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Operation Tiger Hound
Part ofVietnam War
Barrell Roll/Steel Tiger/Tiger Hound areas of operations
Date 5 December 1965 – 11 November 1968 Location SoutheasternLaos Result Strategic US Failure
Belligerents
United States Republic of Vietnam	Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Commanders and leaders
	Đồng Sĩ Nguyên

Operation Tiger Hound was a covert U.S.2nd Air Division, laterSeventh Air Force andU.S. NavyTask Force 77 aerial interdiction campaign conducted in southeasternLaos from 5 December 1965 till 11 November 1968, during theVietnam War. The purpose of the operation was to interdict the flow ofPeople's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) supplies on theHo Chi Minh Trail (the Truong Son Strategic Supply Route to the North Vietnamese) from theDemocratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), through southeastern Laos, and into the northern provinces of theRepublic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). The missions were originally controlled by the 2d Air Division until that headquarters was superseded by the Seventh Air Force on 1 April 1966.

The geographic boundary of the operation was carved from the area of Laos already under bombardment underOperation Steel Tiger. This was done at the behest of the American commander in South Vietnam, GeneralWilliam C. Westmoreland, who saw the area of Laos that bordered the five northernmost provinces of South Vietnam as an extension of his area of operations. The U.S.Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed. UnlikeOperation Barrel Roll andSteel Tiger, however, the bombing in the new area would be conducted by aircraft of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force and by U.S. Air Force units based in South Vietnam (aircraft participating inBarrel Roll andSteel Tiger were generally based inThailand).

By the end of 1968 and the absorption ofTiger Hound operations byOperation Commando Hunt, 103,148 tactical air sorties had been flown over Laos. These missions were supplemented by 1,718B-52 Stratofortress sorties underOperation Arc Light. During the same time period, 132 U.S. aircraft or helicopters were shot down over Laos.^[1]

• Littauer, Raphael and Norman Uphoff, eds,The Air War in Indochina. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972.
• Schlight, John,A War Too Long. Washington DC: Center of Air Force History, 1993.
• Van Staaveren, Jacob,Interdiction in Southern Laos: 1960–1968. Washington DC: Center for Air Force History, 1993.

• Campaigns of the Vietnam War
• Battles and operations of the Vietnam War in 1965
• Battles and operations of the Vietnam War in 1966
• Battles and operations of the Vietnam War in 1967
• Battles and operations of the Vietnam War in 1968
• United States Marine Corps in the Vietnam War
• Laos–United States relations
• Laotian Civil War

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