RIPPLE SALV0… #795… IN THE HALCYON DAYS FOLLOWING WORLD WAR II PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN ARRANGED A MEETING BETWEEN THE TWO GREAT WARLORDS OF CHINA, COMMUNIST MAO ZEDONG AND NATIONALIST CHIANG KAI-SHEK. Truman’s goal and hope was that the two enemies could and would work out a coalition government in lieu of a resumption of civil war.The two leaders met for the first time in twenty years on 27 August 1945 and spent seven weeks talking. A great charade took place with the two staffs joining to craft the documents on which to establish a democratic China with an army commanded by Chiang Kai-shek. When they said goodbye on 11 October both sides were talking loudly about the future of democracy, peace and unity in China. It never happened. Mao used talk to buy time and deceive America, President Truman, the Nationalists and the world. When the time was right a year later Mao resumed the fight. Three years later Chiang Kai-shek and his vanquished Kuomintang army retreated to Taiwan where they remain today. Mao had given the world and history a lesson in what he called: “da da, tan tan.” Fight fight, talk talk. Fifty years ago in May 1968 the United States and North Vietnam went to Paris to talk while the fighting went on; and bloody fighting it was–in a two-week span of May 1968 the United States lost 1,100 soldiers killed-in-action. Concurrently, the nation was conducting talks with the North Koreans while 82 American sailors and one of our commissioned naval vessels were interned in North Korea. Talk, talk……Fifty years later, today, 9 May 2018, America is talk, talking with North Korea, the PRC and shortly, with Iran to avoid fight, fight on both sides of the world. …
In an OpEd that ran on the pages of The New York Times on 25 July 2011 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, wrote that “talk, talk” with China is “a step toward trust with China.” He wrote that “we need to make that relationship (with China) better, by seeking strategic trust.” Even as the Admiral was writing, China was staking a permanent claim to the Spratly’s and Scarborough Shoals. Almost seven years later we can assess the results of Admiral Mullen’s “strategic trust.”… China is talk, talking while leaning forward in every corner of the world and is winning. The State Department of the United States was and remains in the hands of suckers for “da da.”The lessons of the “peace talks–da da–in the summer of 1968 should not be lost on the new American Secretary of State as he sits down with Kim Il Sun and all the other diplomats who include the Little Red Book of Mao in their respective brief cases. Another little book in those same brief cases is Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” with a highlighted and underlined axiom therein: “The acme of skill is to win without fighting (tan tan)…” The corollary: The acme of skill is to win by da da.”… Another salvo on the subject below… but first…
GOOD MORNING…Day SEVEN HUNDRED NINETY-FIVE of a look back of fifty years to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam war and the air war over North Vietnam called Rolling Thunder…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Thursday, 9 May 1968…
THE WAR: Page 1: “ENEMY STEPS UP TERROR IN SAIGON–BUT OTHER FIGHTING IN THE AREA OF CAPITAL DWINDLES–Danang Post Is Shelled”… “Enemy troops stepped up their terrorist activity yesterday in Cholon, Saigon’s Chinese district, and made new rocket attacks at Danang, 350 miles to the north. Scurrying from block to block in the Chinese quarter, the terrorists fired on three police stations, hoisted Vietcong flags up light poles, sniped at passing military vehicles, and took over a refuge center for more than three hours. The Cholon fighting continued Thursday morning against an enemy force estimated at 1,000 men, United Press International reported… ‘This activity didn’t pose any serious threat to Saigon,’ a spokesman for the United States military command said, ‘but it did keep us busy…. The enemy hasn’t been able to get reinforcements to Saigon as he had planned and the overall situation here has improved. The attacks from outside the city have evaporated on the east, west and north. The situation is still hazy to the south.” He also said there did not appear to be any ground attack in the making for Danang at the moment, despite rocket attacks. At least 15 rockets were fired at the South Vietnamese Army’s 1 Corps headquarters on Danang’s outskirts…Ninety miles north of Danang between Dongha and the DMZ American marines were pounded with 500 rounds of artillery and mortar fire as they tried to assault an enemy platoon… the marines responded with their own artillery and the exchange of volleys lasted six hours. ‘Sweeps of the area revealed 22 enemy killed in the action. Nine marines were killed and 34 wounded.’ … In the enemy’s current offensive, which began Monday is far less severe than the one staged during the Lunar New Year holidays, allied troops have reported more than 2,000 of the enemy killed in Saigon and the 11 surrounding provinces.” The United States command reported that 30 americans hd been killed and 323 wounded. The casualty figures for the South Vietnamese Army are 181 dead and 608 wounded…. The Civilian population however has suffered heavy casualties with 141 killed and 1,230 wounded. In addition, 40,000 have been driven from their homes…”… Page 4: “FIGHTING LEAVES 22,000 MORE REFUGEES IN SAIGON”… Page 1: “PRESIDENT AGAIN PLEDGES EVENTUAL VIETNAM PULLOUT”… “President Johnson today renewed his pledge that military involvement of the United States in South Vietnam ‘will diminish and disappear’ as that country gains the right to self-determination.'”… Page 1: “JOHNSON LETTER SENT TO KOSYGIN–New Exchange of Views On Many Issues Reportedly Asked In Recent Note”… “In conjunction with his moves toward negotiations on Vietnam, President Johnson is reported to have written a letter recently to Premier Alsksei N. Kosygin of the Soviet Union proposing a new exchange on many issues.”…
PEACE TALKS: Page 1: “FRANCE EXPECTS FULL PEACE TALKS WILL COME IN PARIS–Couve de Murville Foresees U.S. And North Vietnam Widening Negotiations–Washington Is Silent–But Administration Is Said To Share Paris’s View–First Meeting Tomorrow”… “The French Foreign Minister, Maurice Couve de Murville, said today that France expected the United States and North Vietnam to move from preliminary talks to full-scale political negotiations without changing delegations or leaving Paris.”…
Page 1: “JIM CATFISH HUNTER OF OAKLAND ATHLETICS PITCHED PERFECT NO-HITTER”… “Set down all 27 Minnesota Twin batters to win 4-0.”
9 MAY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…NO coverage of the air war above the DMZ by the NYT… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 9 May 1968…
(1) MAJOR I.D. TYRELL, USMC was flying an A-4E of the VMA-121 Green Knights and MAG-12 out of Chu Lai and sustained battle damage while providing close air support. MAJOR TYRELL made a game effort to fly the aircraft into Danang but was forced to eject over the Gulf where he was rescued to fly again…
(2) MAJOR ROBERT E. STALEY and CAPTAIN GEORGE J. BEDROSSIAN were flying an O-2A of the 20th TASS and 504th TASW out of Danang were killed when their O-2 lost power after takeoff, crashed and burst into flames. They are remembered on this day 50 years after their last flight…glory gaine, duty done…
(3) The 20th TASS lost a second O-2A due to fuel exhaustion while on a photo reconnaissance mission. The aircraft was crash landed and the two on board survived the crash. …Humble Host surmises that the CO of 20th TASS, who was having a very bad day, ran out of harsh words while welcoming these two aviators home from their crash…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 9 MAY FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION…
1965… LT DAVID ALLEN KARDELL, USN… (KIA)… AND CAPTAIN ROBIN CARL WISTRAND, USAF… (KIA)…
1966… NONE…
1967… NONE…
1968… NONE…
Humble Host flew # 158 a day armed recce to west of Vinh to put 6 MK-82s on a SAM site sans SAMs then recce’d looking for something to put two pods of rockets on… found a barge in a river to punch some holes in… Enjoyed the company of Ernie Christensen on this one, as always…
(Webmaster note: After two combat cruises with VA-113 Ernie Christensen would go on to fly a tour with the Blue Angels under Skipper Commander Harley Hall. On a third combat deployment to Vietnam in 1972-1973, flying an F-4, he witnessed his friend and former skipper get shot down by an SA-7 just hours before the peace accords were signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. Harley Hall perished, as did two USAF OV-10 Bronco FAC crewman trying to coordinate rescue efforts. Hall’s RIO Al Kientzler was taken as a POW before being released several months later during Operation Homecoming. Hall’s last mission is covered in great detail in chapter six of my book Across the Wing. Ernie Christensen, Bear Taylor, and Bill Bowes, veterans of combat cruises with VA-113 1966-1967 and 1968, would all go on to flag officer ranks)
RIPPLE SALVO… #795… NEW YORK TIMES OPINION EDITORIAL, Page 46, 8 May 1968…
“BLOODY PRELUDE…
“Vietnam’s Communists are mounting new attacks on South Vietnamese cities while simultaneously moving toward peace talks in Paris. This is the old Maoist “talk-talk, fight-fight” strategy followed by the Vietminh in 1954 and openly espoused by Hanoi in recent weeks.
“The enemy offensive does not offer the most auspicious prelude to negotiations, as American officials have been quick to point out. Peace could come quicker and lives could be saved if both sides would speed the process of mutual de-escalation President sought to set in motion with his bombing limitation order of March 31.
“But the Communist assaults were expected. ‘Even if talks do start, no one is under any illusion about what they’ll do non the battlefield,’ and American official in Saigon observed several weeks ago. ‘They’ll keep on fighting and keep on pressing just to improve their bargaining position.’
“Perhaps in anticipation of such enemy action, perhaps to improve their own position, the United States and its allies have pursued a similar strategy. Since President Johnson announced his peace initiative, allied forces have undertaken their biggest offensive of the war, involving more than 100,000 troops in eleven provinces around Saigon, and have launched a major ‘reconnaissance in force’ into the Ashau Valley. Aerial attacks on North Vietnam actually increased in April over March, although confined to the southern position of that country.
“Because of these spoiling operations, because of the strengthening of allied forces and of the heavy losses suffered by the enemy during Tet and because the element of surprise is missing, the new Communist attacks should not succeed in upsetting the military balance. But the current assaults could have a seriously unsettling effect on the allied political position, which will be of at least equal importance in the forthcoming negotiations.
“The siege of Saigon in particular appears aimed at weakening the Thieu-Ky regime and bolstering the new anti-government “Alliance of National Democratic and Peace Forces’ the Communists have been boosting. To counter this threat will require political as well as military action in Saigon.
“The Saigon regime should be moving now to broaden its base, recognizing the inevitability of a political confrontation with the National Liberation Front and the new Communist-backed Alliance and that the survival of some kind of free institutions in South Vietnam will depend on the unity of anti-Communist forces.
“Instead the Saigon government continues to insist on a narrow definition of South Vietnamese loyalty. It has recently rearrested Trung Dinh Dzu, runner-up in last year’s Presidential election, thus further alienating its non-Communist opposition. Other important opposition leaders remain in custody or in exile. Whatever the military outcome of the current Communist offensive, the allies will be leading from weakness in Paris unless Saigon acts now to reconcile rather than repress potential allies.”
…AND AFTER THE CEASE-FIRE…
“The new wave of Communist assaults on Vietnamese cities, accompanied by the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent bystanders, is timely reminder of the callous contempt for human life characterizing this war beyond many others.
“This calculating cruelty was exposed most forcefully in recent detailed American report on massive executions by the Communists in Hue during the Tet offensive. The murder of more than 1,000 Government workers, priests and women, some of whom apparently were buried alive, followed a pattern of wholesale political assassination that the Communists have practiced throughout South Vietnam–and in North Vietnam–for years.
“Strong guarantees against such bloody reprisals on either side after a cease-fire must be part of any peace settlement.”…
RTR quote for 9 May: WINSTON CHURCHILL, May 1940: “Without victory there can be no survival.”
Lest we forget… Bear