ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Operation Big Bird

Operation Big Bird was a big project that happened a long time ago during the Vietnam War. The people who were in charge of America's war efforts wanted to try to find ways to make it easier to see what the enemy was doing. They decided to build a special kind of airplane called the EC-121.

This airplane was really cool because it had a lot of special cameras and radar equipment on it that could see things really far away. The airplane could fly really high up in the sky and see what was happening on the ground.

The people who flew these airplanes were called "Airborne Early Warning" crews, and they would fly over Vietnam looking for signs of the enemy. They would look for things like trucks or tanks moving around on the ground, or planes flying in the sky.

The reason why they called it "Operation Big Bird" is because the airplane they used was painted bright yellow, like the bird on Sesame Street. This made it easy to spot in the sky, and it also helped other American airplanes know where they were so they wouldn't accidentally run into each other.

Overall, Operation Big Bird was a really important part of the Vietnam War because it helped America's military leaders know more about what the enemy was doing.