence by the Air Force in the European Theater through the medium of an oral history interview with two U.S. Air Force historians. During his stay at Bletchley Park, Powell met the key figures in the ULTRA effort, including Alan Turing, about whom he says, ¿The word ¿brilliant¿ fails to reflect his genius.¿ Powell also talks about who among the Allied powers had access to ULTRA data, confirming that the USSR was never given access and that, due to British suspicions of certain individuals, the French received only limited information, even after D-Day. Powell also addresses such topics as the bombing of Dresden and Allied knowledge of such German weapons as the V-1, V-2, and ME-262. Included in an appendix are transcriptions of Powell¿s notes taken at Bletchley Park. His interview is supplemented by an informative essay, ¿The U.S. Military Intelligence Service: The ULTRA Mission,¿ by Air Force historian Diane T. Putney. ULTRA and the Army Air Forces in World War II is a remarkable firsthand account of the most extraordinary intelligence coup of World War II, told by an intelligent, observant, and articulate military participant. As such, it constitutes an important contribution to the history of the intelligence war that should be of interest to historians and intelligence professionals alike.

Originally published in 1976. This narrative describes the evacuation of more than 1,400 American soldiers, Marines, and airmen, and Vietnamese men, women, and children from the Kham Duc Special Forces camp in southern I Corps on 12 May 1968. It treats the geographical and topographical setting, the threat to the camp posed by two regiments of the North Vietnamese Army, and the danger to the camp and its inhabitants from the communist seizure of all the high ground around the camp. The monograph devotes individual chapters to the US Army and Marine helicopter rescue efforts, tactical air support, and tactical airlift. The final chapter deals with the attempts to rescue the last three men at Kham Duc. American aircraft losses were severe during the evacuation, and the successful outcome of the mass rescue depended upon the skill and courage of American aircrews. Had command and control been better, losses probably would have been less severe.

Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Lewis F. Powell, Jr., was one of a small group of people specially selected to accept and integrate ULTRA, the most secret signals intelligence from intercepted and decoded German military radio transmissions, with intelligence from all other sources. From May 1944 to the end of the war in Europe, he served as the ULTRA officer on General Carl Spaatz's United States Strategic Air Forces staff. Earlier, Colonel Powell had served as an intelligence officer with the 319th Bomb Group, the Twelfth Air Force, and the Northwest African Air Forces. He finished the war as Spaatz's Chief of Operational Intelligence in addition to carrying out his ULTRA duties. The Air Force is grateful to Justice Powell for his generosity in giving his time and recollections so that his experiences can be of benefit, through the medium of history, to the Service today and in the future.