RIPPLE SALVO… #456… Humble Host takes a break from 50 years ago to honor what went on 75 years ago… “SIX MINUTES THAT CHANGED THE WORLD,” and me, when I was seven years old… but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED FIFTY-SIX of bringing back a couple of pages of history…
4 JUNE 1967…HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a mostly sunny Sunday in New York City…
MIDDLE EAST…Page 1: “President Johnson in City; Promises to Maintain Peace in Middle East”… “President Johnson declared here last night that he was determined to maintain peace in the Middle East and to ‘preserve the territorial integrity of both Israel and the Arab world.’ Johnson told the Democratic fund-raising dinner crowd that he was ‘keeping in touch with all the worlds capitals and doing everything to assist the United Nations Security Council.’ While the President was speaking about 1,400 demonstrators paraded outside protesting his Vietnam policies.”... Page 2: “Rioters Threaten 50 Americans on Barge Near Suez”… “Egyptian laborers rioted and threatened the lives of 50 Americans near Suez yesterday and demonstrators chanted obscenities directed at President Johnson as an American destroyer entered Port Said yesterday.”... Page 2: “U.S. Warned by Egyptians”… “Members of the United Arab Republic Parliament charged today that Britain and the United States were paving the way for a new aggressive intervention in the Middle East.”… Page 2: “Iraqi Troops Were Observed Through Jordan For the First Time”… “to take up positions on the border with Israel. The convoys of trucks passed through Amman, Jordan on the way to the border covering 60 miles per day.”... Page 3: “Nasser Resisting Drive For Talks”… “American officials said today that President Gamal Abdel Nasser of the United Arab Republic was fending off British and American diplomatic feelers aimed at starting private negotiations to lift or ease the blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba announced in Cairo.”… Page 4: “A Larger Soviet Vessel Follows U.S. Carriers in Mediterranean”…Aboard USS America (Neil Sheehan)… “A small Soviet destroyer escort that had been following this Sixth Fleet carrier since Sunday was relieved yesterday by a large guided-missile destroyer #381 of the Soviet navy. The destroyer, a 6,000 ton ship of the Kashin class, steamed along with the carrier, usually maintaining a position about three or four miles off the American port bow. Ten additional Soviet ships are en route to join the Soviet Med fleet.”…
Page 1: “U.S. Denies Attack on Soviet Vessel in North Vietnam”… “The United States today rejected Soviet charges that American planes bombed a Russian ship in North Vietnam yesterday…the reply was made public after it was given to Soviet officials. The United States said that ‘in all probability’ any damage suffered by the Soviet merchant vessel Turkestan was ‘the result of antiaircraft fire directed at American aircraft.”… Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet: “There is absolutely no evidence to confirm the Soviet allegation. Three flights of four F-105s each attacked military targets in the Cam Pha area Friday afternoon, June 2, at the time of the alleged incident. One of these flights attacked a road segment that was more than three miles from the ship. The pilots observed the bombs hitting the road segment.”… Captain of the Turkestan: “We were in the roadstead (anchorage) about 400-meters from the moorage. There were no other ships in the roadstead…Two American aircraft attacked from different directions to attack Turkestan. A bomb fell 100 meters from the vessel.”… Page 10: “President Names Admiral Tom Moorer to be Chief of Naval Operations... “... Page 1: “474 of Foe Killed in Marine Battle”... “United States Marines reported having killed 474 North Vietnamese army soldiers in a 16-hour battle 30 miles northwest of Danang that ended before dawn today. 54 Marines were confirmed killed and 120 wounded in the battle which at one point ws hand-to-hand combat.”…
4 JUNE 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (5 June reporting 4 June ops) Page 1: “Two U.S. Air Force planes were lost during strikes over North Vietnam today (4th). An Air Force Thunderchief was shot down by ground fire while a B-57 twin jet bomber went down from unknown causes during a night strike in the southern panhandle section of the country. Total U.S. losses in the North are now 571. During the air raids Air Force pilots blasted two MIGs out of the sky after three MIG-17s challenged American pilots after they had attacked the Bacgiang railroad and highway bridge 27 miles northeast of Hanoi.
“Captain Larry Wiggins of Houston aimed at one MIG and hit it with an air-to-air missile on the right side of the tail. As the MIG continued to climb the Captain gave it a burst of 20-mm cannon fire and the MIG exploded. ‘My biggest impression was how fast everything happened. It wasn’t over a minute and half after we picked them up, they were on the ground.’ The other MIG was downed by Major Ralph Kuster... The MIGs were downed in the second consecutive day of fighting in the air to the northeast of Hanoi. On Friday F-105 Thunderchief pilots fought with MIGs three times. Military sources said Colonel Robin Olds, the most successful American fighter pilot of the war, may have brought down his 5th enemy MIG.
“In the latest attacks in the North American pilots cut both approaches to the Bacgiang bridge and damaged warehouses, storage areas, and rail lines in the railyards.”
“Vietnam: Air Losses: (Chris Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 4 June 1967…
(1) LCOL L.P. BATES, USMC was flying an F-8E of VMF(AW)-235 and MAG-11 out of Danang on a combat mission and suffered a flameout. He was unable to relight the engine and ejected. He was safely recovered to fly and fight again…
(2) MAJOR C.J. KOUGH, USAF was flying an F-105D of the 34th TFS and 388th TFW out of Kort on an armed reconnaissance in Route Package 1 and was hit by ground fire about five miles north of Donghoi bombing several trucks at a ferry crossing. MAJOR KOUGH turned east and at a point 20 miles east of Donghoi was forced to abandon his aircraft. He was rescued by a Navy helicopter…
(3) LCOL LEWIS MERRITT ROBINSON was flying an A-1E of the 1st ACS and 14th ACW out of Pleiku… The story from Chris Hobson: “LCOL Robinson was taking part in an attack on a large North Vietnamese troop concentration that had been sighted near Tavouac in Southern Laos about 540 miles west of Hue. A B-52 strike preceded a heliborne insertion by Special forces and Marines but strong enemy opposition resulted in the loss ofg several helicopters and caused many casualties. Two Skyraiders arrived to assist the friendly forces. As LCOL Robinson came round to drop napalm canisters on his second pass he was hit by .50 cal.gunfire. The aircraft pitched up sharply, hit the wing of another Skyraider and entered an inverted spin exploding as it hit the ground. No ejection or parachute was seen and it was assumed that LCOL Robinson died in the crash… In 1988 the Laotian government handed over remains claimed to be from this crash site. In 1993 and again in 1998, Joint US-Lao investigation teams excavated the crash site and recovered further remains of LCOL Robinson along with items of personal equipment. All hail to the Joint Recovery folks who give true and real meaning to the promise: “No Man Left Behind.”…
RIPPLE SALVO… #456… Humble Host takes a short break from remembering and recognizing the warriors and events of the 50 years ago in the air war over North Vietnam, to recognize, remember and celebrate the day in history that dive bombing enabled the aircraft carrier to replace the battleship as the Navy’s weapon of choice. Historian Samuel Eliot Morrison, author of a fifteen volume “History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II,” and a one volume history he titled, “The Two Ocean War,” wrote this…”At 10:24 on the morning of June 4, 1942, the Japanese seemed to have won the Battle of Midway–and with it the Pacific War. By 10:30 things were different.” He called this the “six minutes that changed the world.” What happened in those six minutes???
“SIX MINUTES THAT CHANGED THE WORLD”…
The following is quoted from “The Two Ocean War”… I pickup the Battle of Midway a tad before 10:24 after the Japanese massacre of all fifteen torpedo bombers–TBDs– of the USS Hornet air group…
“The third torpedo attack was over by 10:24, and for about 100 seconds the Japanese were certain they had won the Battle of Midway, and the war. This was their high tide of victory. Then, a few seconds before 10:26, with dramatic suddenness, there came a complete reversal of fortune, wrought by the Dauntless dive bombers, the SBDs, the most successful and beloved by the aviators of all our carrier types during the war. Lieutenant Commander Clarence Wade McCluskey, air group commander of Enterprise, had two squadrons of SBDs under him: 33 planes. He ordered one squadron to follow him in attacking carrier Kaga, while the other, under Lieutenant Commander W.E. Gallagher, pounced on Akagi, Ngumo’s flag ship. Their coming in so soon after the last torpedo-bombing attack meant that the Zekes were still close to the water after shooting down TBDs and had no time to climb. At 14,000-feet the American dive bombers tipped over and swooped screaming down for the kill. Akagi took a bomb which exploded in the hangar, detonating torpedo storage, then another which exploded amid planes changing their armament on the flight deck—just as Captain Miles Browning (Admiral Spruance’s Chief of Staff ) had calculated. Fire swept the flagship, Admiral Nagumo and staff transferred to cruiser Nagara, and the carrier was abandoned and sunk by a destroyer’s torpedo. Four bomb hits on Kaga killed everyone on the bridge and set her burning from stem to stern. Abandoned by all but a small damage-control crew she was racked by an internal explosion and sank hissing into a 2,600 fathom deep.
“The third carrier was the victim of Yorktown’s dive bombers, under Lieutenant Commander Maxwell F. Leslie, who by cutting corners managed to make up for a late start. His seventeen SBDs jumped on Soryu just as she was turning into the wind to launch planes, and planted three half-ton bombs in the midst of the spot. Within twenty minutes she had to be abandoned. U.S. submarine Nautilus, prowling about looking for targets, pumped three torpedoes into her, the gasoline storage exploded, whipsawing the carrier, and down she went in two sections.
“At 1024 Japan had been on top: six minutes later on that bright June morning, three of her big carriers were on their flaming way to death… (Later that same day, led by the redoubtable Lieutenant Earl Gallagher, twenty-four SBDs would score four direct hits on Hiryu, and send the fourth Japanese carrier to the deep)… Never has there been a sharper turn in the fortunes of war than on that June day when McCluskey’s and Leslie’s dive-bombers (and Gallagher’s) snatched the palm of victory from Nagumo’s masthead, where he had nailed it on 7 December.
“The fourth of June–a day that should live forever glorious in our history–decided the Battle of Midway.” ….End Morrison quote…
Gang Way, Dive Bomber pilots!!!… The real heroes of Midway: Dick Best and Jack Kleiss, the only two Dauntless dive bombers who scored fatal hits to TWO Japanese carriers on 4 June 1942, 75 years ago today… … oohrah…
CAG’s QUOTE for 4 June: From the “Statement of Congressional Joint Resolution of June 1992.” (50th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway)… “The Battle of Midway is considered by historians to be the greatest naval battle ever fought.”
Lest we forget… Bear