RIPPLE SALVO…#29… GRISSOM, WHITE and CHAFFEE… but first…
Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE of a return to the air war with North Vietnam called ROLLING THUNDER…
28 JANUARY 1967… The Home Town News and Headlines from The New York Times on a cloudy cold Saturday…
Page 1: “3 APOLLO ASTRONAUTS DIE IN FIRE; GRISSOM,WHITE AND CHAFFEE CAUGHT IN CAPSULE DURING A TEST ON PAD”… “The three man crew of astronauts for the Apollo 1 Mission were killed tonight in a flash fire aboard the huge spacecraft designed to take man to the moon. Those killed in the blaze on the launching pad were: VIRGIL I. GRISSOM… EDWARD H. WHITE… ROGER B. CHAFFEE… The astronauts were the first American spacemen to be killed on the job and, ironically, died on the ground. The bodies were removed hours later and a space agency spokesman said death was instantaneous…The fire broke out at 6:31pm (27 Jan) while the three were taking part in a full scale simulation of the scheduled February 21 launching that was to take them into the heavenly for 14 days of orbiting the earth. They were trapped behind closed hatches according to NASA {Officials said an electrical spark ignited the pure oxygen inside the cabin.}”… Page 1: “Apollo Program Dealt Hard Blow”…”Tonight’s accident at Cape Kennedy is expected to deal a serious blow to the Apollo program which has struggled hard to stay on schedule in the face of budget cuts. Space officials have warned for several years that their margin of operation was thin, that continual economy by the Administration and Congress has left no room for failures if the moon was to be reached by 1970.”…
Page 1: “62 Nations Sign Treaty to Curb Arms in Space”… “President Johnson presided over a Whitehouse meeting today at which the United States, the Soviet Union and 60 other states signed a treaty to limit military activities in space. Mr. Johnson hailed it as ‘an inspiring moment in the history of the human race’ and described the treaty as a ‘first firm step toward keeping outer space free forever from the implements of war.’ “… Page 1: “Chicago is Crippled By a 23-Inch Snow; Police Kill Looter”…”A city accustomed to snowstorms succumbed to one today. Chicago is not an easy city to fell. The nations third largest city takes in stride weather that makes winter hurt. But this time wind and snow combined with paralyzing fury in a two-day onslaught that brought Chicago to its knees… {The Chicago police shot and killed a 10-year old girl who they said was helping to loot a store in the snow filled streets of the West Side.}”…
Page 3: “An Aide to Dr. King Appointed to Head New York Anti-War Group”… “The Reverend James Bevel, a close friend of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has been named national director of a new organization protesting the war in Vietnam on the basis that ‘the war is based on racial differences.’…’The Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam,’ will be led by Mr. Bevel, who said, ‘Each passing day makes more and more plain to Americans the hollowness and weakness of the war of oppression against a foreign colored people, which parallels in military terms what has been done to the American Indians and the colored people of America for centuries.’…He said his participation has the full support of Dr. King.”
Page 1: “Army Opposition to Mao”…”Disunity and confusion in the Chinese Army seemed apparent to some political analysts here (Hong Kong) today in the wake of an order to the army to stamp out resistance to Mao Tse-tung’s political purge.”… Page 2: “100 Deaths Reported in Sinkiang…and scores wounded in an outbreak of opposition to Mao in Sinkiang.”… Page 2: “Chinese Say Soviet Union is Ruled by a Swine”… “Peking said today that the Soviet Leadership was in the same category as the last Czar , Hitler and the Klu Klux Klan. ‘The days of filthy Soviet revisionist swine are numbered’ according to Jenmin Jih Pao, the newspaper of the Chinese Communist party.”…
Sports: “Tom Fears Named First Coach of New Orleans Saints, the newest National Football League team.”…
28 January 1967…The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized 9/2015) COMMUNIST CHINA: Moscow’s recent ridiculing of the cultural revolution seems to be getting under Peking’s skin. The Chinese appear to have deliberately provoked Wednesday’s clash in Red Square between transiting Chinese students and Soviet authorities. (large portion remains redacted) At all events, the incident has triggered a propaganda assault of unprecedented bitterness against the Soviet Union. Peking has berated the Soviet leaders for “fascist atrocities,” and has for the first time claimed a “blood debt.” The Chinese probably figure they can do this without bringing on a break in relations–a move that would cost Moscow its last vestige of political presence in Peking and seriously complicate Soviet efforts to aid North Vietnam. SOUTH VIETNAM: The time of decision is approaching on the selection of the military candidate for president. Premier Ky clearly wants the job, but he is by no means a sure bet. During Ky’s recent absence in australia and New Zealand, chief of state Thieu was touring the delta in what looked very much like a campaign junket. He made many speeches, handed our money to wounded soldiers and promised land titles to over a hundred families. at this point the two men seem evenly matched. (rest remains redacted)… ???? Why, after 50 years???
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM… LIEUTENANT (Junior Grade) PHILIP V. VAMPATELLA, United States Naval Reserve…NAVY CROSS…
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the NAVY CROSS to LIEUTENANT (Junior Grade) PHILIP V. VAMPATELLA, UNITED STATES NAVAL RESERVE, for extraordinary heroism on 21 June 1966 as pilot of a jet fighter aircraft in Fighter Squadron TWO HUNDRED ELEVEN (VF-211), embarked in U.S.S. HANCOCK (CVA-19). Although his aircraft was critically low on fuel and had already been severely damaged by hostile anti-aircraft fire, LIEUTENANT (Junior Grade) VAMPATELLA, upon learning that two of his squadron mates were being attacked by four North Vietnamese MIG-17 jet aircraft, reversed his course and returned deep into enemy territory to render assistance. Engaging two of the MIG fighters in low-altitude, aerial combat he succeeded in maneuvering his crippled aircraft into position to fire a missile and shoot down one of the enemy fighters. Only then did he disengage from the aerial battle and proceed to the coast, arriving with less than five minutes of fuel remaining. After skillfully and calmly executing an in-flight refueling from a waiting aerial tanker, he returned his crippled fighter to the HANCOCK. LIEUTENANT (Junior Grade) VAMPATELLA’s superb airmanship, outstanding courage, and inspiring devotion to duty in the face of enemy anti-aircraft fire and aerial opposition were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United Stares Naval Reserve.” oohrah…
28 JANUARY 1967…Operation Rolling Thunder…New York Times (29 Jan reporting 28 Jan ops) Page 4: “In the air war over North Vietnam yesterday North Vietnamese gunners shot down an F-4C Phantom jet fighter-bomber just north of the DMZ separating North and South Vietnam. The loss brought to 467 the number of planes downed in North Vietnam since August 1964. The two man crew was rescued.” (this incident reported here yesterday as a 27 January loss and rescue of USAF pilots HARGROVE and PETERSON)…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 28 January 1967..
(1) An F-104C of the 435th TFS and 8th TFW out of Udorn suffered an engine failure over Thailand and crashed. The pilot ejected and was rescued…
RIPPLE SALVO… #329… REMEMBERING GUS GRISSOM, ED WHITE and ROGER CHAFFEE… a few paragraphs from Gene Cernan’s “Last Man on the Moon.” At the same time GRISSON, WHITE and CHAFFEE were going though simulation drills at Cape Kennedy in the Apollo 1 capsule on 27 January 1967, astronauts Tom Stafford, John Young and Gene Cernan were manning a new Apollo capsule in Downey, California for a system testing session with North American Aviation engineers. I quote Gene Cernan (May he rest in Peace)…whatta guy!!! Pages 3/6”’
“Our week continued in stops and starts. A leaking hose dripped poison glycol coolant onto the floor of the spacecraft., and electrical short circuits disrupted communications with the control booth just outside the chamber. After a few irritating hours, Tom grumbled, ‘Go to the Moon? This son of a bxxxx won’t even make it into earth orbit.’ Left unsolved, such glitches could stack one atop another and come back to haunt us. Every problem we could find and fix on the ground was one less the guys would have to worry about in space, so we remained locked in our seats, running endless checks of systems, dials, and switches.
“Time was the enemy, the pages falling quickly from the calendar toward the launch date of February 21.
“At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Gus Grissom was bitching about communications problems. ‘I can’t hear a thing you are saying,’ he barked to the launch team. Jxxxx Cxxxxx…I said how are we going to get to the Moon if we can’t talk between two or three buildings?’ Gus didn’t mince his words or his actions. As one of the Original Seven astronauts, he had already flown in space twice, and now commanded Apollo 1. Everyone in the program knew that Gus firmly believed that when the first American stepped onto lunar soil, the name patch on his suit would read GRISSOM. If Gus didn’t like something, he let people know, at one point he had hung a huge lemon on a balky command module simulator to compare the malfunctioning space-age machine to a broken-dowm automobile. Such outbursts added even more color to his crusty reputation.
“Ed White suited up in the capsule with his, was another celebrity in astronaut ranks. A West Pointer and the som of a general, slender and good-looking and straight as an arrow, Ed had been the first American to walk in space, just eighteen months ago. The third crewman was a nugget, a rookie. Roger Chaffee had never flown in orbit, but had so impressed our bosses that they assigned his a coveted spot on the first Apollo. Roger was my next door neighbor and one of my closest buddies….
“Our work in Downey was only about half done when the disembodied voice of a technician crackled in our headsets: ‘we’re going to terminate the test now and bring you guys down.’
“Terminate? We groaned in disbelief. There were always hiccups in such tests, ‘holds’ that stopped the clock while something was checked out. We would sit tight and work on other things while the problem was fixed. It might be a few minutes or it might take hours, but it was part of the job.
“A ‘hold’ was one thing, but ‘termination’ was something else. No one, especially the crew, wanted to stop a test before it was complete, because the whole thing might have to be run again, which could take us into the weekend. Besides, dumping the vacuum from the chamber, undoing that damned, complicated hath, and climbing out while wearing our space suits was not easy.
“‘Why, barked Tom. We didn’t really want to get out. We’d rather hang on, finish, and go home. After several hours of work, the problems seemed to be mounting rather than diminishing. Patience was never an astronaut virtue.
“‘Tom’s got an important telephone call,’ came the answer. Now that was strange. We never took calls, no matter how important, during a test, but they had already started bleeding air into the chamber. (diluting the 100% oxygen!!) ‘Who is it? Tom pressed, ‘Tell them I’ll call back.'”
“‘No,’ came the voice, ‘We been told to get you on the phone now.!’
“As I began to unlock my hose, my mind raced with possibilities. Maybe something had changed. Something was always changing in the space program. Maybe we had been assigned to the prime crew on a lunar landing mission. Why not? We had more total hours in space than any other crew in the program, and we were already the official back-up crew for the next Apollo flight. But a telephone call about something like that could wait. Whatever it was had to be important.
“I glanced over to Tom, whom we always kidded about going into politics, ‘Might be your campaign manager, Senator,’ I said. ‘Maybe the president calling,’ cackled John. Tom, disgusted with the termination, didn’t think we were very funny.
“It took about fifteen minutes for the guys to haul us through the hatch, like pulling sardines from a can. John and I stretched our aching muscles as we walked to the Ready Room while Tom snatched the telephone from the hand of a technician waiting right outside the command module. We didn’t bother getting out of our suits because we might have to return to work, and taking off a space suit wasn’t as easy as slipping out of sports coat. John and I relaxed for the first time all day, sipping hot cups of coffee and thinking about whether we would get home earlier than usual or have to remain in California and start the test all over again tomorrow.
“Tom joined us in about five minutes, his face chalky white. I had shared some pretty hairy experiences with T.P., and knew the man to be totally unflappable, always in control. I had never seen him like this. Before we could ask what was wrong, he stared up at us and spoke with a halting voice. ‘There has been a fire on the pad.’
“John and I traded quick looks. Fire on the pad? What did that mean? ‘Are the guys all right?’
Stafford shook his head. ‘They’re dead,’ he said. ‘Gus, Ed and Roger are dead.’ “
May God bless our valiant astronauts … The bravest of the brave…
Lest we forget….. Bear…