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



ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 24 JUNE 1967

RIPPLE SALVO… #476… DEFINED: “…gaining worldly experience at significant cost.”… but first…

Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED SEVENTY-SIX of remembering what was going on this date 50 years ago…

24 JUNE 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a partly cloudy Saturday with showers later...

KOSYGIN VISIT: Page 1: “Johnson, Kosygin Talk 5-Hours About Mideast, Vietnam, Arms–agree to meet tomorrow–A Cordial Meeting–But There Is No Substantive Gains on Major Issues”... “Talked for five and a half hours and ran out of things to say…Emerging arm-in-arm and with broad smiles, the two leaders announced they had agreed to meet here again at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. LBJ: “The meeting was very good and very useful.”… Page 1: “Glassboro, New Jersey Residents Applaud Kosygin–Premier, Turned Ebullient, Tells Them Soviet Wants Nothing But Peace”…“…there are many beautiful and wonderful things to be done.”… Page 1: Big Day in Glassboro–Movie Shows ‘Russians Are Coming’–Flower Shop Sends Red Roses... Community of 11,000 turns out to welcome Soviet Premier…resident: ‘Teddy Roosevelt came here once, but never a Russian.’ ” Page 6: “Kosygin Trip To Glassboro Snarls Turnpike”…

MIDEAST SIX-DAY WAR: Page 3: “Vatican Asks for International Regime in Jerusalem”... “Vote issued at U.N. calls for free access to holy places… the plan outlined by Papal envoy to U.N. differs from Israeli proposals...” Page 3: “Israel Moslems Visit Old City”... “More than a thousand Moslems living in Israel prayed for the first time since 1948 at the revered Aksa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, which has been closed to the 200,000 Moslems living in Israel.”… Page 4: “King Hussein Due Here for Address to U.N.–Expected to Arrive Here Tomorrow–Scheduled to Talk at Opening of 2nd Week of Debate”… Page 5: “Israel Demobilizing Slowly and Without Fanfare”...”…more than 20-per cent of reserves reportedly released.”… Page 5: “Arab Moderates are Dismayed at U.S. Stand–Pro-Western Arab Officials Say Washington Has Forfeited Influence on Settlement”... “…the meeting with Soviet’s Kosygin leads to distrust by pro-western Arabs (Lebanon).”

Page 1: “Pope Reaffirms Rule of Celibacy for Priests–Encyclical Calls for Greater Use of Psychological Tests in Preparing Candidates”... “The Pontiff described the celibate state as a brilliant jewel that had been guarded by the church for centuries and that would continue to be ‘firmly limited to the ecclesiastical ministry.’ “… Page 1: “Jet Crash in Pennsylvania Kills 34–Mohawk Airlines BAC-111 crashed 18 minutes after take-off from Elmira en route to Washington, D.C. in a raging storm.”… Page 1: “Senate Votes 92-5 To Censure Thomas Dodd for using campaign funds for his personal use…Case was the first for Senate Ethics Committee.”…Page 19: “22 Marines Killed as Two Copters Collide” in Carolina. Five critically injured in worst helicopter crash in nation’s history. A small Marine helicopter darted skyward during landing practice today at Camp LeJeune, N.C. and sliced into a huge troop carrying helicopter killing 22 marines and injuring 13. A UH-1B burned up in 20-seconds killing two pilots. The Sea Stallion was carrying 33 and spiraled to the ground. All aboard were killed or injured, many critically. The marines were trainees fresh from boot camp training and on their way to Vietnam. the helos collided about 500-feet close to the runway …Sports: Jim Ryun sets mile record in 3:51.1 at the American Athletic Union Championships with 7 runners finishing under 4-minutes…

24 June 1967…The President’s TS Daily CIA Brief: UNITED NATIONS: Kosygin is scheduling a press conference at the U.N. for 8PM tomorrow… All eyes were on Glassboro yesterday with little of substance accomplished on the banks of the East River. So far, commentary on the New Jersey summit meeting has been almost all favorable and optimistic... LEBANON: Pro-Western Christian elements have asked the US and British embassies for arms to protect themselves against anticipated attacks by radical Moslems...SOUTH VIETNAM: a thoroughly embittered Foreign Minister Do told  US Embassy officer this week that he has just decided to resign. He explained that he can no longer work with Prime Minister Ky, who he is convinced is fast becoming a dictator. Do said he will probably file as a candidate for the upper house before the 1 July deadline… FRANCE: De Gaulle did little to win friends with his petulant statement Wednesday linking the Middle Est and Vietnam…

State Department Office of Historian, FRUS, 1964-1968, Volume V, 1967...A Memorandum of Conversation between President Johnson and Premier Kosygin, June 23, 1967… Humble Host references this document for insertion in the Rolling thunder record since it is a conversation at the highest level concerning Rolling Thunder. I found it very informative and interesting...Further, if you take the time to read it, you won’t forget it… (“Stop the bombing and North Vietnam will immediately go to the conference table.”)… For LBJ a moment of truth… he couldn’t pull the trigger…  A historic moment in history?…

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d216

24 JUNE 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (25 June reporting 24 June ops)… Page 3: “Air War: Power Plant Hit in North”… “United States pilots flew 171 missions over North Vietnam yesterday, the most since a record of 175 set last October. Among the targets was the Nam Dinh electric power plant 46 miles south-southeast of Hanoi, which was bombed for the second time in two days. Bombers from the carrier Constellation hei the power plant and reported it demolished.”…

“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in Southeast Asia on 24 June 1967… oohrah…

RIPPLE SALVO… #476… “I HAVE SEEN THE ELEPHANT” is the expression that announces, “I am world-weary; my long trail gaining worldly experience has been made at significant cost.”… Humble Host has “seen the elephant” and I am not who I used to be… I don’t think anybody who went to Vietnam and killed while being shot at, day after day, came home the same human being he was when he went into that inferno of  kill or be killed. When fear is faced and overcome, then repeated over time, while all around you death strikes close and personal, a man is transformed. Not on the outside. The changes are out of sight but indelibly written into the heart and soul of a man. This transition of spirit occurs over time; a series of events that take a toll, a little piece at a time… and finally, there comes the realization that the journey was not a free ride. You have changed. You have “seen the elephant.”…

Ed Rasimus went to war and flew the F-105, came home after his 100 counters, and wrote a dynamite book: When Thunder Rolled: An F-105 Pilot Over North Vietnam.” A reviewer summarized the story line this way: “...the transformation from a young man paralyzed with self-doubt into a battle-hardened veteran.” Another wrote: “…a modern-day Red Badge of Courage.”

Early in the book Rasmus returns from a strike in RPII and relates what he saw on the mission, one of his first few…

“It didn’t take long for me to relate the debrief comments from the other guys to what I had seen during the mission. The white flashes on the ground were 37- and 57-mm guns. They fired a projectile that exploded at altitudes of five to ten thousand feet in white puffs about a foot in diameter. They were usually aimed by a gunner looking through a gun sight at the aircraft overhead. Sometimes the guns were coordinated by radar, but most often they were fired as a barrage at a designated section of the sky without much aiming. Un-aimed fire sounded at first like a good deal for the F-105 driver, but that was the worst situation. When flak gunners aimed at F-105s, they usually underestimated the aircraft speed and, like a shot-gunner shooting at doves or quail, the gunners would underlead and shoot behind the target. When they simply shot at a sector of sky, the exploding flak created a wall of shrapnel that the target aircraft had to fly through.aimed fire was actually easier for us to defend against that a barrage. Random changes in heading and altitude could defeat it.

      “The circles I had seen with the deep red flashes and black clouds of smoke were batteries of 85- and 100-mm guns. Typically, six or eight of these large artillery pieces would be arrayed around a Fire Can radar. The radar would detect the aircraft and provide direction and range information to the guns, which could then be fired in salvos. The large projectiles were much slower than the 37- and 57-mm guns, but they could reach a much higher altitude and with the ranging provided by the Fire Can radar, the shells would burst very close to the target’s predicted position. The red explosions and large black puffs at altitude were almost thirty feet across and created serious blast and fragmentation threats.”…

When Ed Rasimus experienced these sights on that mission into RPII, he wasn’t “seeing the elephant.” Not yet. But by the time he had logged his 100th counter, and seen friends die–“there, but with the grace of God, go I,”–  and enemy blown away, and men cry, and “fleeing forward” into certain danger for the hundredth time was the only acceptable option to quitting, he had seen the elephant. He was a “battle-hardened veteran.” He had dodged many bullets while delivering death and destruction to the heartland of our enemy a hundred times, and he was weary…

So was I. Weren’t we all?… In Rolling Thunder we all saw the elephant– we “gained worldly experience at significant cost.” Humble Host suggests you take the time to watch the 16-minute production “Lady Jessie” available through the RTR home page…”Links.” It is the story of Dick Perry and the VA-164 Summer-Fall 1967 cruise when the losses on Oriskany mounted to unprecedented levels… they saw the elephant in spades…

Humble Host extends an invitation to tell what “I have seen the elephant” means to you.

RTR QUOTE for 24 June: PATTON: “War is a killing business. You have got to spill their blood or they’ll spill yours.”

Lest we forget…       Bear

 

 

 

Be the first to comment

You must be registered to comment. all comments are held pending admin approval.)

↓