RIPPLE SALVO… #893… AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS, VEHICLE ACCIDENTS, DISEASE, HOMICIDES, STROKES, DROWNINGS, SUICIDES: the other enemies of our deployed troops… Death by non-hostile means… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Operating at Max Endurance RPM on Day EIGHT HUNDRED NINETY-THREE of a commemoration of the Vietnam War on the 50th anniversary of America’s 3rd most bloody war– 58,220 gave their lives– and remembering specifically the warriors and events of the air war called Rolling Thunder…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Wednesday, 14 August 1968…
THE WAR: Page 3: “ALLIES REPORT 181 OF FOE IN DELTA KILLED IN TWO DAYS–Enemy Death Toll Rises In Clashes South of Saigon–Unit Involved Was Guarding Approaches To Capital”… “…The soldiers who clashed with the enemy in a series of battles in waist deep mud in the Mekong Delta 16 to 21 miles south of Saigon, were part of a force of 75 battalions assigned to block infiltration into the capital. Some of the units skirmish with the enemy almost everyday, but the death toll of 181 is the highest in the vicinity of the capital in several weeks. American losses were put at five dead and 22 wounded….The battlefield has been unusually quiet for the last two months, but United States intelligence officers continue to predict that the enemy will attempt another assault on Saigon either this month or early next month. Fighter-bombers and armed helicopters pounded the enemy from the rear, and when night fell lumbering twin-engine transports began dropping parachute flares. The fighting tapered off as many of the enemy withdrew during the night, but occasional volleys of gunfire were still being exchanged as the sun rose. The Americans met little resistance as they swept through the enemy positions, counting the dead and collecting weapons and equipment….In Saigon, a defector led South Vietnamese troops to two weapons caches and turned in a woman member of the Vietcong.”… Page 1: “FOR GENERAL ABRAMS, DEFENSE OF SAIGON RATES TOP PRIORITY”… “In the span of 10 hours last week the Vietcong dynamited a bridge in Saigon and the allies repaired it and got trucks roaring into the city again from the rice paddies of the Mekong River Delta. One reason for the almost instantaneous repair job is that General Creighton W. Abrams, the new commander of United States forces in South Vietnam, took direct personal interest in it….The General is also determined that nothing will take precedence over the capital in terms of military assistance…. General Abrams has visited commanders in the Saigon area at least one day each week, according to those close enough to him to keep up with his movements. “Each time he shows up, one of these men said, ‘He wants to know what they’ve done in the past week and what they’re planning for the next. He worries a problem until it isn’t a problem anymore.”…
PEACE TALKS: Page 1: “RETURN OF KEY HANOI AIDE TO PARIS MAY SPUR TALKS”… “Le Duc Tho, politically the most important figure in North Vietnam’s delegation here, returned today from a six-week trip to Hanoi. His arrival stirred new diplomatic speculation that the Vietnam talks might be approaching a more serious stage. Interest in the next negotiating sessions has also been heightened by the return last night of Cyrus B. Vance, the second ranking member of the American delegation, just back from conferences with President Johnson…” STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of Historian. Historical Documents. Foreign Relations. 1964-68. Vietnam. Document 329 of 14 August 1968 is a telegram from the President’s Special Assistant Walt Rostow forwarding a summary of the Peace talk session in Paris that day to the President who was in Texas on his ranch… No progress, and includes a line that is a permanent part of every document from the talks: North Vietnam delegate: “The U.S. must stop the bombing and we can then go on to other subjects.”… read at:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d329
Page 1: “HUMPHRY TOLD BUDGET FACES POSTWAR SQUEEZE–Economists Say New President, if There Is Cease-Fire in Early 1969, May Have Only $2-Billion Extra His First Year”… “…this outlook rests on two assumptions–a continuously prosperous economy and a return, after the war, to essentially the same military posture as before the war….The estimate, as good for the Republican candidate Richard M. Nixon, as for Mr. Humphrey, were drawn up by a panel fo six economists…”… Page 1: “HUMPHREY ASSERTS SOME FOES OF WAR PRACTICE ESCAPISM”… “…told a group fo college students today that much antiwar activity represented ‘escapism’ and a shying away from harsh realities and responsibilities at home and abroad.”… Page 1: “McCARTHY BACKS U.S. JOBS IN SLUMS–Says Government Must Be ‘Employer of Last Resort’ If Private Sector Fails”… Page 1: “NIXON IS MOVING TO IMPROVE TIES TO G.O.P. LIBERALS–Will Meet With Rockefeller Next Week–Also Plans Session With Lindsay”… Page 13: “ISRAELIS SAY TWO SYRIAN PILOTS LANDED THEIR MIGS AS RESULT OF ERROR”… “The two Syrian pilots who landed their jet fighters at an airstrip in northern Israel yesterday apparently did so as a result of a navigational error rather than any political change of heart. The pilots who were on a routine training mission, evidently lost their way and were running low on fuel…They are now regarded as prisoners of war.”…
14 AUGUST 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (15 Aug reporting 13 and 14 Aug ops) Page 3: On Monday, Tropical Storm Rose, with winds of up to 72 miles an hour, disrupted aircraft carrier operations in the Gulf of Tonkin…and reduced the number of strike missions into North Vietnam to 90. It was the lowest number of missions in two months… On Tuesday the storm swept onto the mainland of North Vietnam and it appeared that air raids had been sharply curtailed for the second day. There is a reporting delay of about 18 hours concerning air attacks. The Air Force and Marine pilots who returned from the raids said they had flown through moderate anti-aircraft fire. They said the bad weather made assessments of the bombing impossible.”…
VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses on 13 and 14 August 1968…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON THE FOUR DAYS, EACH, FOR 13 AND 114 aUGUST IN THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATIONS OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965…13TH… COMMANDER HARRY EUGENE THOMAS, USN, CO VA-153 … (KIA)… and… CAPTAIN FREDERIC MOORE MELLOR, USAF… (KIA)… 14TH… NONE…
1966… 13TH… NONE… 14TH… CAPTAIN CHARLES EDWARD FRANKLIN, USAF… (KIA)… and … CAPTAIN CURTIS ALBERT EATON, USAF… (KIA)… and… CAPTAIN JOHN WARREN BRODAK, USAF… (POW)…
1967…13TH… LCDR LEO GREGORY HYATT, USN… (POW) …and… LTJG WAYNE KEITH GOODERMORE, USN… (POW)… 14TH… NONE…
1968…13TH and 14TH… NONE…
RIPPLE SALVO… #893… HUMBLE HOST interrupts a look at LCOL CORSON and his 1968 plan for withdrawing from South Vietnam to take advantage of this 14 August 1968 Associated Press report in the NYT, page 3:
“NON-COMBAT DEAD 4,300 IN VIETNAM–Rate Put At 3.5% Per 1000, About 14% of War Losses”… I quote…
“Through no particular effort by the enemy, the United States is losing two or three dozen men each week in Vietnam–victims of a war attrition that has reached major cumulative proportions. Victims of disease, accidents or other causes not directly related to enemy action, the men are lost one or two at a time, and are for all practical purposes, the hidden dead of the Vietnam war. Pentagon figures show that over the last seven years of the war, noncombat deaths have totaled at least 4,300–about 14% of United State losses in the war. Aircraft accidents have claimed a large number. Disease, particularly malaria, has taken its share. And there have been homicides, strokes, drownings, vehicle accidents and suicides, among other things. The non-combat death is an enemy that the services have had little success against the years.
OTHER RATES GIVEN…
“Medical statisticians calculate that the ‘nonhostiles’ have occurred at a rate of 3.5 men per 1,000 each year in Vietnam. The 3.5 rate compares with 3.7 recorded for Korea from 1950 to 1952, and the World War II rate of 3.9 per 1,000 a year. The rate for the European theater in World War II was 3.6. On a worldwide basis, the Army figured its noncombatant death rate during the Vietnam war period at 1.8, during Korea at 2.1 and during World War II at 3. ‘There is nothing dramatic or astonishing in the Vietnam figure,’ an offical said. ‘At best it is only an indication that things aren’t going to pot.’
“A Pentagon computer reviewed 3,936 noncombatant deaths listed for Vietnam since Jan. 1, 1961, and came up with the following breakdown: Aircraft lost at sea, 45; aircraft crashes on land, 1,184; vehicle crashes, 336; drowned or suffocated, 380; burns, 45; malaria,51; hepatitis, 10; other diseases, 165; heart attack, 116; stroke, 12; sucicide, 37; Accidental self-destruction, 170; intentional homicide, 293; other accidents, 779; other causes 181, and unknown or not reported, 87.
RELATIVES SOMETIMES UPSET…
“The labeling of deaths as hostile or nonhostile sometimes carries the services into a gray area and occasionally raises the ire of a relative who thinks the label ‘nonhostile’ is an insult to the deceased. The ruling is made by officers in the field whose decision can be overturned at higher echelons. Here are some examples: Should a truck run over a mine killing the driver, the death is listed as hostile. But if the truck accidentally veers off an embankment through his negligence, the driver’s death would be nonviolent. But a problem arises if the driver runs over a United States mine. In one such case the decision was to list it as hostile. Officials held that the enemy was the reason for the mine’s having been placed there. Another problem: A soldier wading in a river during a night patrol drowns. In one such case, the interpretation was ‘nonhostile’ since the patrol met no resistance.”… End quote…
The “Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics” in the National Archives breaks down the bottom line 58,220 “military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War into nine “casualty categories.” At first glance the “Killed in Action” is 40,934. However there are also 5,299 who “Died of Wounds,” another 1,201 who were left behind on the battlefield, body not found and “declared dead.” Another 123 were “presumed dead” with some but not all “body recovered.” All of thee fallen warriors rate entry in the Hostile Category, which raises the Hostile total to 47,434 and puts the nonhostile total at 10,786 troops who went to war but were felled by accident, illness, homicide, and suicide. All 58,220 died serving our country and all qualified for burial in Arlington and their names are etched into the Vietnam Wall forever… Fate is the hunter….
RTR quote for 14 August: GENERAL CREIGHTON W. ABRAMS: “Forget the damned briefing….Just take me out in the field and show me what the problem is.”
Lest we forget… Bear…