The American Plan to Invade North Vietnam
Plans were drawn to end North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam and support for the insurgency there via a direct invasion that would take out North Vietnam. The plan, as described in On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, by Harry G. Summers, was reminiscent of the Normandy invasion. An airborne division would be airdropped to the north and west of Hanoi to block off the approaches to the Hanoi-Haiphong region. Simultaneously, a seaborne invasion with three amphibious divisions would land on beaches in the Haiphong area.
The Haiphong force would then march to Hanoi and linkup up with the airborne troops there. With the Hanoi-Haiphong area secured, outside support would be drastically curtailed. Two major railroads from China would be severed, the country’s main seaport would be in American hands, and the lines of communications to the south would be interdicted. Starved of Chinese and Soviet arms, munitions, and supplies, and cutoff from a steady infusion of North Vietnamese manpower, planners expected that armed resistance in South Vietnam would soon wane and collapse.