RIPPLE SALVO… #463… A CTF-77 END OF TOUR (Nine Months at Yankee Station) SUMMARY… but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED SIXTY-THREE of a story worth recalling, at least every fifty-years–Rolling Thunder…
11 JUNE 1967… HEADLINES from The New York Times on a nice day to be on the beach on Fire Island (Take the water taxi from the UN building on East River to the sound on the west side of Fire Island.)…
ARAB STATES-ISRAELI WAR: CEASE-FIRE IN SYRIA ACCEPTED–ISRAELIS HOLD BORDER HEIGHTS (GOLAN)–SOVIET BREAKS TIES TO ISRAEL–U.N. TERMS MET but an air raid near Damascus sets off a bitter debate… “Syria and Israel have accepted United Nations arrangements for a cease-fire but a heated Security Council debate over alleged truce violations continued into the morning. At 2:10 am when the Council finally adjourned, no action had been taken on the charges, or on three draft resolutions dealing with the cease-fire and the disposition of Arab refugees. A dispute remains un-discussed–an Israeli air raid on Damascus 17-minutes after the cease-fire.”… “Israelis Rule Out Return to Frontiers”... “Israel said today that her victories over the Arab forces had wiped out previous armistice agreements and that she would not return to earlier frontiers. The information minister said his country ‘cannot return to the 1949 armistice agreements.’ He said armies, tanks and planes of the United Arab Republic, Jordan, Syria and Iraq had nullified the armistice agreements. ‘Israel cannot agree to the status quo before this happened.’ “… “Soviet Threatens Sanctions Move”... “The Soviet Union broke diplomatic relations with Israel today and warned it would undertake sanctions if Israel forces failed to observe the United Nations cease-fire. Soviet action comes after they rallied strong support from six Eastern Europe Communist nations…’a commitment to shore up a threatened erosion of Soviet influence in the Arab world.”… “A 30-Hour Battle”… “Israel sources said today after less than 30-hours of fierce fighting, Israel’s armed forces have won a major victory over Syria. It has been a bloody and bitter fight in the north up onto high ground unlike the rolling terrain that the Israelis faced in their lightning advance earlier in the week against the forces of the United Arab Republic and Jordan. The fighting ended at 6:30pm… far enough east for the Israelis to feel assured that the score of settlements under heavy bombardment all week were now safe from further harassment. The Israelis now hold a 12-mile wide zone cleared near the Sea of Galilee.”… (Jordan losses placed at 25,000 dead and wounded or captured.)… “Nasser Decides to Remain, Yielding to People’s Will—An Oil Emergency Declared by U.S…. “Industry asked to draft plan to ensure petroleum flow into Western Europe. The government declared an oil emergency today because of the Middle East crisis.”... Page 20: “Arab Refugees Moving Into Jordan”... “A massive new wave of Arab refugees from the West Bank of the Jordan is moving into what remains of the Kingdom of Jordan on the East Bank. Refugees put at 80,000. The Government of Jordan made these broadcasts to the Jordanians fleeing the West Bank: ‘To the Arabs on the West Bank, do not desert your homes. Be patient. Be men and do not desert your homes. Be men and do not create another refugee problem.’ “
Page 25: “Sailors On Liberty Describe Attack on Vessel”… “A wounded crewman of the Navy electronics ship Liberty said yesterday that Israel jet fighters had attacked so fast Thursday that the crew did not have time to load the four .50cal machine guns aboard the ship to defend themselves. Nine men are dead, 24 are missing and 75 wounded. The fighters made six attacks. Then came the torpedoes fired by torpedo boats. The Liberty was flying the stars and stripes throughout the attacks. The torpedo boats circled the Liberty at 100-yards prior to the torpedo attack. Israel has apologized and offered compensation.”…
Page 1: “Nitze Will Replace Vance at Pentagon”… “The resignation of Cyrus R. Vance as Deputy Secretary of Defense was accepted with deepest reluctance and regret by President Johnson today and caused him to shift three top officials at the Pentagon. Paul Nitze, the Secretary of the Navy will be nominated to succeed to the #2 position…the top position in the Navy will go to John McNaughton ,now Assistant Secretary of Defense for Security Affairs. His job will go to Paul Warnke from the DOD General Counsel’s Office.”…
Editorial (Page 2E): “RACE RELATIONS”… “In Boston the Hot Summer Came Early”… “During the peak of the four-day riot which came to an end in Boston last week…all that rioting and the plight of the Negro was even worse than it had been before. The plate-glass windows the rioters had shattered and the buildings they damaged were in their own neighborhoods. Some white policemen were injured, but even more Negroes were hurt.
“Why then, did they riot? Too many policemen, the Negroes said, and not enough jobs and decent houses. As the Negroes saw it they are still second-rate citizens, despite the long civil rights revolution and all the civil rights legislation…There are other reasons for the riot. To many Negroes, riots have become an acceptable form of protest for what they feel are police abuses. With the summer season here barely begun, already there have been four outbreaks (Houston, Nashville, Jackson (MS), and Boston)…. “... Humble Host notes:… The RTR summer of 1967 is just beginning… so is the summer of 2017 in the NOW…let’s see if we learned anything in 50 years…
11 June 1967…The President’s TS Daily CIA Brief… ARAB STATES-ISRAEL: The cease-fire is holding, although some sniping was reported during the night. Reports from UN observers suggest the Israelis may be guilty as charged at last night’s UN Security Council session. These observers claim they saw Israeli tanks moving east of the Syrian village of Rafid yesterday. The tanks reportedly were headed for Shaykh Miskin, a town on the main road linking Damascus with Jordan and well east of the ceasefire line…. Israeli officials are making clear that they have no intention of giving up all the ground captured in the past week. The Gaza Strip, Jordanian territory west of the Jordan River (West Bank), and the Syrian high ground (Golan Heights) overlooking Israeli settlements have all been mentioned as areas Tel Aviv intends to keep…
11 JUNE 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (12 June reporting 11 June) Page 1: “POWER PLANT AND MIG FIELD IN NORTH HIT BY U.S. PLANES”… “The United States Nay pilots from the carriers Constellation and Bon Homme Richard struck today at the main electrical generating plant for Haiphong, North Vietnam’s most important port and the Kep MIG base near Hanoi. Direct hits on the boiler house and generator hall were reported by the pilots but dense smoke precluded more definitive damage assessment. The plant, 14 miles northeast of Haiphong, had been hit only once previously on May 26. A military spokesman reported the loss of two American planes in ground fire. One of the planes was a Navy F-8 Crusader. The other was an Air Force A-1. The two downed pilots were rescued… In other raids, Constellation pilots smashed at the Kep field which is 37 miles northeast of Hanoi for the eighth time. The reported the destruction of two MIGs on the ground and damage to two others. The pilots also said they silenced three anti-aircraft artillery sites. The pilots also said they had scored hits on revetments and had silenced three anti-aircraft artillery sites with five-inch rockets.”…
“Vietnam:Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were four fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 11 June 1967...
(1) LTJG J.R. MILLER was flying an F-8C of the VF-24 Checkertails embarked in USS Bon Homme Richard on a photo reconnaissance escort following a strike on the Uong Bi thermal power plant. His F-8 was hit by ground fire in the target area, but was able to fly the burning aircraft 12 miles toward the coast. Unfortunately, he was forced to eject well short of the Gulf in a hostile area. He was rescued by a strong SAR effort to fly and fight again…
(2) MAJOR JAMES F. RAUSCH and MAJOR ROBERT L. RUSSELL were flying an A-1E of the 602nd ACS and 56th ACW out of Udorn on an armed reconnaissance mission on the Laotian border 95 miles west of Thanh Hoa when hit by ground fire. They were able to clear the aircraft using the Yankee Extraction System. They were rescued by an Air Force HH-3E. This was a “routine” combat check ride, which explains the two-man crewing on this flight.
(3) and (4)… Midair collision on a MIGCAP near Kep. LCOL HARVEY STUDDLE STOCKMAN, Commanding the 390th TFS, and CAPTAIN RONALD JOHN WEBB were flying an F-4C of the 390th TFS and 366th TFW… MAJOR DONALD MARTIN KLEMM and 1LT ROBERT HARVEY PEARSON were flying an F-4C of the 389th TFS and 366th TFW. The two F-4s were on a MIGCAP mission and collided at 14,000-feet 10 miles north of Kep. Both F-4s went down in flames but LCOL STOCKNAM and CAPTAIN WEBB were able to eject. they ere captured and interned as POWs for the duration of the war. MAJOR KLEMM and 1LT PEARSON perished in the collision. The remains of 1LT PEARSON were recovered and identified in 1988. The remains of MAJOR KLEMM remain where they fell fifty years ago on this date. Alone, but not forgotten… (Humble Host notes: Remains of one recovered, the other remains are still out there.)…left behind?…
RIPPLE SALVO… #463… “BOMBING: AN ADMIRAL’S REPORT” (From Newsweek, May 29, 1967, page 49…)
” After nine months as top man in charge of the Navy’s Task Force 77, Rear Admiral David C. Richardson, 53, turned over command to Rear Admiral Roger William Mehle, 51. In a parting interview with Everett Martin, Admiral Richardson, a World War II fighter pilot with four Japanese planes to his credit, sketched the changes in the interdiction air campaign against North Vietnam. Herewith a summary of Admiral Richardson’s observation.”
“The U.S. interdiction program has vastly improved. We are planning systematically, and we have linked good bombing with good bookkeeping, so that we know just when we should hit the targets.
“Basically, our interdiction aims at forcing that traffic and supplies into certain choke points such as where the mountains come close to the coast. Then the planes can hit the traffic backed-up at those bottlenecks. That’s where the payoff is.
“First we knocked out the rail lines, which were inoperative all last fall. When the enemy turned to barge traffic, we launched operation Sea Dragon, sending our destroyers to blast barges along the coast.
“Flexibility. With the rails out and the barges being bombed, road traffic picked up. Trucks are flexible: they can drive around damaged areas, can ford many rivers and they don’t move in large convoys. The enemy is also using many more underground storage pits, harder for him but harder for us to find.
“During bad weather, the enemy built many bypasses. At difficult river crossings he sometimes has three, four or even five alternative bridges. He’ll finish one bridge, we knock it down, and he has another ready. He has bridges on floats that he pushes out at night. He even has cable bridges that roll up like Venetian blinds in the day and out again at night.
“It is also getting tougher to hit hem. We now face up to two and a half times more SAM missiles than fifteen months ago, and the radar has doubled. The anti-aircraft is sometimes so heavy you can barely see through the black clouds, and the enemy moves it around a lot. As a result, we have had to put more planes on flak suppression, and that means fewer planes hitting the target.
“Third Carrier. Last August we moved a third carrier into Yankee Station–that is, on the line–adding bout 80 planes to our strike capability. By November, I was satisfied that the flow of supplies was being cut as much as could be expected.
“Now we have some new capabilities, particularly against bridges, and we anticipate more success this summer. I don’t anticipate, though, that we will be able to make any big stoppages. I can foresee the time when the enemy will be moving even more supplies. But let’s not lose sight of the tremendous effort to which this puts him. Don’t forget that people lose heart and their values change. The North Vietnamese may decide it is not worthwhile to them. In that sense I’m hopeful.” (end Admiral Richardson Quote)
“Don’t forget that people lose heart” –resolve, will to win– “and their values change.”... (“Hell no, I won’t go” & “FTN”)…
Lest we forget…. Bear