This week in 1968, the US launched Operation Niagara in Vietnam, 66 straight days of carpet bombing, unleashing "the most concentrated application of aerial firepower in the history of warfare”, killing 15,000 Vietnamese.

The operation was designed to prevent a US base at Khe Sanh, falling to the communist Vietnamese forces. President Lyndon Johnson ordered that the base must be held at all cost.

As a result, the US dropped a “waterfall of bombs” on the Vietnamese people, flying 24,000 bombing runs and dropping 100,000 tons of explosives, or over one billion dollars worth of aerial munitions.

Life Magazine described the US bombing, “the was earth churned into a moonscape by the most intensive bombing in the history of warfare; it eradicated all living creatures and vegetation whatsoever, even those located in caves or in deep underground shelters."

Despite this enormous amount of bombing, US General William C. Westmoreland, believed it wasn’t enough, and even seriously considered using nuclear weapons. He created a small secret group to study the potential use of a nuclear weapon.

In June 1968, the US eventually abandon the base at Khe Sanh, but the US would continue to wage brutal war on the Vietnamese people for another 7 years.