RIPPLE SALVO…#250… ONE QUARTER OF THE RTR JOURNEY IS IN THE WAKE…
Good Morning: Day TWO HUNDRED FIFTY of a revisit to the air war in Vietnam on the 50th anniversary of Rolling Thunder…
7 November 1966…HEADLINES FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES on the sunny Monday before national elections…
Page 1: “Vote Tomorrow Is Expected To Set Off-Year Record”…Johnson in pleas calls for resistance to backlash from black power demonstrations…Nixon appeals to Republicans.”…Page 1: “Chinese Walkout As Kremlin Denounces Peking…report for anniversary of revolution also scores the U.S. on Vietnam policy… Page 1: “Outnumbered G.I.s Raked by 8 hours of solid lead…most violent battle in a month…400 G.I.s versus 1500 NVN regulars…’for eight hours you couldn’t hear yourself think or talk,’ said trooper…fight 60 miles north of Saigon and 3 companies of U.S. Army suffered heavy casualties.”..Page 1 “Orbiter 2 Speeds to Moon Mission…”… Page 1: “86 Youths Seized In West Side Raid…members of Marxist Youth Club of City College…youths allege ‘political frame-up.”… Page 1: “Russians Descriptions of Hanoi: a bristling but hungry fortress… bristling with anti-aircraft missiles but inflicted by food shortages, rationing and a steady evacuation of residents…”…Page 1: “Hanoi Again Spurns U.S. Offer…Vietnamese will resolutely fight until complete victory whatever the hardships and sacrifices.”…
Editorial response to McNamara and President’s press briefing of 6 November: “In reality, the Vietnamese war is as bitter, as costly, and as big as ever, and in fact, it is getting more so. This is the prospect for 1967 as both President Johnson and Secretary McNamara, on analysis, presented it. The American approach is still one of peace through a bigger war…There is no way for the man in the street to know just what to believe or how to interpret what is said, or whether what he reads and hears will be valid a month from today, when it comes to the war in Vietnam, the most disturbing escalation is in the credibility gap.”…
THE PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF… An Annex from the 3 November 1966 Brief entitled “A View of the War From Hanoi”… (TS sanitized in 2015)
“A document captured by US Marines fighting North Vietnamese forces below the Demilitarized Zone provides some new insights into Hanoi’s response to the enlarged role of the United States in the war in 1965. It discusses resolutions approved by two secret meetings of the central committee of North Vietnam Communist Party. In June of 1965, the central committee ordered a massive mobilization of North Vietnamese manpower to expand the regular army and provide increased infiltration into South Vietnam. This meeting also ordered the organization of large construction crews for the repair of bomb damage and issued instructions for the establishment of ‘combat villages’ along the coast of North Vietnam and in the military region along the Demilitarized Zone. A more important meeting occurred in the autumn of 1965. the resolution produced by this meeting redefined the war as a single war with three theaters–North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and Laos. The principal responsibility for all three theaters was placed on the North Vietnamese Army. The resolution also rearranged Hanoi’s long standing national objectives to give first priority to the war effort. This decision has never been publicized since that would be an admission that ‘building socialism’–previously the number one objective–had been subordinated to the successful prosecution of the war. Communist concern over the disclosure of important information through capture of documents by allied forces is reflected in another document from a Viet Cong-controlled area near Saigon. This document refers to the loss of a historic resolution’ to the enemy–probably the directive captured by the Marines.”
7 NOVEMBER 1966…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… NYT (9 Nov reporting 8 Nov ops)…Page 4: “On Sunday an Air Force F-105 Thunderchief crashed 35 miles northwest of Dong Hoi in the panhandle region, the long narrow portion of North Vietnam. The F-105 pilot was rescued by a Navy helicopter (CAPTAIN VICTOR VIZCARRA as reported in RS #249)… The pilots attacked along the coast from Haiphong southward to the DMZ–the F-105 was one of the 127 multi-plane missions flown by the United States pilots on Monday (7th). They destroyed one camouflaged North Vietnamese patrol boat about 50 miles east of Haiphong and damaged 19 buildings and seven barges.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses”( Hobson) Two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 7 November 1966…Page 80…
(1) An O-1G Bird Dog of the 20th TASS and 505th TACG out of Da Nang engine failed and was crash landed by the pilot who survived.
(2) CAPTAIN DONALD LEROY JACOBSEN and a 1LT GARDNER were flying an O-1E of the 20 TASS and 505th TACG out of Da Nang and returning from a FAC mission in the Southern Laos Tiger Hound area when hit by enemy gunfire five miles south of Kham Duc and crashed. CAPTAIN JACOBSEN was killed in the crash but his observer, a Shining Brass Army officer survived the crash with major injuries and was rescued by a SAR helicopter. CAPTAIN JACOBSEN was Killed in Action and perished 50 years ago on this day. Oh, that he did not die in vain…
RIPPLE SALVO… #250… The end of the first quarter… 750 days of swimming in the history of the Vietnam War and Operation Rolling Thunder to go, God willing… ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK…
I AM FOREVER BEHOLDEN TO THE BRILLIANT “MIGHTY THUNDER” for hanging tight and flying steady wing through this undertaking of remembrance of a forgotten air war and the unbounded courage of thousands of warriors who looked down enemy gun barrels hundreds of times each… with special recognition of those who did not come home to live and enjoy the 50 years since their respective final calls… THANKS, ANGIE for making this possible…
Your Humble Host invites your comments for improvement of the blog... I am awarding myself a meritorious evening off to absorb a 40-minute pitch, again, that walks through the three options available to a voter in Tuesday’s Presidential election that on the surface appears to leave nothing but poor choices… It is entitled “The Election Day Sermon” and is delivered from a pulpit, in case you are interested. Crank up this link…
http://cornerstonechapel.net/?page_id=418&i=1145 ……
Lest we forget… Bear -30-