RIPPLE SALVO… #390… MARCH 29…COME AND GONE… anybody notice??? … but first…

Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED NINETY of a celebration of the honorable and heroic service of the American warriors who fought the air war over North Vietnam fifty years ago…

30 MARCH 1967… HEAD LINES and LEADS from the Ogden Standard-Examiner on a cold, clear Thursday at Snowbasin on the east slopes of Mount Ogden where the greatest snow on earth is twelve feet deep…

Page 1: “Huge Jet Explodes on Motel Near New Orleans Kills 18”... “A cart-wheeling Delta Air Lines DC-8 jet exploded into the rear of a luxury motel opposite New Orleans International Airport today killing 18 persons, including 9 high school students –all girls– from Juda, Wisconsin. The big jet was on a training flight. It carried five pilots and a federal inspector. All died in the flaming crash at the Hilton Inn…The jet fell as it was banking sharply to return to the landing strip with an emergency…”… Page 1: “Jets Renew Attack on Tanker Torrey Canyon Wreck”… “Royal Air Force planes attacked with high explosive bombs and napalm again today. The tanker was carrying 35 million gallons of oil from Kuwait when she hit a reef at Land’s End 12 days ago. Only a part of the broken tanker remains above the waves.”… Page 1: “U.S. Allies Haul Down Colors and Depart France”… “The U.S. and the allies bowed out of France today and President Charles DeGualle’s military break with them became complete. They closed the Supreme Allied Headquarters near Paris after 16 years here and moved to Belgium Friday.”...Page 1: “Appeals Court Reaffirms Ruling, Demands Integration of Schools”… “The U.S. Fifth District Court of Appeals has aimed a knockout blow at southern school segregation with a volume of minutely detailed regulations on how total integration should…be accomplished next September.”…Page 2: “Huntley Defies Walkout”... “Mediation Set In Newscaster Strike”… “Good night, David. Good night, Chet,” is a casualty on the television radio strike as Huntley talked but Brinkley did not. The familiar coast-to-coast television sign-off was conspicuously absent Wednesday night as Chet Huntley, defying a strike by the 18,000-member American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and went it alone on his evening report for NBC.”…

Page 1C: Sports…”Houston Board Calls Up Clay”… “Cassius Clay has found his new hometown in Houston no friendlier than his old home in Louisville, Kentucky. The Houston draft board said Tuesday it notified Clay to report for induction into the armed forces at the Houston Induction Center on April 23. The Louisville board had previously set April 11 as the date of induction, but this was changed when Clay’s lawyers asked for the records to be transferred to the heavyweight champion’s new home. Clay’s papers arrived in Houston on Wednesday (29 March). Clay would not say whether he would report for induction. ‘I’ll answer to  the Government when the time comes. Clay who has taken the Black Muslim name of Muhammad Ali told newsmen Wednesday, ‘My prayers, my sacrifice, my life and my death are for Allah. If I thought my joining the war and possibly dying would bring peace and freedom, justice and equality to the 21-million so called Negroes, they would not have to draft me, I would join tomorrow.”... Page 4F: “Expert Sees U.S. Perils in Dearth of Engineers”... “The nation’s space program may lag. The design and construction of dams, skyscrapers, bridges and highways may stall. The power lawn mower may be lacking in quality and the television sets in quantity. These are some of the dangers forseen by Dr. Ralph Fodum unless the United States sharply increases the number of graduating engineers. He provided comparative figures. In 1950 the Soviet Union graduated 37,343 engineering students, the U.S. 40,000. In 1960 the Soviet Union 120,123 and the U.S. a total of 40,100. ‘In addition, in the Soviet Union when a student graduates in civil engineering he also must be a master bricklayer of carpenter.”…

30 March 1967… THE PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF…CIA (TS sanitized)… VIETNAM: Communist truck traffic in the Laotian panhandle continued fairly heavy throughout March. According to reports from friendly guerrilla teams most of this traffic is heading to Communist storage areas near the South Vietnam border…. SOUTH VIETNAM: Initial interrogation of a communist (redacted) tends to confirm other indications of an enemy summer offensive in Quang Nam, Quang Tin and Quang Ngai provinces. One of the main objectives of the offensive is the special forces camp which guards the approach to Quang Ngai city.

30 MARCH 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… Ogden S-E (31 Mar reporting 30 Mar ops)…Page 1: “Jets Strike Again At Steel Plant”... “In the air war the U.S. Command announced that Air Force jets led by a 44-year old World War II ace blew out the blast furnaces of a North Vietnam’s show place Thainguyen steel plant 37 miles north of Hanoi Thursday. The raid was led by Colonel Robin Olds of Washington D.C., who downed 24 enemy planes in World War II and a MIG-21 nearly three months ago in the biggest battle of the Vietnam war. The flight of Phantoms came in low and ‘walked their bombs across the target,’ a spokesman said. It was the seventh strike against the steel plant since it was put on the target list three weeks ago. Bad weather has hampered all the strikes and the Air Force enthusiastically hailed the lastest destruction of the blast furnaces. Olds, 44, husband of former movie star Ella Raines reported that the Thainguyen was ‘engulfed in smoke and flames and dust from his flight’s 1000-pound bombs.’ But the U.S. command hd some bad news to report, announcing that a U.S. Marine pilot fired rockets by mistake into his own group troops Thursday killing 4 and injuring 18 more. The Marine F-8 Crusader was supporting a Marine unit in an operation 25-miles south of coastal Quang Ngai city and his rockets landed short of the target…U.S. planes flew 95 missions against North Vietnam targets Thursday striking at communication targets in addition to the steel plant. During one attack on a truck convoy southwest of Hanoi, Air Force pilots sighted two MIG-21 interceptors but they turned away without giving battle. No U.S. planes were lost in the raids.”… (Bear#48MK82XomDuongTSP)

“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 30 March 1967…

(1) 1LT J.B. GELLER, USMC and 2LT EDWARD JOSEPH KEGLOVITS, USMC were flying an F-4B of the VMFA-542 Bengals and MAG-13 out of Chu Lai on a close air support mission near the Marine Corps base at Khe Sanh. On their first attack they were hit by enemy ground fire and forced to eject immediately. 1LT GELLER, the pilot, ejected safely and was rescued by a Marine helicopter. Inexplicably, 2LT KEGLOVITS rode the aircraft into the ground and was Killed in Action 50 years ago today…so young…

(2) CAPTAIN DAVID CARL LINDBERG was flying an F-100D of the 531st TFS and 3rd TFW out of Bien Hoa on a night Combat Skyspot mission. He was being controlled by radar on a target about 20 miles north of Bien Hoa on the run at 15,000-feet when hit by automatic weapons fire (Humble Host: a one in a million shot, I’d say). CAPTAIN LINDBERG was forced to eject and was rescued by an HH-3 Huskie…

(3) An A-4C of the VA-94 Mighty Shrikes embarked in USS Hancock was returning to the carrier from an armed reconnaissance mission and ran out of fuel requiring the pilot to eject. He was rescued by Navy helicopter.

RIPPLE SALVO… #390… NATIONAL VIETNAM WAR VETERANS DAY… The 29 March date was chosen about two years ago to mark the day “the last combat troops were ordered out of Vietnam”– 29 March 1973. The AMVETS, Department of Pennsylvania worked with Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana to get the “Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act” passed by Congress this spring and signed into law by the President on 28 March 2017. In the nick of time. This may account for the lack of notice by the media, et. al. Today as I surfed through the newscasts of the day I failed to hear a single mention of our special day… Oh, well. Maybe next year… At any rate, thanks to all the guys and gals and Senators Toomey and Donnelly who got behind an idea over two years ago and carried it to fruition. Now it is up to the Vietnam Veterans to make something special of the day– something beyond flying the flag, which I venture to say is proudly displayed every day in most Vietnam vets front yards… A March 29, 2018 muster on the mall in Washington with a calendar of events would be great. Perhaps the veteran organizations in the Washington area are already working on such an annual event… or will it just be another day?….

CAG’s QUOTES for 30 March: MACHIAVELLI: “Few men are brave by nature, but good order and experience make many so.”… PATTON: “to me, it is a never ending marvel what our soldiers can do.”…

Lest we forget…        Bear