RIPPLE SALVO… #383… “Downtown…in darkness and marginal attack weather…” but first…
Good Morning: Day: THREE HUNDRED EIGHTY-THREE of recalling and appreciating the service of Red River Rats and Yankee Air Pirates…
23 March 1967… HEAD LINES and LEADS of the Ogden Standard-Examiner on a stormy Thursday in the mountains of Utah…
Page 1: AP “Johnson Will Widen the Bombing of North Vietnam, Dirksen Predicts”… “Senate Republican leader Everett M. Dirksen predicted today intensified U.S. bombing of North Vietnam as the Washington attitude toward peace talks took a pessimistic turn. Congressional leaders said after a White House meeting yesterday that President Johnson has little hope for future peace feelers soon. And top allied military chiefs reportedly agreed at this week’s Guam conference that the war could last indefinitely unless military pressure breaks the will of the North Vietnamese. Dirksen, a key supporter of Johnson’s war policies, said airfields near Hanoi and Haiphong probably will be targeted for air attack in the wake of North Vietnam’s rejection of the President’s bid for peace talks.’When you are at war and the enemy refuses to talk except on terms that would mean your surrender, you turn the screws on him,’Dirksen said, in an interview. ‘You cut-off his supply lines and his source of food and you do everything necessary to bring him down.’ Dirksen suggested that this would be the President’s future strategy. Johnson gave no indication of his future military plans at Wednesday’s meeting with congressional leaders of both parties. But a participant said the President was solemn and grim about Ho Chi Minh’s relief of his offer to halt the bombing as soon as he had assurances North Vietnamese infiltration of the South had stopped. The general feeling among those who attended was that the President found little reason to expect future peace feelers. Johnson was said to have indicated that the war may go on for a long time. Senator Tom Kuchel of California, the assistant Republican leader told the Senator after the White House session that ‘the truculent tone of Ho Chi Minh’s polemic makes it very clear that he is unwilling to accept negotiations on any terms except those highly favorable to the cause of communism and highly unfavorable to the cause of freedom.’… ‘Under the circumstances it was futile to debate further whether the bombing should be halted.’ He praised Johnson for establishing communication with Ho in an effort to bring opposing sides to the negotiating table.”… Some Democrats held that: ‘How could Hanoi agree to end its reinforcement and resupply of North Vietnamese troops on South Vietnam which face one million allied troops?’ House Republican leader Gerald Ford, who participated in the White House conference said: ‘The division of the Democratic ranks in encouraging Ho to believe the longer he holds out the better terms he can get.’ Senator Mike Mansfield said the next peace appeal should come from the United Nations.”…
Page 1: “House Cuts Domestic Programs”...”Their ranks swollen by last year’s elections, House budget-cutters have indicated in the first test vote this year that President Johnson’s domestic programs face real trouble. They showed considerable muscle Wednesday as the House passed and sent to the Senate the first of a series of appropriation bills financing domestic programs for the fiscal year starting July 1….. The budget-cutters are proposing across the board cuts of 5-per cent including the President’s salary of $150,000.”… Page 1: “Shots Punctuate New Milk Strife”… “Dynamite blasts, rifle fire, marchers, dumping milk and milk baths, and washing cars with milk highlighted efforts of a week-long campaign by the National Farmers Organization to raise the price of milk. Despite violence and the shenanigans, including farmer’s wives bathing in milk, there was no significant evidence of price hikes or milk shortages in effected areas.”...Page 1: “Soviet Trawler ‘Caught’ Near Alaska, Taken In Tow By U.S.”... “A Soviet fishing vessel–the second to be accused this month of violating U.S. rights in Alaskan waters–was being towed toward Kodiak today by a U.S. Coast Cutter…The Soviet skipper refused to follow the cutter Storis to port so the vessel was taken under tow.”…
Page 2: “Nations Meeting on Disarmament Agree to Recess”... “The 17-nation disarmament conference agreed today to recess for six weeks while the United States tries to produce a new nuclear weapons treaty which its European allies will accept. The Soviet Union after several days of indecision agreed to the U.S. proposal that the conference be delayed until after its Easter holiday on May 8.”… Page 2: “Draft Age Men Turned From Reserve Gates”... “Draft age men soon will have a tougher time getting into Reserve and National Guard units. The defense Department acting on instructions from President Johnson ordered Wednesday that beginning May 1, Reserve units must give priority to men below draft age. Volunteers other than those in the younger group–ages 17 to 18 1/2 –are to be accepted only as needed to fill specific vacancies…all reservists in good standing are deferred from the draft and the new policy won’t affect that.”…
23 March 1967… The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized 2015) SOUTH VIETNAM: “Tri Quang has launched a new effort to get his militant Buddhist movement back into the spotlight. He is leading a campaign for a ‘permanent cease-fire’ to begin on May 23, Buddha’s birthday… COMMUNIST CHINA: Peking is more and more turning to the army to administer the country and keep the economy from collapsing…this does not mean the army will become a vast labor force. It probably will, however, replace the shattered party and government apparatus as Peking’s administrative instrument for conveying orders and seeing that they are carried out… LAOS: The ‘Little War’ in northern Laos grinds on. Government forces attempting to enlarge their area of control are meeting determined resistance from both Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese units…
23 MARCH 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… Associated Press: (24 Mar reporting 23 Mar ops): “Carrier Strikes Hit Hanoi Missile Area”... “Warplanes from two of the navy’s aircraft carriers penetrated the missile envelope around North Vietnam’s industrial heartland –Downtown– Thursday night to attack the Thai Nguyen thermal power plant 39 miles from Hanoi. It was the second big strike against the power plant, which is close to the Thai Nguyen steel plant. The steel plant has been bombed four times. Both targets were barred to U.S. pilots until early this month but have since been subjected to heavy bombing despite continuous bad weather over North Vietnam. Pilots from the 85,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and the 76,000-ton carrier USS Kitty hawk streaked through the Thai Nguyen anti-aircraft defenses under cover of darkness before dawn. Flying all-weather A-6 Intruders, they rained down 1000-pound bombs aimed by radar and computers. While one group of raiders was going after the Thai Nguyen plant, more Intruders from the two carriers winged 32 miles south of the Red capital to blast an army barracks area at Che Ne, where North Vietnamese troops are thought to be staging to infiltrate the south.
The Thai Nguyen steel plant and power station are a significant segment of North Vietnam’s industry. The steel plant, though incomplete, had been producing oil tanks and bridge sections. The power plant produced perhaps twenty per cent of the electricity for the Hanoi-Haiphong area. Both are within the ring of sites for the Soviet built surface-to-air missiles that comprise the missile envelope around the Hanoi-Haiphong area the U.S. pilots call ‘Indian country.”
Air Force spokesmen no longer say when U.S. planes run into missile attacks, but precious raids on the Thai Nguyen complex are known to have provoked a volley of Red rockets. However, no losses were announced for the pre-dawn strikes.
Although Navy carrier jets and Air Force planes from Thailand have now pasted the Thai Nguyen area half a dozen times, no comprehensive report has been made on the effects of the raids. Spokesmen say heavy weather has prevented good visual or photographic reconnaissance after the attacks. Heavy weather continued over North Vietnam but pilots flew 80 missions. Most of the targets were roads, rail, water supply points from the Hanoi area south to the 17th parallel.” (Bear in the air: #43– MK82s/20mm trucks in Happy Valley)
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson)… There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 23 March 1967…
(1) An AC-47D of the 4th ACS and 14th ACW out of Nha Trang was hit by ground fire on take off from Bien Hoa on a night mission and crashed just outside the airfield perimeter. The crew of seven survived to be rescued by “a strong force of US and South Vietnamese troops.”…
(2) and (3) An A-6A of the VMA(AW)-242 and MAG-11 was taking off from Danang on a strike mission and struck a C-141 Starlifter that had been cleared to cross the runway. The A-6 crew survived the collision and walked away from the burning aircraft. The C-141 was loaded with 72 acetylene cylinders and the A-6 was loaded with 16 500-pound bombs. Only one of six of the crew of the C-141 escaped the fire and explosions of the spectacular runway accident and fire that lit up Danang on 23 March 1967…
RIPPLE SALVO… #383… “GANGWAY, INTRUDER CREWS”…When I was a FNG “nugget” at NAS Cecil Field the light attack and fighter squadrons of an air group shared a hangar. Every day ashore as I made my way to the VA-12 A-4B Skyhawk ready room in Hangar 14 I passed under a sign that said: “Gangway, Fighter Pilots.” Grin and bear it, if you can’t grin–just bear it. What light attack pilots knew then and know now is “Fighter pilots make movies, attack pilots make history.” There came a day– March 23, 1967– in the intelligence spaces of USS Enterprise when I realized there really were Naval Aviators and Naval Flight Officers in an air wing team that a light attacker, and the fighter pilots and RIOs, should stand aside for. On that day, and many others, as I prepared for my armed recce along the coast or down Highway 1 or 15 (Happy Valley) in Route Package 2, six pairs of Intruder guys were laying out their routes to brief the Admiral that went from Yankee Station into the heartland of North Vietnam to hit the Rolling Thunder targets highest in priority, by themselves. The movie “Flight of the Intruder” put “Top Gun” to shame… Night after night, week after week, months on end– through the night, the lousy weather, the mountains, the AAA, and the missiles to put 22 500-pounders on targets that needed destruction. The A-6 Intruders were Ho Chi Minh’s worst nightmare… Gangway, Intruder crews…
Over the past few weeks the RTR blogs have highlighted the combat performance of the all-weather capabilities of the Navy and Air Force squadrons. (14,18,19 and 22 March), including the Medal of Honor flight of Major John Rowan, USAF, and the heroic flights of Ron Hayes and Ted Been, and others. USS Kitty Hawk and USS Enterprise were at it again for the remainder of March 1967 in response to the pressure from Washington that ordered…”increased pressure must be attained by maintaining continuous harassment during periods of darkness and marginal attack weather.”… Gangway, Intruder crews… and the F-105D first team that gave way to Ryan’s Raiders in F-105Fs. More to follow…
CAG’s QUOTES for March 23: WOODROW WILSON: “Let it be your pride, therefore, to show all men everywhere not only what good soldiers you are, but also what good men you are…. PATTON: “No decision is difficult to make if you get all the facts.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear