The US and Republic of Vietnam Air Force begin Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established by transfer of personnel from the Army Air Forces with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.

The South Vietnam Air Force, officially the Republic of Vietnam Air Force, was the aerial branch of the Republic of Vietnam Military Forces, the official military of the Republic of Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. The RVNAF began with a few hand-picked men chosen to fly alongside French pilots during the State of Vietnam era (1949–55).

Operation Rolling Thunder was a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the United States (U.S.) 2nd Air Division, U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) against North Vietnam from 2 March 1965 until 2 November 1968, during the Vietnam War.

North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty fully recognized in 1954. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it opposed the French-supported State of Vietnam and later the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam. The DRV invaded Saigon in 1975 and ceased to exist the following year when it merged with the south to become the current Socialist Republic of Vietnam.