RIPPLE SALVO… #442… “The CIA on May 26, 1967 produced a highly favorable report on the effectiveness of the campaign against the DRV’s electric power capacity.”…. but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED FORTY-TWO of a 1000-day-by-day history lesson: ROLLING THUNDER…
21 MAY 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a CAVU Sunday in NYC…
Page 1: “Thant is Planning to Fly Tomorrow to Cairo On Crisis–Will Seek to Ease Mideast Tension Increased by Exit of UN Forces–He Reports to Security Council–Peril Greatest Since Suez in ’56 He Says–Johnson Plea to Soviet Reported”… Page 1: “Gaza Under Army Rule: Arabs Declare Solidarity–Sinai Build-Up Continues”… “…joint declaration with representatives of eleven Arab nations that an attack against one is an attack on all. The two actions made in light of alleged Israeli troop buildup along the Syrian and Egyptian borders, were accompanied by an increase in radio attacks on the United States...Israelis Weigh Portents: The feeling is growing among Israeli officials that President. Gamal Abdel Nasser’s move into Sinai in force may have been a well planned political maneuver tied closely to his position in the Middle Est and especially to his role following the planned British withdrawal from Aden next year.”… Page 1: “40 Years Ago Today Lindbergh Stirred The World” – NYT May 21, 1927“Lindbergh Does It! To Paris In 33 1/2 Hours; Flies 1000 Miles Through Snow and Sleet: Cheering French Carry Him Off the Field…Landed the ‘Spirit of St. Louis’ at Le Bourget and became the first man to fly the Atlantic alone.”…
Page 1: “U.S. Plans To Sell Navy Yard to City for $24-Million”… “New York hopes to have the historic yard converted into a complex for light industry that could provide new jobs for city residents. Mayor Lindsay is confident that Congress will give final approval. The 165 year old New York Naval Shipyard was closed last June. 9,900 employees lost jobs. At one time the Yard employed 75,000 in more that 600 buildings on the 2922-acre property on the East River.”… Page 1: “6000 Parade On 5th Avenue to Mark Armed Forces Day”... “…including 2,800 United States Military academy Cadets who led off the 18th annual Armed Force Day parade. Wing gusts of 28 mph whipped the marchers flags. More than 6,000 military marchers from all services participated.”… Page 18: “Catholic Weekly published a 14-page special report by Holy Cross Fathers in south Bend, ‘Vietnam and the Personal Conscience,’ calling the Vietnam war ‘clearly the greatest and most immediate social evil of our day.’… ‘it is the duty of each person to formulate his own conscience. Our final judgement might be that our present policy is a generous response to a people in need or it might be that the damage being done by our own bombs and our guns cannot be justified. But we cannot refuse to examine these issues.”…
Page 1: “ADA Threatens to Support G.O.P.”...”Americans For Democratic Action threatened today to support the Republican candidate for President in 1968 if he offers ‘genuine hope for peace’…ADA sharply criticized the Johnson administration for ‘reckless escalation of the Vietnamese war.’ It said: ‘The county has now embarked on a limitless course of widening war which unnecessarily imperils thousands of lives and brings steadily nearer the danger of a huge conflict.’ “… Page 1: “Use of Medical Copters Pauses Survival Ratio of War Wounded”... The slow-moving ambulance and the agonizing transfers of wounded men to aid stations, common in World War II, are no more. In the war in Vietnam Virtually all battlefield casualties are picked up by aerial ambulances, the so-called ‘dustoff’ medical helicopters….In the first four months of 1967 436th Medical Company at Longdinh had 24 helicopters shot down and destroyed, 12 members of flying crews were killed, and 10 wounded.”…
21 May 1967…The President’s TS CIA Daily Briefing… 1. ARAB STATES-ISRAEL: Israel patrols, both land and air, crossed both Egyptian and Jordanian frontiers over the weekend. These incursions have caused brief exchanges of fire, but neither side appears ready to expand then into a major clash. The evacuation of United Nations forces is proceeding more slowly than expected from earlier evidence. Embassy Cairo Reports that Egyptian officials, one of whom said he hoped Israel did start something, appear bellicose and confident they could win. “We will drive straight for Tel Aviv, and our air force will destroy every city and town in Israel in a matter of hours,” said another official. the Embassy feels that this mood probably extends to Nasir himself, and concludes there is no doubt he is playing for keeps. The Egyptians appear also to have talked themselves into believing stories of a US-Israel plot against Syria. The embassy feels anti-us actions involving the American community is Egypt could erupt at any time.”…NORTH VIETNAM: At least 34 North Vietnamese jet fighters have been knocked out of action in aerial combat or by airfield bombing over the past month. Ten of these were shot out of the air this weekend. This leaves Hanoi with about 40 fighters on the four bases in the Hanoi-Haiphong area…
21 May 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (22 May reporting 21 May ops)… Page 1: “Hanoi Power Plant Hit”... “In the air war United States war planes bombed Hanoi’s main electric power plant for the second time in three days. Pilots reported direct hits on the generator building and boiler house of the plant which furnishes 20% of the country’ output before the first attack. United States warplanes also attacked two MIG bases. At the Kep airfield, 37 miles northeast of Hanoi, seven MIG fighters were damaged. Darkness prevented assessment at the Hoalac base west of the capital. The Van Dien army depot and missile support complex about 5 miles south of the capital was also received.”… (bear#83vandienbullpupsVN082)
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were four fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 21 May 1967…
(1) MAJOR JAMES E. HOLLER was flying an A-1E of the 1st ACS and the 14th ACW out of Pleiku on a close air support mission and downed by ground fire on the climb out after takeoff. He was able to bailout of the failed aircraft but was seriously injured landing the chute. He was rescued using the Yankee Extraction System.
(2) LT H. DENNIS WISELY and ENSIGN JIM H. LAING were flying an F-4B of the VF-114 Aardvarks embarked in USS Kitty Hawk and providing fighter cover for the strike on the Van Dien complex. On retirement SAMs forces aircraft to lower altitudes and the LT WISELY/ENSIGN LAING Phantom was hit by automatic weapon fire. They turned to the west and were able to nurse the aircraft across the Laos border into Thailand before having to eject. They were rescued by a USAF HH-3 and had a beer with dinner …. LT WISELY kills of a MIG and an AN-2 are in the RTR archives at 20 Dec 1966 and 24 Apr 1967. ENSIGN LAING’s previous ejection is in the RT archives at 24 Apr 1967…. (Rear Admiral Wisely is working on his book: “Green Ink”)
(3) LCDR R.C. HUBBARD was flying an F-8E of the VF-211 Checkmates embarked in USS Bon Homme Richard flak suppression mission in support of the wing strike on the Hanoi thermal power plant. His aircraft took a hit in the afterburner section over the target and LCDR HUBBARD was able to nurse his damaged aircraft streaming fuel en route back to the carrier. Unfortunately when the gear and flaps were lowered the aircraft burst into flames and he was forced to eject near the carrier. A Navy helicopter made the rescue.
(4) CAPTAIN DAVID CARL LINDBERG was flying an F-100D of the 531st TFS and the 3rd TFW out of Bien Hoa responding to an urgent call for assistance 12 miles north of Bien Hoa and was downed on his fifth attack with napalm on Vietcong troops. The aircraft went into the ground without an ejection. CAPTAIN LINDBERG died on the battlefield — Killed in Action– supporting men under fire…greater love hath no man….
RIPPLE SALVO… #442… By any definition a nation’s electrical grid is a strategic target. In this air war that was fought under a carefully controlled and very restrictive set of rules of engagement, the destruction of targets demanded a degree of precision never before required in air warfare. The tactical air forces of the Air Force, Navy and Marines were the weapon of choice to destroy the electrical grid of the North Vietnamese in Operation Rolling Thunder… Here is the report card authored by the CIA for that brutal and demanding assignment as quoted from “The Pentagon Papers” page 153…
“Air strikes through 25 May 1967 against 14 of the 20 JCS-targeted electric power facilities in North Vietnam have put out of operation about 165,000 kilowatts (kw) of power generating capacity or 87% of the national total. North Vietnam is now left with less than 24,000 kw of central power generating capacity.
“Both Hanoi and Haiphong are now without a central power supply and must rely on diesel-generating equipment as a power source. The reported reserve power system in Hanoi consisting of five underground diesel stations has an estimated power generating capacity of only 5,000 kw, or less than 10% of Hanoi’s normal needs.”
By any measure TacAir got the job done. oohrah!!! …Unfortunately, the pain and discomfort the loss of electrical power caused was not enough to convince Ho Chi Minh to show up to talk settlement, which was the objective of the costly campaign. The destruction of the Hanoi thermal power plant on this day fifty years ago, the last of the unstruck JCS targets (other than attacks on the docks of Haiphong, mining the harbor, and the two untouched airfields), Rolling Thunder had come about as far as it could be taken… The Strategy of Gradualism had run its course. What now?…
CAG’s QUOTES for May 21: FRIEDRICH VON BERNHARDI: “War is a biological necessity.”… PATTON : “War is simple, direct and ruthless. It takes a simple, direct and ruthless man to wage it.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear