RIPPLE SALVO… #619… “… it is obvious to the whole world by now that the country is divided on the war, and no rhetoric by the President or anyone else can conceal that fact. The national unity of which he speaks does not exist.”… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED NINETEEN of the ROLLING THUNDER journal of history remembered…
15 NOVEMBER 1967…HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a cold and windy Wednesday in the canyons of NYC…
Page 1: “WAR FOES HERE CLASH WITH POLICE AS RUSK SPEAKS–HEAVY GUARD AT HILTON HOTEL THWARTS PROTESTERS WHO GO TO TIMES SQUARE AREA–48 PERSONS ARRESTED–SECRETARY SAYS THERE IS NO WAY TO AVERT ESCALATION OF VIETNAM CONFLICT”… Page 2: “Rusk Here Renews Offer To Talk With Hanoi–Says Minimum Cooperation By North Vietnam Would Put An End To Hostilities”… Page 1: “Vietnam War Evaluation Being Made By Johnson”… “A high level evaluation of the military situation in Vietnam is being prepared for the President by an inter-agency group. It coincides with visit by Ellsworth Bunker, United States Ambassador to South Vietnam and General William Westmoreland, commander of the United States forces there, who is due in the capital today…”… Page 1: “House Approves City-County Rule In Poverty Bill–205-111 Vote Beats G.O.P. Plan to Permit Bypassing of Local Governments–Supporters Exuberant–Administration Bloc Hopeful of Passage By Exploiting Division of Opposition” ... “The House voted tonight to permit city halls or county courthouses to take charge of community-action programs under the Federal antipoverty effort.”… Page 1: “Shirley Temple Black Loses House Bid–G.O.P. Dove Paul M. McCloskey Will Oppose Democrat in Runoff for California 11th District (Redwood City)”…
Page 1: “Marine Major General Bruno A. Hockmuth Dies in Copter Crash In Vietnam”… “…the first American general to die in Vietnam…command of Third Marine Division… enemy ground fire caused the crash that killed the general and five other persons.”…Page 5: “Hanoi Bars Talks On Neutral Ship–Repeats Terms In Rejecting Johnson Bid for a meeting commenting on remarks Mr. Johnson made on deck of USS Enterprise off San Diego. Source: Hanoi newspaper, Nhan Dan .”… Page 1: “Johnson Vietnam War Policy Backed by Japanese Premier Sato”… Page 2: “Che Guevara Documents Detail Plan for 2nd Vietnam In Heart of South America”… Page 32: “Harold Stassen Enters G.O.P. Race for Presidential Nomination as Peace Candidate”…
15 NOVEMBER 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times: Devoid of coverage of air war, 2nd day in row… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson)… There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 15 November 1967…
(1) CAPTAIN E.F. SAUNDERS and an unidentified observer were flying an O-1G Bird Dog of the 22nd TASS and 504th TASG out of Binh Thuy on a FAC mission in the Mekong Delta and lost the engine due to enemy ground fire. Captain SAUNDERS dead- sticked the aircraft to crash landing near a village 15 miles east of Soc Trang where the pair of aviators was rescued by an Army helicopter…
(2) A C-130E of the 76th TAS and 314th TAW was destroyed by enemy rocket fire while on the ground at Dakto…
There was a reason why the New York Times had little or nothing to report on the air war in the North–weather. There wasn’t much to report… The following is what was going on and perhaps it is just as well that our alternative to dive bombing with accuracy measured in feet, was radar bombing in level flight from a relatively safe altitude. Accuracy was not measured in feet. The following is snipped from the logs of Capt Bob Dorrough and Major Sam Armstong available on-line at Howard Plunkett’s “34TFS/F-105 History“…
“15-Nov-67. In one of the first missions using the recently installed command Club Skyspot radar in northern Laos, the radar station guided F-105s from Korat on a strike of Ha Lac airfield (20 miles southwest of Hanoi)…”
“The Wild Weasel crew of Capt Robert E. Dorrough, Jr and EWO Maj Clarence S. “Bud” Summers from the 44 TFS at Korat flew on this mission, their 73rd over North Vietnam… Wed- Led a flight to Pack 6 in the afternoon. the target weather was bad at Hao Lac Air Field so the strike flights dropped on radar. We kept three SAM sites busy, but could not roll in on them because of the weather. Mission #73.”
Major Armstrong “On the 15th of November we flew a different kind of mission. Once again somebody back in Washington was anguishing over the fact that the Navy was able to get Pack VI missions with A-6’s while the Air Force wasn’t making its presence felt up there. So the solution was to use a Combat Spot radar site on a mountain in northern Laos which would hopefully have enough range to give level bombing directions into the Hanoi area. The difference between this and previous and future Sky Spot missions was that we were going in mission strength with Wesels, a CBU flight and F-4C’s for MG protection.
“The target was the Hoa Lac Airfield southwest of Hanoi. It was a short runway and we had not bothered hitting it during my tenure. I was flying #3 in the third flight carrying 750# bombs. We were briefed that the radar site would guide the lead flight which was in fairly tight formation. They would release their bombs on the countdown. The following flights had about two-mile spacing and were to also hit the bomb release button on the countdown. The second flight set the release timer on 12 seconds and we set ours at 24 seconds. On cue, everybody hit the bomb release button. We watched the bombs drop from the lead flight and their turning away. Then the bombs came off the second flight as advertised and they broke away from the target area. Then my own came off and I looked down and there was the airfield just sticking our of the overcast and the bombs from the other flights were hitting long. It was clear enough that we could have dive bombed if we had known it was that open. The good news was no SA-2s, flak or MiGs, so everyone returned safely.”
Other notes from this flight included: “...all of our bombs hit 2-4 miles past the target.” … and…”there was light 37/57 flak low as we pulled away.”…
AMONG THE BRAVE… COLONEL FRED VANN CHERRY, USAF…
Humble Host has another 15 November 1967 entry for this post: The award of the AIR FORCE CROSS to COLONEL FRED VANN CHERRY, USAF, who passed away on 16 February 2016 and rests in peace… COLONEL CHERRY flew 100-missions in the F-84 Thunderjets in Korea prior to his F-105 Thunderchief combat tour in Southeast Asia. On 22 October 1965, as a Major flying with the 35th Tactical fighter Squadron, he led an attack on an active and heavily defended enemy SAM site and was awarded the SILVER STAR MEDAL for his gallantry. Unfortunately, in the attack his aircraft was hit hard by the ground fire and he was forced to eject. Captured, he endured seven years harsh captivity that included 705 days of solitary confinement and one stretch of torture or punishment for 93-consecutive days. His EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM during this period of his imprisonment resulted in the award of the AIR FORCE CROSS… THE CITATION…
“The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the AIR FORCE CROSS to COLONEL FRED VANN CHERRY, United States Air Force, for EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM in military operations against an opposing armed force as a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam from 15 August 1967 to 15 November 1967. During this period, Colonel CHERRY demonstrated his extremely strong personal fortitude and maximum persistence in the face of severe enemy harassment and torture, suffering critical injuries and wounds. Through his EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM and willpower, in the face of the enemy, Colonel CHERRY reflected the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.”
RIPPLE SALVO… #619… New York Times, 12 November 1967…
“In The Nation: Much Ado About Dissent” by Tom Wicker…
“On his tour of military bases this week, President Johnson reverted to his old theme that critics of the war in Vietnam were damaging ‘the nation’s cause’ and encouraging ‘the enemy’ to prolong the war. Not only is this effort rather like King Canute commanding the waves to cease, it is also a risky position for a Democratic leader to take.
“In the first place, it is obvious to the whole world by now that the country is divided on the war issue, and no rhetoric by the President or anyone else can conceal that fact. The national unity of which he speaks does not exist.
“Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, for instance, is apparently going to enter some primaries as a candidate against Mr. Johnson precisely because there is a large and vocal group of Americans who differ with the Administration’s policy on Vietnam.
“Nor is it only ‘doves’ who dissent. gov. Ronald Reagan of California has implicitly termed Administration policy ‘immoral’ because it does not prosecute the war fiercely enough. Replying to Johnson’s assertion that the nation could afford both to fight in Vietnam and to solve its domestic social problems, Reagan said:
” ‘I think there is something important in the pretense that we can have prosperity at home, and on the side conduct a war in which half-million of our men are getting shot at… we should turn the full resources of the nation to ending the fighting as soon as possible.’
“That is also dissent, and the case could easily be made that every time some war-like general or politician urges an intensified bombing of North Vietnam, the war is prolonged, too. Surely these utterances only convince Hanoi the more that the United States is imperialistic, aggressive and ruthless, and therefore not a nation with whom a fruitful political settlement is possible.
“No doubt the President is right that the evidence of wide-spread disagreement with his policy does stiffen Hanoi’s will to fight on. But that is not only the price the President has to be paid, because this is a free country, it is the price the President has to pay because he has never been able to persuade public opinion sufficiently that his policy is really ‘the nation’s cause.’
“That he has not been able to do so is only partially because of the inherent ambiguities and complexities of the situation; it is also because the President made most of the decisions that led to involvement of half-million men and $25-billion annually in executive sessions.
“Time after time the President has announced these decisions as accomplished facts and then demanded support for them as a matter of patriotism. this tactic has been self-defeating because it has given millions of Americans-including not a few members of Congress–the idea that something has been put over on them and that they have had too little opportunity to affect the course of events in democratic fashion.
“Even if this were not the case, even if there had been something like national referendum approving the President’s policy so that he might truly label it ‘the nation’s cause,’ there still would not be grounds for demanding that dissenters be quiet lest they aid the enemy. If democracy means anything it means the right to hold and express contrary views even when they run counter to someone else’s definition of the national interest.
“In the course of war in which the very existence of a democratic nation is at stake. It may be justified in suspending this basic right of dissent; and, justified or not such a threatened nation is likely to do it as a matter of survival. during the America Civil War, the resolute Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus, and the Ohio Copperhead, Clement Vallandigham, was summarily shipped off to the Confederacy for fulminating, a good deal less violent than some of those being heard today.
“In retrospect, the imprisonment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II seems not only ludicrous at the time, other Americans readily acquiesced in what then seemed to be a sensible security measure.
“But although the Johnson Administration has been emphasizing lately the threat to American vital interests that its leaders profess to see in ‘Asian Communism,’ even they are not yet picturing the war in Vietnam as one for American national survival. The President, therefore will just have to put up with what he disdains as cocktail party chitchat and ‘debate from the comfort of some distant sideline.'”…
RTR Quote for 15 November: ARISTOTLE: “Faults for which we are responsible are blameable, while those for which we are not responsible are not.”
Lest we forget…