Books by Wayne Thompson

After nearly eighteen months of the largely unsuccessful bombing campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder, the US Air Force began to look for ways to overcome technological, geographical, and political challenges in North Vietnam and use limited air power more effectively. In 1972 the two Linebacker campaigns joined with other air operations to make a dramatic, although temporary, difference. While they unleashed powerful B-52 area bombers, the campaigns also demonstrated the efficacy of newly developed laser-guided precision bombs.Drawing upon twenty years of research in classified records, Wayne Thompson integrates operational, political, and personal detail to present a full history of the Air Force role in the war against North Vietnam. He provides an unprecedented view of the motivations and actions of the people involved—from aircrews to generals to politicians—in every phase of the air campaigns. He outlines, for instance, the political reasons for President Johnson''s reluctance to use B-52 bombers against major North Vietnamese targets. He also examines how the media influenced US policy and how US prisoners became the war''s most celebrated heroes.The war in Southeast Asia ultimately pushed the Air Force toward adopting more flexible tactics and incorporating increasingly sophisticated weapons that would shape later conflicts.

The World Today Series: Western Europe is an annually updated presentation of each sovereign country in Western Europe, past and present.

This is an annually updated presentation of each sovereign country in Nordic, Central and Southeastern Europe, past and present.

No experience etched itself more deeply into Air Force thinking than the air campaigns over North Vietnam. Two decades later in the deserts of Southwest Asia, American airmen were able to avoid the gradualism that cost so many lives and planes in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Readers should come away from this book with a sympathetic understanding of the men who bombed North Vietnam. Those airmen handled tough problems in ways that ultimately reshaped the Air Force into the effective instrument on display in the Gulf War. Dr. Thompson began to learn about his subject when he was an Army draftee assigned to an Air Force intelligence station in Taiwan during the Vietnam War. He took time out from writing To Hanoi and Back to serve in the Checkmate group that helped plan the Operation Desert Storm air campaign against Iraq. Later he visited Air Force pilots and commanders in Italy immediately after the Operation Deliberate Force air strikes in Bosnia. During Operation Allied Force over Serbia and its Kosovo province, he returned to Checkmate. Consequently, he is keenly aware of how much the Air Force has changed in some respects---how little in others. Although he pays ample attention to context, his book is about the Air Force. He has written a well-informed account that is both lively and thoughtful.

Despite American success in preventing the conquest of South Korea by communist North Korea, the Korean War of 1950-1953 did not satisfy Americans who expected the kind of total victory they had experienced in World War II. In that earlier, larger war, victory over Japan came after two atomic bombs destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But in Korea five years later, the United States limited itself to conventional weapons. Even after communist China entered the war, Americans put China off-limits to conventional bombing as well as nuclear bombing. Operating within these limits, the U.S. Air Force helped to repel two invasions of South Korea while securing control of the skies so decisively that other United Nations forces could fight without fear of air attack.