Supported by U.S. B-52 airstrikes and U.S. and South Vietnamese tactical airstrikes, the defenders at An Loc were able to hold out as American air power effectively broke up the NVA troop concentrations around the city. A captured letter, handwritten by the political commissar of the NVA’s 9th Division to his higher headquarters, reported that the allied tactical air and V-52 strikes had been unbelievably devastating. Finally, the Communist forces lifted their siege on July 11 and withdrew to their base areas in Cambodia.

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For the United States, and especially for President Richard Nixon, the invasion could not have come at a worse time. Enjoying foreign policy successes abroad but a shaky economy at home, the president would just as soon not have had to deal with the Vietnam issue. Politically, as General Giap had foreseen, it was impossible to reintroduce sufficient U.S. combat troops to stem the NVA drive. The major U.S. contribution to the South Vietnamese effort, besides political and materiel support, would be fire support in the form of naval gunfire from U.S ships off the Vietnamese coast and, most important, air power.

The diminishing U.S. role in the Vietnam War during this period of Vietnamization had left U.S. air assets at a fraction of their past strength in Southeast Asia. Before the offensive started, three squadrons of F-4 fighter-bombers and a single squadron of A-37 attack aircraft made up the U.S. Air Force’s presence in Vietnam, a total of 76 planes. United States Navy and Marine aviation assets located in-country and off the coast of Vietnam augmented this total.

With his reputation and his policy of Vietnamization at stake, Nixon implemented a massive buildup of air power in Southeast Asia and a broadening of the eligible targets. On April 6, U.S. fighter-bombers raided military targets 100 kilometers north of the demilitarized zone. As the available air assets made their strikes both in support of the beleaguered ARVN units and against targets in North Vietnam, squadrons of U.S. military aircraft redeployed from their bases in Japan, Korea, the Philippines and the U.S. mainland. Simultaneously, more aircraft carriers steamed toward Vietnam to join the two already on station there, until by late spring there were six aircraft carriers, each with approximately 90 craft, operating off the coast.

The bolstering of the B-52 fleet at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam and U-Tapao in Thailand was particularly valuable. During February of 1972, when the United States started receiving reports of the massing of NVA forces, Strategic Air Command returned B-52s and KC-135 tankers to the Pacific from five Stateside bases. Besides offsetting Communist buildups of men and supplies, the deployments were evidence that the United States would not stand idly by during a major North Vietnamese attack.

U.S. tactical air power was stemming the tide of the Communist invasion, but it was not turning it back. While the ARVN ground forces were holding, they were in no shape to drive the NVA from South Vietnam. If the United States was going to stop North Vietnam, it would have to greatly increase its pressure. Instead of concentrating on the tactical situation on the battlefield, the United States would have to hit the North on a strategic scale.

In May 1972, Nixon went on national television to tell the American people that to bring the North Vietnam government to the peace table, the United States would take the appropriate steps to terminate the North’s ability to continue the war. Major among these steps included mining all North Vietnamese ports, interdicting supplies to the North by U.S. forces, cutting rail and communication lines and resuming bombing in the North.

Operation Pocket Money, the mining of North Vietnam’s ports, commenced on May 9. U.S. Navy A-6 bombers sowed the waters with sophisticated mines set to activate on May 11, giving the many ships in Vietnamese harbors, including 16 from the Soviet Union, time to vacate. Only five actually left, and several ships, including Soviet ones, were subsequently damaged. Since during the previous year up to 85 percent of all imports had arrived through the port of Haiphong, including all oil, this was a devastatingly effective blockade.

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