The Most Bombed Country in History Was a 'Secret'

The most heavily bombed country in human history is a place America said it wasn't even fighting in.

That country is Laos, Vietnam's small, landlocked neighbor. Between 1964 and 1973, US planes dropped more than two million tons of bombs on it.

That is more than the United States dropped on Germany and Japan combined in all of World War II. For nine years, a planeload of bombs fell on Laos roughly every eight minutes, around the clock. The goal was to cut enemy supply lines snaking through the jungle.

And almost no one knew. It was a secret war, run largely by the CIA, never declared and rarely reported. Up to a third of the bombs never exploded, and they still litter the ground today.

Half a century later, those hidden bombs are still killing farmers and children in Laos.

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