RIPPLE SALVO… #189… “…YOU LEFT BEHIND.” …. but first…
Good Morning: Day ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-NINE of a commitment of remembrance for those we left behind in the air war with North Vietnam…
6 SEPTEMBER 1966… THE FRONT PAGE NEWS AT HOME… NYT… A mostly sunny Tuesday for feeding pigeons…and counting blessings…
Page 1: “President Offers To Set A Pullout After Hanoi Does”…”President Johnson publicly told ‘all whom it may concern’ today that his timetable for military withdrawal from Vietnam would be offered as soon as anyone showed him the Communist’s timetable for a comparable retreat. The President turned President De Gaulle’s call for an American schedule of withdrawal into a vivid demand that those seeking peace redirect their appeals to North Vietnam. In candidly political speeches in Michigan and Ohio, Mr. Johnson used the image of a timetable to defend his policy in Vietnam and to demonstrate his desire to end the war. “We cannot walk away from a single fact that peace and security are threatened if aggressors are permitted to succeed in a strategic area of the world. If vital treaties are broken and if men and arms are moved illegally across international boundaries to conquer small nations,’ the President asserted in a foreign policy speech here (Lancaster, Ohio)…French officials had added their private opinions that mid-1968 would be a fair target date for American evacuation. They did not however, seek a similar commitment from the North Vietnamese. ‘These troops will come home, those bases will be turned over or consolidated for peacetime purposes as soon as that vicious aggression stops, and I may add to all whom it may concern, if anyone will show me the time schedule when aggression and infiltration and ‘might makes right’ will be halted, then, I as President of this country, will lay on the table the schedule for the withdrawal of all troops from Vietnam.’..”… Page 1: “Peking Says U.S. Bombed Two Ships”…”Chinese Communists charged today that United States aircraft sank one Chinese Communist merchant vessel and damaged another in the Gulf of Tonkin last Monday (30 August). Nine Chinese seamen were killed and seven wounded …The two vessels were bombed and strafed for nearly three hours. The Chinese Communists said, ‘Once again we seriously warn the U.S. aggressors these blood debts will have to be repaid in blood. Armed with Mao Tse-tung’s thought, the Chinese people will not let the U.S. imperialists perpetuate their will unpunished. We have told you before and we mean what we say. If U.S. imperialists dare to impose war on us we will ruthlessly break the backs of the U.S. aggressors and wipe them out resolutely, thoroughly, and completely.’… ” … Page 3: “U.S. Investigating”…the Administration is investigating China’s charge of attacks on merchant ships. Pending more complete information from United States headquarters in Saigon there was no official comment. A Navy report that carrier based aircraft had sunk two North Vietnamese patrol boats and damaged two others in the Gulf of Tonkin about 70-miles southeast of Haiphong.”…
Page 1: “Johnson Pledges Inflation Fight; Urges Restraint”…”President Johnson promised today to take action to combat inflation, but still held back details of his plan of attack. On a frankly political expedition through Michigan and Ohio, the President acknowledged that he was grappling with difficult decisions on how to hold down prices without retarding economic growth. He said he was considering ways to delay and reduce ‘non-essential Government spending’ and a proposal to limit the sales of Government securities in the financial markets. At the same time, the President boasted of the prosperity that his policy’s had brought and vowed to resist the temptation to cool off the economic boom with measures that would ‘put men and machines’ out of work”... Page 1: “Hospital Rates Rising Faster Than Cost of Living”…”Five years ago (1961) a typical bill for 10 days in a semi-private room in a New York voluntary hospital was $566. This year the bill was $841.90. Next year it is expected to be almost $1,000. Hospital bills have been rising at five times the cost of living in the 1960’s. But hospital officials, local and national, warned that the past increases will seem small compared with what is going to happen in the next twelve months.”….Page 1: “Senate To Take Up Rights Bill Today”…”The Senate will begin at noon tomorrow what could be a long and bitter fight over a Southern filibuster against the measure are good. The prospects for Senate adjournment comfortably in advance of the Congressional election in November are gloomy. The Senate Majority leader Mike Mansfield of Montana will offer the motion tomorrow to call up the bill that was passed by the House last week.”…
Page 5: “Saigon Says Hanoi Sets Up Bases For Direct Invasion”…”The Government charged today that North Vietnam had established bases in the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam for a direct invasion of the South. The charge was made by Foreign Minister Tran Van Do in a letter to the International Control Commission. The letter was accompanied by several photographs showing infiltration rotes…trenches, truck parks, and ammunition depots.”…
6 September 1966… The President’s Daily Briefing…CIA (TS sanitized)…Soviet Union: The Soviet ICBM deployment program continues at a vigorous pace. Satellite photography shows about 390 new dispersed single silo launchers under construction at the present time. This number, added to those already completed, brings a total of at least 660 launchers identified. Of these about 270 are operational and given the current rate of completion, all 660 should be operational by mid-1968. Although the number of operational launchers at present lies some what below earlier estimate for mid-1966, the present pace of deployment will carry the Soviet force on the order of ten per cent beyond the upper range of our estimates for mid-1968. The new launchers come in two sizes. We have identified about 120 large silos for the SS-9, roughgly comparable to a liquid fueled Minuteman…
6 SEPTEMBER 1966…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…NYT…(7 September reporting 6 September ops) Page 2: “U.S. Jets Destroy 45 Railroad Cars South Of Hanoi”…”United States Navy jet bombers destroyed 45 railroad boxcars and damaged 10 in strikes south of Hanoi today (Sept 6). It was the most significant result of 152 mission raids and an evidence of the continuing American effort to cripple supply lines to the South. Good weather continued over most of the North but the bombers only hit 18 targets in the vicinity of Hanoi and Haiphong…Again, Thanh Hoa, Vinh, and Dong Hoi were the hardest hit. Air Force pilots hit four fuel dumps along the principal highways 1A and 101 north of Dong Hoi and said they set 19 fires in three convoy staging and storage areas (truck parks) 20 miles above the demilitarized zone that divides North and South Vietnam.”… “Vietnam: Air Loses” (Hobson)… Page 73… Two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 6 September 1966…
(1) LTJG NORMAN LEE BUNDY was flying an RF-8G of the VFP-62 Detachment on USS FD Roosevelt on a photography reconnaissance mission in the area of Thanh Hoa and was last observed flying at low altitude ten miles east of Thanh Hoa. The assumption has been made that the young warrior flew into the water and perished with the aircraft. LTJG BUNDY was on a combat mission and is listed as Killed in Action… so young, so confident and so happy… then …gone… 50 years ago this day he was left behind… and is remembered…
(2) CAPTAIN WILLIAM SHINN, 1LT JOHN BECHACEK, 1LT DAVID SCOTT, A1C WILBUR ADKINSON, A1C LUCIOUS LUNNIE and three unidentified passengers were flying a C-130E of the 314th TCW out of Taiwan and flew into a mountain on the island of Taiwan returning from a logistic flight in Southeast Asia. There were no survivors. Today is the 50th anniversary of their sacrifice in the service of our country. They rest in peace.
RIPPLE SALVO… #189… REMEMBERING THOSE WE LEFT BEHIND… The ranks of warriors who carried the fight to our enemies included many poets who amid the death and killing in the battles that were our fate, found the words to express what every warrior was thinking and feeling. These are the thoughts that bind the brotherhood of men in combat. Thank God for men like Major Michael Davis O’Donnell, U.S. Army, who was a Dustoff pilot flying out of Dak To in 1970 when he wrote this untitled piece for all of us…
“If you are able
save for them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.”
“On 24 March 1970 Major O’Donnell was killed in action in Cambodia while attempting to rescue a Special Forces team that was about to be overrun.”
(Quoted from “Full Throttle” by Philip D. Chinnery)
Lest we forget… “…take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.” Bear ……… –30– ……….