RIPPLE SALVO… #439… ON SOME DAYS THE SUN SUDDENLY STOPS SHINING… but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE of a trip back through the glory and agony of the air war over North Vietnam…
18 MAY 1967… HEADLINES from The New York Times on a very nice Thursday in New York…
Page 1: “16 Senators Warn Hanoi on War…that supporters for the war far outnumbered those against and are calling for even greater escalation of the war.”… (See RIPPLE SALVO below)…
Page 1: “Thant Sees Peril In Mideast”...”He cancels trip and holds emergency meeting on warning from Cairo. Secretary General Thant today held emergency consultations on the rising tension in the Middle East. He termed the situation “potentially very grave’… with troops moving toward borders between Israel and both Syria and Egypt.”… Page 1: “U.S. Skipper Views Bumpings as Error But Criticizes Soviets”... “The commander of an American destroyers in the Sea of Japan last week expressed the view today that the collisions had resulted from ‘miscalculation by the Soviet captains’…Unpredictable factors such as wind and water caused the ships to collide.”… Page 1: “Hong Kong Erupts in More Rioting By Pro -Red Youth”... “Mobs Battle Police In Main Shopping Area–Hotels and Banks are Stoned–Agitation against British Rule By Youths is Expanding –– Nathan Road the Golden Mile is Central Battleground”… Page 1: “House 232-171 Bars Expansion of Rent Subsidies”...”Republicans Win Elimination of New Project Funds–Hopes Lie in Senate–Model Cities Rescued–Administration Bloc Rallies to Defeat $237-Million cut in Slum Program…called a halt to controversial rent subsidy program. The decision was a major defeat for the Johnson Administration.”… Page 1: “Shot Kills Policeman in Riot at a Negro College”… “A policeman was killed and two other policeman and a student were wounded early today in an exchange of rifle fire during the five-hour riot at Texas Southern University, a predominantly Negro school. The police arrested 488 students, five of whom were arrested on charges of inciting a riot.”…
Page 3: “U.S. Sailor is Captured after Falling Overboard”… “The North Vietnamese press published a photo today of an American sailor who fell overboard from the cruiser Canberra off the coast and was captured by militiamen. DOUGLAS R. HEGDAHL a South Dakota was taken prisoner in April.”… Page 1: “Students In Madrid Rip Franco Photos in a 3-Hour Melee”… “Students of Madrid University smashed the offices of the dean of the School of Sciences today and then fought for three hours with mounted and foot policemen…It was the wildest outbreak of student violence in two years with students chanting ‘Down with 1936,’ the year Franco forces opened the Spanish Civil War.”…
18 May 1967…The President’s Daily TS Brief by CIA included: 7. ARAB STATES-ISRAEL– Egypt has requested the withdrawal of the UN Emergency force from the Egyptian border. This has little military significance, since the force never has had any capability for preventing a border clash. Cairo probably hoes its demand will deter Israel by “demonstrating Egypt’s intention to aid Syria if attacked. The Syrians seem to be double-talking themselves into believing the Soviets will come to their assistance in the event of an Israeli attack. They say Soviet aid “will reach the verge of military intervention.” Moscow apparently has given some vague assurance of support, but we think any commitment such as the Syrians have in mind is highly unlikely.”
18 MAY 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (19 May reporting 18 May ops) …Very limited coverage of the air war in the North. Page 4: “In the air United States pilots reported having knocked out 20 North Vietnamese artillery positions in three days of concentrated raids in the demilitarized zone and just North of it.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) there were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 18 May 1967…
(1) COMMANDER KENNETH ROBBINS CAMERON was flying an A-4C of the VA-76 Spirits embarked in USS Bon Homme Richard and leading a strike on a transshipment point 10 miles north of Vinh. COMMANDER CAMERON, XO of VA-76, was hit in his dive on the target and ejected at the target with no hope for a rescue. He was captured and imprisoned by North Vietnam. He died while in captivity on 4 October 1970 and his remains were returned to his homeland in March 1974.
(2) LIEUTENANT ROBERT JOHN NAUGHTON was flying an A-4C of the VA-113 Stingers embarked in USS Enterprise and leading a section on an armed reconnaissance mission north of Thanh Hoa. He sighted and attacked with rockets a railyard target near Doung Phong Thoung, but was hit in the dive and forced to eject. LT NAUGHTON was captured and spent the duration of the war as a POW until released on 4 March 1973. He was downed on his 194th strike mission, having previously completed a full combat cruise in USS Kitty Hawk.
HUMBLE HOST adds…
On that bright and sun-shiny day the three carriers –Bonny Dick, Enterprise and Kitty Hawk– of Task Force 77 in the Gulf of Tonkin launched more than two hundred attack sorties against both fixed and lucrative targets along the main arteries of the “funnel” between Haiphong and Vinh. I was among them. I flew my 81st mission and put a big bullpup on a bridge at Tam Da, about 10 miles north of Vinh. About where Ken Cameron took a hit and went down. Opposition was light but accurate 37-mm zingers were zipping by close aboard.
It was a great day for attack pilots–except for Ken Cameron and Bob Naughton, two very good friends and squadron mates, Bob in the VA-113 Stingers on Enterprise and Ken, a fellow A-4 Skyhawk instructor in VA-125 at Naval Air Station Lemoore in 1965-66. When they went down, the bright shiny day part of 18 May 1967 went dark for me… and many others who admired, respected and yes, loved these two intrepid warriors…
The period 17 to 31 May 1967 had many days when the sun went away early. During the two weeks 20 Air Force and Navy pilots would be downed and captured to live as Prisoners of War. Eight would die in captivity. The rest would endure 6-years of torture and deprivation virtually unnoticed by the rest of the world and castigated by the likes of Jane Fondas. Ken Cameron was one of those who died in captivity. Try this story on…
“Ken Cameron was one of a flock of Navy fliers seized in May 1967, had been confined in solitary his entire captivity. Another POW described him as ‘a tall man with a large, rawboned frame and a ruggedly handsome face’ and a resistance posture ‘as tough as shoe leather,’ but the extended isolation and repeated beatings caused him to become morbid and then completely unhinged, to the point where he would neither eat nor bathe. By September 1970 Cameron’s weight had dropped almost in half (the Vietnamese now giving him extra food, bananas, and sweet milk, but he seemed intent on starving himself), but he was sleeping on a concrete floor, and other POWs ‘realized that we had an unbalanced man on our hands.’…Cameron had been moved into the Hilton after spending the first half of 1970 shuttered in Alcatraz. He, too, was eating and bathing erratically, acting paranoid and resisting efforts by three fellow POWs and the Vietnamese to resuscitate him. In early or mid-October…Ken Cameron was moved to a hospital… “… Three months later in December when a list of the POWs held by the North Vietnamese to Americans at a meeting in Paris, Ken Cameron’s name was not on the list. Ken was dead. Murdered. (This paragraph slightly edited from page 515-6 of “Honor Bound”)
EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM… “The President of the United States takes great pride in presenting the NAVY CROSS (Posthumously) to CAPTAIN (then Commander) KENNETH ROBBINS CAMERON, United States Navy for EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM as a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam from 18 May 1967 to 4 October 1970. Under constant pressure from the North Vietnamese in their attempt to gain military information and propaganda material. CAPTAIN CAMERON experienced severe torture with ropes and by beatings and was kept in solitary confinement. As they persisted in their hostile treatment of him, he continued to resist by feigning sickness and refusing to eat anything but a bare minimum of food. Through these measures he was successful in his attempt to keep himself unacceptable in appearance to the North Vietnamese, thus discouraging them from forcing him to meet visiting antiwar delegations for propaganda purposes. He gallantly evaded exploitation by the North Vietnamese throughout his lengthy confinement. By his exceptional courage, determination and resourcefulness in a most difficult line of resistance, he reflected great credit upon himself and up held the highest traditions of the Naval Service.”…
BOB NAUGHTON returned to the Navy from six years of brutal torture (some worse than waterboarding), years of solitary confinement, and a diet of pig fat and pumpkin, to command a carrier based A-7 squadron, VA-83, and accomplish great things both in the Navy and in a follow-on career with NASA running their air force in Houston… oohrah… But the man is not normal– he takes three times longer to consume a plate of food than a normal person. I wonder why?… God bless Bob and Peggy as they continue to serve others…
On that sunny day fifty years ago Navy warriors in more than 200 A-4s, A-6s, F-4s, F-8s, Photo Recce birds, and A-1s went out on OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER missions to interdict the supply of men and material flowing south through the Route Pack 2, 3, and 4 sections of the funnel to fuel the war in South Vietnam. More than 200 went out. Two did not come home. Another day of heavy hearts. And indelible memories.
RIPPLE SALVO… #439… CONCERN IN THE SENATE… NYT Editorial, 18 May 1967, page 46...
“Alarm and anxiety over the growing intensity of the Vietnam war are behind the pleas and threats coming out of the United States Senate in recent days. Sixteen Senators, led by Frank Church, Idaho Democrat, yesterday published a statement intended to Hanoi saying that despite their criticism of President Johnson’s policies they are against a withdrawal of American forces. They are only the latest in a growing list of anguished and helpless onlookers.
“They see a larger, more costly and far more dangerous war developing. The other day five Senators joined Sherman Cooper, Republican of Kentucky, in warning President Johnson that further increases in United States military activities in Vietnam might end any hope of a peaceful solution and could bring Communist China and the Soviet Union into the war. Senator Cooper offered a suggestion–which was not new–to confine the bombing to the infiltration routes.
“The sixteen Senators who yesterday directed their message to Hanoi are undoubtedly telling the Ho Chi Minh Government what it already knows–that the United State has no intention of withdrawing from Vietnam. It is highly questionable that dissent in the United States, demonstrations against the war and criticisms of the Johnson Administration are fooling Hanoi, or that these manifestations of differing opinions in this country are the reasons for Hanoi’s continuing to fight. Every qualified visitor to Hanoi in recent months bears witness to the sophistication of the North Vietnamese leaders, the adequacy of their information and their determination.
“The Senators who are–quite rightly–showing such dismay over the escalating war in Vietnam have a good opportunity now to call emphatic attention to the one possibility of opening peace negotiations–an unconditional pause in the bombing of north Vietnam.
“Senators like Church, Cooper, Mansfield, Robert Kennedy, Fulbright, Morton, Aiken, Clark, Hatfield and others– are approaching despair judging from their works and their acts. But they might now all take the plunge together and say with Secretary General Thant and Pope Paul VI: stop the bombing of North Vietnam. These Senators recognize the risks of war with China. That being the case, why not issue a joint call for the Johnson Administration to accept the lesser risk of a bombing pause.
“The time for such a plea is now. Next Tuesday, May 23, which is the anniversary of Buddha’s birth, has been marked for a truce by both sides in the Vietnam war. On that day of peace, opportunity will again be knocking….”
CAG’s QUOTES for 18 May: Wordsworth: “Arise, go forth and conquer.”… Patton: “I’m giving the men hell one minute and crying over them the next.”
Lest we forget… Bear