Across the Wing-Stories of Navy Carrier Combat Squadrons in the Vietnam Theatre



ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 26 MARCH 1967

RIPPLE SALVO… #386… THANT HAS A PLAN, AND MLK IS ON THE MARCH WITH DR. SPOCK... but first…

Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED EIGHTY-SIX of a return to the air war over North Vietnam called Rolling Thunder…

26 MARCH 1967… HEAD LINES and LEADS from the Ogden Standard-Examiner on a cloudy Easter Sunday…

Page 1: “Tense World Pauses In Toils, Gives Tribute to Christ’s Way”… “In a world uneasy with international tensions and grieved by a jungle war, Christians today lifted the pall of Lenten sorrow. From Rome to Jerusalem and from Vietnam to the United States, believers in a risen Christ spent Sunday preparing for the dawn of the most solemn feast in the Christian calendar–Easter Sunday.”… Page 1: “Humphrey Ready to Tour Europe”… “Vice President Herbert H. Humphrey will leave today on a fence-mending diplomatic tour of Europe featuring meetings with Pope Paul and allied leaders in France, Germany, Britain and Italy. This will be a 14-day mission.”… Page 3: “De Gaulle To Supervise The Launching Of France’s First Nuclear Submarine at Cherbourg”... “The Redoubtable, which De Gaulle ordered built shortly after he returned to power in 1958, is approximately equal in size and ballistic missile capability of the biggest United States submarines, the La Fayette class. The sleek black sub will be launched Wednesday at Cherbourg.”… Page 5: “LBJ Civil Rights Legislation Dealt Blow by Powell, King”... “Supporters of President Johnson’s civil rights legislation fear it’s already thin chances could be jeopardized by new demonstrations by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And they are concerned that the program, including a hotly debated open housing provision, may further be endangered by the case of Adam Clayton Powell…might produce white backlash around the nation…”… Page 8: “U.S. Adopts A Policy Of Hands-Off On Vietnam Elections”... “The United States Government is taking a strict hands off policy on whether South Vietnam’s military leaders should run for office in the forthcoming elections in South Vietnam.”… Page 26: “Yacht Phoenix Sails Into Gulf of Tonkin…carrying eight militant American pacifists and $10,000 worth of medical supplies for the Communists…Quaker Action Group is making the trip in defiance of the United States Government.”…

Page 1: “Dr. King Leads Thousands: ‘End War’ “… “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dr. Benjamin Spock led thousands of marchers in a two-mile column through Chicago’s Loop on Sunday, then called for an alliance between the civil rights movement and pacifists to end the war in Vietnam. Declaring the war ‘is a blasphemy against all that the United States stands for,’ King condemned the American military and foreign and military policy and what he called a national arrogance which ‘can bring the curtain down on our national drama.‘ It was King’s first active involvement with the peace movement. He has stated that the Vietnam war is a major stumbling block to the United States civil rights movement. ‘Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as the war hawks. As they spread the propaganda of war, we must spread the propaganda of peace. We must combine the fervor of the civil rights with the peace movement. We must demonstrate, preach and teach until the very foundations of our nation are shaken. I will continue to stand up for this issue,’ King shouted to a standing ovation, ‘I say I am involved for the moral reason, I want to see our world survive. It isn’t enough to be concerned with integrated schools without being concerned with having a world in which to enjoy integration.’ Dr. Spock followed: ‘I feel nothing but scorn and horror for Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam policy. Our Government has succumbed to such an unhealthy distortion of reality that it imagines dangers that don’t exist, fails to see the dangers that never needed to be. It alienates its allies, antagonizes the neutral nations ready to attack or intervene in any small country by which it feels threatened.’…”

Humble Host notes: IMHO this day and this little speech was a historic moment in the history of our country. MLK’s decision to combine the two causes in one set the civil rights movement back and advanced the anti-Vietnam war movement.

26 MARCH 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… Ogden S-E ( 27 Mar reporting 26 Mar ops)…Page 1: “MIG Shot Down; New Fights Rage; U.S. Loses Jet Over North, Three Helicopters”… “American airmen smashing deep into North Vietnam shot a Communist MIG-17 from the skies Sun day while a ground war erupted with sharp fighting from the 17th parallel to the Mekong Delta. One U.S. jet went down over the North but the pilot was saved. Communist ground gunners in the South downed three American helicopters and badly shot up four more. The air battle over North Vietnam took place during a strike on the Son Tay Army Barracks supply point 23 miles west of Hanoi, the first time the installation had been reported bombed. It contains a half-dozen ammunition bunkers and a string of barracks. A flight of eight Soviet designed MIGs jumped the Air Force F-105 Thunderchief that turned into the marauding MIGs and shot one down. It was the 38th MIG kill claimed by U.S. fliers in the war, in contrast to 10 U.S. planes shot down by North Vietnamese pilots. The Thunderchief that went down over the North was hit by ground fire just above the demilitarized zone, the Air Force said. It was the 497th U.S. plane reported lost over the North. Hanoi radio claimed three U.S. planes downed Sunday. ….. (Bear#45Mk82RPIIbridge)

“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) Two fixed wing aircraft were lost in Southeast Asia on 26 March 1967…

(1) MAJOR JACK C. SPILLERS was flying an F-105D of the 469th TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat on an Iron Hand flight to search and destroy SA-2 activity in the area of North Vietnam just north of the DMZ. MAJOR SPILLERS aircraft was hit by ground fire during the search and he was forced to eject over the demilitarized zone. He came down in unfriendly territory but evaded long enough to be rescued by an Air Force HH-3…oohrah… CAPTAIN SPILLERS returned to action and completed his tour with 114 missions. He returned in 1969 for another tour as Commander of the 357th TFS out of Takhli and flew an additional 106 missions… 

(2) LCOL FREDERICK AUSTIN CROW and 1LT HENRY POPE FOWLER were flying an F-4C of the 433rd Wolfpack and 8th TFW out of Ubon on a wing strike on the army barracks at Son Tay west of Hanoi. Their Phantom was hit and badly damaged by an SA-2 requiring they eject just west of the target area. Both LCOL CROW and 1LT FOWLER were captured and interned as POWs for the duration of the war. Both were returned to the U.S. in 1973.

RIPPLE SALVO… #386… Secretary General U Thant of the UN, at the urging of countless voices around the world, had no recourse but to insert himself in the relentless effort to get North Vietnam and the United States in one room to talk about how to end the war. On 25 March Thant distributed a “paper” that proposed a chain of events, three or four steps to be taken one at a time, that would lead to genuine peace negotiations. Thant stirred the pot by shot-gunning his idea to the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, as belligerents, Britain and Russia as the co-chairs of the Geneva conference of 1954, and Canada, Poland and India as members of the International Control Commission. “The Thant Proposal”:

(1) United States bombing of North Vietnam, all military action in South Vietnam, and the sending of U.S and North Vietnamese troops into South Vietnam should stop at once. (1a) At the same time, peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam should start.

(2) When appropriate, expand the talks to include both South Vietnam and the Viet Cong (National Liberation Front) and after that add others to include Communist China.

(3) Process of building confidence to lead to a new Geneva conference.

These points became the focus of the principle peace effort of 1967… and we all know how this turns out…all talk and no action… I include it because the search for peace was part of the story… and in every part of the story “the cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam” was the first prerequisite to talking peace …

CAG’s QUOTES for 25 & 26 Mar: LORD HAWKE: “The bravery of his soul was equal to the dangers he encountered.”...ARDANT DU PICQ: “The new arms are worthless in the hands of weak-hearted soldiers no matter what their number be.”… PATTON: “War is conflict. Fighting is an elemental exposition of the age-old effort to survive. It is the cold glitter in the attacker’s eye, not the point of the questing bayonet, that breaks the line.”… “Team play wins.”

Lest we forget…   Bear…

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