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The Nazi Scheme to Bombard New York City With Rockets and Other Unfinished Military Plans

Khalid Elhassan January 16, 2020 32 min

South Vietnam - United States — American troops in South Vietnam. USA Today

13. The American Invasion of North Vietnam

American troops in South Vietnam. USA Today

America’s biggest problem during the Vietnam War was North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam, and support for the insurgency there. So plans were made to take out North Vietnam with a direct invasion. As described by Harry G. Summers in On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, the plan was reminiscent of the Normandy invasion.

It called for landing an airborne division to the north and west of Hanoi to block off the approaches to the Hanoi-Haiphong region. That would be accompanied by a seaborne invasion, with three divisions landed on beaches in the Haiphong area. The Haiphong force would then drive on to Hanoi, and linkup up with the airborne troops there.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.