RIPPLE SALVO… #911.. MEDDLE: “TO INTERFERE WITHOUT RIGHT OR PROPRIETY”… TAMPER: “TO INTERFERE SO AS TO WEAKEN OR CHANGE FOR THE WORSE”… NYT, 1-SEPT-68, 4-E… “HANOI TALKS WITH AN EYE ON U.S. POLITICS”… but first…
Good Morning… Day NINE HUNDRED ELEVEN of a visit in the past with an eye for the future with thoughts of the great guys we left behind… It’s called Rolling Thunder Remembered…
Head Lines from The Sunday New York Times on 1 September 1968…
THE WAR: Page 6: “ENEMY IN LOWLAND STILL HOLDING OUTPOST”… “…no word on whether United States forces had retaken an allied outpost captured by the enemy early yesterday in the central lowlands….Although infantry reinforcements were rushed in yesterday afternoon, the spokesman was able to say only that ‘they have set up a fire-support base in the vicinity of a near by Special Forces camp.’…initiatives to retake the outpost were being delayed in hope that heavy bombing raids would reduce enemy opposition… Ground action throughout South Vietnam was described as light and scattered, although several American military installations were pounded by mortar and rocket attacks, including Danang, Marble Mountain, Bienhoa, and Banmethuot.”…
Page 1: “U.S. SAYS RUSSIANS CHANGED BALANCE IN MIDDLE EUROPE–Rumanians Step-Up Combat Readiness as Thousands Join Paramilitary Drills–Rusk Meets Dobyrnin–State Department Declares NATO Is Studying Steps To Insure Security”… Page 1: “CZECH PARTY IS IN SESSION TO REVISE ITS LEADERSHIP–Central Committee I Expected Toi Oust members Unacceptable To Soviet–Interior Minister Replaced”… Page 1: “NATIONAL GUARDSMEN LEAVE CHICAGO AS POLICE END 12-HOUR TOURS–City Unbelievably Peaceful As Officials start to Deal With Rioting Charges“… Page 1: “HOOVER ASSAILS CAMPUS ‘TERROR’ LED BY NEW LEFT–Warns Nation’s Police That ‘Revolutionaries’ Peril Academic Community”… Page 1: “NOMINATION OF HUMPHREY: DETAILS OF 5-MONTH DRIVE–Campaign Started With Withdrawal of Johnson and Ended With A Phone Call From Ted Kennedy Just Before The Vote”… Page 1: “HUMPHREY MAPS OUT STRATEGY TO MEET NIXON CHALLENGE–Relaxes With Muskie In His Minnesota home After Tension Of Convention–Daley action Defended–Nominee Scores ‘Planned Violence In Chicago And Calls Mayor Correct”… Page 1: “Negroes Call Off Olympic Boycott”… Page 34: “CHICAGO NEGROES AVOIDED POLICE–‘They Wanted To Shoot Us Down,’ Gang Asserts”… Page 34: “NEW LEFT RADICALS RELAX ON ILLINOIS FARM, RELIVE CHICAGO”…
1 SEPTEMBER 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (2 Sept reporting 1 Sept ops) Page 2: “In the air war, American planes flew 130 multi-aircraft missions over the southern portion of North Vietnam Saturday. On one mission, a Navy A-6 Intruder, which was fired on by anti-aircraft missiles, turned and destroyed the SAM site with bombs.”… VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 1 September 1968…
(1) MAJOR JACK CLARE PLUMB was flying an O-2A of the 20th TASS and 504th TASG out of Danang and suffered engine failure (both?) while flying a FAC mission in support of the Americal Division in Quang Ngai province. MAJOR PLUMB was killed in the resultant crash. His body was recovered for return to his family in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. He had completed 196 days in combat…
Among the remembrances left for MAJOR PLUMB at “The Wall of Faces” is this from his daughter, Jackie…. “Daddy, I love you. Happy Birthday. I am standing in the hall with sleep in my eyes. If I had known I would never see you again, I would have attached myself to you permanently. I miss you daddy, yet I know you are right here looking at me…I think of you so often, as you were my first love. I only hope you would be as proud of me today as when I was a little girl and the apple of your eye… I have two boys that I know would love you just as much as I do, and want to hear all of your war stories. You would be such a proud grandpa. Mom, well you know the strong woman she is, and of course she is great. I don’t know how she went on without you, but you know and that is why you loved her so much…Daddy, I love you so, and miss you terribly. Please know I expect endless hugs when we meet again. Love, your Jackers.”
Humble Host is speechless. How about you?…
(2) CAPTAIN D.K. THAETE was flying an F-105D of the 34th TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat on a Barrel Roll mission in Central Laos when hit and downed by enemy ground fire. His target as a North Vietnamese storage area and he was cruising at 15,000-feet when hit by the ground fire. He was observed to be on fire and was forced to eject. He was rescued from the Laotian jungles by an Air Force helicopter.
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) FOR THE FOUR 1 SEPTEMBER DAYS OF THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM THAT CONCLUDED ON 1 NOVEMBER 1968…
1965, 1967, AND 1968… NONE…
1966… MAJOR NORMAN SCHMIDT, USAF… (POW…Murdered in captivity)…See RTR for 1 September 1966. In addition there is this…
MIA to POW to KIA…
“Ultimately LCOL Norm Schmidt was captured by the North Vietnamese and transported to the infamous Hoa Lo Prison Camp, better kn own by its nickname ‘The Hanoi Hilton,’ in downtown Hanoi. The section of the camp where he was held was known as ‘Vegas’ and the cell was shared with other American prisoners was named ‘Desert Inn.’ When US intelligence learned he had in fact been captured, his status was upgraded from MIA to POW. ..The treatment of American POWs in Hanoi during the early years of the war was brutal at best. There was rarely enough food and water to sustain them, and as usual the Americans suffered from a wide variety of illnesses in addition to their injuries and wounds. According to reformed POWs held in Vegas in the summer of 1067, they remembered it as being among the most harrowing stretches they experienced while in captivity matching, and for some exceeding, the misery and brutality of the post-Hanoi March time frame. One returned POW, Harvey Stockman, later called Vegas communication purge as having ‘few equals in ferocity.’ When the Vietnamese learned of senior POW Jim Stockdale’s policy guidance to all prisoners to adhere to the US Code of Conduct, they were so enraged they increased the level of torture.
“Although there was no evidence of outright executions at Vegas in 1967, at least one prisoner, LCOL NORMAN SCHMIDT, died from his severe mistreatment. For the offense of looking through a crack in the bath stall wall, Norm Schmidt had been locked in ankle stocks for 10 days in the cell he shared with three other prisoners. When his sentence was completed, he was taken away by guards to what his cellmates thought would be another routine quiz and lecture about his ‘black activity.’ The officer conducting the interrogation and lecture was nicknamed Greasy by the American POWs because of his slick style. The interrogation room was just down the hall from the prisoner cells. In addition to the sounds of torture, the POWs heard a loud scuffle and then silence. The other prisoners believed LCOL Schmidt had angered the unpredictable officer and suffered a fatal beating in return. The last time the other Desert Inn prisoners saw Norm Schmidt was in 31 August 1967, the date considered being when he died in captivity…MIA–POW–KIA…
“…LCOL Schmidt’s remains were disinterred from the Ba Huyen Cemetery in Hanoi and returned … to United States control on 6 March 1974.”
(Webmaster note: COL Schmidt is interred at Victor Valley Memorial Park in Victorville, CA. His faithful and loving wife Marie joined him on 2 December 2023)
1966… MAJOR HUBERT CAMPBELL NICHOLS, USAF… (MIA KIA- BODY NOT RECOVERED)… (refer RTR 1 Sept 1966) …in addition…
“During regular ‘negotiation sessions between the United States and Vietnam information wa given to the Vietnamese in 1973, 1974 and 1975 on MAJOR NICHOLS in the hope that the Vietnamese would provide further information on him. The Vietnamese have denied any knowledge of the fate of Major Nichols.”…COLONEL NICHOLS status was changed from MIA to KIA, body not recovered…his status as of 2018… He rests in peace where he fell 52 years ago today while on a mission to rescue LCOL SCHMIDT… Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for another… COLONEL NICHOLS is among the Angels of the Lord…
A remembrance was left for Colonel Nichols fifteen years ago from Lori Nichols: “I never met Hubert C. Nichols but I have been married to his nephew for 31 years. The family of five boys from his brother, Robert E. Nichols and the family of the five children that Hubert left behind, as well as his wife Pat, will never forget Hubert. Hubert is always with us.”…
RIPPLE SALVO… #911… NYT, by HEDRICK SMITH…
HANOI TALKS WITH AN EYE ON U.S. POLITICS…
Paris– “Last Wednesday, as a North Vietnamese spokesman was briefing the press on the day’s negotiating session with American delegates, one North Vietnamese journalist paid no attention. With his knees propped up against the back of the chair in front of him, the journalist was deeply absorbed in an American news magazine, intensely studying its report on the American political campaign. Blocks away, at the informal recess period in the official negotiations, Vietnamese diplomats were prying American officials with a barrage of questions about American problems.
“The North Vietnamese have long been interested in American politics, and they have surprised American politics, and they have surprised Americans by how well versed, sophisticated and generally realistic they are about American affairs. But never has their interest seemed more intense than in the period just before and during the Democratic convention. This marked a watershed–but now that it is past, there is disagreement over how it will affect the course of the Vietnam talks. Some American are hopeful (though they frankly admit this is purely a speculative hope with skimpy supporting evidence) that with the Republican and Democratic nominee chosen, and both very close to President Johnson’s policy, the North Vietnamese may in the next few weeks adjust their negotiating tactics in a final effort to seek some deal, even a partial one with President Johnson.
“This hope is based partly on the assumption that Hanoi now knows it cannot, as the President remarked, ‘pick the softer spot’ by waiting to negotiate next year with Senator Eugene McCarthy, the only major candidate who offered Hanoi terms substantially different from the President. Actually, the North Vietnamese seem to have understood for some time that McCarthy was the underdog with little chance of winning. Hanoi did not, as one French analyst put it, see him as ‘a man of power.’
HOPE FOR CLASH…
“But the North Vietnamese here evidently entertained some hope that the clash between Democratic doves and hawks and the competition for the party’s nomination would set loose strong enough political currents to persuade President Johnson to make some negotiating concession to help Vice President Humphrey gain the nomination. With that hope now dashed, so the diplomatic speculation goes, Hanoi has little to lose by ‘trying Johnson’–either with an undeclared act of battlefield restraint, some secret bargaining, or private probing on political issues while the bombing deadlock is set aside. But, observed one American diplomat,’unless something happens fairly soon, it’s not going to happen before January.’
HARD LINE…
“Hanoi gives no indication of preparing a new and more flexible approach. Its negotiation line is hard an unyielding. Knowledgeable Communists say there is a tendency among North Vietnamese, at the moment at least, to write off chances of scoring any important negotiating advances with Johnson and to wait for his successor, who will have less personal stake in holding Vietnam policy unchanged. With the American political conventions over, Hanoi’s attention now seems to be swinging back to the battlefield. If Hanoi intends to coordinate this with new diplomatic initiatives, there is no clear sign of this yet.
“North Vietnamese military writing lately has emphasized the need for a prolonged offensive rather than a quick, decisive blow, as earlier this year. There are signs that a new political campaign aimed at undermining the Saigon regime is also in the offing. The National Liberation Front is reportedly ready to send two senior propagandists to Paris to dramatize the Front’s claims to represent South Vietnam at substantive peace talks. The Alliance of National, Democratic and Peace Forces, another anti-Government group, has just issued a new political program with a heavy pitch to disgruntled officers and bureaucrats in the Saigon regime.
PRESSURE ON SAIGON
“Hanoi’s hope seems to be that if it can put enough pressure on Saigon in the next few weeks, Johnson will feel the need on the eve of an election to make some gesture to combat Republican campaign charges that the Democrats cannot end the war. But if the President’s actions prior to the Democratic convention are any guide, he is likely to do the opposite getting firmer rather than more flexible as the American political combat mounts. It is quite possible, then, that the Democratic convention has in effect served to harden the deadlock here and widen the negotiating gulf between Washington and Hanoi.”… End quote…
On 1 November 1968 the President announced the cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam and the end of Rolling Thunder, a few days before the elections in America…. Humble Host will post the details of how this happened tomorrow…
RTR quote for 1 September: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: “Time’s glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light.”…
Lest we forget… Bear