RIPPLE SALVO…#93… C-130s FOREVER… but first…

Good Morning: Day NINETY-THREE of a day-by-day review of Operation Rolling Thunder, the “air war” with North Vietnam…

31 MAY 1966… ON THE HOME FRONT…(NYT)... A cool day in New York City…

Page 1: “Buddhist Protest Being Intensified” … The suicide by self-immolation total raised to 5 after a young girl perishes in Saigon. Moderate and militant groups are now calling for an end to the sacrifices aimed at the ouster of Premier Ky. “It appeared that the wave of horror and fanaticism would outstrip that of 1963, when South Vietnamese Buddhists first used suiccide as a political weapon in a campaign to bring down the regime of Premier Ngo Dinh Diem. Now the object is the overthrow of the military government led by Premier Nguyen Cao Ky and Chief of State Nguyen Van Thieu.”… “Johnson Deplores Buddhist Suicides Protest” in his remarks at Memorial Day ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery. He said the tragic events in Vietnam cloud the gains toward stability made in past weeks….Page 1″ Large photo of Indianapolis pileup that took 14 of 33 cars out of the 500-mile race in the first lap. Graham Hill won the race before a crowd of 225,000… Page 1: “The Pill: Revolution In Birth Control”… “Six years ago this month a drug appeared on the American scene that was destined to exert a profound effect on the emotional and social life of the nation. It was ‘the pill’–the first contraceptive both 100-per cent effective and completely independent of the sex act. Today almost six million American women, nearly one-fifth of those of child bearing ages are believed to be using oral contraceptives. And the number grows steadily….Page 1: “2 States In West Ban Sale Of LSD”…Nevada and California now banning the halucenogenic drug but allow sale by prescription…

Page 13: “Dissident Vietnamese Army Unit Moved From Hue” by government officials has cleared the way for troops loyal to Ky into this rebel city of Hue. It was unclear what course the Saigon junta would now pursue. The “politically unstable” 1st Division was moved out of town…

Page 14: The text of LBJs address at Arlington. “In Vietnam the United States is committed to a descent and limited purpose: to defeat aggression and let the people of Vietnam decide in peace their own political future. So I pledge to those who have died there and those now fighting there and to those who may yet fight there that we shall help the people in South Vietnam see this through. And so today I remind all my fellow countrymen that a grateful nation is deeply in their debt.”

PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEFING…31 May 1966…CIA (TS sanitized)… South Vietnam: Saigon was quiet today but we cannot be sure how long the lull will last or whether it represents a deliberate effort by the Buddhist leadership to calm things down. However, Buddhist Institute leaders reportedly met this evening with Ky and Thieu. As yet have no hard information about what was discussed. Both Tri Quang in Hue and Buddhist Institute in Saigon have called for an end to self-immolation. Hue was all calm– the province chief showing some backbone in quelling unruly students by establishing barriers and curfews.

31 MAY 1966 ROLLING THUNDER OPERATIONS… NYT (1 June reporting 31 May ops) Page 2: “Record Number Of U.S. Jets Raid North Vietnam” with 83 multiple missions flown as the weather cleared; the most missions since Rolling Thunder ops began on February 7, 1965. Air Force spokesmen made it clear that this was not an escalation of the war, it was the result of the prolonged bad weather. “After a quiet period you always start off with a high availability of pilots and aircraft. When you fly a maximum effort as we had been doing in North Vietnam the past few months, performance begins to fall off. The bad weather gave us a chance to get back in shape.” The Air Force hit roads and bridges in both the panhandle and the Red River valley and 2 trains and a bridge 95-miles from Hanoi. they also cut Highway 12 in the Mugia Pass in four places. The Navy struck 51 targets in the panhandle between Vinh and Thanh Hoa with bombs and bull-pups. Pilots claimed destruction of five bridges, 17 rail road cars and 20 buildings. A bridge 28 miles south west of Vinh was dropped by a bull-pup.

Two Air Force aircraft were lost on the night of May 31-June 1 in Project Carolina Moon…

(1) MAJOR DAYTON WILLIAM RAGLAND and 1LT NED RAYMOND HERROLD were flying an F-4C from the 555th TFS and the 8th TFW from Udorn in support of Project Carolina Moon and were shot down and Killed In Action on a night diversionary armed reconnaissance flight about 25 miles south of Thanh Hoa on the coast line. The aircraft crashed and perished at sea. MAJOR RAGLAND flew combat in the Korean War and was shot down and taken prisoner in 1951. He was on his 98th Rolling Thunder mission when shot down on 31 May 1966. Fate is the hunter.

(2) MAJOR THOMAS FRANKLIN CASE, 1LT HAROLD JACOB ZOOK, CAPTAIN EMMETT RAYMOND McDONALD, CAPTAIN ARMON D. SHINGLEDECKER, 1LT WILLIAM ROTHROC EDMONDSON, SSGT BOBBY JOE ALBERTON, AM1C PHILIP JOSEPH STICKNEY and AM1C ELROY EDWIN HARWORTH were Killed in Action while flying a C-130E Hercules from the 61st TCS and the 64th TCW out of Stewart AFB on a rerun of a similar but unsuccessful floating bomb attack on the Thanh Hoa bridge made the previous night. The flights were part of Project Carolina Moon (see Ripple Salvo). 

RIPPLE SALVO… #93… THE CHARGE OF HERCULES…. The mission of Rolling Thunder was to interdict the flow of men and material from China to the battlefields in South Vietnam. North Vietnam was a funnel. And the mainline down that funnel was a 1300-mile railway system that required scores of bridges to cross the low lands of the enemy nation. Two were identified in April 1964 on the initial JCS and Presidential approved list of 94 targets to be destroyed in Operation Rolling Thunder. Number 12, the Paul Doumer Bridge across the Red River at Hanoi, and the #14 target, the Thanh Hoa Bridge over the Song Ma River 70 miles south of Hanoi. Both remained prime targets throughout the war…tough targets…heavily defended targets.

The Thanh Hoa Bridge was brand new in 1964 and Ho Chi Minh was there at the dedication. It was 540-feet long, 56 feet wide and 50 feet above the water. It had two steel thru-truss spans that rested on a massive 16 foot diameter, reinforced concrete pier and reinforced concrete abutments at either end. The bridge accommodated a single one meter guage track down the middle of the bridge with concrete highways on either side. It was called the Ham Rung or “Dragon’s Jaw.” As the years went by the bridge was reinforced with eight additional bracing piers to withstand the relentless bombing attacks. It was a beast.

The early attempts to drop the Thanh Hoa Bridge by the Air Force in April and May of 1965 established the fact that raining down bombs and rockets on the formidable target wasn’t getting the job done. In addition, the cost to try was high. The investment by North Vietnam in an integrated defense system of a thousand radar controlled guns and other AAA, SAMs, MIGs (the first MIG kills (2) came on 4 April 1965), and an early warning and integrated communication net made the bridge the most heavily defended bridge in the world.

On 17 June 1965 the carriers of the 7th  fleet began a three year campaign to drop the Thanh Hoa Bridge since it was the prime bridge target in their assigned route packages. Navy sent 24 strikes against the Dragon’s Jaw between June 1965 and May 1966: 128 tons of bombs were delivered on the bridge without success, other than to close the spans for repairs for a few days at a time. The North Vietnamese countered these down days by creating several pontoon bridges on either side of the big bridge. The apparent invincibility of the Dragon’s Jaw led aviators, intelligence officers, and countless grandstanders to ponder and present creative ideas for employment against the beast.

One of these ideas emerged from the Armament Development Laboratory at Eglin AFB. The project involved the employment of mass-focus weapons against bridges. Problem: it was a very heavy new weapon that could only be carried by a cargo type aircraft. The weapon was a 5000-pounder in the shape of a pancake 8-feet in diameter and 30-inches thick. the concept was to drop the weapon upstream from the targeted bridge and let it float down stream. As it passed under the bridge metal sensors would detect the underside of the bridge and the focused charge would blow the bridge.

C-130 aircraft and crews were sent to Eglin to work the project concept into a feasible operation. The crews were led by MAJOR RICHARD REMERS and MAJOR THOMAS CASE. They trained at Eglin over the Florida landscape the replicated the required 17-minute strike plan to attack the Thanh Hoa Bridge. Training was completed in May 1966 and the project, including ten mass-focus weapons, arrived at Danang on 15 May. The plan was to drop the weapons one to two miles upstream from the bridge and let the current do the rest.

The following is condensed from an Air Force account of the execution of Project Carolina Moon on the nights of 30 and 31 May 1966:

On the night of 30 May Major Remers and his crew took off from Danang, turned out over the water at 100-feet, and headed north under radio silence. Within an hour, he had guided his C-130 to the coast-in point for his 17-minute flight over the beach. He maintained 100-feet until approaching the drop zone two miles upstream from the bridge, at which time he eased up to 400-foot drop altitude and slowed to 150-knots. Unopposed to this point, he continued to the one mile drop point before releasing five mass-focus pancakes. At this point the enemy fire was intense but inaccurate and he successfully evaded and exited to the southeast at 100-feet. The operation had gone flawlessly. Several diversionary F-4 aircraft had been employed both north and south of the operation. Photo recon aircraft made a run at dawn. The photos showed no damage to the bridge or evidence of beached bombs. A second mission was scheduled for the night of 31 May. The plan for Major Case’s crew matched that of the proven plan, except for weapon performance, of Major Remers.

Ten minutes after its planned takeoff time the C-130 piloted by Major Case took off, turned out over the water and headed north. The aircraft and crew were never seen or heard from again. Extensive searches and photo reconnaissance failed to detect any wreckage or bomb damage. In addition, one of the diversionary F-4 Phantoms was shot down and its crew were never recovered. The remaining Project Carolina Moon crew and gear returned to the United States and the mass-focus weapon was not used again in Southeast Asia.

Subsequent intelligence reports revealed that an aircraft had dropped five mines in the river and although four of the weapons ex-ploded, there was little damage to the bridge. In June of 1966 parts of a C-130 were filmed and seen on American TV that were believed to have been from the May 31 mission aircraft. When the parts were shown, the North Vietnamese stated that none of the crew had survived.  Fifty years ago today ten brave Air Force warriors perished in the night skies of North Vietnam. They rest in peace, and today and forever they will be remembered for their courage and commitment to their hazardous duties…. “It is not for us to reason why…”

The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson…

(1)

Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

“Charge forward the guns!” he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

(2) “Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismay’d?

Not tho’ the soldier knew

Someone had blunder’d:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

(3)

Cannon to the right of them,

Cannon to the right of them.

Cannon in front of them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

(4)

Flash’d all their sabres bare,

Flash’d as they turn’d in air,

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

all the world wonder’d:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro’ the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel’d and sunder’d.

then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

(5)

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to the left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley’d and thunder’d

Storm’d at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell,

they that had fought so well

Came thro’ the jaws of Death

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

(6)

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made,

Honour the Light brigade,

Noble six hundred.

Lest we forget….                       Bear          ……….  –30–  ……….