ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 1 MAY 1966

RIPPLE SALVO… SOFT MIRY LAND… but first…

Good Morning: Day SIXTY-THREE of a two year project…a review of Operation Rolling Thunder…

1 MAY 1966 (NYT)… ON THE HOME FRONT… A rainy Sunday in New York and five pounds of a New York Times Sunday edition to digest… Page 1: “U.S. Toll of MIGs Continues to Rise As Air War Grows”… Air Force F-4s continue to dominate the skies north of Hanoi with three MIG kills in two days. “Saigon, April 30. United States Air Force pilots shot another Communist MIG fighter out of the sky over North Vietnam today in a continuation of the most sustained period of aerial combat of the Vietnamese war.”… In addition, the bombing raids have intensified in number and targeting. “An American military spokesperson said the last seven days have been marked by bombing raids of unusual intensity and were the most active period in the air war (Rolling Thunder was the classified title).” While American jets scored three kills, the Air Force lost an F-105 35 miles north of Hanoi in the execution of a strike on the transportation network. The pilot is MIA. The Navy lost an F-8 25 miles east of Haiphong on a photo recce mission. Pilot MIA.. U.S. air war losses over North Vietnam were five this week and now total 223 since February 22, 1965. ..”Hanoi disputes these figures. All the newspapers in the North Vietnamese capital announced that pilots and anti-aircraft gunners had downed their one thousandth United States airplane.”… “Hanoi Lists 4 Captive Pilots”  … LCOL ROBINSON RISENER, CAPTAIN CHARLES BOYD, LTJG BARRY SPENCER, and LT R.R.CATZLAFF…. Major targets of the Air Force this week were the Thainguyen railroad yards and the railroad bridge at Bacgiang. Yesterday the Air Force flew 28 strike mission and the Navy flew 25 missions against coastal shipping taking credit for the destruction of more than 100 water borne logistic craft. An intelligence briefer said, “There is evidence that North Vietnamese were resorting to boats to haul south some of their supplies that were no longer able to move along cratered roads…

Also page 1: “American Troop Strength Now at 255,000″… with breakdown of 166,500 Army; 51,000 Marines, 34,000 USAF, and 3,500 USN in country, plus Seventh Fleet (50,000)…  “Saigon Cargo Delays Cost Millions in Extra Charges,” due to demurrage charges for delays in off loading. In April, 25 ships were delayed due to strikes an average of 28 days… “Annapolis Chided On Grade Quotas,” as a 300-page report is released by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of their evaluation of the Naval Academy academic program. The evaluators commented, “No good college” would limit the number of failures. The USNA Superintendent’s comments on the report, “…imminently fair with some sharp criticism, but it’s general conclusions were congratulatory.”… Page 3: “Chou, Spurning Call for Talks, Pledges Aid to VN Reds,” in a speech in Hong Kong. Chou En Lai said that Communist China would give all out support to the Vietnamese Communists to whatever extent the united States may widen the war and whatever cost we must pay… Page 4: “End of North Vietnam Bombing Called for,” by the American Jewish Congress at a meeting in Grossinger, New York. The call was directed at the Administration to “suspend indefinitely, and without conditions, the bombing of North Vietnam as a means of moving the battlefield to the negotiating table…..

ROLLING THUNDER OPS… 1 MAY 1966… The weather was clear and both the Navy and Air Force flew full schedules with two losses… CAPTAIN J.M. INGALLS of the 602ACS out of Udorn was hit by ground fire while flying an A-1E on a Firefly mission in Barrel Roll area of northeastern Laos. He maneuvered clear of the target area before bailing out and was eventually rescued by an Air Force helicopter… The second loss was an A-4E from VA-212s Rampant Raiders on USS Hancock. While attacking a convoy of trucks 10 miles south of Vinh armed with LAU-3 rocket pods, LT R.H. MANSFIELD ingested one of his own rockets with a resulting engine fire and ejection two minutes after the event. He was subsequently rescued by a Navy helicopter.

RIPPLE SALVO… QUAGMIRE…”A soft boggy area of land that gives way underfoot” … “An awkward, complex or hazardous situation”… Senator William Fulbright, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee played a leading role in helping the President secure passage of the “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution” that provided the President the authority required to retaliate and wage an air war– “Operation Rolling Thunder”–against North Vietnam. Already, in the first two months–60 blogs–of my review, Senator Fulbright has had a change of heart and become one of the leading voices challenging the President, as noted in my blog of Friday 29 April 1966. Wherein, the Senator said:

“America is showing some signs of that fatal presumption, that over extension of power and mission, which brought ruin to ancient Athens, to Napoleonic France and to Nazi Germany.” A few days later he elaborated in a speech at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “The United States like other great nations in the past is in danger of equating power with virtue and its major responsibilities with a universal mission. Having done so much and succeeded so well, America is now at that historical point at which a great nation is in danger of losing its perspective on what exactly within its power and what is beyond it.”

…and this: “I DOUBT THE UNITED STATES CAN GO INTO A SMALL, ALIEN, UNDEVELOPED ASIAN NATION AND CREATE STABILITY WHERE THERE IS DEFEATISM, DEMOCRACY WHERE THERE IS NO TRADITION OF IT, AND HONEST GOVERNMENT WHERE CORRUPTION IS A WAY OF LIFE.” That is my definition of a “quagmire.” What’s yours?

Ignore history at your own risk.

Lest we forget….    Bear                   …………….  –30–  ……………