B-52s shot down

December 25, 2022 - 08:44
50 years ago today, bombs were raiding in the skies of Hà Nội, Hải Phòng and many other localities in northern Việt Nam. The air defence grids in the capital and all across northern Vietnam bravely defended their skies in an aerial raid, known in Việt Nam as "Điện Biên Phủ u in the Air" and in the US as the 1972 Christmas bombing.

The Operation Linebacker II, or Christmas Bombing, was launched by the US Air Force that used B-52s to drop more than 36,000 tonnes of bombs and munitions to shake the Vietnamese “to their core”. B-52s, which was considered the symbol of the US Air Force’s power and believed to be unbreakable, were eventually shot down by Vietnamese soldiers thanks to the unprecedentedly-fierce resistance of Việt Nam's air defence system.