GOOD MORNING…Day NINE HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT of a review of the 1000 days of Operation Rolling Thunder, the 1965 to 1 November 1968 bombardment of North Vietnam…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Sunday, 29 September 1968…
THE WAR: Page 3: “ROCKETS STRIKE CENTRAL SAIGON–6 Wounded, 3 Homes Razed–Refuge Reported”… “The Viet Cong fired at least three rockets into central Saigon early today, destroying three homes and wounding six people. No one was reported killed. Artillery crews returned fire…In another incident this morning, the Vietcong blew up a bridge 50 miles southwest of Saigon on Route 4, the main road between the capital and the Mekong Delta….At least two battalions of United States marines continued to maneuver in the demilitarized zone in the longest sustained American operation there since the war began. As the troops pushed on for the 12th day in the six-mile-deep buffer zone, there was no indication when they might move back into South Vietnam….There has been no heavy fighting in the latest operation, but the troops have uncovered several tons of supplies. The field commanders feel that they have dealt a serious blow to the 320th North Vietnamese Division… 12 KILLED IN SWEEP… In a brief clash Friday, two companies of marines sweep[ing just south of the DMZ killed 12 North Vietnamese, six marines were wounded. Elsewhere in South Vietnam no major fighting was reported but an American military spokesman said that an Air Force jet and a propellor-driven Army observation plane had been downed by enemy ground place F-105 bailed out and was rescued and the jet crashed about 13 miles northwest of Quinhon, on the coast of central South Vietnam. However, the pilot and an observer in the Army plane stayed with their aircraft aws it plunged into a swamp 23 miles southwest of Danang. The observer was picked up by a helicopter gunship, but the pilot was trapped in the wreckage. A rescue team worked for more than 30 minutes before being freeing the pilot, who, was rushed to a Danang hospital and is reported to be in good condition… American infantrymen killed 32 North Vietnamese soldiers a mile southeast of the allied camp at Duclaf, which weathered a three-day enemy siege late last month….”… Page 1: “WIDER USE OF CAMBODIA BY THE ENEMY REPORTED”… “Intelligence reports reaching here indicate that the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong have substantially increased their use of Cambodia this year as a staging area and sanctuary. These documents alo contend that new weapons and ammunition for enemy troops are being moved over Cambodian highways in trucks sometimes driven by Cambodian military personnel.”…
Page 1 HEAD LINES: HATFIELD WHO SECONDED NIXON ASSAILS HIS SILENCE ON VIETNAM”… “JOHNSON DECRIES POLITICS OF FEAR–Urges End Of Hate Tactics On Gathering Votes and Makes Unity Plea”… “SENATORS FEARFUL OF LAG IN DEFENSE–Panel Says Soviet Is Closing Gap In Nuclear Race–U.S. Policies Questioned”… “CORRUPTION STILL A PROBLEM IN VIETNAM”…
29 SEPTEMBER 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER …New York Times (30 Sept reporting 29 Sept ops) Page 7: “In North Vietnam, the United States lost its 900th plane as pilots were carrying our 116 raids against supply lines and depots.”
VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost over Southeast Aia on 29 September 1968…
(1) CAPTAIN WAYNE ELLSWORTH NEWBERRY, flying an A-1H of the 6th SOS and 633rd SOW out of Pleiku, was making a second strafing run under a low overcast when hit by ground fire from North Vietnamese troops about 20 miles west of Klam Doc in South Vietnam and killed when his Skyraider flew into the ground. CAPTAIN NEWBERRY was the seventh pilot lost by the 6th SOS in 1968… He remains where he fell on the battlefield 50-years-ago today, and is carried on the roles of the fallen as “Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered”… (LEFT BEHIND???)
The following remembrance was posted on CAPTAIN NEWBERRY’s VVMF ‘Wall of Faces‘ page by his younger brother in 1999… “Wayne ‘Skeeter’ Newberry was the brother that I never got to know very well. What I did know would make anyone proud to have known him. To that end I submit the following based on letters our father received from the United States Air Force: Capt. Newberry wa a wing man on a two plane flight of A1-H Skyraiders that were supporting friendly ground forces that had been surrounded in enemy territory. Wayne and his wing man were directed to silence an enemy gun and troop emplacement. While pulling out of his second strafing run his plane caught ground fire and rolled into the trees and impacted with the ground. No verbal contact was made and according to eyewitness accounts no one could have survived the crash. To honor Capt. Newberry, the United States Airforce posthumously awarded him The Purple Heart, The Distinguished Flying Cross, and The Air Medal His framed medals hang in the halls of my clinic with pictures of the ‘Wall” and other documents to honor and remember him and the others who gave so unselfishly.”… Gary W. Newberry.
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) FOR THE FOUR 29 SEPTEMBER DATES OF THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965, 1967,1968… NONE…
1966… MAJOR SAUL WAXMAN, USAF… (KIA)…
RIPPLE SALVO… #938… On 27 September 1968 the CIA submitted a short summary memorandum “1968 As the Year of the Decision in South Vietnam.” I quote the lead paragraph: “Extensive evidence that the Vietnamese Communist high command planned to initiate the ‘decisive’ phase of the war in 1968 has been uncovered in documents captured since Tet. This decision was almost certainly taken by the Hanoi politburo in the summer of 1967. It called for the launching of the so-called ‘general offensive and general uprising’ often discussed in Vietnamese Communist theoretical literature over the years as the final stage of the war. The groundwork was laid simultaneously for the start of political negotiations to accompany the military action.” Read remainder at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v07/d37
RTR quote for 28 September: CICERO, 55 B.C.: “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome will become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance.”…
(Webmaster note: Cicero’s quote is a very timely reminder that some things never change, and some people (politicians) never get it)
Lest we forget… Bear