RIPPLE SALVO…#201… FIND, FIX, FIGHT, FOLLOW, FINISH… but first…
Good Morning: Day TWO HUNDRED ONE of a return to the air war over North Vietnam, fifty years ago…
18 SEPTEMBER 1966… THE HOME TOWN NEWS from the pages of the New York Times… A partly cloudy Sunday, with rain tonight…
Page 1: “Pope To Continue Peace Offensive With Encyclical”…”Pope Paul VI will make a strong new appeal for peace Monday in an encyclical described by the Vatican as of ‘notable importance.’ The encyclical will almost certainly contain an appeal to the Christian world for special prayers for peace during October and include requests for the combatants in the Vietnam for a new effort to achieve a peaceful settlement. Rome papers speculated, admittedly without only firm basis, that the encyclical might foreshadow a new Vatican initiative–a proposal for a peace conference or even a papal journey in the cause of peace. The encyclical will represent the solemn reopening of the peace offensive that Pope Paul VI has carried on throughout his three-year reign.”… Page 1: “Humphrey Sure He Will Be On The Ticket”…”Vice President Hubert Humphrey said today he was sure President Johnson wanted him as a second term running mate in 1968. Mr. Humphrey quoted the President as having told a White House dinner of labor leaders two weeks ago that ‘as long as I am President, I want Vice President Humphrey by my side.’…”…Page !: “Vice President To Attend U.N. Opening Tuesday”…”Vice President Humphrey will accompany the United States delegation at the opening of the 21st general Assembly on Tuesday. the Vice President is not expected to address the assembly. at the first session he will sit with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Arthur J. Goldberg and other members of the United States delegation…this was the first time anyone with a rank as high as Mr. Humphrey’s would sit with the delegates on the floor of the assembly.”… Page 1: “Full Democracy Pledged By Ky”…”Premier Nguyen Cao Ky pledged today that South Vietnam’s military government would follow-up the election of a constitutional assembly with a transition to a fully democratic government and a ‘social revolution.’…”
Page 1: “13 Whites Seized In Grenada Strike”…”Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested 13 men today on charges of conspiracy against the civil rights of Negroes in Grenada county. The 13 were seized for participation in the white mobs that assaulted Negro children and newsmen during the integration of two previously all white schools in the city of Grenada on Monday.”… Page 2: “Youths In Peking alter City’s Look”…”China’s teenage Red Guard have transformed the outward appearance of Peking since their campaign to apply the tenets of the ‘great cultural’ revolution began a month ago. However, only a small number of the demands the Red Guards put forth in hundreds of thousands of posters all over the city have so far been put into effect. Cars and bicycles still go on green traffic lights at intersections, although guard posters had suggested reversing the world wide practice that red lights mean stop on the ground that red is the Communists revolutionary color of forward motion.”…
Editorial Section Page 3:…Essay by Max Frankel…”Long War of Attrition Is Prospect In Vietnam”…”Outwardly, the long hot summer has brought little change in the Vietnam situation. President Johnson has committed more troops, accepted higher casualties, ordered more bombings, taken more diplomatic soundings and erected more political defenses. The only plausible prospect is for more war…. The Vietcong and their allies in turn, have held to the demand that the United States must reverse its field, moving troops out instead of in, and halting the bombing of North Vietnam before they will consider any terms of peace or cease fire. Thus despite the speculation this week about Moscow’s new moderation influence in Hanoi and about the results of French President De Gualle’s visit to Southeast Asia, the evidence still suggests a long war of attrition.”…
18 SEPTEMBER 1966… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (19 September reporting 18 September operations) Page 5: “85 Missions Flown In North”…”American pilots hit North Vietnamese highways, bridges and coastal shipping yesterday in 85 multi-plane missions ranging from Hanoi and Haiphong through the southern panhandle and into the demilitarized zone. Air Force planes smashed eight trucks in an attack southwest of Vinh and set off seven explosions in another strike on the missile equipment and storage complex north of Dong hoi…An F-105 Thunderchief crashed yesterday in the North and the pilot was listed as missing (Captain Darel Leetum, KIA). The location of the crash wqas withheld. Two other Air Force planes were lost over Saigon when they collided over Cam Ranh Bay, 200 miles northeast of Saigon. One of the four was rescued (Captain D.G. Browning), but the other three are still missing (Captain Edward McCann, Captain Robert Rocky and 1lt Michael Surwald, KIA).”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in Southeast Asia on 18 September 1966….oohrah…
RIPPLE SALVO… #201… “A Marine Platoon Finds The Enemy–And A Fight”… Your Humble Host is a former Yankee Air Pirate in good standing in the Gulf of Tonkin Yacht Club, the Tailhook Association, and the Red River Rats. I commuted to my war in Vietnam in A-4 Skyhawks. My job was to get in, destroy and/or kill something, and get out. I survived more than 200 round trips between December 1966 and July 1968 doing my part to carry out our country’s beef with North Vietnam. I got shot at by bunches of gunners in North Vietnam in the course of my participation in the Rolling Thunder campaign. I loved the 45-degree dives on the bridges of North Vietnam with bombs and Bullpups, comfortably ensconced in my air conditioned cockpit. I also had some real interesting one versus ones with those gunners who had me in their sights. But nothing I did in the war required the sacrifice and guts of the troops on the ground in contact with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong jungle fighters. I never slept a night without my pillow and clean sheets. I never went without ice, toilet paper, showers, clean teeth, clean underwear and socks (my flight gear got a little rank), and three hot meals every day with a slider or a little ice cream before bed. I did the war as a pampered pissant, compared with the Marines in the following front page story in the New York Times of 18 September 1966, fifty years ago today… “A Marine Platoon Finds the Enemy–And a Fight”….. I quote…
The Marines could not be seen, but their screams and cries for help rose from the rice paddy. The paddy was deep with mud, and high with rice. The Marines had dived into it from a dirt road when the Vietcong opened up with machine guns. Corpsmen couldn’t tell how many men had been hit. Shouts of “Corpsman! Corpsman! and Help, I’m hit!”…, pierced the din. This was the lead platoon of Company B, First Battalion, 26th Marines, Fifth Marine Division pushing toward enemy positions along the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam. South Vietnamese militiamen from the border post at Giolink accompanied the Marines and told of a Vietcong platoon that over the years had killed many government soldiers. The Marines, who landed Thursday (Sept 15, three days before) from the aircraft carrier Iwo Jima, decided to go after the Vietcong platoon. They were about 1300-yards south of the DMZ and eight miles from the coast of the South China Sea.
The lead Marine platoon maneuvered along a dirt road that cut through green paddies. Gently rolling hills overgrown with dense brush and jungle sloped up from the rice fields. The platoon followed the road around a bend and then just as the Marines were 20-yards from a broad clump of deep brush the enemy opened up with furious machine gun fire. Everyone scrambled for cover into the paddies. In seconds the road was empty, except for the four men in the lead position. Two men there were hit with the full force of the opening enemy blast. They writhed, tried to crawl, groped helplessly in the air and then sprawled in the road. Marines in the rear did their best to rush forward to help, but they too, had to get off the road and into the paddies. Heavy equipment weighted them down. They plunged forward on all fours. Medical corpsmen and machine gun teams were the first to reach the battle scene.
They peered over dikes and could see no one, but they could hear the firing and the cries for help. The machine guns began firing into the trees. A rocket-launcher team joined them and the corpsmen crawled forward to find the wounded. They found them struggling to keep their wounds above the muck. Their wounds were packed with mud, and leeches two inches long were clamped to their skin. By the time the corpsmen reached the two lead men it was too late. One man was pulled to the roadside and a corpsman desperately gave him artificial respiration.
The corpsman, like the rest of the company, was in his first real fight in Vietnam. He worked and worked. Then he put his ear to the dead man’s chest. “He’s dead,” he said. “What’s his name,” the corpsman asked, as if to himself. The man’s shirt and dog tags had been ripped aside as he was moved and treated. “What’s his name? I don’t even know his name.”
The fighting continued for an hour and a half. The Marines battled back with all they had. As dusk settled helicopters came in for the dead and wounded. Five men carried a body in a poncho to the landing zone at the rear (This was an 8X10 inch picture in the middle of the NYT Sunday, 18 September 1966, Page 1). They passed a squad of Marines crouched against the roadside weapons stayed trained ahead, but every head turned for a moment to watch the men. The dead and wounded were flown back to the Iwo Jima. The rest of the company dug deeper into the mud for the night. end quote… (Author Unknown)
There was another little story in the same paper on a back page that went like this… “Marine Unit Reaches Safety”…”A company of Marines reported cut off and fighting hard against North Vietnamese regulars near the demilitarized zone made its way to safety as fighting slackened late yesterday… the unit, which was not specified, suffered light casualties…and killed six enemy soldiers. There was no word on the fate of another company of Marines also engaged in the fighting…the units were said to be outnumbered by about a three to one by a battalion or more of North Vietnamese troops. A spokesman said: ‘The Marines had air and artillery support and don’t seem to be in any particular danger.’…..”
As of 17 September 1966 5,064 Americans had been killed in action in the Vietnam War… 53,000 more brave young American sons will perish before it is over and we come home. (Frankel above:…”…the evidence still suggests a long war of attrition.”)
Lest we forget… and those who have, shame on you… Bear …….. –30– ………