B-52 Stratofortress

by Bill Yenne

  Also by this time, the beleaguered Milosevic had been entertaining thoughts of a negotiated end to his occupation of Kosovo, though he found it hard to let go of one more dominion that had been part of the Serb-dominated Yugoslavia for more than eight decades. Like the North Vietnamese on the eve of Linebacker II, Milosevic was a reluctant negotiator, hoping that his adversary would run out of steam and leave him alone.

  Slobodan Milosevic’s Linebacker II moment came on the first weekend of June 1999 at a place on the Kosovo-Albania border called Mount Pastrik. Here, the KLA was fighting a sizable Serbian army force. As NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark told his subordinate commanders via video conferencing, “That mountain is not going to get lost. I’m not going to have Serbs on that mountain. We’ll pay for that hill with American blood if we don’t help [the KLA] hold it.”

  On Sunday, June 6, CNN reported that “NATO used B-52 bombers Saturday night into Sunday to strike areas in Kosovo near its border with Albania. There was also military activity along the border between Albania and Kosovo. NATO used B-52 bombers to strike an area near Gorshub in Yugoslavia, just inside the border. The mountain plateau was also the scene of a day-long artillery and mortar battle between Yugoslav forces and the KLA.”

  On Wednesday, June 9, Reuters reported that “a NATO B-52 bomber caught two Yugoslav Army battalions in the open after Serbia stalled on pulling its troops out of Kosovo and many hundreds of troops may have been killed, alliance sources said Tuesday. The B-52 dropped sticks of gravity bombs on the troop concentrations near the Kosovo-Albania border Monday, carpeting a hillside area where some 400 to 800 soldiers were estimated to have been in the field.”

  Reuters added that NATO military spokesman Gen. Walter Jertz confirmed that “heavy bombers had been diverted at short notice to attack troops in Kosovo.”

  When asked if the alliance had been pulling its punches while top-level diplomatic moves were under way, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea replied that “I’m sure that if you were in the field in Kosovo in the Yugoslav Army yesterday you wouldn’t have perceived this as holding back at all. The pressure was very intense, particularly in the sorties that were carried out by the B-52s against the Serb fielded forces in the Mount Pastrik area.”

  Also on June 9, Dana Priest of the Washington Post wrote that “at least a month ago, NATO commanders began using B-52s to herd troops on the ground into more open and vulnerable areas (because there are no NATO troops on the ground to do this). In the last two weeks, B-52s and B-1Bs have been deployed against the massing of Serb forces that has occurred in response to a KLA rebel offensive along the Albanian border. NATO has used this opportunity to take out large numbers of troops that were, in essence, hiding from them before. On Monday, a pair of B-52s and B-1Bs dropped 86 Mk 82s. . . on a concentration of several hundred Serb troops near the Mt. Pastrik region.”

  On June 10, NATO ratified the terms of an international peace plan and suspended the seventy-eight-day air campaign. Two days later, in Dana Priest’s words, “Slobodan Milosevic unexpectedly capitulated. . . . Milosevic signed an agreement allowing the invasion of 50,000 NATO soldiers—but as peacekeepers, not warriors.”

  The NATO-led peacekeeping Kosovo Force (KFOR) began entering Kosovo, which was now under UN administration. KFOR had planned for combat operations, but was now going in only in a peacekeeping role.

  Slobodan Milosevic resigned as president after a disputed presidential election in September 2000 and was arrested by Yugoslav federal authorities in March 2001 on charges ranging from corruption to embezzlement. Sent to The Hague to stand trial for war crimes, he died in March 2006 before his interminable trial reached a verdict.

  For the BUFF, the Kosovo War ended in a moment of triumph with the venerable warhorse having played a small, but pivotal, role in the climactic moment.

  A B-1B Lancer takes off as a B-52H taxies past, readying for takeoff from Andersen AFB on Guam. USAF photo, Sgt. Charlene Franken

  IN THE 1980s, it was often said that few people could have realistically predicted in the 1960s that the Stratofortress would still be in front line service in the 1980s. To this, it is obvious to add that few of those in the 1980s would have realistically predicted that the BUFF would be in front-line combat in the twenty-first century. Nor would most people have predicted that from March 2000 through March 2001, the mission capable rate for the Stratofortress was 80.5 percent, compared with 53.7 percent for the B-1B and 30.3 percent for the B-2A.

  Of course, few people in the twentieth century could have predicted many things about what happened during and after September 2001.

  Enduring Freedom

  September 11, 2001—like December 7, 1941—was a day of infamy that changed the course of American history. The coordinated hijackings of four jetliners by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network destroyed the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon, and killed 2,977 people in three states. These previously unimaginable attacks both shocked the nation and invited retaliatory action.

  The focus was on Afghanistan, where the Islamist Taliban regime had been providing safe haven for bin Laden and his gang. The United States issued an ultimatum demanding the Taliban turn in the al-Qaeda leadership, close down terrorist training camps, and allow U.S. access to the camps for confirmation. When the Taliban rejected the ultimatum on September 21, the United States prepared for action, which was to be initiated under the umbrella of the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

  On October 7, the United States began the GWOT with Operation Enduring Freedom, a military offensive aimed at crushing al-Qaeda and removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.

  As in Desert Storm a decade earlier, and the subsequent limited air operations over Iraq in the 1990s, overall command of the operation was with the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), now under U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks. The air component (CENTAF) was under the command of Lt. Gen. Charles Wald and was managed from CENTCOM’s forward-based Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

  The strategy for Enduring Freedom, as summarized in the RAND Corporation after-action assessment was “to rely on air power and precision weapons, aided on the ground by U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF), who would work alongside indigenous Afghan groups [specifically the Northern Alliance] opposed to the Taliban and identify and validate targets for allied aircrews.”

  Operating from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the B-52H was part of the opening phase of the Enduring Freedom air campaign, which involved sorties by carrier-based U.S. Navy aircraft, as well as U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers, and B-2A Spirits. Initial targets included radar and command and control facilities, but the target list expanded over the subsequent days to include airfields and aircraft.

  Bomber and aerial refueling operations out of Diego Garcia were under the umbrella of the 40th Air Expeditionary Wing (later 40th Air Expeditionary Group), which was reactivated on Diego Garcia in October 2001. Created as a bombardment group during World War II, it had evolved into the 40th Tactical Wing and had been deactivated in 1992. The B-52Hs assigned to the wing were drawn from the 2nd Bombardment Wing at Barksdale AFB, and the 5th Bombardment Wing at Minot AFB. Meanwhile, B-1Bs deployed overseas under the 28th Air Expeditionary Wing.

  Ground crew members wave at a B-52H as it prepares for takeoff from Diego Garcia for a strike mission against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. USAF photo, Senior Airman Rebeca Luquin

  A B-52H of the 2nd Bombardment Wing, Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, wears “Let’s Roll” commemorative nose art. “Let’s Roll,” was the famous phrase used by United Airlines Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer as he and fellow passengers attacked terrorist hijackers on September 11, 2001. USAF photo, Sgt. Denise Rayder

  Stratofortresses prepare to takeoff on a mission to Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. USAF photo, Senior Airman Rebeca Luquin

  Sgt. Kathleen Rhem of the American Forces Press Service
was on hand to interview the Air Force bomber pilots returning after the first night of operations. A B-52H radar operator called “Doc” told her that “the president counted on us to do a job, and the [American] people counted on us to do a job tonight. Whether you’re from Manhattan or the Washington, D.C. area, it doesn’t really matter. We’re all Americans, and we’re all in this together.”

  Nearby, Rhem noticed the slogan “NYPD—We Remember,” a reference to New York police officers killed on September 11.

  “It all came together because we train for this,” a B-52 pilot nicknamed “Woodstock” told the journalist. “This is what the American citizens expect us to be able to do, and in peacetime we prepare for these eventualities. [From the intelligence information to the ground crews, it came together like a] finely oiled machine.”

  The first bomber attacks were by night, but as Air Force Capt. Gregory Ball notes in an official overview of the campaign, “On the second day of the air offensive, coalition aircraft began operating during the day; and by the tenth day of operations, planners established ‘target zones’ throughout Afghanistan to. . . engage targets of opportunity around the clock, because the Taliban’s air defenses were negligible.”

  By the end of October, the B-52Hs were concentrating their immense bomb loads on Taliban and al-Qaeda ground forces and infrastructure, especially troop concentrations in the area of Bagram AB near Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, north of Kabul, the fourth-largest city of Afghanistan. Ball notes that in the capture of Mazar-e-Sharif on November 9, the use of air power “was considered a major breakthrough in the struggle to oust the Taliban and al-Qaeda.”

  The bomb capacity of the former SAC bombers, especially the Stratofortress, made them, pound for pound, the most important aircraft of the air campaign. Through October 23, the three U.S. Air Force bomber types had dropped in excess of 80 percent of the bomb tonnage targeting Afghanistan, though they were flying just a tenth of the total sorties. Through the end of November, just eight B-1Bs and ten B-52Hs operating from Diego Garcia had dropped 72 percent of total tonnage. In the first seventy-six days of operations, from October 7 to December 23, when the pace slowed, B-1A and B-52H bombers had dropped 11,500 of the 17,500 total munitions delivered. The U.S. Air Force reported that the B-52Hs were averaging five missions a day, compared with four daily for the B-1Bs.

  The bombers were directed to targets in real time by ground-based Special Forces Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs), Forward Air Controllers (FACs), or by airborne “Fast FACs” in jet fighters, all using precision GPS targeting.

  The BUFF proved to be a vital weapon in Enduring Freedom, not only for its ordnance capacity, but for its endurance. As attested to by the circling contrails seen from the ground, the BUFFs spent a great deal of time over the theater, waiting to be called in to a specific target. Indeed, some missions lasted for up to fifteen hours as the BUFFs loitered over Afghanistan. The fact that B-52Hs had the staying power to be able to do this gave them an advantage over smaller tactical aircraft, which required more frequent refuelings.

  Precision-guided weapons also allowed the BUFFs be used more effectively than ever for ground support. As Dr. Carlo Kopp writes in his Operation Enduring Freedom Analysis, “the heavy bombers could orbit for hours picking off targets on demand. Different targets could be optimally attacked with varying numbers of guided or unguided weapons. Unlike fighters, limited in weapons loads and mixes by payload limitations, a B-52H/B-1B bomber could either pick off point targets with single JDAMs, obliterate a trenchline with Mk 82/Mk 84 or demolish a group of buildings or bunkers with multiple Mk 84 or BLU-109/B 2,000 pounders.”

  Citing advances in precision munitions, notably the JDAM, Tommy Franks reported that an average of two hundred daily sorties “hit roughly the same number of targets hit with 3,000 sorties” in Operation Desert Storm.

  As Dr. Rebecca Grant pointed out in Air Force Magazine in September 2002, “both the B-1 and B-52 now carried GPS-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions. For the first time in combat, these bombers followed the lead of the B-2s in Allied Force in 1999 and linked into the net of updated information to take new target coordinates in real time. Bombers generally did not have their entire load of weapons designated for fixed targets. Instead, bomber crews headed for their first pre-planned targets and then were on call to be redirected to other targets.”

  An Air Force B-52G from the 28th Air Expeditionary Wing takes off from Diego Garcia on October 22, 2001, leaving a trail of smoke above a row of B-1Bs. By that time, Air Force B-2A, B-1B, and B-52H bombers had expended more than 80 percent of the tonnage dropped on combat missions over Afghanistan. USAF photo, Sgt. Shane Cuomo

  Grant mentions a “stunning demonstration of the new technique at its best came when a B-52 bomber put ordnance on target within 20 minutes of a call for assistance. . . . A U.S. forward air controller on the ground with the Northern Alliance forces contacted the CAOC, which passed the target to a B-52 overhead—19 minutes after the initial call the B-52 dropped its load on the enemy.”

  Grant also reported that at the Air Force Association symposium in Orlando, Florida, in February 2002, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper called the use of the B-52 against emerging targets in a close air support role “transformational,” noting that these sorties, “would normally have been flown by attack aircraft such as the A-10.”

  By November, the Northern Alliance had captured Kabul from the Taliban, and United States forces had “boots on the ground” in Afghanistan. By December, the focus of the war was on the interception of Taliban and al-Qaeda members attempting to escape across the mountains into Pakistan. As we know with history’s 20/20 hindsight, the war had now reached a critical turning point, and the American execution of this second phase of Operation Enduring Freedom left much to be desired—notably leaving the final takedown of Osama bin Laden himself in the column of unfinished business for nearly a decade.

  By December 2001, with the Taliban government routed and sizable numbers of American forces arriving on the ground in Afghanistan, the nature of air operations changed. For one thing, U.S. Air Force tactical air power was now based in-country and could respond much more quickly. Bagram AB went from being an American target to being a major American base.

  In March 2002, when American forces launched Operation Anaconda, their largest ground action to date, into the rugged mountains along the Pakistan border, air support included AC-130 gunships, more than three dozen tactical aircraft, and ten bombers from the 40th Air Expeditionary Wing. It has been noted that the B-52Hs from the 40th AEW flew more than eighty sorties, dropping more than half the tonnage of ordnance delivered in Operation Anaconda.

  An enemy location in the Gardez Valley of Afghanistan is destroyed by precision munitions dropped by B-52H bombers on March 10, 2002, during Operation Anaconda. U.S. Army photo, Specialist Andres Rodriguez

  A B-52H Stratofortress, flown by Capt. Will Byers and Maj. Tom Aranda, prepares for refueling over Afghanistan during a February 2006 mission. USAF photo, Master Sgt. Lance Cheung

  While providing close air support for forces on the ground in Afghanistan, Maj. Andrea Jensen, a 40th Expeditionary Group B-52H pilot, accumulated one hundred combat flying hours through March 20, 2006. USAF photo, Senior Master Sgt. John Rohrer

  A B-52H Stratofortress, its external racks filled with JDAMs, on its way to a combat mission over Afghanistan in May 2006. USAF photo, Senior Master Sgt. John Rohrer

  The actions of the 40th AEW during the first five months of Operation Enduring Freedom would set the pattern of Stratofortress ground-support operations out of Diego Garcia that would be ongoing for the next five years.

  A series of interviews conducted in 2006 by Master Sgt. Scott King, and posted by 40th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs, are illustrative of the routine for B-52 pilots forward-deployed to Diego Garcia during those years.

  Maj. Andrea Jensen, with more than one hundred combat hours over Afghanistan, observed that “our task is
different from day to day over Afghanistan. At times we are asked by the joint terminal attack controllers on the ground, to provide a show of force by coming in low and dropping flares. Other times, when requested, we actually drop bombs—either way, we always have successful effects against the enemy. The controllers are extremely professional at what they do. They bring a calm demeanor in the midst of chaotic conditions on the ground. Up in the air, we’re pretty far removed from what’s happening on the ground. I’m just happy we can assist when our forces are in harm’s way.”

  She added that “providing close air support for our U.S. and coalition ground troops using the B-52 platform allows our ground forces to get some sleep at night.”

  Meanwhile, by April 2006, Lt. Col. Larry Littrell and Maj. Eric Johnson had each reached five thousand hours of flying Enduring Freedom support missions from Diego Garcia.

  “To give you an idea of how hard it is to reach 5,000 hours, I have never left the cockpit of the B-52,” Littrell told King. “My first Air Force assignment was to the BUFF, and I have been flying it ever since. I was flying for a commercial airline on September 11, and decided to return to active duty after the attacks on our nation. I am part of this fight. Al-Qaeda and [the] Taliban need to go away and since you can’t change the way they think, you have to do it the old fashioned way. As B-52 aircrew, we have the responsibility to provide close air support for our troops on the ground. They are in harm’s way every day, and for them to know that a B-52 is only minutes away, poised to support them with massive firepower, should give them a piece of mind that America hasn’t forgotten them, and nothing shows resolve better than a 2,000-pound JDAM bomb. . . I think our role in Afghanistan brings the GWOT fight to their home turf instead of on the streets of Hometown USA.”