Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #725… 1968 was a leap year with an extra day… Humble Host will stick to operations for this post and skip the head lines and other source material…
Good Morning: Day SEVEN HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE of a review of the air strike operations against North Vietnam from 1965 to 1968…
28 and 29 FEBRUARY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) Three fixed wing aircraft were lost on 28 February and two more on 29 February in Southeast Asia…
(1) A C-130 E of the 776th TAS and 314th TAW was destroyed by small arms fire taking off from an airstrip at Song Be 25 miles northeast of An Lac. Withering ground fire led to a wing fire, but the pilot MAJOR LELAND R. FILMORE was able to get back to the runway for a successful crash landing in which five in the crew and five tensed-up passengers survived. The aircraft was destroyed. Chris Hobson writes: MAJOR FILMORE was awarded a Silver Star for his intrepid airmanship in the face of intense enemy fire. “This was the only transport shot down during the Tet offensive, although another 83 transports were damaged by ground fire during the period. At this date there was a total of 96 USAF C-130 transports temporarily based in South Vietnam. The majority, 51, were based at Cam Ranh Bay, 27 were at Tansonnhut, 10 at Tuy Hoa and 8 at Nha Trang.”… (This incident occurred on 29-Feb-68.)
(2) CAPTAIN GENE I. BASEL was flying an F-105D of the 354th TFS and 355th TFW out of Takhli on his 79th mission, a strike on a POL storage site on the Ho Chi Minh Trail near Ban San in southern Laos. He was hit by automatic weapon ground fire that disabled his engine with a subsequent fire. He ejected a few miles from his target to be rescued by an Air Force helo to fly and fight again. MAJOR BASEL shot down a MiG-17 fighter on 27 October 1967 and was awarded the Silver Star… He wrote “Pak Six“ to chronicle his Rolling Thunder experiences…. 192 pages of great reading… oohrah…
(3) LCDR HENRY ALBERT COONS and LT THOMAS STEGMAN were flying an A-6A of the VA-35 Black Panthers embarked in USS Enterprise on a strike mission on the coastal defense site at Do Son that ended up in the water about 20 miles east of Thanh Hoa, the site of an oil slick and some identifiable debris that included the aircraft tail fin exhibiting flak damage. LCDR COONS and LT STEGMAN remain where they fell fifty years ago his day… they are remembered as good shipmates and friends as they rest in peace…
(4) LCOL C.D. SMITH and 1LT FRANCIS MURTAUGH DRISCOLL were flying an F-4D of the 435th TFS and 8th TFW out of Ubon on a Steel Tiger mission in southern Laos targeted to attack a truck park. On their second run they were hit by automatic weapon fire and sustained substantial battle damage. LCOL SMITH was able to keep the crippled aircraft airborne for the return flight to Ubon. However, the aircraft crashed while attempting an emergency landing. LCOL SMITH ejected at extremely low altitude and was seriously injured when his parachute failed to fully deploy. 1LT DRISCOLL perished in the crash…
(5) MAJOR CROSBY JAMES FITTON and CAPTAIN CLEVELAND SCOTT HARRIS were flying an F-105F of the 44th TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat Providing Wild Weasel support for a wing strike on a major vehicle repair facility south of Hanoi (Van Dien?) and 10 miles south of Hanoi came under fire of several surface-to-air missiles. They were hit by a SAM and set afire before losing their left wing. Both aviators were seen to eject by other members of the flight and emergency beepers were heard for both men. The beepers quit as soon as they touched down indicating their capture. While neither was identified as a POW, both were declared MIA to await the POW release in March 1973. Neither appeared. MAJOR FITTON’s remains were returned in December 1975. Captain Harris’ remains were returned in April 1985.
The following is quoted from the Homecoming II Project of 1 April 1991 and updated by the P.O.W. Network... “Although Fitton and Harris landed safely on the ground, it was not certain what happened to them after that. Both were declared Missing in Action. Their families resigned themselves to a long wait. In the spring of 1973, 591 American POWs were released by the Vietnamese, but Fitton and Harris were not among them. Military officials expressed their dismay at the time that hundreds of men known or suspected to be prisoners were not released. In 1975, the Vietnamese discovered and released the remains of Crosley J. Fitton. It was another ten years before Harris was to return. His remains were turned over to U.S. control in April 1985.”
From the Compilation “34TFS/F-105 History” by Howie Plunkett: 28-Feb-68: “Two pilots from the 34 TFS flew a mission into RP-1 as Goose flight and destroyed trucks and supplies. the lineup was: #1 Major Sam Armstrong and #2 Captain Joseph Sechler…. It was Major Armstrong’s 76th mission.” LGEN Armstrong made this entry in his 110-Mission Log: “A funny thing happened on mission #76. I was a spare but got launched as a two-ship flight. An F-100 FAC in Pack I at the southern end of Muy Ghia Pass had a target for us. It was a trench about 125-feet long into which supplies and ammo were stored. We bombed and strafed it setting the trench on fire. It was still burning when we left. Later I got a Letter of Appreciation from the F-100 FAC and endorsed by his command. It was one of those rare occasions where one clearly did a good job and was properly recognized for doing it.”… Joe Sechler recalled: “…that I did not have a sight on the combining glass and had to bomb and shoot blind…. According to the Misty FAC, I hit the target with my bombs (pure luck). Sam put me in for an Air Medal for that and it got approved.”
29-Feb-68: “Captain Bill Harris, 469th TFS, 388th TFW… on his 34th combat mission from Korat RTAFB, Thailand. He was Ozark 4 flying an Iron Hand mission in RP-6A, North Vietnam. The four-plane flight was jumped by MiGs and A SAM shot down Ozark 3 flown by Major Crosley James Fitton and EWO Captain Cleveland Scott Harris from the 44 TFS (See Hobson above). Captain Harris’ aircraft was damaged by fragments from the SAM blast…. Col James L. Stewart, the 388th TFW Assistant Deputy Commander, who usually flew with the 34 TFS was Ozark 2 and was awarded a Silver Star for the mission….
Humble Host notes that BGEN James STEWART, who passed in 2008, was a B-17 Lead Navigator for the 360th Bombardment Squadron based in England and completed 33 combat missions over Germany. He flew 121 combat missions in Korea as a fighter pilot before his Vietnam tour where he logged 126 more combat missions, 116 of them over North Vietnam…. oohrah…
Humble Host logged #109 and #110 on the 28th and 29th. #109 was a day A-4F with 8 250-pounder for FAC control on an “artillery position” in Route Pack I just north of the DMZ. #110 was a night radar drop, Milky, delivering 6 Mk81s and 2 Mk82s through the clouds on an “artillery site” somewhere just north of the DMZ…
RIPPLE SALVO… #725… Yesterday I was asked to comment on the assertion of General Pete Piotrowski in his massive 2014 book: Basic Airman to General: The Secret War and Other Conflicts; Lessons in Leadership and Life... On pages 246/7 he wrote:
“Nearly twenty years later, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk being interviewed by Peter Arnett on a CBC Documentary called ‘The Ten Thousand Day War,’ Mr. Arnett asked, ‘It has been rumored that the United States provided the North Vietnamese government the names of the targets that would be bombed the following day. Is there any truth to that allegation?
“To my astonishment and absolute disgust, the former secretary responded, ‘Yes. We didn’t want to harm the North Vietnamese people, so we passed the targets to the Swiss embassy in Washington with instructions to pass them to the NVN government through their embassy in Hanoi.’
“As I watched in horror, Secretary Rusk went on to say, ‘All we wanted to do is demonstrate to the North Vietnamese leadership that we could strike targets at will, but we didn’t want to kill innocent people. By giving the North Vietnamese advanced warning of the targets to be attacked, we thought they would tell the workers to stay home.'”
Website “Truth or Fiction” has been evaluating the Rusk statement for years…Their assessment is at:
And this was my response to the query, or as they would say in the Ready Room: “Where is the Bear in the buckwheat on this one?…..
Gentlemen:
In my non-stop reading of declassified State Department Historical Documents I have noted supporting incidents…at least once, and possibly more, in the minutes of Tuesday lunch meetings at the White House that Secretary Rusk refers to his contact in the Swiss Embassy as a way to back-channel information on targets for the specific purpose of reducing the possibility of civilian casualties. In countless documents Sec Rusk makes it clear that his paramount interest, by his own words, was civilian casualties, as a consequence of our bombing in the Hanoi/Haiphong circles…
I tend to believe Rusk did leak our targets based on a personal experience. In a January 1967 Newsweek, the Periscope column carried a piece that said “when the weather permits the Navy will bomb the thermal power plant in Haiphong.’ I wrote home to my folks noting that times had changed from WWII when “loose lips sink ships.” My Dad wrote to the President ad asked what this was all about. An Army one-star answered his letter with a “not to worry, that won’t happen.” In May 67 that is exactly where we went, and of course, the bad guys were waiting (but they always were)..
The Strategy of “gradual defeat,” where we rationed our targeting on an escalating schedule, moving north a little at a time, the enemy knew intuitively where we were going next. Not only that, they knew when we were coming with the big strikes–the Doctor Pepper Schedule of 10-2-4….
The fact is, there were thousands of guns, hundreds of missiles and dozens of MiGs to cover a couple of targets. their IADS was world-class and our tactics were dumbass…We made up for our shaky strategy compounded by restrictive tactics, with bold and brave defiance of the odds, and we had a great time doing it…Every trip into North Vietnam north of Thanh Hoa was into guns that were cocked and ready and it didn’t make much difference whether Secretary Rusk passed them the daily frag or not. If the weather was fit for dive bombing, every gunner, including Jane Fonda, had their hats cocked back and a round in the chamber…fights on… Bear…
RTR Quote for 28/29 Feb: NAPOLEON: “In the long run, the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.”
Lest we forget… Bear
GOOD JOB.
FRED BERGOLD SHARES WITH ME.