RIPPLE SALVO… #420… “WESTMORELAND tells Congress U.S. will prevail”….but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED TWENTY of a look back of 50 years to a turbulent chapter of American History and the Vietnam air war…
29 APRIL 1967… HEAD LINES at home from The New York Times on a sunny Saturday in Central Park…
Page 1: “Westmoreland Tells Congress U.S. Will Prevail”...“Draws Cheers From a Joint Session With Vow to Quell Aggression in Vietnam”…“Firm Pressure Urged”... “General Foresees Success If Effort is Supported by Resolve On Home Front”… “General William C. Westmoreland roused Congress to enthusiastic cheers today with a pledge that the American forces he commands would ‘prevail in Vietnam over the Communist aggressor.’ Trim, starched and four starred, the General told a joint session that the only strategy that could defeat the enemy was ‘one of unrelenting but discriminating military, political and psychological pressure on his whole structure and at all levels.’…His appearance here was interpreted as a bid by the President Johnson to enlist the General’s military prestige in the Administration’s struggle to maintain political support for the war. General Westmoreland did not however stress today a major point of his speech Monday to the American Newspaper Publishers Association in New York–his belief that protests against the war in the United States encouraged the Vietcong to keep fighting. Nor did he mention today the ‘unpatriotic acts at home’ that he had scored in the speech to the publishers.”…
Page 1: “Soviet Objects to U.S. Atom Plan”…”The Soviet Union has objected to a proposed United States formula for a treaty to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, particularly to the safeguards provision.”… Page 1: “Pontiff Concedes Papacy is Barrier To Christian Unity”... “Pope Paul sorrowfully acknowledged today that his own position of primacy and authority was probably ‘the most grave obstacle to Christian unity. But, he said, ‘the Papacy is essentially the indispensable principle of truth, of charity, of unity.’ “... Page 1: “City Panel of 55 to Help Prevent Summer Trouble”… “Frustrated so far in efforts to obtain a substantial Federal allocation of money to help prevent summer racial disturbances, the Mayor Lindsay Administration has turned to business and community leaders for assistance … and to raise funds for special summer projects, create jobs and job-training programs and sponsor recreational, cultural and occupational activities for young people of the city ghetto areas.”... Page 1: “Draft Foes Fail to Cut Inductions”... “U. S. Reports Sharp Decline in Number of Delinquents and Those Who Desert”...”Government officials asserted today that efforts by groups opposed to the war in Vietnam to encourage resistance to military service were having no effect on Selective Service inductions.”…
29 April 1967… The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized) YEMEN: The situation remains tense with new anti-American demonstrations reportedly planned for today. Demonstrations could pose problems for the Americans who are supposed to begin leaving the country this morning...PHILIPPINES: The Huks are becoming more aggressive in Central Luzon and could give President Marcos some serious trouble in the future….GREECE: King Constantine feels the situation is looking up, but the 27-year old ruler may be overestimating his ability to handle the coup leaders…
STATE DEPARTMENT, Office of the Historian, FRUS, 1964-1968, Volume V, Vietnam, 1967, Doc: 151….
Senator Mike Mansfield sent a set of suggestions to the President that are worthy of a few minutes of your reading time. When LBJ was Majority Leader, Mike Mansfield was his assistant and the two were fast friends. It is in this spirit (“I hope you will pardon me for laying these possibilities before you..”) that Senator Mansfield “pulls the coat tails” of the President with ideas for his consideration with respect to relations with China, the United Nations, and the “border barricade.” He includes a wordy paragraph of his “opinions” on escalation, bombing, and Sino-Soviet relations. His “last word”–“…in my opinion, the hour is growing very, very late.”… This 29 April 1967 memorandum from Senator Mansfield to the President is at:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d151
29 APRIL 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (30 Apr reporting 29 Apr ops)…Page 1: “U.S. Again Raids Hanoi Rail Link and MIG Airfields”…”No Losses Reported Over Targets–Week’s Jet Toll at 11″… “United States Air Force fighter-bombers have again attacked the bridge that provides the only rail approach to Hanoi from Communist China…The attacks occurred a day after new raids against the MIG air base at Hoalac, 24 miles west of Hanoi. In the assault on the five span bridge, built of steel and concrete, pilots flying F-105 Thunderchiefs out of Thailand reported two possible direct hits on the bridge, which is four miles northeast of the city. Approaches to the bridge from both rail-lines to China were reported to have been cut but smoke, debris and heavy enemy defensive action were said to preclude close observation and assessment of the damage…The smashing of the bridge would not only sever the rail line, on which virtually all of military aid arriving overland must be carried, but also block the canal which connects with the port of Haiphong, 50 miles to the east where seaborne materials arrive. The spokesman said F-4C Phantoms flying cover for the bombing runs had been in dogfights with 10 MIG-17s over the target area.
No report of U.S. losses was made but an American plane was added to the toll in raids on Friday. It brought to 11 the announced losses for the week in intensified raids. The toll since the air war began in the North in February 1965 rose to 521. The plane, also a Thunderchief was said to have been shot down by a MIG-21…The pilot is missing (CAPTAIN F.A. CARAS, KIA. Reported in yesterday’s blog).
The Thunderchiefs struck again today at the Hoalac base. Returning pilots said their bombs had been on target, but no further assessment of damage was available. The base was one of two attacked Monday when the United States ended its restrictions against MIG bases in North Vietnam. In other strikes against North Vietnam air Force pilots attacked railroad yards 43 and 51 miles northeast of the capital. The yards are on the northeast line which runs to Nanning in southern China. Pilots said they had heavily damaged the yards.
Navy pilots from the carrier Enterprise and from the carrier Hancock attacked targets in the panhandle area, which runs along the Gulf of Tonkin to the border with South Vietnam. The Navy planes, A-4 Skyhawks struck a railroad bridge and siding 9 miles southwest of Thanh Hoa, a storage area eight miles south of Vinh and a transshipment point five miles south of Donghoi. (Bear#61mk82bridgeSof Vinh).
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 29 April 1967…
(1) 1LT LOREN HARVEY TORKELSON and 1LT GEORGE JOHN POLLIN were flying an F-4C of the 389th TFS and 366th TFW out of Da Nang in support of strike operations against the Hanoi bridges and were downed by AAA 15 miles west of Hanoi. 1LT TORKLESON ejected safely but was captured and interned as a POW until released in March 1973. 1LT POLLIN was Killed in Action, either unable to eject or after an ejection. He was on his 60th mission. His remains were returned to the United States and identified in 1990, twenty-three years after he perished on the battlefield of Rolling Thunder 50 years ago.
(2) MAJOR MARK LANE STEPHENSEN and 1LT GARY RICHARD SIGLER were flying an RF-4C of the 11th TRS and 432nd TRW out of Udorn on a night photo reconnaissance mission into the Hanoi area. they were given a SAM warning and in executing an evasive maneuver at very low latitude MAJOR STEPHENSEN impacted the tops of trees causing the WSO 1LT SIGLER to eject. He observed the aircraft fly into a hill killing MAJOR STEPHENSEN. LT SIGLER was captured and interned for six years as a POW before being released in 1973.
RIPPLE SALVO… #420… The consensus was that General Westmoreland was called home to make the rounds, including the unprecedented address to a joint session of Congress, to reinforce the Johnson Administration’s faltering Vietnam policy, which was under increasing pressure from many sources. Here are a few words from Newsweek (May 8, 1967, page 36) that report the visit succinctly…
“…all the signs last week indicated that the U.S. would have to find its own way out of the Vietnam Quagmire. General Westmoreland carries in his pocket a card listing seven reasons why the U.S. will eventually lose the war–as set forth by North Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap. The American commander believes he has coped with all but two of these: U.S. opinion and world opinion. The field commander had come home to convert the doubters and firm up the convictions of the Administration’s supporters. “My purpose in these speeches was to explain the situation and give the American people a better feel for it, “Westmoreland told Newsweek. Yet, instead of forging unity, his speeches only exacerbated the home-front friction over the war, prompting the doves to their most melodramatic predictions. The general’s assurance that the U.S. was on the road to victory if only the home front kept the faith– “(the enemy) believes our Achilles’ heel is our resolve’– never touched the fundamental questions causing all the concern in the first place. Was it realistic to expect that Hanoi could be bombed to the peace table? Was the U.S. really prepared to fight a long war of attrition in Asia? Was there no way at to break the treadmill pattern of escalation?…
“Westmoreland wound up his American visit with a briefing for 26 U.S. governors and other officials at the White House and a Palm Springs visit to another of his heroes, Dwight Eisenhower. (“Toughest soldier’s job I can imagine,” said Ike of his caller.) Aside from the headlines Westmoreland produced, it was hard to detect any long-range benefits to the Administration from his trip. The Johnsonian strategy that remained simply more of the same in the conviction that Hanoi’s threshold of pain would inevitably be crossed. As a thesis, it seemed logical enough, but it had yet to prove its worth as a strategy. And only more clear-cut results–not rhetoric–would convince an uneasy public that the Administration was indeed on the right track in Vietnam.”
Newsweek led off the May 8 edition in the “Periscope: Ahead of the News” page with this paragraph:
“Punitive Bombing”... “This will enrage a great many people, but some top Air Force officials now argue that the final stage of the escalating air war over North Vietnam should be a World War II type of punitive bombing of population centers as well as industrial sites. They think that this may be the only way to force Ho Chi Minh into peace negotiations. These Pentagon strategists qualify their argument by admitting that U.S. tradition and concern for world opinion militate against such a bombing policy because it would inflict severe suffering on the civilian populations of Hanoi and Haiphong.”…
HUMBLE HOST: Five and a half years later–and 50,000 more American troops killed in action– “Punitive Bombing,” called Linebacker I/II,was what it took to “force Ho Chi Minh (‘s successor) to the negotiating table.” Concern for “U.S. tradition” and “world opinion,” be damned…
CAG’s QUOTES for 29 April: General NATHANIEL GREENE: “We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again.”… PATTON: “Anyone in any walk of life who is content with mediorcrity is untrue to himself and the American tradition.”..
Lest we forget… Bear