RIPPLE SALVO… #489… “The war leaders were telling the public one thing while knowing the actual picture to be very different.”…Michael Maclear, “The Ten Thousand Day War”… but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED EIGHTY-NINE of a 50th anniversary review of OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER, the air war nobody wants to remember (unless you were there, or waiting and praying for a Rolling Thunder warrior to come home)…
7 JULY 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a partly cloudy and fair Friday on Oyster Bay…
Page 1: “Two B-52s Collide and Crash Into The Sea On Way To Vietnam”... “Two Strategic Air Command B-52 bombers collided today and crashed into the sea off the Mekong Delta…Both of the eight engine bombers were heading for targets in South Vietnam when they collided 65 miles southeast of Saigon…the two aircraft carried a crew of six each…six of the twelve have been rescued…B-52s are based at Guam and Thailand and the tempo of operations has been increased to eight missions per day…. Page 4: “B-52s In Record Raids”… “…flying a record number of eight raids in one day, today bombed the North Vietnam trucks and troops trapped by landslides in the Ashau Valley leading from the Laos into South Vietnam. The bombers had caused the slides earlier with the help of the monsoon rains. Wave after wave of the huge bombers dropped hundreds of tons of bombs on the North Vietnamese troops in the valley…The North Vietnamese have turned the valley into a terminus for the volume of men and material coming south on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”…
MIDEAST WAR: Page 1: “Thant Designates Swede to Report on Arab Refugees–Nils Gussing UN Envoy–Will Also Investigate Welfare of Prisoners of War”… in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War…to check conformity with U.N.resolution adopted June 14…’The Government of Israel to ensure the safety, welfare and security of the inhabitants of the areas where military operations have taken inhabitants who have fled the areas since the outbreak of hostilities.”… Page 1: “Israeli Air Force, in Victory Celebration displays might and a MIG”… (Picture of Soviet-built MIG-21, flown to Israel by an Iraqi defector last year, takes part in display of Israel fire power). The most impressive display of Israeli air power was put on today over Negrev. Fighters, trainers and transports streaked across the cloudless desert sky in celebration of Israel’ military victory and in honor of her dead. General Hod commented: ‘The quality of the men of this Air Force is the secret weapon. Nothing else. The war is over, the noise of battle has subsided, but it still echos still reverberates throughout the world, returning to us in muffled uncertain terms. These repercussions obliges us to remain alert. To be stronger still and to be prepared to continue serving as the nation’s shield.”… Page 2: “Elath Being Built as Rival To Suez–Israel Plans Rail, Road and Oil Links to Mediterranean”... “Israel is pouring millions into this sweltering Red Sea port city to build a trade route to rival the Suez Canal.”… Page 2: “Pope and Hussein Jordan discuss Problem of Refugees”… Page 3: “Israeli Navy Man Describes Attack on Liberty”… “Cairo Says It Won the Battle at Canal”… “Israelis Said to Stress Demilitarization of Two Zones”…
ON THE FRONT: Page 4: “General Denies A Defeat”… “Lieut Gen Robert E. Cushman belatedly denied today that the Marines had been completely defeated in the battle near Conthien on Sunday. General Cushman, who took command of the 77,000 Marines in Vietnam on June 1, said that his men ‘had done what they set out to do. That was to find the enemy and drive him back.’ General Cushman said the bodies of 250 North Vietnam troops had been counted and another observed from the air victims of air strikes and artillery… In all 95 marines had been killed and 211 wounded in the initial engagement and its aftermath.”… Page 2: “GI Killed in Charge Wins Highest Medal”... “The 16th Medal of Honor to be awarded during the Vietnam War went today to an Army sergeant who died while charging an enemy machine gun nest. Sgt James W. Robinson, Jr , of Annandale, Virginia was killed April 11, 1966. His father will receive the Medal of Honor from Army Secretary Stanley Resor Wednesday to the Pentagon….the Sgt dragged three of his wounded to safety while wounded, when the unit was out of ammunition and under fire, he seized two hand grenades and charged the machine gun. Wounded two more times, he continued on to throw the grenades destroying the position and falling dead on the battlefield.”… Page 5: “McNamara Arrives in Saigon To Study War Effort--his conclusions expected to affect strategic plans, troop levels”… “to spend three days touring all four Corps Areas during his ninth visit to Vietnam…the visit is ‘no more significant than earlier visits.’ “…
7 JULY 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (8 July reporting 6 July ops)…Page 3: “In the air war a Marine fighter-bomber was brought down by a North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile. The plane, an A-4 Skyhawk ws said to have been hit two miles north of the DMZ and became the 600th United States aircraft downed in the north. It was announced that three other SAMs were observed by pilots near Dong Ha, ten miles south of the DMZ. The pilot of the Marine A-4 was rescued. Marine Major Ralph Brubaker spent the night hiding in a bomb crater until picked up by a Navy helicopter (see RTR post for 6 July)…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 7 July 1967…
(1) MAJOR J. KETCHUM was flying an RF-101C of the 45th TRS and 460th TFW out of Tan Son Nhut. On takeoff climb-out the aircraft was hit by small arms fire five miles north of the air field. MAJOR KETCHUM attempted to return to TSN but had to eject when the aircraft became unflyable. He was rescued by an Army helicopter.
(2) and (3) A cell of three B-52Ds on an ARC light mission to drop on a target in the Ashau Valley was turning sharply to the final bomb run heading 20 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mekong River. Number 3 aircraft and the lead aircraft collided and crashed killing six of the 13 aviators in the two aircraft. The lead aircraft from the 22nd BW attached to the 4133rd BW out of Anderson, Guam, was piloted by MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM JOSEPH CRUMM, Commander of SACs 3rd Air Division at Anderson, MAJOR PAUL ANDREW AVOLESE and CAPTAIN DAVID FRITZ BITTENBENDER were all killed in the mishap. Four other crew members survived….The second B-52 from the 454th BW attached to the 4133 BW at Anderson was piloted by CAPTAIN CHARLES HERMAN BLANKENSHIP and 1LT GEORGE EMERSON JONES, both of whom were killed in the accident along with crew member MSGT OLEN BURKE McLAUGHLIN. Three other crew members survived. MAJOR GENERAL CRUMM was the highest ranking airman to lose his life in the Vietnam War. As a consequence of extensive investigation and underwater searches and mitochondrial DNA analysis the bones of CAPTAIN BLANKENSHIP, 1LT JONES and MSGT MCLAUGHLIN were positively identified in May 1997. GENERAL CRUMM, CAPTAIN BITTENBENDER and MAJOR AVOLESE remain lost at sea, body not recovered… Fifty years ago today six brave men perished…but remembered today with admiration and respect…
RIPPLE SALVO… #489… Associated Press, July 5, 2017…”US Senators say new strategy is needed to win in Afghanistan”… “Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said he would tell (President) Trump after returning home 8,600 troops currently in Afghanistan ‘will not get the job done’ and that more American troops along with more NATO troops should be deployed to ‘turn stalemate into success.’ “… Senator John Mc Cain “told reporters after the meetings that the United States needs to have a new strategy to win in Afghanistan but that ‘the strongest nation on earth should be able to win this conflict.’ “…”The old effort certainly didn’t work.’ “
FIFTY YEARS AGO… “Secretary of Defense McNamara, along with Under Secretary of State Katzenbach and JCS General Wheeler, visited Vietnam July 7-11, 1967, at the request of the President to work out the Program V force package (force levels). The first briefing that the delegation received after arriving in Saigon was by Ambassador Bunker, followed by General Westmoreland and his aides.” ( FRUS 1964-68 Volume V,Vietnam 1967 Doc 233).
From the Pentagon Papers: “The sum total of the briefings did not vary from what McNamara had heard many times before that there was an increasing NVA presence in control of the war; that it was increasingly becoming a main force battle; that the sanctuaries were becoming increasingly important to the enemy both for the logistics and tactical advantage they offered. It was clear that (Westmoreland’s) view of the war in these terms, as increasingly a main force battle to be fought by American units, had considerable influence by the strategies that they pursued, as well as in their calculations of resources.”…
“During the visit McNamara, relying on a study by … (WhizKid) Alan Enthoven, which concluded that the army could provide only 32/3 division equivalents, held the line on force increases. He compelled (General Westmoreland) to accept a general agreement-in-principle on additional deployments to Vietnam which would not exceed an overall ceiling of 525,000 men.” (FRUS 233)
MACLEAR “The Ten Thousand Day War” (page 168)… “McNamara himself in June 1967 was quietly preparing the historic internal study of decision-making and strategy, to be known as The Pentagon Papers (after Ellsberg broke the law and gave the secret study to the NYT). From 1966 McNamara had become tormented by doubts. His principal Deputy Assistant at the time Adam Yarmolisnsky, says McNamara already believed that ‘this was not a war that could be won, or not at a cost that could be justified either to the American people or in the jury of the civilized world. It was a terrible mistake to have gotten into it: that we had made it an issue when it should not have been an issue’…
“The war leaders at the time were telling the public one thing while knowing the actual picture to be very different. Johnson did not want to hear McNamara’s doubts, dismissing them as a ‘nervous breakdown,’ and he did not want Westmoreland’s enlarged war; he simply wanted the boys home, somehow, by this Christmas or the next.”
In Washington in July 1967, while telling the press that America is ‘succeeding’, Westmoreland’s minimum position was for a new ceiling of 543,000 troops to consolidate; his optimum was whatever were needed to take the ground war beyond South Vietnam (the sanctuaries of Cambodia, Laos and north of the DMZ)… Westmoreland: “I was asked by Mr. McNamara how long it would take with those extra increments of troops to wind down the war. I said, with the minimum essential it will take at least five years, but my estimate is that if we had the optimum we could probably do it in three years. We could cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail; we could clean out the enemy sanctuaries in Cambodia, we could block his lines of supply by sea and by land, and we could also take action against those troops immediately north of the demilitarized zone.”…
HUMBLE HOST SALVO: Fifty years ago every one of our leaders knew the war was unwinnable and by 1967 had concluded it had been a mistake from the very beginning, but continued to tell the American people that with “a few more troops” and “a new effort” we “should be able to win this conflict.” The world was being told that with more troops we can “get the job done” and we can “turn this stalemate into success.”
The unrelenting, sustained campaign to build support for the Vietnam war by deceit — “deception, trick”– by President Johnson and his men, including the Pentagon, civilian and military, is a matter of record and “in retrospect” admitted by the principals. In the process, the credibility of the President and his men was sacrificed, and with it believability and trust. Precious trust– “assured reliance on the character, strength or truth of someone”.
President Trump and his men are fortunate to have the lesson, the documentation, the admissions, and examples of failed leadership in a remarkable coincidence of events to guide their next moves in Afghanistan. Humble Host hopes somebody in the White House War Room is weighing the consequences of ignoring those lessons from fifty years ago in July 1967….
Lest we forget… Bear