page_title: Pacific Air Forces
section_title: Vietnam War
hierarchical_section_title: Pacific Air Forces / History / Vietnam War
caption_attribution_description: English: MDD F-4E-35-MC Phantom II s/n 67-0297 in the 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron, 366th Tactical Fighter Wing - DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam. This a/c was later lost with her crew to AAA near near Sre Chas / Songkum-Andet, Cambodia on 6/18/1970.
context_page_description: Pacific Air Forces is a Major Command of the United States Air Force and is also the air component command of the United States Indo-Pacific Command. PACAF is headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, Hawaii, and is one of two USAF MAJCOMs assigned outside the Continental United States, the other being the United States Air Forces in Europe - Air Forces Africa. Over the past sixty-five plus years, PACAF has been engaged in combat during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and Operations Desert Storm, Southern Watch, Northern Watch, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
  The mission of Pacific Air Forces is to provide ready air and space power to promote U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific region during peacetime, through crisis, and in war. PACAF organizes, trains, and equips the 45,000 Total Force personnel of the Regular Air Force, the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard with the tools necessary to support the Commander of United States Indo-Pacific Command. PACAF comprises three numbered Air Forces, nine main bases and nearly 375 aircraft.
context_section_description: In the early 1960s, communist military strength and firepower in Vietnam increased. As a result, PACAF began a buildup in the area with the addition of troops and better arms and equipment.
  In response to what has become known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, Tactical Air Command (TAC) pilots, navigators and support personnel found themselves deployed from the CONUS to PACAF bases such as Da Nang Air Base and Phan Rang AB in South Vietnam. Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base and Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand were also used by deployed TAC fighter squadrons.
  As the American effort in Southeast Asia increased, TAC permanently reassigned entire wings of aircraft from CONUS bases to PACAF and increased the number of rotated tactical fighter and reconnaissance squadrons on rotating Temporary Duty (TDY) commitments to PACAF bases in Vietnam and Thailand, along with units to South Korea, Japan and the Philippines. On a daily basis, flight crews would hurl themselves and their planes at targets across the area of operations over the skies of North and South Vietnam.
  At the height of the Vietnam War (1968), PACAF commanded forces at major air bases in the following countries:
  Japan (Fifth Air Force)
  South Korea (Fifth Air Force)
  Philippines (Thirteenth Air Force)
  Taiwan (Thirteenth Air Force)
  South Vietnam (Seventh Air Force)
  Thailand (Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force)
  In 1962, PACAF activated the 2d Air Division to be the main warfighting organization in South Vietnam.  As the conflict escalated, Seventh Air Force was activated on 1 April 1966, replacing 2d Air Force.  PACAF units in Thailand were under the command of Thirteenth Air Force beginning in 1964, then in 1973 a joint Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force headquarters was established in Bangkok to direct PACAF forces in Thailand operating in Indochina (until 15 August 1973), and Thailand until the final USAF withdrawal from Southeast Asia in the beginning of 1976.
   for the PACAF order of battle in South Vietnam
   for the PACAF order of battle in Thailand
  By 1970, direct PACAF involvement the war was winding down as the conflict was being increasingly turned over to the South Vietnamese under the process known as Vietnamization. Units from the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) took on more and more combat to defend their nation while PACAF tactical air strength was being reduced as several air bases were turned over to the VNAF. Combat aircraft of PACAF flew their last strikes in Cambodia 15 August 1973, writing the final chapter to the long and costly history of active American participation in the Indochina War. The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 ended PACAF's use of South Vietnamese bases, and by 1976 bases in Thailand were turned over to the Thai government. In 1979, normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China also led to the withdrawal of PACAF personnel from Ching Chuan Kang Air Base, Republic of China (Taiwan).
caption: F-4E of the 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron, Da Nang Air Base
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