RIPPLE SALVO… #183… VERMILIA TO THE RESCUE… Check out MIGHTY THUNDER’s post for today…
Good Morning: Day ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY THREE savoring the memories and remembering the fallen from Rolling Thunder…
31 AUGUST 1966… FRONT PAGE NEWS FROM THE HOME FRONT… NYT… A humid, uncomfortably warm Wednesday in the city…
Page 1: “Treasury Hints At Tax Raise Move At This Session”…”The Johnson Administration, jarred by what has been happening in the stock and bond markets and by the steep climb in interest rates, is taking another look at some kind of tax increase at the current session of Congress to ease the pressure on the economy. Apparently no decision has been reached. But reliable sources said that the tax idea, dormant for weeks, was again under close examination. Under Secretary of Treasury Joseph Barr testified before the House Rules Committee which later set the stage for a showdown vote with the House, probably next week, on one aspect of the interest rate issue. Mr. Barr told the committee that the Administration was distressed by the high level of rates. ‘We can’t rely on monetary policy much more. We have followed a policy tending toward restraint. It may not be enough. If we have to do more we will have to do it by taxing or lower spending. There is no other way.’… “…Page 1: “Rusk and Senators Split On Military Commitment”…”Secretary of State Dean Rusk and members of the Senate Armed Services sub-committee argued today over how wide a commitment the United States needed throughout the world to keep peace. Two advocates of a strong military establishment and the readiness to use it–Senator John Stennis, Mississippi Democrat, and Senator Stuart Symington, Democrat from Missouri– repeatedly expressed concern that the United States may be overcommitted throughout the world. ‘I do not think we are overcommitted,’ said Mr. Rusk. ‘I think there are very great dangers in being under-committed.’ The sub-committee has begun examination of United States military treaties with more than 40 nations. A number of members were taken aback by Mr. Rusk’s statement last week that the United States regarded itself as not limited to the defense of those nations, but as more generally bound to uphold the peace keeping work of the United Nations throughout the world.”…
Page 1: “Anti-U.S. Revolts Urged By Peking”…
“China called today for anti-American uprisings throughout the world ‘so United States imperialism can be nibbled up bit by bit while the United States troops are occupied in Vietnam.’ The Communist China paper Jenmin Jih Pau (People’s Daily) coupled it’s invitation to revolt with a charge that the Soviet Union, India and Japan were plotting with the United States to encircle China. The editorial…said the United States had obligingly set the stage for the destruction of its military might by sending Army troops to Asia. It predicted a global outbreak of revolutions once these forces are destroyed. The tying down of large numbers of United States troops by Asian people creates a favorable condition for the further growth of the anti-United States struggle of the people in other parts of the world. With all the people rising to attack, one at it’s head, the other at it’s feet, United States imperialism can be nibbled up bit by bit. By transferring the main weight of its forces to Asia, American imperialism is courting disaster. Instead of extinguishing the flames of the Asian people revolution, it gives the Asian people an excellent opportunity to put up a good fight. To be quite frank, if United States imperialism kept its forces in Europe and America, the Asian people would have no way of wiping them out. Now, as it is so obliging as to deliver its goods to the customer’s door, the Asian people cannot but express welcome.’
“The paper accused Russia of giving total cooperation and assistance to the United States in shifting the emphasis of its strategy to Asia. ‘The Soviet Union follows a policy of appeasement in Europe, betrays the interests of the German Democratic Republic and the other socialist countries in Eastern Europe, works energetically for detente’ with Washington to freeze the situation in Europe. Thus it enables the United States to concentrate its strength to deal with the peoples of Asia. The Soviet leadership has ganged up with the Indian reactionaries and Japanese militarists and is aiding and abetting the United States in its scheme to force peace talks on Vietnam through bombing. Together they are working for the encirclement of China. In a way, the Soviet clique serves as accomplice number one of United States imperialism in pursuing its own counter revolutionary line.’…”
Page 3: These numbers were pulled from secretary Rusk’s testimony to the Senate sub-committee…
“Of the 938 vessels of the United States Navy 500 have now been assigned to the Pacific Fleet. Of its 23 aircraft carriers, 14 have been assigned to the Pacific Fleet. The United States Air Force and Navy have a total of 5,000 aircraft in Asia and Pacific compared to the 3,000 or more in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Atlantic…”
31 AUGUST 1966…President’s Daily Brief… CIA (TS sanitized/redacted)…North Vietnam: …(redacted)another division-level unit of the North Vietnamese Army–as yet unidentified–may be moving South. (redacted) It is still too early to determine the number involved or the infiltration route they may take….
31 August 1966…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (1 September reporting 31 August ops) Page 4: “2 Of Foes Boats Blasted In Gulf”…”United States Navy pilots destroyed a North Vietnamese patrol boat and damaged another early today in the Gulf of Tonkin…”
“LATER A NAVY RF-8 PHOTO RECONNAISSANCE JET CRASHED INTO THE GULF EIGHT MILES FROM HAIPHONG. THE PILOT PARACHUTED, INFLATED HIS LIFE RAFT AND 22 MINUTES LATER WAS RESCUED BY NAVY HELICOPTER.”…(Please read about this “remarkable” rescue in a special post today by MIGHTY THUNDER that includes a brilliant bit of reporting by Doctor Brown Bear Schaffert, who was there to help dry off RF-8 driver Tom Tucker when he recovered back on Oriskany. Read about the heroics of Tucker’s escort Tooter Teague, and the brazen, bold and valiant, against all odds, rescue by the Commanding Officer of HS-6, Commander Robert Vermilia, embarked in USS Kearsarge, and his equally ballsy crew…
NYT (page 4: (continued): “A4 Skyhawks and F-8 Crusaders dropped 250- and 1000-pound bombs on the first boat, about 55-miles east of Haiphong after enemy gunners fired as they swung low to identify the craft. Black smoke gushed from the boat after their attack, but it appeared to be still floating…”… In North Vietnam yesterday American pilots flew 139 multi-plane missions. they bombed panhandle region and along the coast as far north as 57 miles northeast of Haiphong where they attacked a surface-to-air missile site. Air Force pilots said they had destroyed 15 trucks in a convoy 25 miles southwest of Thanh Hoa and Navy pilots reported causing heavy damage a fuel storage area northwest of Vinh. United States pilots also showered 11.5 million propaganda leaflets over North Vietnam.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson)… Page 72: One fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 31 August 1966, FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY…
(1) LCDR THOMAS A. TUCKER was flying an RF-8G of the VP-63 Detachment in USS Oriskany on a one way photo recce mission. Here is how Chris Hobson reported the event… I quote…
The Oriskany finished a terrible month by losing yet another aircraft but the pilot was recovered in one of the most remarkable rescues of the war. The Commander of the Oriskany’s VFP-63 detachment was tasked with obtaining photographs of a foreign oil tanker and other ships in Haiphong Harbour. As the aircraft was nearing Quang Yen, about five miles northeast of Haiphong, the aircraft was hit by 37mm ground fire and the pilot lost all control with the exception of the rudder. The aircraft started to gyrate and LCDR TUCKER ejected at 1,500-feet over the Haiphong Harbour. He came down in Haiphong’s secondary ship channel less than 150-yards off shore and a number of junks got under way to capture the pilot. An SH-3A of HS-6 from the USS Kearsarge arrived within minutes and went straight in for a rescue attempt with only LCDR TUCKER’S escorting F-8 flown by LCDR TOOTER TEAGUE orbiting overhead as escort. LCDR TEAGUE strafed the approaching junks as the helicopter door gunner also kept up a steady stream of suppression fire. The helicopter piloted by HS-6 CO, COMMANDER ROBERT VERMILYA, flew for twenty minutes up the channel at 50-feet while under constant fire from shore and vessels. The helicopter rescued LCDR TUCKER from right under the noses of the North Vietnamese in one of the most daring and dangerous rescue missions of the war. This was the first RF-8G to be lost in southeast Asia and was a strengthened and improved conversion of the RF-8A. TOM TUCKER later commanded VF-51 during its transition from the F-8E to the F-4B… Unquote…
RIPPLE SALVO… #183… I yield to MIGHTY THUNDER and the celebrated author, fighter-pilot and good friend Dr. Richard Schaffert… who will continue this story that unfolded in Haiphong Harbor fifty years ago today…
Lest we forget… Bear ………. –30– ………..