RIPPLE SALVO… #75… A PLACE OF REFUGE…
Good Morning: Day SEVENTY-FIVE of a look back of Fifty-Years to Operation Rolling Thunder…
13 MAY 1966 (NYT)…ON THE HOMEFRONT… A Friday the 13th with a little cloud and a lot of sunshine in New York City…
Page 1: “Peking Reports It Lost A Plane To U.S. Intruders”…Five United States fighters are said to have flown over Yunnan and attacked a training aircraft in what the Chinese described as “an act of war provocation”… “When Chinese fighter planes counter attacked, the U.S. air pirates fled southward”…”We solemnly warn the U.S. Government that the great Chinese people is not to be trifled with.” Coincidently, the Air Force reported that it shot down a MIG-12 on Thursday over North Vietnam 105 miles northwest of Hanoi and 25 miles south of the Chinese border…. Uh Oh…
Page 3: Times writer Neil Sheehan wrote from Saigon: “The President, who must make the decision (to advance the war), has been described as extremely wary of any new pattern of bombing, which some advisors contend would force both sides to intensify their battle commitments. Some officials suspect, for instance, that attacks close to Haiphong would provoke further resistance by enemy fighter planes and that this in turn would force the United States to strike their bases near Hanoi, the North Vietnamese capital…The Defense department contends that North Vietnams involvement in the fighting in South Vietnam is growing apace and that strikes at depots and other installations in North Vietnam are the only effective retaliation.”
Page 3: “U.S. Losses Exceed Saigon’s 2nd Time”… The casualty totals for the United States for the week were 679 with 82 Killed in Action. The South Vietnamese losses totaled 273 with 61 KIA. North Vietnamese and Vietcong casualties totaled 577 with 456 KIA. Times writer Neil Sheehan said that the Americans have consequently become more concerned with the war than have the Vietnamese. “These South Vietnamese men often fight with distinction in defensive actions or when they are ordered to attack a Communist held position, but unlike the Americans, who have faith in the efficacy of aggressiveness, the Vietnamese do not relish battles that can easily be avoided by not challenging the enemy.”
Page 3: “Ky Decorates U.S. Officer”…COL HAL MOORE was awarded the South Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palms by the leader of the South Vietnamese junta. Twelve other members of the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division (Air Mobile) also received awards from the General Ky…
13 MAY 1966…ROLLING THUNDER OPS… NYT…The “air war” on 12 May: “Fliers Down 12th MIG”…Air Force and Navy fighter-bombers pounded a wide range of targets in North Vietnam yesterday (12th) and an Air Force F-4C shot down a MIG-17, the 12th MIG downed in the “air war.” B-52s were employed against a Vietcong encampment two miles west of Hue. Air Force fighter-bombers destroyed and damaged railroad cars, 77 buildings and an Army barracks 86 miles north of Hanoi. Navy operations concentrated on bridges in the panhandle, destroying one and damaging others. Aircraft losses on 13 May:
(1) MAJOR DAVID ASHBY FARROW, USAF, flying an O-1E of the 20th TASS, 35th TACG out of Danang was hit by ground fire 15 miles west of Khe Sanh, an increasingly heavily defended area of southern Laos. He attempted to fly the damaged aircraft west to NKP but the engine failed five miles short of the airfield and he was Killed in Action in the crash.
(2) CAPTAIN DONALD LEWIS KING and 1LT FRANK DELZELL RALSTON flying an F-4C from the 8th TFW at Ubon on an armed reconnaissance mission north of the DMZ were lost without explanation, other than a garbled transmission from the aircraft that coincided with an observed streak of light thought to be a SAM. CAPTAIN DONALD LEWIS KING and 1LT FRANK DELZELL FARROW were Killed in Action and remain where they fell in the service of our country somewhere northwest of Dong Hoi, North Vietnam. They rest in peace and are remembered tonight, 50 years to the day after their disappearance.
(3) An F-105D from the 421st TFS and the 388th TFW was lost at Korat “due to and ordnance delivery malfunction.” The unidentified pilot was recovered without incident.
RIPPLE SALVO #75… SANCTUARY… The Friday, 13 May 1966 issue of Time include a one pager headlined: “Southeast Asia; Hitting the Sihanouk Trail”… While the United States was executing the “gradual failure” strategy and dilly dallying, the enemy expanded their area of control to include the eastern portions of neutral Cambodia in violation of the Geneva Accords. Even Cambodia’s Prince Norodom Sihanouk was speaking publicly about Cambodia providing an area for the rest and recreation of the North Vietnamese and Vietcong fighters. Time wrote: “The Reds were saving their strength for the monsoon, waiting for the rain-rich thunderheads that hamper American air strikes. And they were doing a lot of their waiting in the sanctuary of neighboring, ‘neutral’ Cambodia.” As noted in a post on this web site earlier this week, the American troops on the South Vietnam side of the border were cleared to return fire coming from the Cambodia side. In other words, the secret was out. Cambodia was a bastion of bad guys who were out of bounds. The entire network of roads and storage areas integral to the Ho Chi Minh Trail were now linked to a new system of paths, roads, truck parks under three levels of jungle canopies, storage areas, rest camps, and ordnance bunkers and tunnels that facilitated a sweeping flanking movement and enabled the enemy to attack the South Vietnamese rear. As of April 1966 the presence of the networks was well known to the Laotian Air Force who traced the trail system from Cambodia through 60 miles of Laos to the border of South Vietnam, all of it off limits to the U.S. The Time article blew away any question of what was happening on the left flank of the American effort to stabilize the conflict in South Vietnam. Time correspondent Don Neff went flying in the back seat of a Laotian T-28 to see for himself. His report:
“We left the Laotian airstrip at Pakse at 10:25 a.m., flying at 2,500 ft. Some 23 minutes later, my pilot announced, ‘We are now at the Cambodian border.’ Two minutes later we had located the Trail. It snaked out of Cambodia, clear as a road map. The area was flat and spottily foliaged. I could see the Se Kong River in the background. A note I made at the time says: ‘No question about it. From the river going east toward South Vietnam is a large road. The trail winds and turns, the trees growing thicker in a narrow valley.’ Sometimes we lost sight of the road. But it seems safe to conclude that it is one continuous trail capable of carrying trucks from Cambodia through Laos into Viet Nam. We flew eastward, diving to less than 1000 ft. for as close a look as we could get. We decided to unload our ordnance…in a heavily forested area about four kilometers north of the Cambodian border. One after another, one plane dived in, hoping to hit hidden trucks under the foliage.”
The Time article quotes sources that say as many as 40 trucks per day use the trail that is defended by 12.7 gun emplacements and that at least 30 supply depots are located on or near the 200 miles of new roads surfaced with crushed stone. The sources say that between 5,500 and 7,000 NVA troops infiltrate SVN every month. As you dedicated readers of RTR may note from my late April early May posts, the Guam B-52s had been concentrating a major effort on the outlets of the trails from Laos, including the trails that start in Cambodia. In one stretch of eleven days the B-52s carpet bombed “Zone C,” while a hand full of Laotian T-28s covered the trails out of Cambodia into Laos. The Time article concludes: “Though there is no indication that the U.S. will cease to respect Sihanouk’s phony neutrality, his policy carries with it the chance of more and more of the bullets of war will spill over into Cambodia itself.”
The following is pulled from the internet site, “This Day in History” for March 18, 1969.”
“U.S. B-52 bombers are diverted from their targets in South Vietnam to attack suspected communist base camps and supply areas in Cambodia for the first time in the war. President Nixon approved the mission–formally designated Operation Breakfast–at a meeting of the National Security Council on March 15. This mission and subsequent B-52 flights over Cambodia dropped 110,000 tons of bombs during a 14-month period through April 1970. This bombing of Cambodia and all follow up ‘Menu’ operations were kept secret from the American public and the U.S. Congress because Cambodia was ostensibly neutral. To keep the secret, an intricate reporting system was established at the Pentagon to prevent disclosure of the bombing. Although the New York Times broke the story of the secret bombing campaign in May 1969, there was little adverse public reaction.”
General George Patton was an expert at the flanking movements he characterized as “Hold’em by the nose, and kick ’em in the axx.” The victory at Desert Storm was a classic flanking movement Storming Norman. For almost three years, the United States accepted the fact that we were being out flanked. The whole world knew the neutrality of Cambodia meant nothing to North Vietnam and little to Sihanouk, yet we chose not to counter the enemy’s stolen advantage. Hardly a strategy for victory on our part, I’d say. Fifty years ago this week Time laid out the facts, at the same time the President was suffering a case of “the slows.” Fortune favors the bold and punishes the reluctant.
Lest we forget… Bear …… –30– ……