RIPPLE SALVO… #529… DISTINGUISHED FLYING FROM START TO FINISH… but first…
Good Morning: Day FIVE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE of remembering the great warriors and the intense fight for the future of the people of South Vietnam. It was the “air war” secretly identified as Operation Rolling Thunder… no wonder so few “Remember Rolling Thunder”…
17 AUGUST 1967… A FEW HEADLINES from The New York Times on a warm and breezy Thursday in NYC…
SUMMER 1967 IN AMERICA: “HOUSE APPROVES CIVIL RIGHTS BILL TO CURB VIOLENCE MEASURE TO PROTECT CIVILIANS–IS BROADENED TO INCLUDE POLICE AND FIREMEN–PASSES BY 326-93–AMENDMENTS BY 2 PARTIES ARE NUMEROUS AS DEBATE CONCLUDES”... “The House passed a bill that would make a crime to harm or intimidate persons exercising federally protected civil rights or [policemen or firemen…As it started out it was one of President Johnson’s least controversial civil rights proposals. It was intended to strengthen the Federal laws against harassing Negroes and civil rights workers seeking to secure human rights guaranteed by law and the Constitution. The House, impatient with Negro rioting this summer and anxious to restore law and order, adopted an amendment that would give the same protection to policemen trying to stop rioting and to firemen engaged in fighting fires during riot… the bill was amended to prohibit the bill being used to protect Negro leaders from prosecution under the anti-riot bill last month…that makes it a crime to cross state lines or use the facilities of interstate commerce to incite violence.”… Page 1: “Johnson Calls On Senate to Pass Full Urban Aid”... “President Johnson warned Congress today that it could no longer afford ‘business as usual’ in meeting the crisis of the nation’s cities. In a letter to the Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana, Mr. Johnson said that nothing less than an ‘all-out commitment’ was necessary to prevent a recurrence of the ‘tragic events of this summer.’…The President urged the Senate to restore the $425 million cut by the House…and to approve the 22 additional measures aimed at improving life in urban areas.”… Page 1: “Racial Violence Besets Syracuse–Groups of Negroes Smash Windows and Stone Cars–Policemen are Pelted”... “Rampaging groups of Negro youths stoned repeatedly across the fringe of the downtown area, here early this morning, smashing windows, stoning cars and taunting police…25 youths were arrested, two for inciting to riot.”…
VIETNAM: Page 1: “Johnson Upholds Vietnam Election despite Faults–Concedes Blemish In Vote Race–Notes Saigon’s Gains–President Honoring Civilian Award Winners Stresses Advance to Democracy.”…”President Johnson said today that South Vietnam’s September 3 presidential election ‘might not be without blemish’ but he urged all Americans not to be too critical. ‘We cannot pose impossible standards for a young nation at war,’ he said.”… Page 1: “CONGRESS WARNED TO REASSESS ROLE–PROFESSOR TELLS SENATE UNIT PASSIVITY IN FOREIGN POLICY POINTS TO ONE-MAN RULE”... “The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was told by a professor of diplomatic history today that the assumption by American Presidents of more and more authority in foreign affairs leads in the direction of an authoritarian state. Dr. Ruhl Bartlett of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University in Boston said there had been almost a reversal since 1789 of the positions of the executive and legislative branches in foreign affairs…This change…was most marked in the virtual abdication by the Congress of the constitutional right to declare war and in the Executive’s assumption of the authority to dispatch troops anywhere in the world without the advance approval of the Senate resolution introduces by Senator William W. Fulbright, Committee Chairman, on 31 July 1967.”… Page 6: “Grenade Tossed at Truck Hurts 10 U.S. Workers In Vietnam–Americans Injured In Cholon While On Way to Jobs–Terrorist Leader Seized”... “…the grenade was thrown by a small boy…expect an upsurge in Vietcong activity associated with Presidential campaigning and vote on 3 September…Alleged terrorist in possession of plans that disclosed preparations for attacks with recoilless rifles on several polling places in the city of Cholon.”… Page 6: “On the war front, South Vietnam units reported killing 98 of the enemy in two actions, one in the Mekong Delta and the other in which they were supported by troops of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airborne) in the Central Highlands. One American soldier was killed in the Mekong Delta engagement where 65 enemy were killed… American paratroopers were in action in Quangtin Province where ten enemy soldiers were killed. One American was killed and 5 wounded.”
17 August 1967… The President’s TS Daily CIA Brief… COMMUNIST CHINA... The Maoists have launched a new attack on military leaders. Nine senior officers have recently been brought under fire, not only by rallies and posters, but by major articles in People’s Daily and the Military Journal Red Flag. These articles could provide the theoretical basis for a broader assault on the armed forces. There are other hints that the Maoists may have additional targets, or even a purge of officers opposed to the Cultural Revolution, in mind…
17 AUGUST 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…The New York Times (18 Aug reporting 17 Aug ops)…
Page 6: “The command announced the loss of the 643rd United States warplane over North Vietnam. The latest loss was an F-105 Thunderchief. It was downed by ground fire during the Air Force raids yesterday on North Vietnamese antiaircraft sites, storage areas and convoys in the southern panhandle.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses”(Chis Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 17 August 1967…
(1) MAJOR ALBERT C. VOLLMER was flying an F-105D of the 44th TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat on an armed reconnaissance mission north of the demilitarized zone and was hit by ground fire attacking a storage area. Afire, he turned seaward and was able to fly the burning aircraft five miles to sea before ejecting. MAJOR VOLLMER was rescued by an Air Force HU-16. He was seriously injured in this, his second ejection in Southeast combat, and was hospitalized for nearly a year before returning to flight status…
(2) COMMANDER LAURENT NORBERT DION and LTJG CHARLES DAVID HOM were flying an RA-5C Vigilante of RVAH-12 embarked in USS Constellation on a photographic reconnaissance mission and perished at sea off the coast of North Vietnam. COMMANDER DION, Commanding Officer of RVAH-12, and LTJG HOM were killed in action, body not recovered, and are remembered on this 50th anniversary of their final mission for their country.
RIPPLE SALVO… #529… BRIDGE REMOVAL 101… as demonstrated by the pros of CAG-14 embarked in Connie…on 14 August 1967… A truer tale from Humble Host’s amazing collection of sea stories has never been proffered …
On the afternoon of 14 August 1967, fifty years ago, Attack Carrier Air Wing Fourteen conducted a coordinated strike on two strategic highway bridges directly north of the major North Vietnamese port city of Haiphong. The bridges, spanning the Da Bach and Gai Rivers, formed vital links on route 189, the only major highway between Haiphong and the logistic arteries branching out to the ports of Hon Gai and Cam Pha to the east and the Red River delta north of Hanoi to the west. Originally scheduled to interdict the northeast rail line running between Hanoi and the Communist China border, reports and forecasts of marginal weather in this area resulted in the thorough planning, briefing, and subsequent diversion of the strike force to the two vital highway bridges.
The enemy defenses guarding the two bridges included: six confirmed and active surface-to-air missile sites; twelve occupied 85-mm radar directed antiaircraft sites; twenty-six 37/57-mm anti-aircraft sites; numerous automatic weapon sites; and the bridges were within range of 100 MIGs controlled and radar directed by a central air defense command. The formidable gauntlet for these two bridges was the same as for the bridges of Haiphong a few miles to the south.
Commander Bob Holt, CO-VA-55, planned, briefed and led the strike. With marginal weather expected int he primary target area, CDR Holt’s plan included the deployment of a section of his F-4B TARCAP aircraft ahead of the strike group to report the weather along the northeast rail, primary target, area so as to be able to make a timely decision to divert to the secondary target, the pair of route 189 bridges.
As the strike leader CDR Holt was both strike navigator and leader of a four A-4C division of bombers from VA-55. Three A-4Cs, also from VA-55 were led by LCDR Dave Kushner. CDR Bob Dunn, Commanding VA-146, and alternate strike group leader, led two divisions of A-4C bombers. The strike group also included four A-6A bombers from VA-196 and six F-4Bs from VF-142 and VF-143 were assigned to suppress flak, MIGCAP and TARCAP. Two RVAH-12 and an F-4B escort rounded out CDR Holt’s 28 aircraft strike group. In addition, 6 support aircraft from CVW-14 were launched to support the strike. This was a major strike…
The flight was launched, rendezvoused and proceeded toward the primary target as planned and briefed by CDR Holt. The section of F-4s was detached to proceed ahead for a weather recommendation. In addition, LCDR Kushner, leading the Iron Hand section of three A-4s armed with Shrike missiles, accelerated ahead to chum up SAM activity from the known six sites that lay ahead.
As the main strike group of 18 bombers with four flak suppressor approached coast-in the two weather recce F-4s reported low and multi-layered cloud cover of 7/8ths of the primary target and recommended diversion to the secondary target. CDR HOLT noted comparable weather in the Haiphong and secondary target area and was on the cusp of aborting the strike when he spied a break in the undercast large enough to identify the target area and permit modified dive bombing attacks on the two bridges. He didn’t hesitate to order the attack and then lead his valiant group down through the layered clouds, in SAM territory, to precisely position his bombers for their attacks on the bridges.
CDR HOLT executed a weather-modified shallow dive, attack begun and completed at lower altitudes than briefed but fitting for the occasion, and delivered his six MK-82s on the Da Bach bridge. Following the fist division CDR Dunn wheeled his eight bombers in on the Da Bach bridge while encountering moderate enemy ground fire. The gunners apparently had thought the weather too bad for a Yankee Air Pirate air show and were slow to man their guns. When they got going, however, they were just as men and nasty as always. But too late, CDR Dunn and his VA-146 Blue Diamonds dropped more than forty MK-82s and the Da Bach bridge into the river. Devastating!
The division of VA-196 Main Battery A-6s had approached the target area at a slightly higher altitude but faced the same difficult adaptation to the limits posed by the multi-layers of clouds, but at just the right time LCDR Jimmy Lee Buckley and his B/N LTJG Bob Flynn caught a break in the clouds and a clear path to the Gai River bridge. Their attack was improvised to meet the situation–lower altitudes, shallow dive angle and weather and enemy shells in the air–to deliver more than eighty bombs on and near the bridge. Two spans were down and the approaches obliterated in the fierce attack, despite the intense enemy ground fire that opposed their low altitude attack and retirement. The A-6 hits observed to drop the spans were delivered by LT Elwood Suereth and his B/N LT Jiles Acord. oohrah…
The Iron Hand aircraft led by Dave Kushner sustained their trolling and feint attacks on at least three active, but non-firing SAM sites, while the strike group groped for the target, made their improvised, but 100% successful assault and escape. For good measure, after retiring going feet wet, from his orbit 60 miles inland over the North, Dave and his two wingmen dropped down and expended their 20-mm to destroy a 30-foot WBLC.
It was a great day of distinguished flying and the 28 warriors who went feet dry and carried out their respective assignments despite hairy conditions upheld the finest traditions of Tonkin Gulf Tailhookers. The giver of awards was skimpy and limited his enthusiasm for the performance to a spread of ten bits of ribbon, none above an Air Medal… Scrooge!!!… Humble Host calls this distinguished flying and a great lesson in bridge removal…
RTR QUOTE for 17 August: TACITUS, History, Civilus to his Legions: “The gods look with favor upon superior daring.”…
Lest we forget… Bear