RIPPLE SALVO… #523… LBJ CUTS THE CHINA BORDER BUFFER TO 10-MILES AND THE NYT GOES CATATONIC… but first…
Good Morning: Day FIVE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE of the long look back to the chapter of history written by American fighter-bomber warriors in Operation Rolling Thunder in the air over North Vietnam fifty years ago…
10 AUGUST 1967…The HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a rainy Thursday in NYC…
VIETNAM: Page 1: “Senate Bloc Asks Bombing Step-up–Joins Admiral Sharp In Plea For North Vietnam Attacks”… “A number of senators who have consistently advocated greater reliance on air and sea power in the Vietnam war today joined the demand for a sharp intensification of the air war against North Vietnam. The demand for more attacks against more major military and industrial targets in North Vietnam, including the port of Haiphong came from the Senate Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee, headed by Senator John Stennis … (report by Neil Sheehan)… Page 1: “U.S. Troops Land On Enemy Bastion–10 Killed In Vietnam Battle After Copter’s Descent on Fortified Tunnel Complex …in central coastal mountains. Touched off a battle by troops of the First Cavalry Division with two companies of North Vietnamese troops. Two helicopters were shot down and two were damaged in Songra Valley, 25 miles west of Ducpho on the coast, south of Danang… 5 of the 10 troops killed were in one of the helicopters. 24 Americans were wounded and 40 North Vietnamese were reported killed.”… Page 1: “Fourth Infantry Division killed 65 North Vietnamese in a 10-hour battle yesterday”…
SUMMER IN AMERICA IN 1967: Page 1: “Washington D.C. Gets City-Rule Reform, First in 93-Years–House Votes 244-160 To accept More Representative Plan for District Government–Victory For President–Johnson To appoint Chief and 9-Man City Council–Law In Effect Today”… Page 1: “Poverty Agency Praised On Riots–Tells Of Accolades In Press for Peace-Keeping Role”... “The Office of Economic Opportunity has accumulated a greater number of unsolicited accolades for the ‘cooling operations of poverty workers in riotous situations. The police arrested 6,700 persons in recent disorders in 28 cities Of these 6,700 only seven were paid employees.”… Page 1: “Mississippi Posts Won By 11 Negroes For Local Offices–10 others are in run-off elections.”… Page 22: “SNCCs Leader Upstaged By Florida Governor Kirk at a Rally–Crowd Listens As Governor Interrupts Talk by H. Rap Brown”...”Governor Kirk stepped forward tonight t a rally being addressed by H. Rap Brown in Jacksonville, Florida, and welcomed the militant Negro leader to Florida., but added that he did not want to hear ‘any talk about guns.’ Mr. Brown had just told 300-400 Negroes at a local baseball park, ‘You better get yourself some guns, baby, that’s the way we are gong to get you what you need. Mr. Kirk walked up and took the microphone calmly from Mr. Brown’s hands, ‘Welcome to Florida. Are you in good spirits?” The Governor had flown into Jacksonville to purposefully impose himself on the activist and his following.”… Page 22: “Bar Panel Against Use of Force in Riots–Law Applies To all”... “The American Bar Association stated…”It should be emphasized that the rule of law applies equally–to law enforcement personnel as much as to the rest of us.’ “…
OF NOTE IN THE NEWS OF THE DAY: Page 5: “Tokyo Upset By report U.S. Might Remove Bases... in both Japan and Okinawa and placing them in Guam and the Marianas Islands outside the range of Chinese Communist nuclear missiles. This from a report in U.S. News and World Report, July 30 issue. The report has been denied by the Pentagon and Sate Department. Japanese officials speculated the report was atrial balloon to obtain Tokyo reaction and opinion.”… Page 1: “Senate Defeats Move o Block Arms Sales Loans–Ban On Import-Export Bank Credit to Under Developed Countries Rejected 48-40–administration Position Upheld–Vote Due Today on G.O.P. Amendment that Prohibits Financing of Communists”…
10 August 1967…The President’s TS Daily CIA Brief: NORTH VIETNAM: A recent article in the North Vietnamese army journal suggests that Hanoi’ long running debate over war policy is heating up again….the bitter language in the article suggests that there may be some wavering within the North Vietnamese military over current military policy, however, to what extent these doubts are shared by the highest levels of Hanoi’s leadership… COMMUNIST CHINA: Mao’s control over events in China may be slipping. The most recent indication of the leader’s faltering hand is the apparent reprieve of three officials who have never been under intermittent attack for months this has all the ear-marks of a concession to Chou En-lai, who may have army support. Mao’s backing of the army has fallen away markedly in the past few months as one after another of the powerful military region commanders have tried to bring order out of the Cultural Revolution’s chaos. But disorder is spreading…
AMONG THE BRAVE– A VALIANT WINGMAN…
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENT…LIEUTENANT (JUNIOR GRADE) JOHN BORELLA NEWMAN…the DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS… PHU LY, NORTH VIETNAM…11 AUGUST 1967…
“The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS to LIEUTENANT (JUNIOR GRADE) JOHN BORELLA NEWMAN, United States Naval Reserve, for HEROIC AND EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENT in aerial combat flight as a pilot attached to and serving with Attack Squadron FIFTEEN, embarked in USS INTREPID (CVS-11), during a Major Air Wing strike against the vitally important transformer plant at Phu Ly, North Vietnam on 11 August 1967. Lieutenant NEWMAN was assigned as wingman to the strike leader of the 26 plane strike force. Approximately two minutes after crossing the enemy coastline, numerous missile warnings were received. Despite the sighting of three missiles and subsequent evasive maneuvering, Lieutenant NEWMAN maintained section integrity. Upon arriving in the target area, Lieutenant NEWMAN was the first to acquire and call the position of the target. Just prior to commencing the attack, 37mm anti-aircraft fire was observed to be bursting directly between the target and the strike group. Undeterred, Lieutenant NEWMAN commenced his attack. He was the only pilot assigned to bomb the southwestern building of the complex. With pin-point accuracy he released his ordnance, which was observed to impact directly upon his target. Post-strike photography confirmed the annihilation of the building. Upon recovery from his run, Lieutenant NEWMAN noted that the strike leader had been hit and was streaming fuel. He informed his leader of his situation and remained in close proximity to him throughout the egress from the target area and the remainder of the flight. During the retreat from the target area, many missiles warnings were received and no fewer than seven missiles were observed to be directed at the flight. Twice Lieutenant NEWMAN called breaks to ensure safe evasion of this threat and the anti-aircraft fire which was directed at the force along the retirement track. His valiant actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”……. ooohrah!!
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… 10 August 1967 New York Times (11 Aug reporting 10 Aug) Page 1: “U.S. Pilots Down 2 MIGs In North”… Navy carrier pilots shot down two supersonic MIG-21 fighters with air-to-air missiles in North Vietnam today. A third MIG was seen diving for the deck and heading for Hanoi…The kills of the MIGs were the first since July 21 when the U.S. Navy jets shot down three MIG 17s. The new kills raise to 82 the total of MIG fighters shot down in combat in North Vietnam. The kills were credited to two Phantom pilots LCDR ROBERT DAVIS, 37, of El Dorado, Arkansas (and the RIO LCDR GAIL ELIE of VF-142), and LT GUY H. FREEBORN, of Hart, Michigan (and the RIO LTJG ROBERT J. ELLIOT of VF-142).
” ‘Just as I fired, I saw LT FREEBORN’s shot hit and the MIG went all to pieces’, said Commander DAVIS. Almost immediately CDR DAVIS’s missile hit the second MIG. ‘From then on there were just pieces of MIGs falling out of the sky.’… The two pilots (AND THEIR RIOs) from the carrier Constellation had escorted a group of planes on an attack on a truck park 30 miles south of Hanoi and were waiting to back-up another strike in the same area when the MIGs flew out of the clouds. Commander Davis said the MIGs went right over his flight apparently not seeing them…
“The last time MIG-21s were downed was May 21 by Air Force F-4s… Air Force fighter-bombers struck the Kep railroad yard 38 miles northeast of Hanoi and the Thainguyen railroad yards 35 miles north of the capital…In other air action the weather cleared north of Hanoi permitting attacks at railyards north and northwest of Hanoi. Pilots reported having destroyed eight boxcars in a strike in the Red River Valley, 76 miles northwest of Hanoi and knocked down the center span of the Hagia highway bridge 20 miles north of Hanoi.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 10 August 1967…
(1) An O-1G of the 19th TASS and 504th TASG out of Bien Hoa was destroyed by a Vietcong hand grenade in an attack on the airstrip at Bach Gia in the southern tip of South Vietnam in IV Corps…
RIPPLE SALVO… #523… “Wider War, Wider Risks”… The Stennis Senate Hearings were in high gear and the Hawks were winning. President Johnson had anticipated criticism of his medium speed execution of the war in the hearings called by hawkish Senator Stennis, and had added a bunch of targets and adjusted the buffer along the border between China and North Vietnam–down to 10 miles–to moderate the heat from the Hawks. This, of course, wasn’t what the Doves, including the New York Times thought prudent. In some quarters the reaction was catatonic, including the NYT Editorial Department.
Catatonic: “marked by schizophrenic reaction characterized especially by stupor, negativism, rigidity, and purposeless excitement.”…. (Sort of like my reaction when an LSO graded one of my “rails” passes a Fair (“a little drop nose to land”–2 wire)… THE PERFECT PASS!!!
New York Times Editors in August 1967: “WIDER WAR, WIDER RISKS”…
“If there is one country about which Washington knows little, it is Communist China. after a year of bitter internal struggle all over China, there is not one official in the White House or the State Department who can say with any assurance what it all means.
“Yet, president Johnson feels no hesitancy in televising to all America his belief that the Communist leaders in Peking know the United States does not seek a wider war in Vietnam. Two points need making about the President’s statement.
“The first is obvious. It is widening of the war when American bombers strike new targets in North Vietnam only ten miles from China’s border. Mr. Johnson’s authorization for bombing new targets–including three within twenty miles of China– constitutes another round of escalation. The Administration will be no more successful in trying to pretend otherwise than it had been in explaining away all the previous escalations that have lifted the American troop commitment in Vietnam from 20,000 to 525,000 and led to the systematic bombing of North Vietnam.
“The second point is more ominous: Mr Johnson might be wrong in calculating both China’s knowledge and its response. General MacArthur assure President Truman on Wake Island October 14, 1950, that his forces in Korea could march to the Yalu without provoking Peking. The massive Chinese intervention which transformed the war in Korea came a few weeks later.
“China, whether under Communist rule or not, has long been highly sensitive about threats to its borders. Perhaps the Peking regime is too mired in the struggle against anti-Maoists at home and the ideological war with the Soviet Union abroad to react militarily to American bombing close toits frontier. this is the hope–evidently the conviction–of the President.
“But the very fact that Peking’s behavior is constantly xenophobic and often downright irrational should give pause to the President and his advisors. So should the possibility of an accidental bombing of China, however great the precautions.
“The United States has taken on a sharply expanded risk along with the expanded bombing area. No result of the last thirty months of bombing supports optimism that the military dividends will justify that risk.”…
RTR QUOTE for 10 August: CERVANTES, Don Quixote: “Folly is wont to have more followers and comrades than discretion.”…
Lest we forget… Bear