RIPPLE SALVO… #799… AH, THE IRONY OF IT ALL… DRAW A TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE MILE CIVILIAN SAFETY CIRCLE AROUND HANOI AND HAIPHONG, THEN WIPE OUT THE HOMES OF FRIENDLY CIVILIANS LESS THAN TWO MILES FROM DOWNTOWN SAIGON… “The military frustrations boiled over on February 6, 1968, at Johnson’s regular Tuesday luncheon meeting held to discuss the war (AND ROLLING THUNDER TARGETS) with his closest advisors. General Earle Wheeler, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, exploded. He had led the failed drive to persuade Johnson to send some 205,000 more troops. Now he demanded–the media be damned–that U.S. planes and other fire power be allowed to strike more civilian areas: ‘I am fed up to the teeth with the activists of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong… We apply rigid restrictions on ourselves and try to operate with humanitarian concern for civilians at all times. They apply a double standard…. In addition, they place their munitions inside of populated areas because they think they are safe there. In fact they place their SAMs (surface-to-ir-missiles) in civilian buildings to fire at our aircraft.’ A weary Johnson finally agreed to reduce the limits on U.S. bombing. But he knew that Wheeler was simply venting his increasing frustration, not offering anything new that would somehow end the war.” (Walter LaFeber, The Deadly Bet: LBJ, Vietnam and the 1968 Election, page 51)…
NYT, 12 May 1968: “The War: Pressures on Saigon”… “Saigon– Standing in the wilting heat of downtown Saigon this weekend, Vietnamese and Americans crowded sidewalks and watched in silence as jet fighters and helicopters whirred overhead and thrust rockets and bombs into a stretch of slums only two miles away. ‘Peace,’ said an offical at the American Embassy as the shatterproof windows shook after an outgoing rocket thumped surprisingly close. ‘It does seem to be breaking out, doesn’t it.’ He smiled wanly…”…. but first…
GOOD MORNING… GLORY BE TO MOTHERS! Day SEVEN HUNDRED NINETY-NINE of a labor of love… Fifty years ago on this day–13 MAY 1968–was a beautiful Monday in New York City… HEAD LINES from THE NEW YORK TIMES…
THE WAR: Page 1: “EDGE OF SAIGON HIT BY U.S. JETS ANEW–NAPALM DROPPED IN EFFORT TO ROUT VIETCONG 2 MILES FROM CENTER OF CITY”… “United States jets spread napalm and high explosive bombs two miles from the center of Saigon last night in another effort to wipe out the Vietcong who have been harassing the city. The bombs fell in support of American infantrymen who fought untill shortly before midnight in what appeared to be one of the final battles n the enemy drive against Saigon., which began nine days ago. This morning, the Americans counted 85 enemy dead bodies on a quiet battlefield. For the first time since the latest offensive began, there was no report of fighting in or around the city. The United States military command maintained that the American pilots did not bomb within the city limits yesterday. Nevertheless, bombs smashed stucco bungalows, shanties and two-story and three-story apartment buildings in an urban area near the Y-shaped bridge that id indistinguishable from the city proper. THOUSAND FLEE HOMES… Thousands of civilians fled the homes that were being destroyed as Vietcong troops moved up from the Mekong Delta last week and threatened to push into downtown Saigon. The Vietcong built hasty fortifications in the deserted buildings and American officers are attempting to blast them out rather than risk the high casualties that usually come in house-to-house fighting. In the action yesterday, four Americans were killed and 24 wounded. ..there is no evidence of a withdrawal by the Vietcong…. The Vietcong struck at several places in and around the city in the early morning darkness yesterday… An American military spokesman said that since the offensive began 3,082 Vietnam and North Vietnamese had been killed in Saigon, and 261 had been taken prisoner. Allied losses were 210 killed in action and 979 wounded (67 US KIA, 338 WIA)… In the north, Vietcong fired mortars into Hue and Danang killing three and wounding 16…”…
PEACE TALKS: “Page 1: “TALKS ON VIETNAM WILL OPEN TODAY; BOTH SIDES WARY–BUT THEY ENTER PRELIMINARY PEACE PARLEY WILLING TO GROPE FOR SOLUTIONS–Long Negotiations Seen–U.S. May Accept Tacit Step as Adequate Response to Halt in the Bombing”… “American and North Vietnamese delegates sit down tomorrow for ‘official conversations,’ which both sides envision as going on for many months. In the two camps the mood was one of wariness and patience. No one was displaying any sign of a shift in well-known positions, but there were hints of a willingness to grope for ways around the obstacles….The American delegation will stick resolutely to President Johnson’s requirement for ending the bombing completely–that Hanoi ‘not take advantage’ of the move by increasing the flow of men nd supplies to the South…. North Vietnamese delegates said they were not prepared to make any promise or public gestures om the way of reciprocity for a bombing halt. Hanoi’s position was that the bombing was ‘flagrant aggression’ and that Hanoi should not have to reciprocate for its cessation.”… Page 1: “EACH SIDE IN WAR CLAIMING BIG GAINS AS PARLEY OPENS”… “North Vietnam’s newspapers have seldom been more buoyant than in the last few days as they have prepare their readers for the preliminary negotiations that start tomorrow in Paris. ‘Our strength is inexhaustible and invincible…we are in a strong and victorious position.The enemy is in a deadlocked and weakening position,’ Nhan Dan, the Communist Party newspaper in Hanoi said one day last week….The same afternoon in Saigon, General Westmoreland said ‘The allies are in the strongest relative position today that we have yet achieved.'”…
Page 1: “5,000 OPEN POOR PEOPLE’S MARCH CAM,PAIGN IN WASHINGTON”… “Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr. officially opened today the Poor People’s Campaign to persuade Congress and the Administration to approve a ‘freedom budget’ of new Federal programs for the impoverished. Mrs. King told 5,000 persons in the Cardoza High School stadium near the center of Washington’s midtown Negro slum area that she hoped to enlist the support of ‘black women, white women, brown women and red women–all the women in the nation–in a campaign of conscience’ to uplift the lives and opportunities of the poor.”…
13 MAY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times: no coverage of air operations north of the DMZ… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 13 May 1968…
(1) LT BRUCE B. BREMNER and LT JACK T. FARDY were flying an A-6A Intruder of the VA-35 Black Panthers embarked in USS Enterprise on a night single aircraft strike on the airfield at Vinh. After dropping 18 DST magnetic fuzed bombs on target from 1400-feet the aircraft was hit in the port wing by 57mm ground fire. Pacific Stars and Stripes, 18 June 1968…”NAVY AVIATORS FLY A ‘BALL OF FIRE’ TO SAFETY” … USS ENTERPRISE…”Two Enterprise aviators few their fiercely burning A-6 Intruder over 100 miles to safety recently (13 May 1968) afer being hit by antiaircraft fire on a mission over North Vietnam (Vinh Airfield). The two Attack Squadron 35 aviators, Lieutenant Bruce B. Bremner, 28, Iowa Falls, Iowa, the pilot, and Lieutenant John T. Fardy, 26, Melrose, Massachusetts, a bombardier/navigator stayed with their burning airplane almost 30 minutes but the spreading flames forced them to bail out only 1 and 1/2 miles from the Enterprise. Both men were plucked from the Tonkin Gulf uninjured and in good spirits. The two aviators were flying a night mission against a heavily defended target and were hit just after bomb release…
Lieutenant Bremner: ‘We took a direct hit by some kind of detonating shell and part of the instrument panel exploded in the cockpit with a loud thud. I continued to break toward the sea and started to climb. About this time I saw a bright light in the mirror and I turned to see what it was. The left-wing had burst into flames. We were about ten miles inland so our first objective was to cross the beach and get back over water. I also wanted to get as high as possible and perhaps starve the fire of oxygen and put it out. We got over the water OK and passed over a search and rescue destroyer all right so we decided to keep going. About this time we had another A-6 join up with us and confirm that the wing was burning pretty badly. We kept climbing and leveled off at 35,000-feet but the fire kept burning. At that altitude it burned with a blue glow and smaller flame, but it kept burning. We were 120 to 130 miles from the ship when we were hit and they (the ship) told us they had a ready deck and could take us aboard as soon as we got there. As we came down near the ship the flames got bigger. The lower I went the bigger the flames got. We passed lover the ship about 8,000-feet and they verified that we were still burning pretty badly. Observers aboard the ship reported the plane as just one big ball of flames. We went ahead trying to get in position to land hoping to get the plane aboard and save it. At 2,000-feet we slowed up and put the flaps down. By this time the wing was really burning… I couldn’t see very well and it was beginning to look hopeless. It was so dark outside and so bright around the airplane that it ruined my night vision. I couldn’t see the ship or much of anything out of the cockpit. About the time the LSO (Landing Safety Officer), who was watching us from the ship, advised us to eject, and so did our wingman. As it began to get warmer in the cockpit I assumed the flame was getting too close to the fuselage and since and A-6 carries fuel in the fuselage we decided to eject. LT Fardy went out first. I had a little trouble getting the plane trimmed (stabilized) for me to eject but I finally wound up holding the stick between my knees and pulling the ejection handle. We were hardly in the water any time at all. I was only a mile and a half from the ship when I ejected and the helo came right over me, picked me up and then Fardy. As far as the rescue goes, everything worked fine.”…LT Bremner (“B-Cubed”) logged more than 5,000 hours in the Intruder, went on to command an Intruder squadron, a carrier air win, the USS Savannah (AOR-4) and USS CORAL SEA (CVA-43) and retiring as a Rear Admiral… Humble Host was among the scores of “vultures” who visited the catwalk that night to observe the Bremner/Fardy fire-ball and lesson in sea survival…. better than the movie and it had a happy ending… oohrah…
Humble Host flew #162 and led a day sortie to work with a FAC on the Cambodia border and he gave us credit for two road cuts with our 6 MK-82s each. I recorded coordinates that put us in Cambodia in my log book… Nah, that couldn’t be…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA.MIA/POW) ON 13 MAY FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION…
1965… NONE…
1966… MAJOR DAVID ASHBY FARROW, USAF… (KIA)… CAPTAIN DONALD LEWIS KING, USAF… (KIA)… and… 1LT FRANK DELZELL RALSTON, USAF… (KIA)…
1967… NONE…
1968… NONE…
RIPPLE SALVO… #799… “THE WAR: PRESSURES ON SAIGON” (CONTINUED)… I quote…
“The preliminary peace talks in Paris appear unreal and shadowy in this uneasy capital in the face of last week’s Vietcong attacks that persisted through the weekend (and Mother’s Day). Despite allied bombs, despite artillery strikes, despite waves of rocket-firing helicopters, despite the move of more american troops into the city, Vietcong snipers remain entrenched on the southern fringe of Saigon. ‘This does get old,’ said one soldier from Tennessee at the Y-bridge, which leads into the Mekong Delta and the last remaining stronghold of the Vietcong in the city. ‘Every dy we think we got him this time, and he keeps coming back.’
AIMS UNCLEAR
“The exact reasons for the fighting in Saigon last week–and the Vietcong aims–remain unclear. While some American officials insist that the enemy drive is linked to the Paris talks, military intelligence made it clear weeks ago–before Paris was even mentioned as a negotiation site–that the enemy was planning ‘something’ in the capital. A confusion–certainly a credibility gap–arises, however, when the military command discusses enemy losses and strength in the Saigon area and what the North Vietnamese and Vietcong are capable of conflicting.
“By the weekend, the Unite States command said that ‘preliminary estimates ‘indicated that elements of six enemy battalions had moved around the capital and no one seemed quite certain whether they were moving out or remaining. The battalions, all under strength according to the command, total about 350 men each or 2,100 men.
CASUALTY FIGURES
“This would be clear, perhaps even logical, if the United States command had not announced earlier that more than 2,000 of the enemy had been killed in the fighting about Saigon during the week. The implication that all the enemy were wiped out leaves most observers suspicious of either the casualty or strength figure, although the military claims that the ‘preliminary estimates’ are based on documents and prisoner interrogation and that there certainly could be more than six battalions around Saigon.
“The nature of the fighting during the week has been alternately sporadic and savage. At the outset the southern, western and northern edges of Saigon were engulfed in house-to-house street fighting with blocks of the Chinese quarter and the French military cemetery area near Saigon’s airport the major battlegrounds. Towards mid-week, fighting shifted to the Khanhhoi district, only dozen blocks from the downtown business district and the area best known here for the string of bars that cater to Negro soldiers.
“By the weekend, with parts of the city under a 24-hour curfew and with pall of smoke clinging to the ravaged fields and shacks south of the capital, Saigon appeared to be settling into a nervous calm. With hospitals packed with civilian casualties and with scattered blocks of the city a charred ruin, the question of the over-all impact of the Vietcong attack remains uncertain. Physically, the city has suffered but, as in the past, the astonishing Vietnamese resilience will probably blot out ny permanent city damage.
“Psychologically, however, the scars of the new attack–and the Allied aerial counter moves–may cut deeper. Such intangibles as Government confidence and the Americans are difficult to measure, but the emotional impact of bomb and helicopter strikes within the city may only anger the Allies, which may according to some officials, have been one of the key aims of the Vietcong in moving into Saigon,”… Bernard Weinraub…
RTR quote for 13 May: SSGT HERMAN STRADER in Saigon, where the 2,512th birthday of Buddha was celebrated yesterday: “We tried to go down one street three times and so far we’ve had five killed and 17 wounded in my company. I don’t care whose birthday it is, we’re gong back to clean them out.”… oohrah…
Lest we forget… Bear