RIPPLE SALVO… #653… Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp called the Vietnam bombing pauses “temporary military disadvantages.” Colonel Harry Summers in “On Strategy” goes to Clausewitz and “On War” to elevate the Admiral’s call to “fatal flaws” in the third element of the Rolling Thunder campaign strategy… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED FIFTY-THREE celebrating the 50th anniversary of Operation Rolling Thunder and the men who carried the fight to the enemy in his homeland…
20 December 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a sunny Wednesday in New York City fifty years ago this day…
Page 1: “U.S. EASES CURBS ON PILOTS IN NORTH–Restrictions on Flying Near Hanoi and China Relaxed”...Neil Sheehan…”The White House has relaxed restrictions governing the air war against North Vietnam to permit American pilots to fly relative freedom through the so-called buffer strip along the Chinese border and the 20-mile circle around Hanoi. Well placed informants said the relaxation granted in recent weeks, was one of a number of White House moves that allowed a sharp escalation of the bombing raids since hearings on the air war before the Senate’s Subcommittee on Preparedness Investigation last August.”… Page 10: “Raids Termed Inaccurate”… Hanoi, Agence France-Presse…“United States air strikes against Hanoi are becoming increasingly inaccurate. This appears to be one of the reasons for the repeated attacks against the North Vietnamese capital which were in their sixth consecutive day today. Pilots are obliged to return several times to destroy a given target. The main cause of the imprecision is clearly the density and accuracy of Hanoi’s antiaircraft defenses. The power of the antiaircraft fire forces American pilots to carry out hit-and-run attacks swiftly as possible if they wish to return safely to their bases. And much of the time over the target is spent dodging rockets and artillery fire… Over the last 18-months there have been eight ‘grouped’ attacks–that is a series of raids extending over several days–against Hanoi. But since June 1966, the time-lapse between each series has diminished considerably…”…
Page 1: “U.S. Aid in Secret Barred–21 Agencies of U.S. Government Promise to Stop Funding of Studies On Foreign Countries”… “…pledged today to abandon the controversial practice of providing secret funding for academic research on foreign countries…constitutes a ban on scholarly research using Government money.”…Page 1: “Payments Deficit Worsens For U.S.–Selling of Gold Stocks By Britain After Devaluation of Pound Causes Much of Quarter’s Sag”... “…worse than average of $500 million for first three-quarters.”… Page 2: “Johnson On Way to Australia to Attend Holt Memorial Services”… Page 12: “JOAN BAEZ ARRESTED”… “Joan Baez, singing ‘Silent Night,’ and dozens of other anti-draft protesters were arrested today during the second day of demonstrations at the Oakland military induction center. Miss Baez, 26-year old folksinger, was among 67 persons including 11 juveniles arrested as they blocked entrances to the center, which processes military inductees from all of Northern California. Yesterday, 218 were arrested.”…
Page 1: “14 Scholars Warn A Vietnam Defeat Means Bigger War–American Moderates Say a Red Victory Would Spur Revolutionary Activity”... Drew Middleton…”Fourteen eminent American scholars and specialists on Asian affairs have concluded that the acceptance by the United States of a Communist victory in Vietnam would be likely to lead to larger more costly wars rather than to a lasting peace. A Communist victory, they warn in a report made public yesterday, would encourage those who advocate violence as the best instrument of change. But they also view Vietnam as a crucial test of American political maturity as represented in a willingness to fight a limited war for limited but important objectives rather than to expand the war into a ‘ruinous’ regional or global conflict involving other major powers. In this context they urge limited experimental steps toward de-escalation of the conflict, primarily to show that ‘there is no inevitable progression upward.’… North Vietnam, the scholars maintain, hopes that a combination of internal political considerations and external pressures will force the United States Administration to end the war.’as long as the Communists believe this,’ the statement adds,’they will take their present hard-line position. In this sense, the outcome is being decided on the streets and in the homes of America as much as in the jungles of Vietnam.”… Page 1. “U.S. Raises Strength of Enemy In South Vietnam“… “Government officials say privately that they now estimate enemy military and political manpower in South Vietnam at 418,000 to 483,000, much higher than the figure of 300,000 reported in 1966. ‘In terms of destroying the enemy’s structure of power, we are farther away from our goal than we are farther away from our goal than we thought we were last year,’ one Government analyst said. ‘The more we find out, the worse it looks. It looks worse than a year ago.”…
20 December 1967… President’s Daily Brief… NORTH VIETNAM: No Sign of Give: North Vietnamese spokesman abroad are continuing to parrot the hard-line on settling the war. They insist that an unconditional end of bombing must precede any negotiations, and that a settlement must be in accordance with their terms. During a lengthy interview with a journalist last week, Tran Viet Dung, counselor of Hanoi’s representation in France, refused to consider any suggestions for achieving a settlement except on the basis of well-known communist positions. He placed the blame for the war squarely on the US and claimed that the American aim is to destroy North Vietnam’s sovereignty and make it part of the United States “Sphere of Influence.”… POLAND: Poles Talk to Governor Romney on Vietnam; Foreign Minister Rapacki told the Governor on Sunday that the “mechanism” of escalation, which ‘feeds on itself,’ is at work and is preventing negotiations–a point Rapacki has repeatedly made before. Rapecki choosing his words carefully, went on to say that he could give no guarantees as to how soon negotiations would begin after cessation of bombing. However, Rapecki said he had ‘reasons’ and ‘sufficient experience’ in the last year and a half for “thinking that after an unconditional halt to the bombing, only a few weeks would elapse before negotiations would become possible.” He added that the “US Government knows perfectly well that stopping the bombing would lead to negotiations.”… (Humble Host includes this item for two reasons: First, Poland was the principle route for back channel efforts to get peace negotiations going during Rolling Thunder, and after. Second. Governor Romney was a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination for the election of November 1968. Romney, like Nixon and other hopefuls, was getting to know the territory. He had just come from a two-hour session one-on-one, no record of what was said, with the leader of the Soviet Union Alexei Kosygin. Collusion? not in 1967)…
20 DECEMBER 1967… Operation Rolling Thunder… New York (21 Dec reporting 20 Dec ops) Page 1: “Over North Vietnam, monsoon weather prevented air attacks in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas for the first time in a week….Today the United States command reported that a missile site 30 miles south south-east of Donghoi and only 13 miles north of the demilitarized zone fired three missiles yesterday at B-52s raiding North Vietnamese targets inside the zone. This was the first such announcement by General William C. Westmoreland’s headquarters…an Air Force report cleared for publication by the United States command, said F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber from a base at Korat, Thailand and F-4 Phantoms from the base at Danang in South Vietnam attacked the site near the DMZ setting off six fires. Heavy tree cover and smoke prevented a complete damage assessment. A United States command spokesman said the target apparently was not a ‘hard’ site suggesting that it probably consisted of portable launchers and equipment. The B-52s fly from bases in Guam and Thailand to hit an average of three targets a day in both North and South Vietnam. Each plane can hold 30 tons of bombs. The number of bombers in each raid is never disclosed, but reliable sources said as many as 30 fly together when the target is large enough…North Vietnam claims to have shot down 2 B-52s. The United States denies the claim and reports all B-52s accounted for.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 20 December 1967…
(1) MAJOR ROBERT ROGER CRANER and CAPTAIN GUY DENNIS GRUTERS were flying an F-100F Misty of the 612th TFS and 37th TFW on a FAC mission 25 miles west of Dong Hoi when downed by an enemy 57mm battery. Both airmen successfully ejected, but both were captured and interned by the North Vietnamese in the Hanoi Hilton, where they were linked up with, and cared for, 1LT LANCE SIJAN in his last days of his life. They would bear witness to the heroic six-week evasion experience of 1LT SIJAN that resulted in the award of the Medal of Honor for the brave young Lt. Both MAJOR CRANER and CAPTAIN GRUTERS survived the war as POWs and were released in March 1973…
From the Compilation of “34TFS/F-105 History” by Howie Plunkett: 20-Dec-67… (Plan B…a rainy day in NVN)…
“At 0705, four pilots from the 34 TFS of ‘Seabird’ flight took off from Korat on a mission to bomb a target in Laos. The mission lasted 2 hours 40 minutes. The flight line up was: #1 major Sam Armstrong; #2 Col James Stewart; #3 major James Daniel, Jr: #4 Captain Irving Levine….It was Major Armstrong’s 40th mission.”… Armstrong: “This was planned as a primary Barrel Roll (Northern Laos) mission for a change (Lousy weather over NVN). We went straight to the area which was about 10 miles south of Sam Neua. The FAC put some smoke on suspected troop concentration and we put our bombs right on the area. We had swung through the spur of North Vietnam that sticks out at 19 1/2 North so we had a counter. Otherwise a very uneventful counter.”…
RIPPLE SALVO… #653… “FATAL FLAWS”… For the past few days Humble Host has quoted from the CINCPAC/COMUSMACV “Report on the War in Vietnam” the history of “stand-downs” in the course of the Rolling Thunder campaign through January 1968. Yesterday I wrote: “Stand-downs and bombing pauses provide our enemy opportunities to move forward and bring his war materials to the battlefield–and the AAA sites– without risk. In a war of attrition, the idea is to run the other guy into the ground, not to allow him to catch his breath…”… Admiral Sharp expressed this same conclusion in his report this way;
“From a military standpoint, both air (Rolling Thunder) and naval programs were inhibited by restrictions growing out of the limited nature of the war.
“The bombing of North Vietnam was unilaterally stopped by the United States a number of times, for varying periods of time, in the hope that the enemy would respond by stopping his aggressive activities and reducing the scope and level of conflict. In every case the Communists used the bombing pause to rush troops and supplies to reinforce their army in South Vietnam. Such unilateral truce efforts, while judged politically desirable, accrued some temporary military disadvantages to successful prosecution of the war.”
Colonel Harry Summers went further in his book “On Strategy,” a text-book in use at all staff and war colleges around the world. Summers: “But these bombing halts were more than ‘temporary military disadvantages.’ They were fatal flaws. As Clausewitz warned:
“If the enemy is too be coerced you must put him in a situation that is even more unpleasant than the sacrifice you call him to make. The hardships of the situation must not be merely transient–at least not in appearance. Otherwise the enemy would not give in but would wait for things to improve.”
Colonel Summers’ “On Strategy” relieves a requirement that a professional military officer spend a semester or longer grappling with Clausewitz’s “On War.” IMHO. Col. Summers has included the best of Clausewitz thought and “On Strategy” is a must read/study for a student of the Vietnam war and subsequent U.S military affairs. There are 277 used copies of various editions available from abebooks.com for less than five-bucks with free delivery… at the high-end, a copy for almost $500.
Of “On Strategy” Major General Jack Merritt, USA, Commandant Army War College writes: “…a book intended to be the culmination of the U.S. Army War College experience to draw strategic lessons from the Vietnam war. The book uses Carl von Clausewitzian theory and the classic principles of war and attempts to place the Vietnam war in domestic context of war itself. Its central thesis is that a lack of appreciation of military theory and military strategy, especially the relationship between military strategy and national policy led to a faulty definition of the nature of war. The result was the exhaustion of the Army against a secondary guerrilla force and the ultimate failure of military strategy to support the national policy of containment of communist expansion.”
RTR Quote for 20 December: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: National Security Strategy Speech, 19 Dec 2017: “Our government’s first duty is to its people, to our citizens–to serve their needs, to ensure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their values.”…
Lest we forget… Bear