Which US Air Force campaign sprayed herbicides over Vietnam from 1962 to 1971?

Which US Air Force campaign sprayed herbicides over Vietnam from 1962 to 1971? Operation Ranch Hand.

Operation Ranch Hand was the US Air Force’s principal aerial herbicide campaign in Vietnam, conducted from 1962 until 1971. Its objectives were to remove jungle vegetation that concealed enemy movements and to destroy crops believed to support communist forces. The campaign also extended, to a lesser degree, into Laos and Cambodia.

Specially equipped C-123 aircraft flew low over forests, mangroves, roads, waterways, and agricultural areas. The sprays included several “Rainbow Herbicides,” most famously Agent Orange, as well as Agents White, Blue, Purple, and others. Ranch Hand was part of the broader herbicidal program known as Operation Trail Dust, so the names are related but not interchangeable.

The operation became one of the war’s most consequential and controversial legacies. Roughly 19 million US gallons of herbicides were sprayed, damaging millions of acres. Concerns about the dioxin contaminant TCDD in some formulations later drove extensive medical, environmental, legal, and veterans’ policy debates. The final Ranch Hand run took place in January 1971.