<text id=00he2001><title>Twilight on the Trail</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Twilight on the Trail</hdr><body>
<p>Igloo White had its roots in the frustrations of trying to stop the infiltration of men and supplies into the South. The distribution system began inside China, and included the rail lines from the northeast and northwest to Hanoi. From there, supplies moved by truck and rail, depending on the season and the state of the roads or railroads after interdiction strikes. As materiel approached the DMZ, it crossed the border into Laos at one of two passes: Mu Gia, about 75 miles (120 km) north of the DMZ, or the Keo Neua pass at Nape, about 150 miles (240 km) north.
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<p>Here it entered the Ho Chi Minh trail, in use since World War II as a supply route for insurgents. Heavy foliage along the trail provided natural concealment, but there were places where truck convoys were exposed to attack. Consequently, much of the traffic moved at night.
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<p>Operation Steel Tiger was a limited air campaign to stop or slow enemy movements along the Laotian portion of the Ho Chi Minh trail. The first strike was flown about one month after the Rolling Thunder air campaign began against the North, and it was directed against a segment of the trail in the southern panhandle of Laos.
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<p>The first attack was at night, setting the style for many to come. AC-130 flareship and two B-57s sortied on an armed reconnaissance mission on 3 April 1965, hoping to find some targets worth hitting. The makeup of this team was typical for the mission; for daylight strikes, F-100s and F-105s generally flew the sorties. Some of the latter were on strip alert in Thailand, waiting to be dispatched against targets of opportunity discovered by one of the attack teams.
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<p>The seasonal monsoon came along soon after the opening of Steel Tiger, slowing the pace of the offensive and the supply movements. In spite of that, more than 1,000 strike sorties were being flown monthly by mid-year, using both USAF and USN aircraft. As soon as the monsoon season was replaced by the dry months, infiltration increased, stronger than ever, and it was apparent that a limited air campaign of Steel Tiger's scope wasn't enough. The answer was Tiger Hound.
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<p>It was a systematic air campaign of major size that brought in Army, Navy and Marine Corps aircraft to augment the USAF. The targets were trucks, their park and bivouac areas, bridges, buildings, and anti-aircraft artillery along the Trail. The planes also were assigned to cut roads and to hit choke points wherever they appeared.
