ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 5 DECEMBER 1967

RIPPLE SALVO… #639… When Major Ed Rasimus, RIP, wrote WHEN THUNDER ROLLS, he wrote for all of us… #639 is a dose of Rasimus stimulant on a slow day… but first…

Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE of a return to the thunderous skies of North Vietnam and the “strategy of defeat.”…

5 DECEMBER 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a sunny Tuesday on the East Coast and a cloudy, wet day over North Vietnam…

Page 1: “President Denies Others in Cabinet Intend to Leave–He Asserts That Rumors of Impending Changes Were Spread By Some Kids–Jab At Kennedy Seen–Johnson Brushes Off Race by McCarthy and Invasion Proposal By Eisenhower Response”... all covered in President’s news conference... Page 1: “Johnson Names Chapman As Marines’ Commandant”... “President Johnson brought an end to a fight within the Marine Corps by announcing today his selection of Lieutenant General Leonard F. Chapman Jr. as the new Marine Commandant. General Chapman, now the Assistant Commandant, will succeed General Wallace m> Greene jr., whose four-year term expires on December 13. Mr. Johnson announced his surprise selection of General Chapman at a White House news conference, with the 54-year-old general standing beside the President, seated at the Cabinet table. The President referred indirectly to the controversy that had preceded the selection by noting that he had picked for the top Marine post a general who had been highly recommended by all those whom he had been associated. Within the Marine Corps, however, the immediate reaction was that General Chapman had been selected as a compromise candidate in an attempt to heal the political factionalism within  the corps.” The other two candidates for the past two months were Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak and Lieutenant General Lewis W. Walt….

Page 1: “Dr. King Planning to Disrupt Capital In Drive For Jobs”… “The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr, announced plans today to lead an extended campaign of massive civil disobedience in Washington next year to force Congress and the Administration to provide ‘jobs or income for all.’ The internationally known Negro civil rights leader said a force of 3,000 demonstrators, trained in nonviolence techniques, would seek ‘massive dislocation’ of the capital ‘until America responds to the needs of its poor.’ Dr. King said the protesters recruited in 10 major cities and five rural areas, would begin ‘a strong, dramatic, and attention-getting campaign.’ …Dr. King advanced the view that ‘angry and bitter’ people would respond to nonviolence ‘if it’s militant enough, if it’s really doing something.’ He promised to spend three months in training the initial force of 3,000. These tactics have done it (won civil rights advances) before,’ Dr. King said, ‘and this is all we have to go on.’ Continued inaction by the Federal Government, he warned will bring down ‘the curtain of doom upon the nation.’ “…

Page 1: Makarios Asking Guarantee By U.N. against Invasion–Cyprus Leader Replying to Thant, Hints He Wants A Role in Control of Force–Turks Uphold Regime–Greeks Send Ship to Island As First Step In Carrying Out Peace Agreement”... “The President of Cyprus Archbishop Makarios said today that guarantees against military intervention in Cyprus should be insured through the United Nations Security Council.”... Page 1: “Justices To rule On Housing–Interracial Couples Suit in Suburb Puts Issue Up to Court for First Time”... Page 8: “China Opens New Drive to Bolster Mao and Lin Piao”… Page 18: “Louis Harris Poll Finds President Reverses His Popularity Loss”... “…handling of war rose from 23% to 34%, and job rating up to 43% from 39%.” …Page 21: “McNamara Shift Comes as Relief to Military Leaders in Vietnam”… Page 24; “Stop The Draft Week of Protest Against draft Started by Anti-war Groups”…

GROUND WAR (“a killing business”) Page 1: “Enemy Battalions Smashed in trap–U.S. Reports 235 Vietcong Slain in Mekong Delta by Allied Riverine Force”… “American infantrymen of the mobile riverine force and South Vietnamese marines surrounded a Vietcong battalion today in the Mekong Delta and virtually annihilated it. The Ninth Infantry Division said that a count of bodies showed that of the 300-man enemy force, 235 had been killed. American casualties were listed as 11 infantrymen killed and 3 Navy men killed and 66 Navy men wounded. South Vietnamese marines were reported to have suffered 15 killed and 50 wounded. The riverine force is made up of Army and Navy units quartered aboard four ships that patrol the rivers and canals of the Mekong Delta. The mobile assault forces have been successful i penetrating Vietcong strongholds previously inaccessible.

5 DECEMBER 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times: No coverage of the air war. “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 5 December 1967…

(1) LT H.J. MEADOWS was flying an F-8C of the VF-111 Sundowners embarked in USS ORISKANY escorting a photo reconnaissance mission covering route 1A and was hit by automatic weapons fire. He was able to fly the stricken aircraft into the area of the SAR destroyed before ejecting. He was rescued by the SAR destroyer’s helicopter. The loss was the 31st aircraft downed on the 1967 Oriskany cruise.

(2) MAJOR DONALD MYRICK RUSSELL was flying an F-105D of the 333rd TFS and 355th TFW out of Takhli on a Barrel Roll mission in Northern Laos and his 59th combat mission when hit by AAA. Inexplicably, MAJOR RUSSELL did not escape from the Thunderchief before it hit the ground. His remains were recovered in 1994 by the JTF-FA and positively identified in 1996. He is buried in New Mexico… finally…

(3) An O-1F of the 19th TASS and 504th TASG out of Bien Hao left the runway avoiding a collision with another aircraft and was damaged upon economical repair. The two-man crew survived to fly again…

RIPPLE SALVO… #639… “When Thunder Rolled” by Major Ed Rasimus… as good as candor gets… Pages 249-50…

“Fighter pilots come in all sizes and shapes. Some are young, some old. there are sons and husbands, fathers and grandfathers flying tactical aircraft. They span the spectrum from brave to cowardly, from skilled to inept. some are eager warriors, and some are reluctant. Chance and the luck of the draw bring them together. They may fly high performance aircraft for years and never face the challenges of combat, or they may be thrust into war continuously throughout their careers. Regardless of when, where, why or how, they fight when asked to on behalf of their country. they deserved much better than they got.

“It’s thirty-five years since that summer of -66, and the view of the war today is only slightly clearer than it was then. We can’t define a national self-interest for involvement in Southern Asia, nor has anyone told us why we squandered such a valuable treasure of manpower and machines. We should know, but we don’t. Many attempts have been made to explain it all, but they’re either self-serving excuses posing as the memoirs of the senior decision makers or detailed rationales for pacifism by professors who opposed the war and taught their students to think the same way. As with so much of history, the explanation depends on the observer’s particular perspective rather than the facts at hand.

“Looking at various levels of involvement in Rolling Thunder, we can see the lieutenants doing what was asked of them without question. We trusted our leaders and our senior decision makers to give us a mission with a purpose. They had a moral obligation not to waste our lives without meaning. They would decide when war was necessary and what we had to do to win it. In return for that, we would risk our lives and do the job. We would fly and fight because, as the sign in the Korat briefing room reminded us daily was the mission of the United States Air Force. All we asked was that we be allowed to win it.

“The captains and majors had the benefit of experience. Some had been in Korea and faced the challenge of overcoming their fears in that earlier war, but all of them had the hours of flying time that helped them handle the tasks thrust upon them. They fought and died, doing the job that they had been asked to do. They led the trusting lieutenants, sometimes competently, and sometimes reaching too far. Occasionally they failed, but they did the best they could.

“The colonels and generals were the failures. They let us down by failing to challenge our country’s political leadership. They had an obligation to follow the orders of the duly elected administration, but they needed to demand clear tasking and reasonable rules under which to conduct the war. It’s too easy to attribute the mismanagement of the war to a timid foreign policy and a reluctance to risk confrontation with the Soviets and Chinese. If one isn’t willing to win, then one shouldn’t risk defeat. Fighting with no purpose is the true immorality of war because it means you are asking your citizens to die for no reason other than winning the next election or making profits for a major multinational corporation. Dying for one’s country is no longer noble when your country doesn’t care either way about the outcome, and it becomes a travesty when your war is being waged in conjunction with the latest presidential campaign. Turn it on when you’re high in the polls and turn it off when your richest contributors gather in protest. Several hundred aircrew members languishing in North Vietnam prisons? No problem. They won’t be voting, and the majority of people don’t think they were doing the right thing anyway.”… more tomorrow…

RTR Quote for 5 December: HENRY GEORGE, The Land Question: “He who sees the truth, let him proclaim it, without asking who is for it or who is against it.”…

Lest we forget…       Bear