RIPPLE SALVO… #685… The Bear defers to Doctor Brown Bear to wrap-up the historic Operation Rolling Thunder deployments (3) of USS Oriskany… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED EIGHTY-FIVE of 1,000 daily episodes of military history– another look at Rolling Thunder…
21 JANUARY 1968… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a beautiful Sunday in New York City…
GROUND WAR: Page 1: “FRESH U.S. TROOPS JOIN NEW BATTLE IN AREA OF DAKTO–FIGHTING ALSO FLARING ALONG THE DEMILITARIZED ZONE AS MARINES REPEL ATTACK–Foe Loss Put at 110–American Officials Confirm Installation To Detect Enemy In Laos”… “American reinforcements airlifted to the border region west of Dakto were thrown into battle this morning. Combat flared there Friday for the first time since the battles of last November. A battalion of the Fourth Infantry Division reported losing 11 men killed and 52 wounds since Friday while trying to clear an enemy force from a hilltop about 14 miles northwest of Dakto and two and a half miles from the point where the borders of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia meet…. In Washington, Government sources confirmed that an electronic and mechanical barrier was being installed in Laos for surveillance of infiltration routes, the Associated Press reports…. Fighting between the demilitarized zone at the border between North and South Vietnam yesterday reached from the heavily wooded hills of the Khesanh area near the Laotian border to the dunes east of Giolinh. (RTR WEBSITE MASTER HAS ADDED KHESANH AND DMZ MAPS TO MAP LINK FOR REFERENCE).… Units of the 26th regiment of the Third Marine Division radioed their headquarters at Dongha that they had killed 60 North Vietnamese infantrymen in an all-day battle seven miles northwest of Khesanh, about 5 miles below the DMZ and two miles from the Laos border… The attacks along the Laotian border may be related to the heavy column of supply traffic that has been reported by allied aircraft and reconnaissance teams on the Ho Chi Minh trail in recent weeks…. In the Delta province of Dinhtuong the Vietcong’s 261B Battalion attacked a battalion of South Vietnamese marines taking part in a combined operation with the American forces’ Mobil Riverine Force…the marines held their perimeter in the face of the assault, but had 20 men killed and 62 wounded….UNITED STATES MARINE HEADQUARTERS AT DANANG ANNOUNCED THAT GROUND TROOPS HAD REACHED THE HELICOPTER THAT CRASHED ON 8 JANUARY, KILLING ALL 41 MEN ABOARD. IT WAS BELIEVED TO BE THE WORST HELICOPTER DISASTER ON RECORD.”…
Page 1: “JOHNSON FORMULA SCORNED BY HANOI–‘INSOLENT CONDITIONS’ OFFERED IN SAN ANTONIO SPEECH, OFFICIAL HANOI PAPER SAYS”...”North Vietnam said today that the “San Antonio Formula” suggested by President Johnson for peace in Vietnam ‘Constitutes very insolent conditions.’ The statement, viewed as tantamount to a rejection by Hanoi… is the first reaction to Mr. Johnson’s State of the Union address delivered Wednesday….The newspaper Nhan Dan said today the President’s is being’ obstinate and perfidious.’ “… Page 8: “Western Voices Call For Victory–Survey in 8 States Show Distrust of Red Moves”... “A recognition, often grudgingly, that the Vietnam war must be won because America cannot escape commitments there or anywhere else is the dominate theme of hundreds of conversations in a survey made in Western states. Along with this feeling appeared a deep distrust of Communist peace moves…. ‘Around here the people who explain the war are the servicemen home from the Vietnam,’ a university professor in Logan, Utah (Utah State) said. ‘They don’t have any illusions about the war, but they don’t have any doubts about why they’re fighting either.’ “… Page 9: “Shift In U.S. Line On Talks Is Seen”... “London Paper Says Johnson Has Given Terms To Hanoi”… “…according to a report in the Sunday times of London, President Johnson is no longer insisting on some form of deescalation by North Vietnam in exchange for a halt in the American bombing.”…
Page 7: “MOVE TO COUNTER FULBRIGHT’S TONKIN GULF INCIDENT INVESTIGATION–DOD CITES SECRET INTELLIGENCE”... “The Administration has been seeking to dissuade (I WONDER WHY?) Senator J.W. Fulbright from pursuing his inquiry into the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incidents by suggesting it has secret intelligence information that American destroyers were attacked by North Vietnamese PT boats…” (Pandora’s Box is open)…
21 January 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… Page 4: “Aircraft Carrier Hookmen Off Vietnam Live With Danger As Jets Land–Sailors Volunteer For Task–One of Most Delicate–Many Recall Accidents”... Bernard Weinraub aboard USS Kitty Hawk at Yankee Station…”At night, the hookmen stand on the deck and watch the faint glow of a jet fighter that approaches suddenly and hits the deck with a burst of sparks and jolts to a halt. Just as the plane’s tail hook snag an arresting wire stretched taut across the runway, the hookmen leap toward the jet. They work swiftly. Gripping steel poles, they make sure the cable is clear of the hook. Then they motion a thumbs-up signal to the pilot. And then they frantically wave the plane off the taxiway (landing area) as another jet begins its swift descent toward the carrier.”… The lengthy article highlights the young sailors who work on the deadly flight deck of a carrier… No further coverage of air war in North in NYT…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 21 January 1968…
(1) CAPTAIN BOBBY G. DOWNING, USMC, was flying an A-4E of the VMA-311 Tomcats and MAG-12 out of Chu Lai and had the dubious honor of being the first aircraft to be downed supporting the Marine bastion at Khesanh on the initial day of the enemy’s offensive. CAPTAIN DOWNING was hit by small arms fire in a strafing run on enemy troops six miles north of Khesanh and headed south for the Khesanh airstrip. He ejected one mile short and was rescued by a Marine UH-1E while his wingmen held off the closing enemy troops… Now there’s a great Happy Hour story that has a 50-year spin on it….
RIPPLE SALVO… #685… On 12 January USS ORISKANY completed her third of six Vietnam war cruises with Task Force 77 at Yankee Station. The first three cruises were executed during the years of Operation Rolling Thunder. When she departed Yankee Station she had short in port periods at Subic Bay, P.I. and Yokosuka, Japan before heading home to Alameda, arriving 31 January, a very tired carrier and air wing. “Rode hard and put away wet.” Who better to wrap-up the historic OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER performance of USS ORISKANY than Dick “Brown Bear” Schaffert. For an inkling of Dick’s extraordinary credits just Google him up for a few clues. Doctor Richard E. Schaffert, Captain, USN (Retired) has been a regular contributor of posts on this website. About a dozen of his tales from the Red River Valley and environs are now preserved for posterity. Check out his author link in the RTR archives…
Here is Brown Bear’s cap on Oriskany’s years of Rolling Thunder… Thanks, dear friend and brother-in-arms…
Dick writes: “On 11 January 1967 Oriskany lost their 62nd, and thankfully last, aircraft to combat in Rolling Thunder. Their box score for 350 days ‘on the line’ from April 1965 to January 1968:
(1) 242 aircraft hit by enemy fire, 180 damaged and 62 shot down. 31 aircraft were also lost in normal flight operations, a total ‘loss’ total of 93. Oriskany’s complement of combat aircraft was 65!
(2) 56 aircrew were killed-in-action, 12 were prisoners of war, 5 are missing-in-action, and 16 were rescued in combat SAR’s. Oriskany’s complement of combat pilots was 72!
(3) The statistical probability of a Oriskany pilot surviving all three of her Rolling Thunder deployments was less than 30%. The statistical probability of a Oriskany pilot being an atheist approached zero.
(4) That last guy shot down (Hit over Laos on a Steel Tiger mission, made it out to the Gulf, and thankfully rescued by HS-6) 50 years ago was LCDR Denny Weichman… (See RTR for 11 January 1968). Beginning when President JFK initially thrust us into the conflict in Southeast Asia to contain Communism, Denny flew 625 combat missions in fixed wing attack aircraft of the Navy and Air Force over, around, and through North and South Vietnam. Rest in God’s Peace, Denny, thou good and faithful servant, American patriot, staunch role model, courageous flight leader and loyal friend.
(5) Oriskany left the line, and Yankee Station, on 12 January 1968. A week later, we tied up to the pier in Yokosuka, Japan. While the ship was loaded with Honda’s, Yamaha’s and Noritake china, most of the Air Wing checked into the NAS Atsugi BOQ to await that ‘Magic Carpet ride home. We were playing ‘king of the hill’ at the O’Club, when we got the tragic word about the seizure of the Pueblo in the Sea of Japan. It was a long couple of days before the Enterprise stepped into the breach (Humble Host aboard), and we were cleared to board the Fling Tigers 707. Upon arrival at Travis AFB, a ‘shave tail’ Air Force Captain greeted us with the advice that we should change into sport shirts and slacks before we ventured to San Francisco International for our connecting flights. He said it was too dangerous to travel in uniform. He had a bus waiting to take us to the Base Exchange to purchase suitable attire. Welcome back to what America had become in January 1968; and it was to become worse in ‘the year the dream died.’ “….
RTR Quote for 21 January: CICERO, De Officiis: “True glory takes deep root and spreads its branches wide; but all preferences soon fall to the ground like fragile flowers, and nothing counterfeit can be lasting.”… and…”Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.”…
Lest we forget… Bear