Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #423… THE NORTH VIETNAMESE POWER GRID… nine thermal power plants tied together… the next escalation salami-slice… but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE of remembering the events and warriors of OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER, one day at a time…
2 MAY 1967…HOME TOWN news as posted in The New York Times on a fair Tuesday in NYC, rain tonight…
Page 1: “45 Marines Killed in Bitter Fighting For Vietnam Hills; 186 of Enemy Dead as U.S. Battalions Near the Demilitarized Zone”… “Two battalions of American Marines inched forward yesterday despite heavy casualties in close range battle for control of a ridge line just south of the demilitarized zone. A Marine spokesman said that 45 Marines had been killed and 150 wounded in the final day of fighting for Hill 881 on a ridge line south of the buffer zone and five miles from the Laos border.”... Page 1: “Senate G.O.P. Study Calls U.S. War Role Error By Democrats”... “A White Paper released by the staff of the Senate Republican Policy Committee could lay the ground work for the Republican Party to disassociate itself next year from the Johnson Administration’s policy in Vietnam…The paper contended that military intervention in Vietnam was essentially a mistake perpetuated by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.”… (Humble Host will have more on this White Paper by Senator Bourke Hickenlooper in a future Ripple Salvo)...Page 1: “Rusk Lists 28 Bids On Vietnam Peace Spurned By Hanoi”…”Says Reds Repeated ‘Nos’ show Where Responsibility Lies on Continued War”…”…speech to 55th annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce…described 28 proposals made by ourselves or by others as ‘part of this effort to take a step toward peace.’ “... Page 1: “Apollo’s Builder Shifts Manager”...”North American’s top man in the company’s space unit was replaced in a shake-up of key posts. …in management of division that has been severely criticized for its work on the Apollo spacecraft in which three astronauts died last January 27. William Bergen is to head the North American Apollo program.”… Page 4: “Panel Finds Few Vietnamese Casualties Need Care in the United States. A four man investigating team sent to South Vietnam by a private organization to search for civilian war victims who would benefit from treatment in the United States was reported to have found few such cases…records were found to be reasonably accurate–50,000 casualties so far this year 800 in hospitals at any one time. Most are suffering minor injuries. Burns and amputations are the most serious.”….Page 7: “Rights Leader Refuses To Be Included”…”Cleveland Sellers, Jr., one of three major officers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee refused today to be inducted into the Army…called the Vietnamese war ‘a racist conflict and a plan to commit calculated genocide of Negroes’…Stokely Carmichael announced that 15 other committee workers hd refused induction.”….
Page 1: “Johnson Defends the Right to Dissent...but in talks to White House Fellows, he also upholds parallel right to reply…he declared that freedom of speech could never harm the nation ‘as long as we remember that it is a two-way street.’ ‘Today’s young people enjoy not only unparalleled ease and comfort but enormous freedom of inquiry, freedom of expression and yes, freedom of dissent,’ he said.
The President: “That free spirit we need, too, for freedom of speech can never harm us if we remember that freedom of speech is a two way street. We must guard every man’s right to speak, but we must defend every man’s right to answer.
“Your generation may feel a sense of outrage because it is inheriting a world with unsolved problems. But we need that restless spirit. It is the motive power behind every forward step a man or country makes.
“There is only one catch: the sternest impatience, the greatest power of speech, the most noble outrage against injustice–all will be only good intentions unless Americans old and young, involve themselves, unless they go into the field, unless they translate their best ideas into practical solutions. It is a sad fact that less than 50 per cent of the eligible under 25 exercise their right to vote. This is the lowest level of participation in any age group in America.”
The Rolling Thunder Rambler Report #2… Another great “There I was…”
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…FOR CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY AND INTREPIDITY… COMMANDER ALBERT JACKSON MONGER… A GOLD STAR IN LIEU OF THIRD SILVER STAR MEDAL …25 APRIL 1967…
The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star Medal…
“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against hostile enemy forces in North Vietnam while serving as Commander Attack Carrier Air Wing TWENTY-ONE embarked in USS BON HOMME RICHARD (CVA-34) on 25 April 1967. Assigned as the strike leader of a 28 aircraft strike against the Haiphong Ammunition Depot, Kien An, North Vietnam Commander MONGER used his extensive experience and knowledge to carefully lead the strike group to the target area. As he commenced a climb to release altitude a volley of enemy surface-to-air missiles was fired directly at the strike group. After successfully evading this missile attack, Commander MONGER resolutely re-positioned the group for attack and again was forced to evade a second volley of enemy missiles. During the attempt to position the strike group, enemy fighters were sighted entering the target area maneuvering for an attack on the last section of attack aircraft. With great courage and exercising outstanding leadership he directed the group to a position where the delivery phase was initiated. With disregard for his personal safety he concentrated on his own attack, delivered his bombs in the target, and personally accounted for two large buildings destroyed. His actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.” oohrah!!!
2 MAY 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times, 2 May Page 3: “On Monday, 11 MIGs were destroyed on the ground or in the air during attacks against two MIG airfields. It was the largest toll of enemy aircraft in a single day in the war so far. Navy pilots downed two of the jets and Air Force Pilots destroyed a third. Eight were destroyed on the ground…In a belated report, headquarters in Saigon disclosed three Thunderchiefs were lost over North Vietnam. Two were downed by MIG-21s. Four crew members are missing. (These are losses reported on 30 April: MAJOR LEO THORSNESS(POW); CAPTAIN HAROLD JOHNSON(POW); 1LT BOB ABBOTT(POW); and CAPTAIN JOE ABBOTT(POW)…)
Page 3: “China Charges U.S. Aircraft bombed the town of Nimming, a town 20 miles north of the North Vietnam border. The plane was identified as an F-105 that dropped four bombs and destroyed a house and two sheds at 5 PM yesterday. The U.S. denied the charge.”... (Bear#64/65.RP3/4.br/rrsiding)…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 2 May 1967…
(1) MAJOR F.D. HOWARD and SSGT T.P. KULICK (photographer) were flying an F-100F of the 352nd TFS and 35th TFW out of Phan Rang on a close air support mission and hit by ground fire at 750-feet in a napalm run. MAJOR HOWARD flew the burning aircraft clear of the target near Cam Ranh Bay to sea where both on board ejected and were rescued by Army helicopter.
(2) An F-4C of the 558th TFS and 12th TFW out of Cam Ranh Bay incurred a fire on takeoff roll. The takeoff was aborted. The crew of 2 escaped without injury and the aircraft was a strike.
RIPPLE SALVO… #42… The Rolling Thunder campaign came together the last week of April 1967. The weather cleared for the daylight dive bombers right on schedule, peace negotiations got mired in a deep rut, and the Washington target experts in and around the White House finally settled on the next slice of salami in the plan to increase the pressure on North Vietnam– the nine thermal power plants in the North Vietnam electrical power grid. ROLLING THUNDER 56 “became operational” on 2 May 1967 and included all the TPPs, the plant in the heart of Hanoi for the first time. What was needed now was someone to convince the President to authorize “The Hanoi Thermal Power Plant”… While the Yankee Air Pirates and Red River Rats were taking care of business with great strikes for the first time on all the air fields (except Gia Lam and Phucyen) and other targets within a mile or so of the center of Hanoi and Haiphong that had been heretofore restricted, including five or six of the TPPs and other elements of the NVN power grid, the Hanoi TPP was yet to be authorized. Convincing the President to goforit included this General Wheeler (CJCS) memo to the President that provided “the rationale behind the attack on the entire North Vietnamese power grid.” From the memo:
“As you know, the objective of our air attacks on the thermal electric power system in North Vietnam was not…to turn the lights off in major populations centers, but was designed to deprive the emeny of basic power source needed to operate certain war supporting facilities and industries. You will recall that nine thermal power plants were tied together, principally through the Hanoi Transformer Station, in an electric power grid in the industrial and population complex in northeastern North Vietnam…these nine thermal power plants provided electric power needed to operate a cement plant, a steel plant, a chemical plant, a fertilizer plant, a machine tool plant, and explosives plant, a textile plant, the ports of Haiphong and Hon Gai, major military installations such as airfields, etc. The power grid referred to above are tied in the nine individual thermal electric power plants and permitted the North Vietnamese to switch kilowattage is required among several consumers. All of the factories and facilities listed above contribute in one way or another and in varying degrees to the war effort in North Vietnam…”
General Wheeler then detailed examples of the benefit of knocking out the two power plants in Haiphong as a selling point in his effort to convince the President that the Hanoi TPP was the plum target that would “make a difference.” General Wheeler then defined the value of knocking out the Hanoi TPP…
“The Hanoi Thermal Power Plants a 32,500 kilowatt capacity comprising 17 percent of the pre-strike electric power production. Major facilities which would be affected by its destruction are the Hanoi Port facility, the Hanoi Supply depot, a machine tool plant, a rubber plant, a lead battery plant, the Van Dien Vehicle Repair depot, an international telecommunications site, an international radio transmission receiver site, the Bac Mai airfield, and the national military defense command center. All of these facilities contribute substantially to the North Vietnamese war effort. In addition, it should be noted a 35-kilovolt direct transmission line runs from the Hanoi Thermal Power Plant to Haiphong and Nam Dinh. We believe that, since the two Haiphong thermal Power plants were damaged, the Hanoi Thermal Power Plant has been supplying 3,000 kilowatts of power to Haiphong over this direct transmission line; this quantity is sufficient to meet about 10 per cent of Haiphong’s power requirements.” (Source: Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, page 152-153)
And with that, the President had all the facts, risks, benefits and staff support he needed to make the decision to “go downtown” and turn off the power at the main switchboard. He would take to 16 May to make that decision… In the meantime, for the first two weeks of May there was no shortage of good targets and good weather to go get ’em… May was to be an exciting month, perhaps the most exciting of the year…
Certainly, a month to remember if you were a part of it… in the War at Home, or the air war over North Vietnam… MAY 1967, IMHO a pivotal month in American history…
CAG’s Quotes for 2 May: SUN TZU: “It is the business of a general (and Commander-in-Chief???) to be serene and inscrutable, impartial and self-controlled.”… PATTON: “I think that if you treat a skunk nicely, he will not piss on you–as often.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
