Re: Other Consideration of using Nuclear Weapons

[Donald McElfresh <a0019874@airmail.net>]

Also, in Winter of 1951, Flying Tigers Airline flew a triangular flight
pattern in the Pacific. California to Indo-China with supplies for the
French, then north to Haneda, where they picked up wounded G.I.'s and then
flew to California. First stop was atWake Island (with a small quonset hut
as rest stop), 2nd stop was Honolulu, and 3rd was an airbase in California.
You could kick the tops of the metal bucket seats backward and make beds out
of them. The flight attendants changed at each stop. Never forgot the one
that got off at Wake.

Don

Love Shack wrote:

> I found this studing French IndoChina War regarding the consideration of
> using Nuclear weapons.  No doubt Korea was also being considered.
>
> Chennault CAT / CIA was supplying the French with supplies during the
> war...
>
> Subsequently, the USAF became involved in providing transport for French
> soldiers from France to Indochina. France's limited air transport assets
> were stretched
> to the limit in Indochina, and the large numbers of new troops required
> to bolster the flagging effort on the ground simply could not be quickly
> transferred to the
> theatre. The answer came in the form of American C-124 Globemaster IIs,
> flying the long haul from France. Flights in support of the French
> continued until 1955.
>
> Dien Bien Phu nearly provided the spark for initiating full American
> involvement in the war. Numerous planning sessions were held in
> Washington for a possible
> airstrike on the Viet Minh positions in the hills surrounding DBP, or
> the lines of support beyond the valley.
>
> Options went as far as a possible atomic bomb strike on the Viet Minh
> command, and possible into China. A massive conventional strike using
> B-29s of BombCom, the Pacific based Bomber Command, incorporating
> elements of the 19th, 98th and 307th BW and the 91st SRS was seriously
> considered. Cover for the strike was to have been provided by Navy jets
> flying of carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
>
> Such cover was necessary in light of the possibility of intervention by
> Chinese MiGs. Eventually these plans, known collectively as operation
> Vulture (Vautour) came to nothing, as the US demanded international
> cooperation as a condition of its involvement, and the British in
> particular felt that such a strike would have little effect on the final
> outcome of the war. It appears that rumours of B-29s with French
> roundels in the Pacific bases are unfounded.
>
> DF