Even if the B-52 was born to be the mainstay of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) nuclear deterrent, the Stratofortress flew her first combat missions as conventional bomber during the Vietnam War: in fact the B-52 was used to
bomb suspected hideouts of the Viet Cong insurgents in the jungles of South Vietnam. These sorties, part of the Operation Arc Light, saw the ultimate strategic bomber becoming a real weapon system and demonstrated the B-52 extreme versatility.But as explained by Bill Yenne in his book B-52 Stratofortress The Complete History of the World’s Longest Serving and Best Known Bomber, the first Arc Light mission against four battalions of Viet Cong, flown on Jun. 18, 1965, by twenty seven B-52Fs, was nearly a failure because of the lost in a mid-air collision of two bombers: the incident was caused by the bad weather, by the poor planning and by the ill-advised decision to fly the entire mission under radio silence. Nevertheless after this inauspicious beginning, the Arc Light sorties became routine and they saw the Stratofortress performing tactical support missions, backing the U.S. Marine Corps’ Operation Harvest Moon and the U.S. Army First Cavalry operations in the Ia Drang Valley.