Gunships on the Trail

摘要

The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran southward for 500 miles from the mountain passes of North Vietnam through the Laotian panhandle into Cambodia. All along the way, exit routes led across the border into South Vietnam. Laos was supposedly neutral, but from 1959 on, Hanoi used the panhandle as an infiltration lifeline to sustain and support its war against South Vietnam. The US Air Force first attacked targets on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in December 1964 and a few months later expanded the effort into a continuing operation named Steel Tiger.