RIPPLE SALVO… #965… THE STORM IS MOVING ON. THE GREAT STREAKS AND CRASH OF LIGHTNING HAVE PASSED. THE BOOMING BURSTS OF THUNDER COMING FAST AND FURIOUS IN A HOPELESS EFFORT TO CATCH THE BOLTS OF LIGHTING THAT GAVE THEM BIRTH, HAVE NOW BEGUN TO FADE. THE ROLLING THUNDER BECOMES DISTANT THUNDER AND GIVES WAY TO THE THE GENTLE, QUIET AND RESTFUL SOUND OF A STEADY RAIN. THE SPECTACULAR LINE OF SUMMER THUNDERSTORMS THAT IS ONE OF MOTHER NATURE’S GREATEST SHOWS HAS MADE IT’S MARK AND IS GONE… SO IT WAS IN OCTOBER 1968 WITH THE APTLY NAMED AIR CAMPAIGN–ARGUABLY THE GREATEST AIR WAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY–OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…
Humble Host has completed the task assumed in March 2016. A lasting online journal of Operation Rolling Thunder has been put in place to remember the extraordinary service and sacrifice of the nation’s military aviators who sustained a 44-month campaign of gradual escalation of bombing pressure on North Vietnam with the goal of changing the enemy’s behavior. The enemy was made to pay a price for their aggression in Southeast Asia. As administered by the White House, the campaign was doomed from the start. It wasn’t the fault of the valiant warriors who faced the most intense integrated defense system in the world in the 1965 to 1973 time frame. They served bravely, and glory gained and duty done, they remember the comrades who gave their all for our country. “Our country. Right or wrong, our country.”…..
The RTR site will remain active until further notice with posts coming on line at the rate of one a week, hopefully. For the record, more than 2-million words in more than 1,000 posts are now archived for your reference at will. Humble Host will be working to index the collection; editing and expanding the core collection as time permits; and incorporating new material as discovered. There is much to do…
Over the next two weeks Humble Host will wrap-up the story of Rolling Thunder and move on to Commando Hunt I.
THE BOMBING HALT. A series of about 40 State Department Historical Documents covering the period 26-31 October 1968 are a part of this wrap-up. There are five of those documents dated 26-Oct-68 of interest and recommended for your perusal. Start with document 123, a telephone conversation between Secretary Dean Rusk of the “Department of Debacles” and President Johnson. Use your mouse to move on in sequence to 124 (An info memo from Walt Rostow to LBJ); 125 (A great telephone conversation between LBJ and his “old friend” Senator Richard Russell); 126 (Another conversation between LBJ an Rusk); and, 127 (A telegram to Harriman in Paris from Rusk in Washington). Start your reading at:
123. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v07/d123
USS ORISKANY (CVA-34)… This is the 52nd anniversary of the tragic fire on Oriskany that killed 36 officers and 8 enlisted troops. Take a few minutes to review the facts of that disaster and absorb some of the many words on the Oriskany fire on the following RTR posts… Read at:
(2) https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/26-october-1966-fire-on-the-oriskany/
A ROLLING THUNDER WRAP-UP from Mark Clodfelter’s THE LIMITS OF AIR POWER: The American Bombing of North Vietnam… Page 145-6, I quote…
“Johnson’s controls produced a profound sense of despair among air leaders. At the end of 1967 briefing on Rolling Thunder, General McConnell held his head in his hands and lamented, ‘I can’t tell you how I feel… I’m so sick of it…I have never been so goddamned frustrated by it all.’ Two years later, after announcing his retirement, McConnell received a letter from 7th Air Force Commander General William W. Momyer, whose comments epitomize the air chief’s disillusionment:
“It has been a privilege to serve as a member of your team. my regret is we didn’t win the war. We had the force, skill, and intelligence, but our civilian better wouldn’t turn us loose. Surely our Air Force has lived up to all expectations within the restraints that have been put on it. If there is one lesson to come out of this war, it must be a reaffirmation of the axiom–don’t get in a fight unless you are prepared to do whatever is necessary to win. This axiom is as old oa military forces, and I don’t see that modern weapons have changed it. I suppose a military man will always be in the dilemma of supporting policy even though he knows it surely restricts the capacity of military forces to produce the desired effect. One has no alternative but to support the policy and take the knocks that inevitably follow when military forces don’t produce the desired effects within the constraints of the policy.”
“Air leaders viewed Momyer’s axiom, which paraphrased Douglas MacArthur’s evaluation of the Korean War, as the overriding lesson of Rolling Thunder. Sharp, Wheeler, and Moore echoed the remark in their assessments of the air campaign. Their statements leave no doubt as to the air chiefs’ conviction that they would have gained the victory had Johnson given them a free hand. Their assumption lacked substance, however. The nature of war–plus the air commanders’ own controls–argued strongly that Rolling Thunder could never provide more than token support to Johnson’s political objectives. Air leaders like Sharp, woh pointed to the 1972 air campaign as examples that Rolling Thunder could have achieved American goals earlier, failed to notice that neither the war nor the American objectives were the same in 1972 as they were in 1965. They also failed to observe that the result in the 1972 campaign wa not the total victory they had aimed to achieve.”… End quote.
That is Mark Clodfelter’s conclusion. Not mine. Gradualism was a strategy of gradual defeat that denied us the opportunity to hit FIRST, hit hard, hit fast, and show no mercy. War is a killing business. If you don’t have the stomach for employing overwhelming power to change enemy behavior, stay home. Our country never generated the will to win–the resolve to use our power. It was, and remains, a weakness that provides an opening for exploitation by our enemies. Without resolve, power is a paper tiger…
26 OCTOBER 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times: No coverage of the air war above the DMZ…. VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in Southeast Asia on 26 October 1968…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON THE FOUR 26 OCTOBER DATES OF THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965, 1966 and 1968… NONE… (1966 The USS Oriskany Fire)
1967… CDR VERLYN WAYNE DANIELS, USN… (POW)…and…LCDR JOHN SYDNEY McCAIN, USN… (POW)…and… LTJG CHARLES DANIEL RICE, USN… (POW)… Refer to RTR for 26 October 1967 for details of their downing flights.
REMEMBERING the fallen Forty-four of USS ORISKANY and CARRIER AIR WING 16…
Memorial Day Vision by R. G. Ingersoll…
“They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds,
careless alike of sunshine or storm,
each in the windowless palace of rest.
Earth may run red with other wars–they are at peace.
In the midst of battles, in the roar of conflict,
they found the serenity of death.”
Lest we forget… Bear