RIPPLE SALVO… #616… “Now it is the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong who seem to have taken the offensive, and the question is being asked: for what purpose?”… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED SIXTEEN of digging a little deeper in the history of the air war called Rolling Thunder…
12 November 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a sunny mild Sunday when pro-football was played wearing helmets that were not yet weapons…
Page 1: “JOHNSON INVITES HANOI TO NEUTRAL SHIP–TELLS ENTERPRISE CREW U.S. WILL PRESS PEACE SEARCH TO ‘CORNERS OF THE EARTH’–CALLS FOR COMPROMISE–BUT WASHINGTON SAYS OFFER DOESN’T REFLECT NEW MOVE BY NORTH VIETNAMESE”… Page 1: “Parades And Speakers Support Vietnam Policy On Veterans Day”… “In the measured tread of marching feet, to the notes of Taps bugled into the Autumn sky in moments of silence and in minutes of oratory stressing the bonds between American people and their fighting men in Vietnam, the nation observed Veteran’s Day yesterday.”… Page 1: “3-Hour Gun Duel Erupts In Mideast–Israel Reports Outbreak and Says Jordan Fired First“… “…fighting broke out across the Jordan River.”… Page 3: “Thieu Asserts allies Are Likely To Support 3 Holiday Truces”... “…between Christmas and the Vietnamese lunar new year in February.”…
Page 4: “U.S. Aides Say Foes Strength and Morale Are Declining Fast”... “United States officials said today that the ‘fighting efficiency’ of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese troops had ‘progressively declined’ in the last six months. … The morale of these forces confined to inhospitable mountains and jungle and often on the verge of starvation, was described as sinking fast.”… Page 1: “Vietnam Fighting Grows In Highlands With 2 New Battles”… “Fighting in the Central Highlands exploded today as American paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade and foot soldiers of the United States Fourth Brigade found two battalions of the enemy troops near the Cambodian border southwest of Dakto… B-52s provided support after stormy weather passed.”…
Page 6: “GALBRAITH TELLS LABOR LEADERS WAR CAN’T BE WON”... “The United States cannot win the war in Vietnam Kenneth Galbraith told a group of labor leaders today. The war is essentially a war of nationalism, and historically nationalism prevails. Mr. Galbraith, chairman of Americans for Democratic Action, addressed the opening session of the National Labor Leadership assembly for Peace, which is made up of more than 450 union representatives…Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also spoke and said ‘the Vietnam war has made a mockery of The Great Society’.”… Page 32: “Eugene McCarthy Hints He’ll Enter Primaries”... “Senator McCarthy of Minnesota: I have finally concluded that this issue–President Johnson’s Vietnam policy –has to be taken to the people of the country in 1968.'”…
12 NOVEMBER 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (13 Nov reporting 12 Nov) Page 3: In the air war in the North Marine A-6 Intruders attacked the electricity power plant at Ubongbi, 13 miles northeast of Haiphong. …Two Air Force F-4 Phantom jets were reported lost, with both two-man crews missing. The losses put the total of United States aircraft reported downed in North Vietnam at 737.” … “Vietnam: Air Losses”(Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 12 November 1967. (The two F-4s with 4 Air Force warriors on-board referred to in the NYT report were downed, probably by mid-air, on the night of 10 November… (Humble Host goes with Hobson when there is a discrepancy on dates.)
RIPPLE SALVO… #616… For the last fifty years the North Vietnamese Tet offensive of February 1968 has been characterized as a “surprise.” Unexpected. As if our side didn’t have a clue about what was coming… With that in mind, for the next three months RTR will include in this daily blog the events that Humble Host considers “clues ignored.” I start here with a column from the 12 November 1967 Sunday New York Times…
“A TOUGH AND AGGRESSIVE ENEMY AGAIN MOVES TO THE ATTACK”…
“After months of silence, the sounds of battle hung over the jungle-covered South Vietnamese highlands along the Cambodian border last week. With the ending of the rainy season there, units of three enemy divisions had moved to the attack in the past three weeks. Ominous rumblings were being beard elsewhere. In Quangnam Province, a North Vietnamese division was maneuvering in the rice fields within 35 miles of Danang, the big U.S. base on the coast. A rocket regiment was dug in a mountain valley not far away.
“Farther north, North Vietnamese troops were reported filtering into the hills around Khe Sanh near the western end of the demilitarized zone which separates North and South Vietnam. It was here that Marines fought an epic battle for the possession of three hills in April. American military sources in Saigon expect the North Vietnamese to be back in strength in the demilitarized zone by Christmas.
“Last year at this time it was it was the American forces who had just completed their buildup, who were on the offensive with set piece operations north of Saigon, beginning with Operation Attleboro and followed early in 1967 by Cedar Falls and Junction City. These operations inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, captured relatively large quantities of food, weapons and munitions, and did much to relieve the pressure on Saigon from the north and northwest.
“Now, it is the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong who seem to have taken the offensive, and the question is being asked for what purpose?
“When the Vietcong’s Ninth Division–which is said to number more than 50 per cent North Vietnamese–attacked the week before last at Locninh, a rubber plantation town 70 miles northwest of Saigon. Ranking American officers in Vietnam said the enemy was acting on direct orders from Hanoi in an effort to take the headlines away from the inauguration of the Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, South Vietnam’s new President. It any event, the Vietcong attacked with a ferocity and performance that American units have seldom encountered in Vietnam. And what was even more unusual, even after they had hoisted their flag in the center of the town, they continued, despite extremely heavy losses, to press their unsuccessful assaults on two strong points–a Special Forces camp and a Vietnamese district garrison. Even after several battalions of the American First Infantry division were flown into the battle zone, the enemy troops continued their assaults.
“The American explanation may be partially correct, but it also seems likely that the Vietcong division wished to demonstrate to the 5,000 of so residents of the district capital, virtually all of whom fled, that there was no safety to be had from either the Americans or the South Vietnam Government.
“And given the fact that as many as five American battalions may be kept in the area for some weeks, the Vietcong may also have been able to throw off the timing of any planned U.S. operations during that period. Then 10 days ago the center of action shifted more than 200 miles to the north. There, troops of the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division, screening the Cambodian border east of the outpost Dakto, came under North Vietnamese mortar barrages and ground assaults that increased steadily in intensity. Once again reinforcements–in this case the crack 173rd Airborne Brigade which two months earlier had been shifted from its base in nearby Pleiku to assist allied South Korean troops on the coast–were rushed into the threatened zone, and the attacks tapered off.
“The battle near Dakto raged for three nights last week. Intelligence officers said that four North Vietnamese regiments–a total of 6,000 men–had slipped into the surrounding jungles . General William Westmoreland, U.S. commander in Vietnam, said during a visit in the Fourth Division’s forward command post. ‘The enemy wants to dominate this valley, and expect it to continue.’
“The enemy has unquestionably paid heavily for these attacks. A death toll of 1,000, perhaps five times the American and Vietnamese losses, seems not unreasonable. But experience has shown that the insurgents will repeatedly take such loss ratios if political or strategic considerations seem to require them. More disturbing, the aggressiveness displayed in the attacks–even in the face of withering artillery fire, air strikes and the fusillades of fire from circling helicopter gunships–seemed to put into dispute the contention of American military officers that both the Vietcong and North Vietnamese were having serious morale, supply and manpower problems.
“At the same time, the two American Divisions–the First and the Fourth–were regarded as having fought with great distinction under circumstances where even a brief loss of control could have turned a qualified victory into a serious defeat.”
Humble Host finds little in this summary for Westmoreland, McNamara and the President to feel comfortably with the conclusion passed up by those aides who are reporting “the foe’s strength and morale are declining fast…” (“Never underestimate your adversary.”)
RTR Quote for 12 November: CERVANTES, Don Quixote: “Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.”
Lest we forget…. Bear