RIPPLE SALVO… #640… Major Ed Rasimus finds sunshine on the other side of “where thunder rolled.”… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED FORTY of a return to the air war called Rolling Thunder…
6 December 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a cloudy Wednesday with showers on the horizon…
Page 1: “264 Seized Here in Draft Protest–Dr. Spock and Allen Ginsburg are Among Those Arrested at Induction Center”... “…during demonstration yesterday by more than 2,500 anti-draft, anti-war protesters…Police alerted to a more lively protest today by 5,000 demonstrators who have been instructed to paralyze traffic in the area.”… Page 1: Large picture…Caption: “Protest in Lower Manhattan. Opponents of the war in Vietnam sitting on sidewalk in the vicinity of the Induction Center at 39 Whitehall Street. A police officer warned them, and later some were placed under arrest.”… Page 8: “Students Anti-War and Radical Units Lead Protests”... “The participants in this week’s antidraft demonstration at the Army Induction Center at 39 Whitehall Street are primarily students or young men eligible for the draft who are working within a coalition of antiwar and radical groups. The coalition which calls itself the Stop the Draft Week Committee was formed late in October, about a week after the large-scale antiwar demonstration in Washington, which resulted in violence outside the Pentagon. The leadership of the Stop the Draft Week amalgam was taken from among those who have joined or led peace marches here for the last several years. Older antiwar demonstrators such as Dr. Benjamin Spock and David Delinger, the pacifist leaders, have acted in an advisory capacity.
“Yesterday’s demonstration was sponsored by antiwar groups with older members such as the War Resisters League, The Women Strike for Peace and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. As such, it was kind of dress rehearsal for the demonstrations by the younger, draft age people scheduled for today and tomorrow. Arthur Goldberg, who handles press relations for the Stop the Draft Week Committee, said that his group sent observers to yesterday’s demonstration to see ‘how the police react and how we should handle our protests.’…Observers within the Stop the Draft Week Committee say the coalition was formed for the following reasons: (1)The feeling that the demonstration at the Pentagon was a success in drawing attention to Vietnam war opposition and that another protest should follow as soon as possible; (2) Support of a planned protest by The Resistance in which draft-age-young men would mail or turn in their draft cards last Monday; and, (3) A recent recommendation to local draft boards by the Selective Service Director, Lieutenant General Louis B. Hershey, that those who participated in draft procedures or military recruitment lose deferments and be quickly conscripted.”
Page 1: “2-Year Extension of Poverty Drive Gains In Congress–$1.98-Billion For First Year, $2.1-Billion For Second Year Cleared By Conferees–Local Control Backed–But Community Action Shift Would Be Delayed Until ’69 In Authorization Measure”… “The House-Senate Conference committee approved tonight the anti-poverty program at a level close to that requested by President Johnson.”… Page 3: “Johnson Welcomes Cyrus Vance Back From Cyprus”... “…said today that the threat of war over Cyprus had been averted but that the world must now work ‘with a sense of new urgency’ to resolve the fundamental issues in the dispute.”
THE GROUND WAR (“a killing business”) Page 1: “U.S. Report Finds Gloom in Vietnam–Asserts Many In South Feel Americans Are Deliberately Prolonging the Conflict”… “Many South Vietnamese believe that Americans in Vietnam have been so dominate, especially in direction of the war, that the very sovereignty of Vietnam is threatened.”… Page 5: “Allies Will Intensify Operations in Mekong Delta Region in the Next Few Months”… “An additional United States Army brigade will be assigned to the Mekong River delta region in the next few months. At this time, joint American and South Vietnamese operations in the densely populated rice-growing region, the center of Vietcong strength in the country will be sharply increased. These plans came to light today in the aftermath of the battle yesterday six miles east of the Mekong River delta city in which 235 guerrillas were reported killed. Sader is 70 miles southwest of Saigon. Forty-nine South Vietnamese marines were killed and 99 wounded in the engagement, which lasted eight hours. Thirteen American sailors and infantrymen, members of the mobile riverine force, were killed and 136 wounded, 73 of whom had to be evacuated for medical treatment. Participants in the battle said that the aggressiveness and strong leadership of the marine battalion of about 600 men had turned what started out as a costly ambush into an engagement that cut sharply into the strength of the Vietcong’s 502d battalion…. Today scores of bodies floated half-submerged among the weeds and many others lay along the dikes. About 70 bodies were found within a radius of a hundred yards of a large command bunker, giving credence to the figure of 235 as the number of guerrillas killed in a battle area that extended nearly a square mile. Many of the dead were women who had either fought with the guerrillas or were their descendants.”
6 December 1967: The President’s Daily Brief: COMMUNIST CHINA: “Clashes between rival Red Guard units continue to be reported from widely scattered parts of China. The key railroad to west China is still closed to through traffic because of Red Guard activities… CYPRUS: the first Greek troops to leave Cyprus should do so late this week aboard a ship sent to the island yesterday. As yet no one has raised the delicate question of how many Greeks must be removed before the Turks are satisfied that all or gone… SOVIET UNION: A Soviet Foreign Ministry official says that Moscow expects the US to get tougher in Vietnam after Secretary McNamara leaves the Pentagon… NORTH VIETNAM: The annual Soviet effort to persuade the US to Prolong the projected holiday bombing pause has begun: last week a Soviet diplomat in London told a US correspondent that he felt the Soviet Union could persuade Hanoi to enter negotiations if the United States announced no terminal date for the bombing pause… SPECIAL DAILY REPORT ON NORTH VIETNAM FOR THE PRESIDENT’S EYES ONLY: Notes on the Situation: “Traffic moves in Hanoi... Heavy traffic was moving on the principal rail and highway routes in the Hanoi area on 1 December. Most of the trains and trucks appeared to be heading toward Hanoi from the direction of China and from Haiphong…Doumer and Canal des Rapides bridges were operating at full capacity Friday night…observations suggest that Hanoi is taking advantage of the poor flying weather over the North Vietnam to replenish supplies consumed during the past six weeks of heavy bombing in the capital area…
6 DECEMBER 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times…Not a word! “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 6 December 1967…
(1) LCOL JACK M. YOUNG, CAPTAIN LARRY A. MOORE, 1LT PAUL S. KRZYNOWEK and three other USAF airmen were flying an EB-66C of the 41st TEWS and 355th TFW out of Takhli and were all aboard when the aircraft crashed during a landing at Takhli. Tragically LCOL YOPUNG, CAPTAIN MOORE and 1LT KRZYNOWEK were killed in the landing accident… fifty years ago on this day.
RIPPLE SALVO… #640… From the magic pen of Major Ed Rasimus and page 251 of his best selling book, “When Thunder Rolled“…
“The real enemy (in the Vietnam air war) was us, ourselves. We couldn’t be beaten by a third-rate country on the other side of the globe, no matter how well equipped and motivated they might be. We could only be beaten by ourselves. You didn’t have to be killed by flak or missiles; you could more easily be killed by lack of leadership, flying the wing of a suicidal pilot on a mission from God to defeat world communism single-handedly. You could be killed by an incompetent who shouldn’t have been in a fighter cockpit, but who was placed there by a personnel system that thought it was doing the right thing. You could be killed by a wing commander who felt an obligation to put priorities for traffic ahead of common sense in an emergency. You could be killed by a fuel tank that had not been lubricated and was so corroded that it didn’t function properly. You could be killed by weapons that didn’t function properly or equipment that wasn’t reliable. You could be killed by an unrealistic competition with your sister service that placed daily statistics ahead of meaningful missions. You could be killed by a bomb shortage, which couldn’t be publicly acknowledged, but which put more airplanes with fewer bombs at risk. You could be killed facing a hail of flak for a worthless target. And you could be abandoned by your country, languishing in a POW camp for years, as part of the 1968 presidential campaign. You could die so very many ways.
“But you could live. You could find yourself capable of things well beyond what you thought you could do. You could learn of fear and coping with it. You could know what bravery looks like and what cowardice costs. You could change in subtle ways that would affect the rest of your life, causing you to stand a bit taller than you had before and leading you to feel just a bit sorry for those who hadn’t gone where you had been.”… Bravo Zulu, Ed… Rest in Peace… Throw another nickle in the grass…
RTR Quote for 6 December: MAJOR ED RASIMUS, Where Thunder Rolls: “If you can find the target you will stand a better chance of hitting it by being steep, fast and pressing. Closer is better.”…
Lest we forget… Bear