RIPPLE SALVO… #461… THE FOUR DAY WAR… “WHERE IS THE ARAB FIGHTING SPIRIT???”… but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED SIXTY-ONE of a recall of a page of history called Rolling Thunder…
9 JUNE 1967… HEADLINES from The New York Times on a warm and breezy Friday in New York City…
MIDEAST WAR: EGYPTIAN AND ISRAEL AGREE TO CEASE-FIRE; ISRAEL REPORTS TROOPS REACH SUEZ CANAL; JOHNSON AND KOSYGIN USED HOT LINE IN CRISIS; SHIFT BY CAIRO; THANT NOTIFIES COUNCIL IN MIDDLE OF DEBATE ON RESOLUTIONS... “The United Arab Republic, the leader of the anti-Israel coalition, today accepted the Security Council’s demand for cease-fire in the Middle East provided Israel did the same. Yesterday the UN delegate from Israel said his country accepted the cease-fire provided Israel’s foe agreed to it.”... “Johnson Pleased by Gains On Truce”…”Look to Stable Peace”… “White House Discloses Use of Hot Line”… “Russians Continue to Harass 6th Fleet”… “Two Soviet warships, a destroyer and a small highly maneuverable patrol craft, moved into the formation of this Sixth Fleet ship (USS America) and began systematically harassing the American ships.”… “Egyptian People Told of Truce Decision”… “The Cairo Government told the Egyptian people that it had accepted a conditional cease-fire in he wr with Israel…There was no immediate popular reaction because the Cairo radio waited until early morning before announcing a decision made three hours before.”… “All Sinai Is Held by Israelis”…”Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin received this message from the front: ‘Happy to inform you our forces are stationed on the banks of the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. The entire Sinai Peninsula is in our hands…Battle reports yesterday indicated that the remnants of two Egyptian armored divisions and four infantry divisions were trapped in the western part of the Sinai.’ “…
Page 1: “Arms Cost Stress Scored by Rickover”... “Vice Admiral Hyman Rickover has denounced the cost-effectiveness approach to weapons development as a new religion and a ‘fog bomb’ that is keeping the nation from gaining technology that will save lives.”… Page 1: “New Fighting South of DMZ in the same area where a battle raged last month. The fight involves the 26th Regiment Marines and two North Vietnamese companies (300 men)…18 Marines have been killed and 27 wounded. Enemy dead put at 63.”… Page 1: “Casualties Figure for Last Week were lower than the previous week…211 Americans were killed in action and 1,161 were wounded. South Vietnam reported the loss of 235. During the week 2,420 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were killed. American total losses now at 10,780 killed in action and 65,202 wounded in action.”…
(Humble Host notes: 47,220 more Americans warriors will die before this war ends in 1975. And asks: Would LBJ or any American President have continued this war had he known in 1967 that the final count would be more than 58,000 American warriors killed in the cause?… At what point does the cost of the cause the deciding factor in continuing a fight?… Applying the lessons of Vietnam, at what point does the cost of our “cause” in Afghanistan become unacceptable? When you drill a “dry hole,” at what point do you give up and move the rig? )…
9 JUNE 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (10 June reporting 9 June ops)… Page 2: “In the air war American attacks were curtailed by thunderstorms and heavy clouds over the northern part of North Vietnam around Hanoi and Haiphong. Pilots flew 110 missions in the North’s southern panhandle, attacking primarily roads, rails, bridges and cargo boats. Just before dawn Navy pilots from the carrier Constellation dropped 500-pound bombs on the naval base at Phucloi near Vinh. Pilots reported four barge explosions lit the sky. ‘The target area looked like an erupting volcano when we were done,’ said Lieutenant Jim Wright 0f Merced, California…
“Other Navy pilots attacked railroad and highway bridges near Thanh Hoa and also destroyed or damaged 46 cargo junks and barges. Air Force pilots concentrated on truck convoys and infiltration routes leading from North Vietnam to Laos. Pilots of F-105 Thunderchief jets reported having wrecked 35 trucks and damaged 13. The Air Force fighter-bombers also attacked 15 antiaircraft sites. One Air Force F-4C Phantom was struck by ground fire just north of the DMZ while attacking the site . With a hole torn in one wing and engines afire the crew nursed the plane into an emergency landing at Danang, 100 miles south. As the pilot and his mate leaped from the burning plane a fireball exploded in the tail engulfing the plane. Both pilots escaped injury.”… (bear#96mk82BridgeRPIII)…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson)… There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 9 June 1967…
(1) A C-130 Hercules of the 29th TCS and 463rd TCW out of Clark, AFB in the PI was completing a day of in-country shuttle operations and headed for a final landing at Tan Son Nhut. Approaching Saigon the aircraft was diverted around a hot artillery zone and in the process of following those instructions inexplicably crashed killing all ten on board– 6 Air Force and 4 Army…
CAPTAIN JEROME FRANK STARKWEATHER…. CAPTAIN RAFAEL L. RIVERA-BALAGUER…. CAPTAIN RICHARD W. PODELL…. SSGT RICKY LYNN HERNDON…. SSGT IRA EDWARD SCOTT…. SSGT WILLIAM EVERELL TYREE, all of the USAF.
1LT RICHARD A GRAY…. SP5 ANDREW HARRY SHIMP…. SP5 FRANK RICHARD RAGUSA…. SP4 CRAIG RAY SCHOENBAUM, all of the USA.
Ten honorable and duty bound warriors were killed in action fifty years ago on this date…
RIPPLE SALVO… #461… Humble Host intends to continue to highlight and include the Arab States-Israel war of 1967 in my daily RTR blogs because those events of June 1967 were earth shaking and world shaping. The unresolved borders and issues of that short war remain pertinent to the world we live in today. In addition, just as the American experience in Southeast Asia provides lessons for the conduct of our national affairs, so does the Arab-Israeli War of 1967… Here’s one… snipped from the NYT, 9 June 1967, page 44…
“The Four Day War”…
“Napoleon’s aphorism (‘short saying stating a general truth’) that ‘in war the moral is to the material as three to one’ was never more true than in the amazing four-day war in the Middle East, which neared its end yesterday with Egypt’s and Syria’s acceptance of a cease-fire.
“An offensive spirit, a will to fight, a high morale, and good leadership, characterized the Israeli army that outran it’s foes in record time, and shook the Middle East’s political structure to its foundations.
“The Israeli brand of blitzkrieg or lightning war was built around air power and armor and motorized and mechanized forces. But in their order of battle the Arabs counted a greater number of tanks and planes, and technologically these were equal or superior to the Israeli equipment. What was lacking on the Arab side were soldiers of equal heart and spirit, men trained as masters of their technology and above ll leaders who led.”
Lest we forget… Bear