RIPPLE SALVO… Humble Host wishes all a 2018 of health, happiness and success in your individual pursuit of freedom… Peace on Earth, and in Vietnam, will remain too elusive for humankind to achieve… Pope Paul VI speaks of the obstacles to peace– “inhuman ideas, arrogant instincts and warlike passion”– and calls for the powers involved to “use every means possible” to overcome all that blocks the path to peace in Vietnam… This is his message on his declared “Day of World Peace.”…… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED SIXTY-FIVE of a return to the Operation Rolling Thunder, including the events of 1968, “The Year the Dream Died.”…
1 January 1968…HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a very cool Monday with snow tonight…
GROUND WAR: Page 1: “Truce Disrupted By Sharp Battle–19 Government Troops and 30 Vietcong Reported Killed Near Saigon”... “Striking out of the paddy fields at 10 minutes after midnight, while church bells in the nearby delta city of Mytho were still pealing the arrival of the new year, a Vietcong unit savagely mauled the headquarters elements of the South Vietnamese Second Marine Battalion early today. The attack, by far the most serious violation so far in the 36-hour allied truce and the 72- hour cease-fire announced by the guerrillas, left 19 South Vietnamese dead and 47 wounded. Thirty of the enemy were reported killed…. The American command, meanwhile, reported 165 violations of the truce during its first 12 hours…. In the most serious incident involving American, seven members of the 25th Infantry Division were wounded when the guerrillas ambushed a patrol in a province northeast of Saigon…In another ambush yesterday 69 miles northwest of Saigon nine Americans were killed and 29 wounded.”... Page 3: “Foe Predicts Victory in ’68″… “North Vietnamese and Vietcong leaders today broadcast predictions of victory over American forces in 1968 and said their attacks ‘without let up an everywhere’ would produce fighting more bitter than in 1967…”... Page 3: “Soviet New Year Message Praises Vietnam Struggle”... “…wished Vietnamese Communists ‘decisive success in their heroic struggle. The message from the Kremlin was addressed to all Communist at home and abroad. The Vietnamese were singled out for special mention.”… Page 1: “U.S. SAID TO PRESS SHARPLY FOR GOOD VIETNAM REPORTS”… “American officials at almost at all levels, both in Saigon and in the provinces, say they are under steadily increasing pressure from Washington to produce convincing evidence of progress, especially by the South Vietnamese, in the next few months.”…
Page 1: “G.O.P. Leaders Say Only Rockefeller Can Beat Johnson–50 State Check finds Nixon Close Loser and Reagan and Romney Routed”… Page 1: “World Bids Adieu To A Violent Year; City Gets Snowfall”… Page 2: “U.N. Opens Year On Human Rights–Assembly President Issues Worldwide Peace Appeal”… Page 2: “Laotian Prince Voices Concern–Souvanna Says Red Attacks Peril ’62 Neutrality Pact”… Page 2: “Episcopal Bishop Defends His Stand On Dissent–Pennsylvania Cleric Rejects Demands That He Resign–Says He Backs Priest Linked With Civil Disobedience”… Page 25: “Revolt of Youth Worries Clergy–Leaders Call It Challenge to Religious Establishment”… SPORTS: Bowl Games: Rose: OJ and USC vs. Indiana; Cotton: Alabama vs. Texas A&M; Orange: Tennessee vs. Oklahoma…
1 January 1967: OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (2 Jan reporting 1 Jan ops) Page 1: “Two American planes were shot down before the start of the truce at 6 P.M. Sunday, a military spokesman reported. A Navy A-6 Intruder, the only American combat plane equipped with radar-guided bombing, was brought down northwest of Vinh in the panhandle, the narrow, southern section of North Vietnam. Its two crew members were reported missing. (LCDR JOHN PEARCE and LT GORDON PERISHO were KIA as reported in my RTR post yesterday). It brought the total of planes lost in North Vietnam to 773. An Air Force F-4 Phantom was struck while attacking an enemy position seven miles northwest of Dakto, but both crewmen (MAJOR JAKE SORENSEN and 1LT JOHN AARNI) were rescued. It was the 218th plane lost to enemy action in South Vietnam. Reconnaissance flights over North Vietnam continued during the cease-fire, but no aircraft were reported shot down. It could not be learned immediately whether ground fire or MIG defenders had been encountered. A Seventh Air Force official said this morning that the strikes against the North were being started again as the truce ended.”… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 1 January 1968…
(2) LT GEORGE FRANK SCHINDELAR was flying an A-4E of the VA-164 Ghost Riders embarked in USS ORISKANY on an armed reconnaissance mission over the beach when his aircraft became marginally controllable forcing him to seek the relatively safety of the sea. LT SCHINDELAR was forced to eject from his Skyhawk about 30 miles northeast of Danang where he was rescued to fly and fight again. He would complete his combat service with 204 missions…
(2) LCDR JAMES RICHARD DENNISON, LTJG TERENCE HIGGINS HANLEY and CHIEF PETTY OFFICER HENRY HOWARD HERRIN were flying an RA-3B of VAP-61 based at NAS Cubi Point, P.I. on a night reconnaissance Black Bart mission in Route Package I and failed to return from the mission. The aircraft was damaged by ground fire and was able to get feet wet over the Gulf of Tonkin and head south toward Danang. The aircraft with LCDR DENNISON, LTJG HANLEY and CPO HERRIN aboard went down about 30 miles east of Donghoi. Extensive searches failed to find either debris or the courageous warriors… they rest in peace where they fell fifty years ago this January 1, 2018…
RIPPLE SALVO… #665… Pope Paul VI’s “Day of World Peace”… 1 January 1968…
NYT, 1 Jan 68, Page 1: “Pope Paul VI Is Hopeful On Chances of Peace”... Rome, Dec 31–“The ‘star of peace’ burns more brilliantly than ever, despite a year of ‘uneasiness and conflicts,’ Pope Paul VI said today on the eve of the Roman Catholic Church’s recently proclaimed world day of peace January 1. “For us, the sunset of the year that finishes today is obscured by uneasiness and conflicts, which have disturbed it. A sunset rather unhappy and holding little promise for better days ahead. But the star–that is the desire and hope for peace–has not disappeared; rather it is more brilliant than ever on the horizon of the new history of humanity,’ the Pope declared at his customary Sunday noon blessing to the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square.”
NYT, 2 Jan 68, Page 1… “NEW PEACE BARRIERS DISCERNED BY POPE”… Dateline: Rome, January 1– “Pope Paul VI said today that there were ‘new terrible obstacles’ to the achievement of peace in Vietnam. He said the obstacles ‘complicate, with new problems and new threats, the increasing dangers, rancor, ruins, tears and victims.’ Presumably he was referring to the possibility of an expansion of the Vietnam war into Cambodia, whose border areas are being used by Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces as a sanctuary, and to provide a safe route for North Vietnamese troops moving southward. The Pope was speaking to over 20,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica to celebrate his recently proclaimed world day of peace.
“Much of his 1.200-word message dealt with the war in Vietnam calling upon the powers involved to attempt ‘every possible means’ to attain an honorable solution. The Pontiff also appealed to international bodies for their intervention. He spoke out against defeatism, saying peace was possible and not an ideal to be regulated among ‘other utopias.’
“‘It is possible,’ he said, ‘because men are basically good’ and ‘because it is in the heart of the new men, of youth, of people who are aware of the path of civilization.’ It is possible also, he added, ‘because victims of conflicts–the wounded, the refugees, the ravaged–call for peace.’ Pope Paul, who said yesterday that the star of peace burned more brilliantly than ever despite a year of ‘uneasiness and conflicts,’ asserted: ‘Peace today does not exist in a region that is materially distant from us but spiritually very near. You know well that we are alluding to Vietnam, and while, from the dispassionate analysis of the civil interests in question and of the civil interests in question, and of the honor of the conflicting parties, it seems to us that the way of peace, even though complex and gradual is still open and possible, behold, new terrible obstacles arise to complicate, with new problems and new threats, this intricate question, increasing dangers, rancor, ruins, tears and victims.
‘We would wish,’ the Pope continued, ‘to ward off the tremendous disaster of a spreading war, a needless war. We dare to exhort the powers involved in the conflict to attempt every possible means that could lead to an honorable solution of the sorrowful dispute. The same entreaty we place before international bodies that might be able to intervene. And today again, we beg the parties in the conflict to establish a sincere and lasting truce in the civil struggle which is so grave and merciless.
“The Pope asked if it was not perhaps desirable and possible that ‘fair negotiations might establish peace between the inhabitants of that beloved noble country, guaranteeing their independence and liberty. We think so,’ he added. ‘We hope so, hoping against hope.’
“The message came less than 10 days since Pope Paul met for an hour with President Johnson on the problems of peace in Vietnam. Vatican observers noted that it contained no substantial changes in the Pope’s point of view. But, they said, the warning against expanding the war was clear and the appeal was more intensely emotional than in the past…. Vietnam, he said, shows how difficult peace io to attain when the struggle is and ideological one. ‘In such circumstances the situation is aggravated by confusion of judgement and opinion. The world looks on, is aroused, deplores, comments, trying to understand on which side justice lies. Because of this, the world is inclined to view peace as a utopian ideal.’
“Before there is peace in the world, the Pontiff said, ‘men’s minds, which harbor selfishness, pride, dreams of power and domination, the ideology of exclusivism, of oppression, of rebellion must be overcome.’ His day of peace, he said, is dedicated to overcoming those ‘inhuman ideas, arrogant instincts and warlike passions.’…”…
RTR Quote for 1 January: WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, Lecture on War: “War will never yield to the principles of universal justice and love, and these have no sure root except in the religion of Jesus Christ.”…
Lest we forget… Bear