RIPPLE SALVO… #841… “PUBLIC OPINION TOOK A JOLT ON JUNE 24 (1968) WHEN A YOUNG CORRESPONDENT IN SOUTH VIETNAM FOR THE BALTIMORE SUN (Humble Host’s old beat as a Copy Boy), JOHN S. CARROLL, REPORTED THAT A DECISION HAD BEEN MADE TO ABANDON KHE SAHN, the military base earlier defended at great cost as a vital defense position below the old demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam.”… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day EIGHT HUNDRED FORTY-ONE with a daily post of remembrance of the Vietnam war that took the lives of more than 58,000 Americans, the blood of hundreds of thousands of other troops, and squandered much of the nation’s wealth on a cause without reason…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Monday, 24 June 1968…
THE WAR: Page 1: “SOUTH VIETNAMESE MAULED IN AMBUSH ON RURAL HIGHWAY–44 in a Battalion Are Said to Have Been Killed–More DMZ Sightings Reported”… “Enemy troops ambushed a South Vietnamese battalion yesterday and killed or wounded about a third of the 400 men in the unit. Informed military sources said the 44 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed and 71 were wounded during the attack which occurred on a rural highway 60 miles northeast of Saigon. Forty-one of the enemy were reported killed. It was one of the worst poundings taken by a Government battalion in several weeks….When the enemy withdrew he left behind 41 dead. The South Vietnamese captured one enemy soldier and five Soviet designed automatic rifles… The reports of the sightings of North Vietnamese helicopters came from officers at the demilitarized zone where sightings have been reported for seven of the last eight nights… NEW SAIGON ATTACK PREDICTED… Military sources predicted today that the Vietcong would hit Saigon with a heavy rocket barrage and a probable third wave ground attack within the next week. One intelligence source said the enemy was waiting for a signal at hidden positions not more than a night’s march from the capital. He said that captured Vietcong documents named the last half of the week as a target time for a third battle in the city.”
PEACE TALKS: Page 11: “PREMIER SAYS SAIGON WOULD REJECT IMPOSED TERMS”… “Premier Tran Van Huong warned last night that South Vietnam would reject any effort to ‘force us to accept a solution’ to end the war. Our destiny will be decided by ourselves…No power can sway us in this determination…No nation, no matter how friendly it is, can force us to accept a solution that we repudiate,’ Mr. Huong said. ‘Friend and foe must respect us.'”… Page 9: “CHINA’S ATTITUDE ON TALKS STUDIED–Nervousness On Paris Peace Talks Viewed Hopefully in U.S.”… “Some observers here believe that one of the hopeful ‘bits and straws’ in the current Vietnam diplomacy is, paradoxically, Communist China’s continued nervousness about the talks between North Vietnam and the United States. Clark Clifford, the United States Secretary of Defense, did not explore this aspect publicly when he spoke last week in Paris of bits and straws in the wind that might suggest progress. but other officials find the signals from Peking interesting.”… STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of Historian. Historical Documents. Foreign Relations 1964-68 Vietnam: Document 281 is of interest. The President’s effort to get the Soviet Union involved as a third party pays off as the Soviet Ambassador to France passes info that “the U.S. delegation should utilize ‘coffee break this Wednesday’ to propose to Xuan Thuy (Chief Negotiator for NV) directly Phase A-Phase B plan.”
Read at: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d281
Page 1: “PEACE CORPS SHOWS DROP IN QUALIFIED VOLUNTEERS”… “Some of the gleam is off the Peace Corps, but nobody in authority is ready to say why or even concede that it is so. Nevertheless, the number of volunteers overseas and of qualified applicants hs been declining, and for the second consecutive year the corps proposes to spend more for recruiting.”… Page 1: “GAULISTS AND ALLIES GAIN IN FIRST ROUND OF VOTING–Communists Lose Ground–Total About 46%– Control Of Assembly Appears Assured By An Upswing of 8%”… “…The swing in favor of the Gaulists was interpreted by both partisan and nonpartisan observers as a reaction to six weeks of social disorders including a crippling general strike and a dramatic student rebellion with street fighting and barricades in the Latin Quarter of Paris.”… Page 1: “REAGAN QUESTIONS MOTIVE FOR WARREN’S RETIREMENT”… “…said today that Chief Justice Earl Warren would show ‘lack of faith in this system of ours’ if he resigned now so tha President Johnson could choose a successor before leaving the White House.”…
Page 1: “HUMPHREY STAFF SURE OF NOMINATION”… “…made a careful analysis of the balance of power in the Democratic party since the death of Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York. … estimates are that the Vice President not only has the 1,312 delegate votes necessary to nominate Mr. Humphrey at Chicago in August, but also that Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota has only 502 1/2 votes at the present time and Mr. Humphrey has 1,811, which is 499 more than the winning majority.”… Page 1: “ABERNATHY FIRM AS PERMIT EXPIRES–MARCHERS DRIFTING TOWARD CONFRONTATION WITH U.S.”… “The weary residents of Resurrection City drifted slowly today toward a potentially bitter showdown with the Government over their right to remain on Federal land. The permit gave the Poor People’s Campaign permission to occupy park land near the Lincoln Memorial expired at 8 o’clock tonight after a hot, humid day marked by sporadic violence and the wounding of a white visitor by gunfire. At a news conference, the Reverend Ralph David Abernathy, leader of the campaign, renewed an earlier pledge that he and 500 or so other marchers will remain on the park land and will march.”… Page 16: “NIXON FEARS CUTS IN DEFENSE FUNDS–SAYS SPENDING SLASH SHOULD NOT HURT NATIONAL SECURITY”… “…cautioned the Johnson Administration against slashing the national security budget to bring about $6-billion in spending cuts that Congress demanded in voting the Federal income tax surcharge.”…
24 JUNE 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (25 June reporting 24 June ops)… Page 1: “In North Vietnam, a United States Air Force F-4 Phantom jet, flying through moderate to heavy anti-aircraft fire on one of the 127 strike missions, was shot down northeast of Vinh. The two-man crew was listed as missing. …MISSILES FIRE BY FOE… Returning pilots reported that they had dodged four surface-to-air missiles as they bombed and strafed rail lines, highways, rivers and coastal areas and supply dumps. In a delayed report a United States military spokesman said Navy pilots engaged five North Vietnamese MiG jets in the southern part of North Vietnam Friday (21st) but that all the aircraft involved escaped unscathed.”…
VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 24 June 1968…
(1) LCOL W. G. SAVAGE was flying an F-100D Super Sabre on a close air support mission orbiting a troop target at 2,000-feet over the southern tip of South Vietnam when hit by ground fire that led to an aircraft fire, ejection and rescue… to fly and FAC again…
(2) LT JERRY WEBER was flying an F-8E of the VF-53 Iron Angels embarked in USS Bon Homme Richard on a BARCAP mission and was unable to refuel from an A-4 tanker due to mechanical difficulty. As a result he flamed out due to fuel exhaustion. LT WEBER ejected and was rescued to fly again. LT WEBER had perviously ejected from a damaged Crusader–he hit trees in a nasty weather approach to Danang, pulled up and punched out. He survived for a few hours on Monkey Mountain until rescued by a helicopter… Living Lucky… Humble Host knows the feeling…
(3) LT NICHOLAS MALLORY (“NICK”) CARPENTER and LTJG JOSEPH SCOTT MOBLEY were flying an A-6A of the VA-35 Black Panthers embarked in USS Enterprise on a DST-36 mine laying mission and were downed by intense antiaircraft fire at the target–the Song Ca River near Hung Nghia on Route 15 just south of Vinh, North Vietnam. At the time they commenced their low-level run at 250-feet and 420 knots there were two active SAM sites and no less than a dozen flak sites in the target area. Shortly after calling the commencing of their attack, other aircrews in the area, including three other A-6s from VA-35 on the mission, noted a fireball on the ground in the immediate vicinity of the target. Although an emergency beeper was heard and momentary voice contact was made, the source of the signals could not be identified. A round of enemy fire had burst in the cockpit, injuring LT CARPENTER and causing the aircraft to roll. LTJG MOBLEY immediately ejected, but LT CARPENTER is thought to have died in the crash of the aircraft. Both aviators were listed as Missing in Action at the time of the event. Very shortly after the loss LT CARPENTER’s status was changed to Killed in Action.
LTJG MOBLEY suffered a broken leg on the low altitude, unusual attitude ejection. He was captured by the North Vietnamese immediately. He “was tied, standing, to a pillar, was beaten, interrogated, displayed for public humiliation, and forced to dodge bricks and bamboo sticks for eight or nine hours. he was then put into a cell and after waiting many long agonizing hours for medical attention for his broken leg, he set the bone himself. later his captors applied a splint. Months of solitary confinement and intermittent torture and interrogation sessions continued over the five years of his internment. He was released and returned home in March 1973.
LCDR CARPENTER’s remains were repatriated by the Vietnamese on 13 September 1990 and positively identified as those of LCDR CARPENTER on 27 March 1991. He rests in peace in Arlington National Cemetery. On this day, fifty years to the day of Nick’s last flight, Humble host remembers him as a shipmate on Enterprise and fellow tailhooker who fought his aircraft boldly and exuded a fighting spirit second to none. I recall the joy in his descriptions of bomb damage–“boxcars flying through the air”– in the strike group debriefs in IOIC. Nick was an Intruder warrior who was going “downtown” with 22 Mk-82s in the dark, while I was mostly piddling around Vinh, Ninh Binh and Thanh Hoa. The Intruder guys were in the Red River Valley while I was in Happy Valley in my Skyhawk. Gangway Intruder crews… The bravest of the brave…
(Webmaster note: I write about Nick Carpenter’s extraordinary devotion to duty and his fellow naval aviators in my book Across the Wing. He repeatedly and selflessly put his life on the line to try and rescue squadronmates Red McDaniel and James Kelly Patterson when they were shot down 19 May 1967. His honor and integrity were above reproach—he was “an officer and a gentleman” personified.)
VICE ADMIRAL JOE MOBLEY, USN, Retired (The last American POW to retire)…Joe, Humble Host is honored to have this opportunity to extend highest respect and admiration to a fellow tailhooker, USS Kalamazoo skipper, and CO and driver of “air capable ships”on the 50th anniversary of a day in your incredible life of service that you will never forget… …oohrah… Bear
Humble Host flew #199… Led four Battlecry A-4Fs to strike and remove all or part of a bridge near the “cxxx.” An easily identifiable geographic feature north of Vinh. We knocked it down with a total of 24 Mk-82s, and hightailed it for the Air Wing circle over the ship. The SAM and MiG activity of the last week or two was a deterrent for dawdling … Two more flying days and then… home.
RIPPLE SALVO… #841… A page (276) from Jules Witcover’s THE YEAR THE DREAM DIED…
“The peace talks in Paris dragged on throughout June of 1968, as did Communist rocket attacks on Saigon and other South Vietnamese cities nd towns. When General Westmoreland turned over the Vietnam command to General Creighton Abrams on June 10 to take up his duties as Army chief of staff in Washington, he frankly said that the American policy of ‘not expanding the war’ made achievement of a military victory impossible ‘in a classic sense.’ Losses by attrition, however, could make continued fighting ‘intolerable to the enemy’–hardly an encouraging outlook to a nation growing ever wearier of fighting in Vietnam.
“Proponents of the war clung to small rationales for optimism. A joint session of the South Vietnamese National Assembly on June 15 approved the drafting of 200,000 persons by the end of 1968, answering a criticism repeatedly raised by Robert Kennedy. President Thieu, in signing the bill, said ‘we do not intend to ask the United States and our other allies for more troops, but we still need equipment and other types of help, of course.’ It was an overdue move, particularly with the U.S. command’s report on Jun e 20 that American combat deaths had now exceeded 25,000 since the beginning of 1961, plus nearly 85,000 wounded, and with the arrival in the previous week of a thousand more American troops, bringing the total in the country to an astounding 534,000.
“Public opinion took a jolt on June 24 when a young correspondent in South Vietnam for the Baltimore Sun, John S. Carroll, reported that a decision had been made to abandon Khe Sanh, the military base earlier defended at great cost as a vital defense position below the old demilitarized zone between North nd South Vietnam. The American command discredited Carroll indefinitely on grounds he had violated security regulations, but the reporter stood his ground. ‘The Marine privates knew about it (the withdrawal), The North Vietnamese knew about it and the only ones who didn’t know about it were the people in the United States,’ he said. Military requirements dictated the decision, the U.S. command said, but the North Vietnamese called it the ‘gravest tactical and strategic defeat’ of the war for the United States.
“Driving home even more the frustration of carrying on the American commitment in Vietnam was Johnson’s signing on June 28 of a new 10 percent income tax increase, a tangible refutation of his early contention that the country could afford both guns nd butter. With half the year 1968 gone, the United States seemed no closer to extracting itself from the military nightmare that was tearing the nation apart.”…
RTR quote for 24 June: GEN DOUGLAS MacARTHUR: “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make the tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear