RIPPLE SALVO… #660… “Let us have the wisdom, the courage and the compassion TO END THE WAR IN VIETNAM, NOW.”… The Book Publishing Industry, full-page (28) ad in The NYT, 26 Dec 67… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED-SIXTY of a remembrance of an air war fought fifty years ago by Red River Valley Rats and Yankee Air Pirates 12,000 miles from home… it was secretly called Rolling Thunder…
27 December 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a cold cloudy Wednesday with snow arriving tonight…
Page 1: “Saigon Force Pins Foe Against Sea, Reports 200 Enemy Dead–U.S. Helicopters Rake Enemy in First Big Clash After 24-Hour Allied Truce–Jets Wreck 91 Trucks–2 Convoys Raided in North–‘Looked Like New Jersey Turnpike,’ Pilot Says”… “South Vietnamese infantrymen backed by United States helicopter gunships, pinned a battalion of enemy soldiers against the South China Sea coast yesterday and reported having killed 200 of them. It was the first major surge of ground fighting after the 24-hour allied Christmas truce, which ended at 6 P.M. Monday. The day long battle was centered nine miles northeast of the city of Quangtri, and about 15 miles south of the southeastern edge of the demilitarized zone, straddling the border of North and South Vietnam. Field reports said the United States gunships flew through heavy barrages of ground fire to rake the trapped enemy troops with machine-gun fire and rockets…Elsewhere, United States Headquarters reported that a battalion of 25th Infantry Division came under a 20-minute mortar barrage and tear-gas attack in Tayninh Province, which borders Cambodia and is about 70 miles northwest of Saigon. Fifteen Americans were wounded.”…
“CONVOY SEVEN MILES LONG… “American pilots returning to the attack in North Vietnam after the allied cease-fire reported that they had destroyed 91 trucks and damaged 41…The pilots said that they had attacked two major truck convoys, one of 150 vehicles and the other of 100, along the southern coast of North Vietnam. A United States spokesman described the truck traffic as unusually heavy. The major target for the Navy carrier pilots was the 150-truck convoy south of Thanh Hoa. They said the convoy was seven miles long. ‘It looked like the New Jersey Turnpike,’ said LTJG Michael Foley of Quonset Point, R.I., one of the pilots. American pilots also found and attacked smaller groups of trucks scattered along the roads from Than Hoa, 80 miles south of Hanoi, to Dong Hoi, 40 miles North of the DMZ. The heavy road traffic was detected by United States reconnaissance planes, which continued to fly during the 24-hour truce period. Navy fighter-bombers and Air Force jets apparently ready to attack with the aid of flares into the evening….. A United States spokesman said that there were 118 enemy actions during the cease-fire–79 against forces of the United States and other countries aiding South Vietnam, and the rest against South Vietnamese positions. As a result of the incidents two American soldiers were reported killed and 24 wounded, 3 South Vietnamese soldiers killed and 6 wounded…33 of the enemy were reported killed.”… HANOI CHARGES VIOLATIONS…”The Hanoi Government charged today that the United States planes had bombed at least eight points in North Vietnam on Christmas day, violating the bombing truce announced by the United States…”…
Page 1: “U.S. Assures Cambodians It Has No Hostile Intentions–But Sihanouk Rejects Note Sent December 4 Terming its Effort To Justify Attack–Denies Territory Is Used As Base By Vietcong and North Vietnamese”… Page 1: Second of three articles by Hanson Baldwin, “Vietnam Report: The Foe Is Hurt–Although Battlefield Victory Has Eluded The Enemy, He Continues Fierce Attacks”… Page 3: “Laotians Accuse Forces in Hanoi–Premier Asserts a General Offensive Is Under Way”… “..against Government positions in the tip of southern tip of Laos.”... Page 4: “Mao, At Age 74, Still at Top After a Year of Upheaval–Peking, On His Birthday, Hails Printing Of a Billion Copies of His Writings” (Humble Host bought one for a buck in Hong Kong)… Page 4: “White Only Housing Now Off-Limits to G.I.’s”… page 5: “Greek Junta’s 2nd Phase–Regime Appears to Have Made Shift From Military to Quasi-political Rule”… “…impasse reached on return of King.”…Page 6: “Air Inquiry Is Set By Senator Stennis Panel–Study of Tactical Planes To Include 2 Types of F-111″…
27 December 1967…President’s Daily Brief… COMMUNIST CHINA: Civil disorder and violence are spreading. In some areas, local conditions appear to be as bad as last summer. there are an increasing number of reports that Red Guards are again using machine guns and other military weapons. The army seems to be doing little of nothing to prevent outbreaks, but intervenes only to keep violence from spreading… CAMBODIA: The International Control Commission was unimpressed by its investigation of the Viet Cong camp reported by two American correspondents… SOVIET UNION: Recent satellite photography has given us a glimpse of the model…of the huge space booster which the Soviets are expected to launch in the latter part of 1968. A vehicle about 320 feet tall by 50 feet in diameter–a bit shorter and fatter than Saturn V–was seen on one of the giant launch pads under construction at Tyuratam…. NORTH VIETNAM: Giap Fails To Show. Preliminary news accounts of the attendance at the 23 December celebrations in Hanoi indicate that Defense Minister General Vo Nguyen Giap was not present. Army Day is an occasion which General Giap mot only normally attends, but on which he speaks, and his absence is unusual. Hanoi has not reported on Giap’s activities since he was reported returning from the Soviet anniversary celebration in mid-November.... NORTH VIETNAM: Reflections of US Political Attitudes On the War. Anti-War Protests Reported by Hanoi. In a 26 December English language broadcast, Hanoi noted without comment a number of antiwar activities that took place during the Christmas week in the US…A “stirring demonstration” near the UN building on 21 December was reported as well as a press conference by Harvard Professor H. Stuart Hughes on the same date, in which Hughes called for an “immediate end to the bombings of North Vietnam.”…
27 DECEMBER 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times…See above truck kills…”Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft downed in Southeast Asia on 27 December 1967…
(1) LCDR LEONARD MURRAY LEE and LTJG ROGER BURNS INNES were flying an F-4B of the VF-114 Aardvarks embarked in USS Kitty Hawk on an armed reconnaissance mission and attacked a target at Cape Falaise, about 25 miles north of Vinh. The attack was made from under a 1,000-foot cloud base as a loft maneuver. LCDR LEE pulled up into the overcast to loft his bombs but was not seen or heard from again. A search failed to find any debris. LCDR LEE and his young RIO LTJG INNES perished 50 years ago this day and rest in peace where they fell on that day… Gone but not forgotten…
(2) MAJOR H.W. MILLER and 1LT SAMMY ARTHUR MARTIN were flying an F-4C of the 390th TFS and 366th TFW out of Danang on an armed reconnaissance mission 20 miles north of Dong Hoi when hit by automatic weapon fire. As the Phantom erupted into flames, MAJOR MILLER headed to sea and at about 20 miles off the coast both aviators ejected. A Navy helicopter from Kitty Hawk successfully rescued MAJOR MILLER, but 1LT MARTIN inexplicably and tragically slipped out of the rescue sling during pick-up, fell back into the rolling and turbulent sea, and was not seen again… He rests in peace where he fell fifty years ago today… our thoughts are with his family as they mark this sad day of remembrance…
RIPPLE SALVO… #660…Open letters to the President on the pages of The New York Times were regularly published during the war. Here is a typical message to the White House. Page 28 of the 26 December 1967 NYT.
“Mr. President. We in the book publishing industry and library professionals want you to hear our voices raised along with those of many other informed, responsible citizens in the worlds of business, professions and the arts…The United States is the most powerful nation on earth. Let us act with more responsibility. Let us have ‘the wisdom, the courage and the compassion for humanity’ (quote from UN Secretary General Thant) to END THE WAR IN VIETNAM, NOW.
“You are a citizen president, a civilian. Your mandate from the people of the United States in the election of 1964 was for peace and for the creation of a Great Society which could not only change the face of our own country but bring a new enlightenment to the world.
“We believe that you, as we, want history to record you as giving the world that new enlightenment. The alternatives as we see them are that either you will be remembered for a Pyrrhic military victory in Vietnam or that you will not be remembered at all, because history will have been stopped forever by a world holocaust. Morally and materially, the war in Vietnam is withering away the chances of that new enlightenment in the world.
“Let us stop sending the young men of our country across the world to be killed. Let us stop destroying the people and the economy of Vietnam. Let us stop bombing North Vietnam and start negotiating now.”
RTR Quote for 27 December: WISDOM... EPICHARMUS: “The wise man must be wise before, not after the event.”…. HOMER, Iliad: “After the event, even a fool is wise.”…
Lest we forget… Bear