RIPPLE SALVO… #827… STATE DEPARTMENT. OFFICE OF HISTORIAN. HISTORICAL DOCUMENT. FOREIGN RELATIONS. VIETNAM 1964-68. DOCUMENT 265. Notes of the President’s Meeting With Foreign Policy Advisors, Sunday, 9 June 1968 at 2:30 p.m. Toward the end of the four-hour muster of the wisest men in Washington the President posed a question to the Chairman of the Joint Staff, General Wheeler: “What importance do we attach to the bombing of North Vietnam?… General Wheeler:
“Considerable importance. Militarily, we are on the strategic defensive. We always have been. Nobody wins a war by being on the defensive. The only offensive pressure we had was the bombing, which has been unduly restrictive. They (North Vietnam) suffered from the restrictive bombing. They turned down your San Antonio formula, but accepted a tougher March 31 formula. There is much involved, but if we stop all our activities North of the 17th, they can take advantage of it. They can: (1) Move forces to DMZ to support further action, (2) Load the Panhandle with anti-aircraft equipment. We lost more planes in lower route packages because of (increased) anti-aircraft inventory, (3) They could load SAM’s up to the DMZ. They will fire at B-52s without us being able to do anything.”… The meeting notes and the letter to Kosygin below… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day EIGHT HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN of putting the declassified Top Secret stuff about Operation Rolling Thunder in the daylight to help understand why we were doing what we were doing fifty years ago…
HEAD LINES from THE NEW YORK TIMES on Sunday, 9 June 1968…
THE WAR: Page 2: “SAIGON SHELLED FOR 6TH DAY AS STREET FIGHTING EASES”… “…Eight shells were fired into a police station in the southwestern section of the city and three others struck around the largest bridge on the highway leading to the American military installations at Longbinh and Bienhoa. Two policemen were wounded. The enemy has shelled Saigon on 22 of the last 35 days. Usually, only a few shells have been fired and damage has been light….Yesterday was one of the quietest days in more than two weeks in Cholon, Saigon’s Chinese section and in the northeastern suburbs where the latest fighting has centered. But allied forces remained vigilant for a resurgence of enemy activity….allied commanders do not think the enemy has the resources to engage in major fighting in the city….A small group of American paratroops ambushed two large sampans on a stream seven miles west of Hue. They killed 21 enemy men without suffering any casualties themselves. Meanwhile, United States troops 10 miles south of Quangtri reported having found an enemy supply cache containing 460 mortar shells, 500 rocket-propelled grenades, 115 pounds of explosives and several other kinds of weapons and ammunition.
PEACE TALKS: Page 4-2: “VIETNAM: THE TALKS: MINUET IN SLOW TEMPO”… Also, see Ripple Salvo and “Notes on Meeting Of Foreign Policy Advisors” with President on 9 June…
Page 1: “THOUSANDS IN LAST TRIBUTE TO KENNEDY–SERVICE AT ARLINGTON IS HELD AT NIGHT–Johnson At Rites–Edward Kennedy Pays Tribute to Brother In Crowed Cathedral”… ” pontifical requiem mass celebrated in the new spirit of the Ecumenical Council by Archbishop Terrence Cooke of New York combined anguished grief with the bright Christian expectations of rebirth. Then the body of the Senator was put aboard a train to Washington for burial in Arlington National Cemetery near the grave of President John F. Kennedy.”…Senator Edward F. Kennedy spoke in the cathedral: “My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. He should be remembered simply as a good man decent man, who saw wrong and tried to make it right, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”… Additional articles on Robert Kennedy: “President Joins Kennedy’s At Graveside”…”On Train, Kennedy Elan”… “They Line The Tracks To Say Goodbye”…
Page 1: “SUSPECT IN ASSASSINATION OF DR. KING IS SEIZED IN LONDON–James Earl Ray Found Armed–Arrested At Airport By Scotland Yard– Ray On Way From Lisbon”… Page 1: “HARLEM’S ANGUISH EASED BY ARREST–Word Of Ray Arrest On Day Of Sorrow Is Welcomed By Equal Rights Aides Across U.S.”… Page 75: “RAY IS BEING HELD IN CLOSE SECURITY–Suspect Is Being Detained In Court Area Handling Extradition”… Page 62: “KENNEDY’S ASSASSIN SIRHAN HELD IN ISOLATION–Information Flow is Guarded To Protect His Rights”… Page 68: GALLUP POLL FINDS PUBLIC IN FAVOR OF GUN CONTROLS”… WEEK IN REVIEW SECTION: Tom Wicker: “THE TERRIBLE TOLL OF VIOLENCE”…
9 JUNE 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (10 June reporting 9 June ops) Page 2: “Two Planes Shot Down”… “The military command said that two United States planes had been shot down by ground fire over North Vietnam. It was reported that all aircrews ha\d been recovered. One plane, an F-105, was downed some 10 miles north of the demilitarized zone. Immediate rescue attempts failed becuse of intense anti-aircraft fire. The pilots remained in radio contact with the downed airman until the rescue attempt was called off. The rescue aircraft returned to the scene later and picked up a radio signal from the ground. A helicopter immediately set down and rescued the flier. American pilots flew a total of 1,341 sorties over the southern part of North Vietnam yesterday, striking at highways, anti-aircraft sites artillery positions and waterborne supply craft.”… (See RTR for 8 June and extensive notes on downing of “Master Lead,” MAJOR CARL B. LIGHT on 08-Jun-68 and rescue on 09-Jun-68)…
VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 9 June 1968…
(1) 1LT WALTER ROY SCHMIDT, USMC, was flying an A-4E of the VA-121 Green Knights and MAG-12 out of Chu Lai in a section of A-4s assigned a weapons cache target in an enemy base area about 20 miles southeast of Hue and was downed on his fifth pass, a strafing run. Unfortunately he was forced to eject near the target in the middle of an NVA troop encampment… 1LT SCHMIDT, “HELLBORNE 215,”came down in dense jungle and broke his left leg in the process of getting to the ground. He spoke to his wingman and his chute was visible to aircraft overhead. There was no doubt he was on the ground in, and alive. He told the SAR helo enemy troops were approaching his position. Jolly Green 22 attempted a pickup but was forced to withdraw due to intense ground fire and a shortage of fuel after three attempts to make the rescue. After an intense period of suppression bombing of the area around 1LT SCHMIDT’s position. JOLLY GREEN 23 gave it a try…. and was downed with LT JACK C. RITTICHIER, United States Coast Guard, and his Air Force crew of 3 were killed in the crash in heavy jungle.( And that is another tragic story)…1LT SCHMIDT’s story continues. With the downing of Jolly Green 23, and the enemy observed within yards of 1LT SCHMIDT, further rescue attempts on 9 June were cancelled. The next morning neither 1LT SCHMIDT or his parachute were to be seen. Attempts to raise him on his survival radio drew a blank. It was believed that he had been capture and he was classified as a POW. Throughout the rest of the war his family heard nothing. When the POWs were released in March 1973 and 591 Americans came home, 1LT SCHMIDT was not among them. The North Vietnamese denied any knowledge of him. Investigations by the JTF-FA troops failed to develop any leads to determine the fate of 1LT SCHMIDT. He is carried as “presumed killed in action, body not recovered.” When last seen on 9 June 1968 he was alive… Humble Host reminds: “Virtual Vietnam Veteran’s Wall of Faces” facilitates the “leaving of a remembrance.” 1LT SCHMIDT perished 50 years ago today… Left behind but not forgotten…
Humble Host most strongly recommends a series of articles on the “CRASH OF JOLLY GREEN 23” available on the Check-Six.com web site;
https://www.check-six.com/Coast_Guard/Crash_of_Jolly_23.htm
The lengthy read is captivating from beginning to end. Two especially interesting items: the use of CBU-19 in the effort to rescue 1LT SCHMIDT and the details and pictures of the Joint Recovery folks to recover the remains of the Jolly 23 warriors. I asked a fellow member of the “Ogden Irrelevant and Irascible Curmudgeon Lunch Bunch,” who served heroically as an Air Force life-saver piloting HH-3s during the Rolling Thunder years to comment on the “Crash of Jolly Green 23” articles by Ken Freeze. His response: “Bear: Great read and shows how hard crews worked to rescue downed aircrews. Since he went down in Laos, he unfortunately fell into the category of those who were not released. Or as my friend Steve Long (one of ten captured in Laos and made it into the NVA prison system) was told by the camp commander when the initial release was published, ‘if you were shot down in Laos, you will go home when the Laotian waw is over.’ Kissinger was forced back to Paris when we debriefed the first returnees in the PI, and the ten did get released. CBU-19, we did not use when I was there but it was a classified operation and the NVA made the claim that we were using chemical weapons during the war.”…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 9 JUNE FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION IN THE SKIES OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965… NONE…
1966… CAPTAIN ROBERT IRA BUSH, USAF… (KIA)… BODY NOT RECOVERED…
1967… NONE…
1968… NONE…
Humble Host flew #180 and got skunked. Armed with two Big Bullpups (AGM-12C) to take out a small bridge west of Vinh. First Pup fired from 11,000 feet in 45-degree dive went ballistic and veered off to the right uncontrollable… Left the area for ten minutes cruising out to the mountains. “Sneaked” back and fired second missile. Tracking great when several rounds of 37-mm went by my window, I blinked and hiccupped and the Bullpup hit a few yards short of the bridge… Young wingman missed twice, close, but the little bridge beat us… and we barely beat their gunners… “He who fights and flys away, lives to fight another day”…
RIPPLE SALVO… #827… The State Department documents speak for themselves… The LBJ letter to Kosygin is in response to the Kosygin to LBJ letter that was referenced in my RTR blog of 8 June as document d262.
Here’s your weekend homework for History 404: Operation Rolling Thunder. Kosygin letter, meeting notes, and LBJ letter… Live it up. Sit in the shade with a cool-one, your comfort dawg and read a bit of real history…..
d262…. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d262
d265… https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d265
d269… https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d269
RTR quote for 9 June: NATHAN HALE: 22 September 1776: “I am so satisfied with the cause in which I have engaged that my only regret is that I have not more lives than one to offer in its service.”… Fighter pilot short version: “I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
Lest we forget… Bear