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



ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 28 SEPTEMBER 1967

RIPPLE SALVO… #571… “Senator Thruston B. Morton, Republican, Kentucky, Assails Johnson on War–Calls Him ‘Brainwashed’ On Belief in Military Victory”…  (The President responds in RS #572)…but first…

Good Morning: Day FIVE HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE of a flashback of fifty years to the air war over North Vietnam called Rolling Thunder…

28 September 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a cloudy and windy Thursday in New York City…

FALL IN AMERICA 1967… Page 1: “House Presses President To Cut Budget by $5-Billion–Republicans Win Test 202 to 182”... “A rebellious House of Representatives put pressure on President Johnson today to slash non-defense spending by at least $5-billion…This marked the first official sounding of sentiment in the House on a cutback in spending as the price for support for the President’s proposed 10% tax increase.”… Page 1: “Price Increases in August Spur Tax-Rise Drive–Consumer and Wholesale Indexes Gain, Giving Lift to President’s Tax Increase Proposal”… Page 1: “Teacher Leaders Back Acceptance of School Accord–Vote is 1303 to 621–Full Membership Vote Today–Approval Expected–Delegate Assembly Rejects Opposition from 2 of the 4 Union Vice Presidents”… Page 1: “Doctor Shortage Nearing a Crisis–Need for Physicians In U.S. Placed at 30,000–Many areas Left Without A Doctor”… “The health industry of the United Sates, a $50-billion a year complex of hospitals, clinics and laboratories responsible for the well-being of every American is suffering from a shortage of tens of thousands of doctors.”… Page 1: “Canada gives U.N. A Four-Step Plan on Vietnam Peace–Halt in U.S. Bombing Linked to International Authority Over Demilitarized Zone–Military Freeze Asked–Return to Cease-fire Pact Reached at Geneva Parley in 1954 Is Proposed”… “Canada proposed to the U.N. General Assembly a four step plan for a return to the cease-fire arrangements worked out for Vietnam t the Geneva Conference in 1954. First step: end the bombing. Second step: return of demilitarized zone to a demilitarized status, enforced. Third step: freeze military operations. Step four: withdraw all outside forces.”…Page 1: “White House Enmeshed In Fight on Choice of New Marine Chief.”... “A political struggle with Kennedy vs. Johnson overtones is being waged in and around the White House over the choice of a Marine Corps Commandant. the principal figures are: LGEN Victor Krulak, LGEN Lewis Walt, and LGEN Leonard Chapman.”…

27/28 September 1967… The President’s Daily Brief…

EGYPT: We do not think either the Israelis or the Egyptian plan large-scale attacks across the Suez Canal, despite yesterday’s heavy exchange of gunfire. As always, it is hard to tell who started the shooting.

COMMUNIST CHINA: The latest CIA assessment on what the Cultural Revolution is doing to the Chinese economy says, in part: (1) the disorders are gradually undermining the entire economy. The regime is not yet faced with a general crisis, but industrial output and foreign trade are beginning to decline. (2) agriculture has been only slightly affected, but disorders in transport and poor discipline in the countryside could well bring serious problems in food procurement this winter. (3) Defense industries apparently are starting to feel at least the indirect effects; for example, the effects of interruptions to the supply of raw materials. (4) There is also the possibility that the revolution will move to a higher stage either in which plant and equipment are destroyed or in which agriculture becomes a main target of revolutionary activity. In either case, a major economic crisis could be triggered, and (5) the Revolution still has no noticeable effect on shipments to North Vietnam….

SOUTH VIETNAM: Thieu assured Ambassador Bunker yesterday that both he and Ky were working to make sure the national assembly validates the election. Thieu said he had been talking to a number of politicians insisting on an impressive majority to underscore support for the election….

SOVIET UNION: Moscow has publicized the outlines of a 1968 budget that offers both guns and butter. It is designed to boost domestic morale as Russians celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and it is also intended to lend substance to Soviet international commitments…. The defense and space budget apparently will go up about the same as it did last year–roughly eight percent. for the consumer, there will be a jump in minimum wages and some reductions in income tax…. Soviet budgets are in some respects like icebergs with a great deal below the surface. actual allocations for both defense and consumer goods are not announced and this precludes immediate judgement on whether major policy changes are involved. The picture may get more clear when the budget is presented to the Supreme Soviet next month.

28 September 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (29 Sept reporting 28 Sept ops)…Page 1: LAST INTACT BRIDGE IN HAIPHONG IS BOMBED BY U.S. NAVY PILOTS…Part of Span Knocked Down–Buffer Zone and Coastal targets Also Attacked”… “United States Navy pilots bombed the last bridge intact in Haiphong yesterday (28th) in their effort to isolate North Vietnam’s major port. Attack bombers from the carrier Coral Sea knocked down part of the Haiphong rail road and highway bridge, which carried the only rail line and one of the major roads out of the city. Since September 11 when the attacks aimed at cutting off the port area from the rest of the country began, four bridges have been destroyed and a major rail yard and a huge supply-storage area in the outskirts of the city have been devastated. Supplies in the port can now be moved only by coastal bridges and along some minor road routes. Pilots from the carrier Coral Sea returning to the Haiphong today to bomb a road bridge three miles south-southwest of the city. The bridge was the first attacked and cut when the series of raids began against the Haiphong road and rail outlets. A United States command spokesman said heavy cloud cover prevents a damage assessment. He said that three spans of the steel bridge were smashed in the initial raid and that the test attack was probably intended to destroy what ever temporary repair work had been done. ‘It is the pattern,’ he said, ‘to continue to disrupt repair work,’

“Air Force F-105 Thunderchief pilots swept in to attack the MIG airfield at Hoalac, 29 miles west of Hanoi. Pilots struck at the main runway and taxiway, reporting all bombs on target. Again, heavy clouds prevented an assessment of damage. Although the weather over much of North Vietnam was poor, United States Air Force and Navy pilots struck at targets along the coast and in the southern panhandle section of the country and inside the demilitarized zone.

“In the latest attack, the sixth on the rail and highway bridge, pilots flying A-4 Skyhawk jets from the carrier Intrepid first swept in to strike at antiaircraft and surface-to-air missile sites ringing Haiphong. Behind them came Skyhawks from Coral Sea to pummel the steel girder bridge, which spans a canal in the southwestern corner of the city. Pilots reported that flak and missile opposition were lighter than on the strike the day before when pilots from the carrier Intrepid silenced two surface-to-air missile sites and hit 13 flak sites. In the latest raid, Intrepid pilots reported destroying four more antiaircraft sites.

“Carrier pilots swept along the North Vietnamese coastline during the day, attacking cargo barges and sampans. The spokesman said 86 watercraft were destroyed or damaged. Air Force pilots reported that they had sunk 13 supply barges in a river near Donghoi, 40 miles north of the six-mile wide demilitarized zone, at the border between North and South Vietnam. Pilots from the carrier Constellation destroyed the Dongtan bridge near Thanhhoa 65 miles south of Hanoi and damaged two others in the area, a spokesman said. Rail sidings and storage areas were attacked by Constellation pilots near Vinh, 160 miles south of Hanoi, with direct hits reported by pilots. One direct hit on a rocket site by Air Force F-4 Phantom pilots near the demilitarized zone was reported to have caused a rocket to shoot up to a thousand feet, then flip over and crash to the ground and explode 300-yards away.

“Although no aircraft were reported lost over North Vietnam in the latest attacks, a Unite States command spokesman said updated Defense Department figures now placed American aircraft losses in the North at 683. In addition, 206 American planes have been shot down in South Vietnam.”

“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 28 September 1967…

RIPPLE SALVO… #571… NYT, 28 September, Page 1: “MORTON ASSAILS JOHNSON ON WAR–Calls Him ‘Brainwashed’ On Belief in Military Victory”... “Senator Thruston B. Morton of Kentucky, one of the Senate’s most influential Republicans, charged today that President Johnson had been ‘brainwashed’ by the ‘military-industrial complex’ into believing that the United States would win a military victory in Vietnam. Mr. Morton, signaling a change in his views on the war, called for an indefinite halt in American bombing of North Vietnam and an end of ‘search and destroy’ missions by American forces in the South.

‘I am convinced that further military escalation and an additional United States military commitment will not obtain our objectives of peace in Vietnam,’ Senator Morton told a group of business executives holding an antiwar meeting at the Statler-Hilton Hotel. ‘I an convinced that unless we gradually and, if necessary, unilaterally reduce the scope of our military involvement, we may well destroy the very society we sought to save.’ Senator Morton indicated that he was shifting from earlier support of Administration policy. ‘I was wrong,’ he declared, and the audience of about 300 broke into applause….

“In his speech, Senator Morton recalled that former President Dwight D. Eisenhower had warned in his ‘farewell’ address’ about ‘the dangers of too much influence in the hands of a ‘military-industrial complex.’ Then, picking up a theme from recent remarks of Governor George Romney of Michigan that he had been brainwashed by Administration officials during a trip to Saigon, Mr. Morton declared: ‘I believe that President Johnson was brainwashed by this power center (the military-industrial complex) as early as 1961, when as Vice President he ventured to Saigon on a fact-finding mission.’

“‘I believe he has been mistakenly committed to a military solution in Vietnam for the past five years, with only a brief pause during the election campaign of 1964 to brainwash the American people with the statement that ‘the war in Vietnam ought to be fought by Asian boys.’ Senator Morton said that ‘if the President (Kennedy) has been wrong, so have I.’…  In early 1965, when the President began to escalate the war, I supported the increased military involvement,’ Mr. Morton said. ‘I was wrong..’ “……

President Johnson responds tomorrow in RS #572… “…there can be no military solution…”…

RTR QUOTE for 28 September: WOODROW WILSON, speech at West Point, 1916: “Militarism does not consist in the existence of any army, nor even the existence of a very great army. Militarism is a spirit. It is a point of view. The purpose of militarism is to use armies for aggression.”…

Lest we forget…      Bear

 

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