ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 7 NOVEMBER 1967

RIPPLE SALVO… #611… COLONEL LEE ELLIS had an exciting day 50 years ago that changed his life…and over the years the lives of countless others… but first…

Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED ELEVEN of putting disparate day-to-day pieces of Rolling Thunder together in a 1,000-day journal of the air war 1965-68…

7 NOVEMBER 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a cloudy, cool Tuesday in the Big City…

Page 1: “Sargent Shriver To Quit Poverty Agency Unless He Gets Funds To Do The Job–Bars “Delusions of the Poor'”… “… said he would not preside over an anti-poverty program that lacked the fund to do substantial job. ‘I never liked to quit any job,’ said the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity”… Page 1: “House Panel Cuts Billion In Aid Bill, President Asks For $2.2 Billion”… Page 1: “1664 Writ Upheld To Allow Jersey To Claim Meadows–But Court Rules The State Must Prove Land Fits the Definition of a Tideland”… “The State of New Jersey Supreme Court upheld today the states historic claim to nearly 400 square miles of New Jersey marsh and meadow land that is covered by water at high tide, or even has been since 1664… the court sought to end a controversy that has blocked development for decades.”… Page 1: “National Guard Will Get 12,000 More Men–McNamara Acts To Bolster Forces For Riot Control (and increase Negro participation)… Page 16: “Air Force Retains Pilots 6-Months For Vietnam”… Page 35: “6 In GOP Top Johnson In Poll”…”Choice for 1968 Presidential race scores six Republicans ahead of the President, with Rockefeller leading Nixon and four others.”…

Page 1: “Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart Bids Court Weigh Legality of U.S. War Role”… “Associate Justice Stewart says that soldiers questioning the legality of the war require a hearing of ‘questions of great magnitude’ raised by the appeal of three obscure soldiers …The questions: (1) Is the present U.S. military activity in Vietnam a war in a constitutional sense? (2) If so, can the President send Soldiers to fight there when no war has been declared by Congress? and (3) Was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which President Johnson has relied upon to support his Vietnam campaign, “… a constitutional impermissible delegation of all or part of Congress’ power to declare war?… “… Page 1: “Hussein of Jordan Reports His views Mirror Those of Nasser–Says In Washington That He and Egyptian Chief Agree on Mideast Settlement–He Confers With Rusk–King, In Georgetown Talk Asserts Arabs Must Accept Israel As A Fact of Life”… Page 2: “U.N. Puts Refugees In Mideast At 1.5 Million–200,000 New Refugees Join 1.3 Million Displaced When Israel Was Established”… Page 4: “50,000 Arab Refugees Live In U.N. tent Camps”… “but they dislike the colorful shelters provided by the United States.” Page 10: “Peking Says Mao Is Today’s Lenin–Hails Jubilee But Calls China ‘Center of World Revolt'”… “…that has shifted from Moscow to Peking…editorial described the leaders of the Soviet Union ‘renegades’ and ‘scabs’ who betrayed Lenin.”…

President’s Daily Brief… NORTH VIETNAM: A reporter for the Manchester Guardian filed a report from Haiphong on Sunday describing a harrowing automobile trip he had made one night recently out of Haiphong. Hundreds of trucks were on the road. Suddenly, one of them had a huge gasoline fire flare up. The reporter’s car was stuck in a mile long tie-up, “I felt that the soaring flames would be seen in Washington and any minute I expected to hearing diving planes; so, obviously, did the Vietnamese.’ Before anything happened, however, mobile antiaircraft units roared up the road, ‘coming out of the darkness from little side roads to take up positions in the column.‘ Then, the police arrived, the flames died out, and traffic went on… the reporter claimed to have been given a guided tour of some of Haiphong’s heavily bombed areas. He reported seeing “hundreds” of destroyed homes along with the bombed out factories. He added that the bombing of this populous area may have been a mistake, but, if so, “American marksmanship has fallen off notably.”…

7 NOVEMBER 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (8 Nov reporting 7 Nov ops) Page3: “Planes Raid Near China”... “United States planes attacked within 21 miles of Communist China’s border today (17th) in a series of heavy raids along North Vietnam’s northeastern railroad. Other planes raided what apparently was a new target near Haiphong. The raid by Air Force planes near the China border were the deepest penetration of the North in two weeks. United States headquarters said four railroad facilities and a railroad bridge north and northeast of Hanoi were the major targets. Carrier based Navy pilots attacked apparently for the first time in the war, the Anninhngoai shipyard and repair facility 12 miles northwest of Haiphong. A spokesman said he had no record that the shipyard had been hit before…”

“RAID ON HANOI DISCUSSED”...”A military spokesman denied that a bombing attack on warehouses near Hanoi’s international airport had unduly endangered commercial airliners. Commenting on the problems that might have been encountered by passenger planes threading their way through dive bombers, dogfighting MIGs and Phantoms, and volleys of antiaircraft artillery and missiles, the spokesman said: ‘I doubt that it’s any more hazardous than landing at Tan Son Nhut. He referred to the busy airport outside Saigon, used by nine civilian carriers, including Pan American World Airways and Air France. It also serves as the capital’s military airbase for cargo and passenger runs and for combat missions….the spokesman said that the North Vietnamese warehouses, which were 1.3 miles from the airfield rather than a half a mile, as preciously announced. The field, which has been described as a secondary MIG base, is at Gialam, about 3.5 miles north of Hanoi. It is used by the Chinese Communist, Soviet and Czechoslovak airlines as well as by the planes of the International Control Commission.” …

“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 7 November 1967…

(1) MAJOR WILLIAM CALVIN DIEHL was flying an F-105D of the 469th TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat on a wing strike on the Lang Gia railway yard 30 miles northeast of Kep and in his recovery from delivering his bombs on target he was hit on the pullout by ground fire and was forced to eject from his Thunderchief a few miles from the target and was not heard or seen again. It was assumed MAJOR DIEHL had been captured and hoped that he would return with the POWs but that didn’t happen. What did happen was his remains were returned in March 1974 and identified in April 1974. the North Vietnamese did no provide any further information... MAJOR DIEHL was killed doing his duty in the most valiant of ways: diving through intense enemy fire to deliver his ordnance on a target in the enemy’s homeland, as he had done dozens of times before…

(2) LTJG M.A. KREBS was flying an A-4C of the VA-34 Blue Blasters embarked in USS Intrepid on an armed reconnaissance mission in Route Pack II near Cape Mu Ron and apparently took a hit that created a major fuel leak that became a wing fire. LTJG KREBS was able to fly the aircraft to the vicinity of the SAR destroyer before abandoning his burning Skyhawk. He was rescued within sight of the ship…

(3) CAPTAIN KENNETH FISHER and LT LEON FRANCIS ELLIS were flying an F-4C of the 390th TFS and 366th TFW on an armed reconnaissance mission in Route Pack I northwest of Dong Hoi and made a diving attack on an active 37mm site. In the recovery they were hit by 57mm fire and were required to eject almost immediately as the Phantom broke into three pieces. Both had flown more than 50 missions. They were immediately surrounded upon touching down in their parachutes. They were captured and interned together for the duration of the war. Both were released in March 1973 after more than five and a half years of combat duty in the brutal prisons of North Vietnam.

RIPPLE SALVO… #611… “LEADING WITH HONOR: Leadership Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton” and “ENGAGE WITH HONOR: Building a Culture of Courageous Accountability” by Colonel Leon Francis Ellis, Jr., USAF (Retired)

Lt LEE ELLIS on his POW experience: “I ejected a few seconds later (after the aircraft started coming apart) and had an exciting but gentle parachute letdown to the ground. The North Vietnamese were all around and I was captured after having time only to make a short transmission on my survival radio…Thus began a situation which would test my faith, my patience and my strength. I soon realized that although one must have short and long-term goals, he must live each day as it comes, facing each new challenge with a will to do the thing which is right. This philosophy not only strengthened me during the difficult times, but it brought and continues to bring an inner happiness, honesty and loyalty that were not just words, but a way of life.”

Humble Host is honored to highlight the service and contributions of Colonel Lee Ellis to our country and the generations following our “Silent Generation” on the fiftieth anniversary of his “exciting but gentle descent by parachute” into the rest of his life… oohrah… With highest respect and admiration…

RTR Quote for 7 November: SHAKESPEARE, Othello: “But why should honour outlive honesty?”

Lest we forget…     Bear