Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #625… The final days of the USS Intrepid and unique Carrier Air Wing TEN 1967 combat cruise… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE of an immersion in the history of Rolling Thunder…
21 NOVEMBER 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a cloudy and rainy Tuesday in Gotham…
Page 1: “January Draft Doubled By U,S.–Call For 34,000 Shows Need to Replace Returning G.I.’s”... “The Defense Department called today for a January draft of 34,000 men signaling a series of higher induction quotas in 1968 to replace returning Vietnam Veterans. The January call was nearly double the 18,200 scheduled to be inducted into the Army in December…. Draft calls averaged 30,390 a month and totalled 364,680. The terms of those men will expire next year. In 1967 the draft total fell to 218,700.”... Page 1: “Westmoreland Sure of Victory–Calls Dakto Battle Start of ‘Great Defeat For Foe'”... “General William C. Westmoreland, United States military commander in Vietnam, said today that the battle around Dakto in the South Vietnamese central highlands was the ‘beginning of a great defeat for the enemy.'”… Page 3:”Columbia Suspends Recruiting On Campus”... “Columbia University has suspended all on-campus recruiting by military organizations from the Government pending assurances that students who interfere with recruitment do not lose their draft deferments. About 150 members of the Columbia faculty had recommended the action last week in response to a directive to 4,100 local draft boards from Lieutenant General Louis Hershey director of the Selective Service System asking that students who obstruct military recruiting lose their student deferments…”… Page 1: “Relief Reaches Trapped U.S. Unit In Battle on Peak–76 American Paratroopers Are Killed in Fighting Near Dakto“… Page 1: “62 Feared dead In Crash of Plane Near Cincinnati–TWA Convair 880 Jet From Coast Falls On Its Approach to Airport In Kentucky (greater Cincinnati Airport)–62 of 69 Passengers Killed”… Page 1: “Johnson Appeals for Consumer Aid–Signs Bill Creating Product Safety Panel–Favors A Rigid Meat Inspection”….
Page 2: “Senator Mike Mansfield Calls For Direct Talks Between Saigon and the National Liberation Front”… “The time has come to consolidate and concentrate.”… Senator Responds to General Westmoreland, who said yesterday: “Within two years, the general said, the Communists will be so weakened that the United States ‘Will be able to phase down the level of our own military effort and withdraw some troops.”… “Mansfield: ‘ We should not delude ourselves by such phrases as a ‘phase down of the level of American troops by 1969 to be matched by the increasing shift of forces,’ the Senator said. ‘Rather we should face up to the very strong possibility that the war in Vietnam will take years and require, as it has here-to-fore required, additional inputs of American forces, unless a solution is found to bring it to a conclusion,’ Mansfield said, he saw very little, if anything in the pattern of combat operations to indicate any weakening of the ability of the Vietcong to keep on fighting….”General Westmoreland had said ‘that U.S and South Vietnamese troops ‘were winning a war of attrition.'”
21 November 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… The New York Times (22 Nov reporting 21 Nov ops)… Page 1: “Two Planes Lost Over The North”... “Two more American planes were lost over North Vietnam yesterday during heavy attacks in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas. MIG fighters challenged Air Force fighter-bombers twice shooting down one F-105 Thunderchief in a dogfight. An RF-4 Phantom photo-reconnaissance jet was lost as the result of undetermined causes. The losses raise the total to 13 Air Force and Navy planes downed in the North in the last five days. In all 751 American planes have been reported downed since the air war began against North Vietnam in February 1965. United States pilots, taking advantage of the fifth day of clearing weather bombed the Ducnoi rail yard and petroleum storage area six miles northeast of Hanoi. They also attacked two bridges in the port city of Haiphong and hit the Cat Bi MIG airbase four miles southeast of Haiphong.”
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 21 November…
RIPPLE SALVO… #625… 23 November 1967 was the final day of USS INTREPID and Attack Carrier Air Wing TEN combat operations at Yankee Station, a total of 103 days, on the gallant old carrier’s 1967 cruise. Then she headed home to her home port of Norfolk, Virginia with a full bag of attaboys. It was her second Vietnam cruise and she would make a third in 1969. On their 1967 Port-to-Port deployment, 11 May 1967 to 30 December 1967, Intrepid and Air Wing TEN lost 12 aircraft in combat with two operational losses. Three brave warriors were killed-in-action in ROLLING THUNDER OPERATIONS and three others were downed and captured. They would come home from 6 years of honorable POW duty in 1973. The Intrepid Air Wing fought the war with a fraction of the fighters the standard carrier based airwing is fitted with–she fought the war with three Skyhawk squadrons and a detachment of Crusaders. In addition, her complement of aircraft were among the oldest in the fleet, including VSF-3 equipped with A-4Bs from the 1950s and dubbed Anti-Submarine-Fighter Squadron-Three. Attack Carrier Air Wing TEN lived up to the charge of German Ace Adolph Galland who made the point that it isn’t the crate, it is the fighting spirit of the aviator in the cockpit of that flying machine that matters most.
Humble Host posts a summary of a mission flown by USS Intrepid/CAG-10 on 19 November 1967 indicative of the great ship/air wing team’s Rolling Thunder contributions through the summer and fall of 1967…
On 19 November 1967, units of Attack Carrier Air Wing TEN struck the Haiphong railroad/highway pontoon bridge located at the intersection of four waterways in the center of the city of Haiphong, North Vietnam (Think Three Rivers Stadium in the center of Pittsburg) This bridge served as an important avenue for the enemy transport of war materials away from the untouchable piers of the port of Haiphong into the mouth of the funnel that carried war material south through North Vietnam and Laos to support of the war in South Vietnam.
The strike force composition was a reflection of the uniqueness of CAG-10. The strike force was four divisions of A-4 Skyhawks, two flights of bombers, one flight with rockets for flak suppression, and one flight with AGM-45 Shrike for SAM suppression. The fighter cover was closely coordinated and provided by the VF-151 F-4B Phantoms on USS Coral Sea.
The strike was planned, briefed and led by Commander Georges E. LeBlanc, Jr., Executive Officer of Anti-Submarine-Fighter Squadron THREE. He developed the tactics, laid out the coastal penetration and the route to the target to minimize exposure of the strike aircraft to the enemy MIG and SAM threats. This was a bare bones mission to strike the very center of Haiphong.
The target was a 450-foot pontoon bridge spanning an intersection of four waterways cutting through the center of the city. The center section of the bridge was moveable and was swung parallel to the major axis of the stream to permit unimpeded flow of water traffic. The Strike Group received one APR-27 SAM warning and executed a missile break as the coast was approached. Formation integrity remained as briefed. Flak of increasing variety and intensity increased as the strike group closed the target and executed the briefed attacks on the two ends– approaches– of the pontoon bridge and the moveable section alongside one of the permanent ends. The flights flak suppressors led by Lieutenant Commander William Best took on four of the active anti-aircraft sites as the two divisions of A-4 Bombers struck their respective targets–approaches A and B. As the strike was in progress the enemy responded with a large flight of MIG-17s that were engaged by the VF-151 F-4 s from USS Coral Sea. Two Navy F-4s were lost in the ensuing melee with the MOGs. As the Intrepid strike group of A-4s retired through moderate flak Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Benjamin F. Heald saw and silenced an active 37mm site with his remaining ordnance before rejoining the group. During the egress Lieutenant Steven B. Smith observed the crash and parachute of one of the F-4 aviators from a downed TARCAP aircraft, immediately detached and returned into the alerted antiaircraft fields of fire south of Haiphong to assist in a possible rescue. After determining rescue was not possible Lt Smith exited to return to the carrier.
Results of the strike were excellent. While the loss of two Navy F-4s to the MIGs was occurring (posted in RTR for 19 Nov 67), the CAG-10 “Mini-Strike” of only eight bombers striking two targets was highly successful. Both approaches were heavily damaged, the moveable bridge was destroyed and there was no collateral damage. All 40 bombs of the two bombing flights were observed to hit the targets between the banks of the river. No strike aircraft were hit by the heavy volume of enemy fire…
Commander Georges Le Blanc, XO, VSF-3, and Lieutenant Steven Smith, VA-15, were each awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for extraordinary achievement on the mission to the dead center of Haiphong. Others on the flight recommended for awards were: LCDR Sam Henry Hawkins; LCDR William Best, VSF-3; LTJG Benjamin Heald, VA-34; LTJG Richard Harris, VSF-3; and LCDR Ronald Boyle, VA-15… oohrah…
RTR Quote for 21 November: SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken in the flood, leads on to fortune.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
Good stuff
Thanks for the posts