RIPPLE SALVO… #49…
20 APRIL 1966 (NYT)… ON THE HOMEFRONT… Front page headline: “U.S. Navy Jets Hit Power Plant 14 Miles From Haiphong,” and damage report states “for all practical purposed, destroyed.” Navy A-6s from USS Enterprise, capable of carrying fifteen 1,000-lb bombs, were employed in the strike that put “all the lights out.” The strike on the Ubongbi power plant repeats the effective strike on the plant last December (1965) by more than 50 aircraft. The plant produces 15% of North Vietnam’s electrical power…Page 4: “Administration Gives Hedged Welcome Today to Senator Mike Mansfield Call for Peace Talks.” Max Frankel reported: “The Administration welcomed today Senator Mansfield’s call for a Vietnam peace Conference in Asia, but it hedged the endorsement by insisting the Saigon government would have to represent South Vietnam…Frankel reminds that the Administration is already pursuing two major peace initiatives led by the Britain]ah and France, as well as lesser initiative with China. Frankel summarized; “There was little hope here however, that a call for any type of conference would soon interest the Vietnamese Communists… Also on page 4: Vice President Hubert Humphrey appeared on a CBS special and discussed the February 1966 meeting of LBJ and Cao Ky in Honolulu. HH said: “The Honolulu Declaration may well be a Johnson Doctrine that amounted to a pledge to our selves and to posterity to defeat aggression, to defeat social misery, to build viable political institutions, and to achieve peace….I think there is a tremendous new opening here for realizing the dream of the Great Society in the great area of Asia, not just here at home.”… Article on page 5: Headline: “Basic Split in GOP,” and story that cites Senator Everett Dirksen’s deep differences with House Minority Leader Jerry Ford. The writer “…pointed to the fact that the Republican Party has no real unity of approach to the issues of the day, particularly Vietnam–and no machinery to either develop such unity or to impose it on its members. The present Limited War is a Middle of the Road occupied by the President and this leaves the Republicans to call for either more war or more appeasement…
20 APRIL 1966…ROLLING THUNDER… An Air Force F-105D from the 421TFS out of Korat piloted by CAPTAIN J.B. ABERNATHY., who was conducting an armed reconnaissance mission in the area of the Mugia Pass. He was hit by 37mm AAA fire and ejected a few minutes and miles later. He was rescued by an HH-3 from Nakhon Phanom…
Please call up this post of “Mighty Thunder” for a special tribute to Commander John Abbott. Shot down on this day and died in captivity shortly thereafter.
Lest we forget… Bear …………….. –30– ……………..