Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #416… and WILSON and WISELY do SAIGON…follows a great STEPHEN R. GRAY 25 April 1967 tale from “RAMPANT RAIDER: AN A-4 SKYHAWK PILOT IN VIETNAM”... but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED SIXTEEN of a 1000-day journal of the air war in North Vietnam…
25 APRIL 1967… HOME TOWN HEAD LINES and leads from The Gray Lady on a sunny Tuesday in the Big Apple…
Page 1: “Westmoreland Decries Protests”… “General William C. Westmoreland declared yesterday that the enemy in Vietnam had gained support ‘in the United States and abroad that gives him hope that he can win politically what he cannot accomplish.’ The Commander of United States forces in Vietnam somberly told 1,500 newspaper executives and others at the annual luncheon of the Associated Press at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC that he foresaw ‘in the months ahead some of the bitterest fighting of the war.‘ But he asserted that the military picture is favorable even though, he said, ‘I do not see any end of the war in sight,’ and he appealed for the united support of the American people for his forces. General Westmoreland said he was delighted over the first bombing of MIG airfields in North Vietnam yesterday. He said he was not concerned about cease-fire proposals ‘because experience had shown that the enemy had used the cease-fire periods to strengthen his forces both militarily and politically.’ “…
Page 1: Westmoreland also said he ‘would like to tell you about the troops.’... He said they are: better educated than ever before; better informed; better physical specimens; of high morale; possess traditional American ingenuity and initiative; and understand what the war is all about. They know they are helping to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia and to give the people of South Vietnam freedom of choice.”… “They have been given a job, and they are doing it well, and with pride…but they are dismayed, and so am I, by recent unpatriotic acts here at home…”
Page 1: “Earlier Senator Charles Percy of Illinois had told a news conference at the AP annual membership meeting he ‘deplored the airfield bombing’ and ‘that if we began bombing North Vietnam’s airfields, the planes would seek sanctuary in Red China and this would expand China’s role in the war.’ “…
Page 1: “Soviet Astronaut Killed as His Spacecraft Crashed When Chute Lines Snarl”... “Colonel Vladimir M. Kosmarov, pilot of the Soviet Union’s first manned spacecraft in more than two years was killed today when his craft’s main re-entry parachute snarled and the ship plummeted 4.3 miles to earth. He had been in orbit around the earth a little more than 24-hours before attempting to land. The Soviet astronaut is the first man known to have died on a space flight… He was testing Soyuz 1, a heavy new craft intended for a series of manned soviet space flights this summer… Page 1: “U.S. Assays Effect”... “The death today of a Russian astronaut will slow but not halt the Soviet Union’s space program.”... Page 1: “King Constantine Said to Tell U.S. Aide in Athens He Opposes Junta”...and made clear to American officials that he disapproved of the military seizure of power in Greece Friday.”… Page 7: “Vietnam Casualties Listed By Pentagon”… “The Defense Department identified today 58 servicemen who had died in combat in Vietnam.”… (and 46 the day before)… (and 17 the day before that)… “American casualties last year totaled 35,00 killed and wounded and may reach 65,000 this year… A million Americans were drafted or enlisted last year (1966) and this will total will be duplicated this year Senator Harry Byrd, Jr., Democrat of Virginia asserted.”… Page 11: “Humphrey Jeered in Austin”… after he speaks on Vietnam War and the cost of the war that he said was $20 to 22 billion per year.”… HUMBLE HOST NOTES: THE ANNUAL COST OF THE WAR IN BLOOD AND TREASURE = 35,000 DEAD OR BROKEN BODIES AND $22 BILLIONS … PER YEAR…
Page 9: “New Raids Start Debate in Capital”… “The Johnson Administration, which has repeatedly explained its reasons for not attacking North Vietnam’s MIG airfields offered no explanation for its shift in policy that led to today’s attacks on two MIG airfields.”… “With the bombing of Haiphong last Thursday the remaining escalatory measures believed under consideration were: (1) The bombing of the thermal power plant in Hanoi; (2) The bombing of the docks at Haiphong, which would risk a large number of civilian casualties, and threaten Soviet ships that regularly discharge military cargo; and, (3) The destruction of industrial targets such as shipyards at Haiphong and Hanoi, plastic factories and iron works scattered throughout North Vietnam and even such industry as textiles. However, there has been no discussion reported of bombing the Red River dikes which could result in the flooding of cities.”…
25 April 1967…The President’s Daily Brief”… CIA (TS sanitized) GREECE: The new government is anxious to be accepted by its NATO allies. In talks with Americans, high officials have underscored their pro-U.S. Position, and the new foreign minister lost no time in accepting an invitation to Adenauer’s funeral. The King is still bitter about the coup, but yesterday he met with one of its leaders... SOUTH VIETNAM: Voters have now gone to the polls in 900 of the approximately 1,000 villages scheduled to elect their officials this spring. Total turnout so far has been 77% of those registered. Viet Cong harassment was light during the latest polling last Sunday… SOVIET UNION: The ill-fated flight of Soyuz-1 is a serious setback to the Soviet space program…technical difficulties plagued Colonel Komarov’s entire mission.
25 APRIL 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER..New York Times (26 Apr reporting 25 Apr ops) Page 1: “U.S. Planes Bomb Plant in Haiphong”... “Navy fliers staged morning and afternoon attacks against a cement plant one mile from the center of Haiphong…and an ammunition dump and petroleum storage tanks a few miles beyond Hanoi today. The Navy fliers from the carriers Kitty Hawk and Bon Homme Richard followed Air Force pilots in pressing through a curtain of antiaircraft fire and swarms of enemy jets as they continued bombing runs against hitherto forbidden targets. .. The Navy raids followed attacks by Air Force pilots based in Thailand on a railroad yard and electrical transformer station 2 1/2 miles and 7 miles respectively from the center of Hanoi…The Navy reported the loss of an A-4C to ground fire on the raid. Two F-4 Phantoms went down yesterday on the attacks on Kep air base. A Navy F-8 Crusader was lost in another operation in North Vietnam.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson): There were four fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 25 April 1967…
(1) 1LT ROBERT LARRY WESKAMP was flying an F-105D of the 354th TFS and 355th TFW in a large strike on a high priority target–a transformer station–on the outskirts of Hanoi. En route to and nearing the target south of Phuc Yen the flight was assailed by intense flak and barrages of missiles. 1LT WESKAMP reported he was hit but the aircraft exploded and crashed about ten miles north of Hanoi before the young pilot could eject. 1LT WESKAMP was Killed in Action attacking the enemy’s heart fifty years ago this day… His remains were returned on 6 March 1974 and identified on 22 April 1974 for burial in his homeland…
(2) LT CHARLES DAVID STACKHOUSE was flying an A-4C of the VA-76 Spirits embarked in USS Bon Homme Richard on an Alpha Strike on the POL and Ammo storage sites at Haiphong. after delivering his ordnance on the revetted ammo storage site he was engaged by several MiGs and during the hassle he was hit by a round of 37mm cannon in the engine causing engine failure and a fire. LT STACKHOUSE was forced to eject and came down in a rice paddy south of Haiphong. He was immediately captured and served the next six years as a POW. He was released in March 1973…
(3) LCDR FRANK J. ALMBERG was flying an A-4E of the World Famous VA-192 Golden Dragons embarked in USS Ticonderoga on an Iron Hand mission in support of the strike on the Haiphong POL and ammo storage targets. While suppressing one SAM site LCDR ALMBERG incurred two near misses with SAMs from another site with minor damage that cascaded as flew his aircraft on manual backup for 40 miles before the aircraft controls failed and he was forced to eject… He was rescued by a Navy Helicopter to fly and fight again…
(4) LTJG AL R. CREBO was flying an A-4E of the VA-212 Rampant Raiders embarked in the USS Bon Homme Richard on a re-strike of the Haiphong POL and Ammo Storage targets in the afternoon of the 25th. He was hit by a SAM as he neared roll-in for his dive bombing attack. He maintained control despite a near direct hit by the SAM, and delivered his bombs before turning seaward to assess the damage. He was able to fly the aircraft back to the carrier but only able to lower the nose gear and was forced to eject. He ejected and was picked up by the carrier’s escort destroyer. Now, the rest of the “Crebo story”.
HUMBLE HOST refers to Stephen R. Gray’s super journal of his combat experience and years of tailhooking, “Rampant Raider: An A-4 Skyhawk Pilot in Vietnam.” Here are a few excerpts form Steve’s captivating 7-page reconstruction of Bonnie Dick’s April 25 strikes on the Haiphong targets, morning and afternoon, pages 207 -214. Here is a condensed version of a great Operation Rolling Thunder war story by Stephen Gray…
“On 25 April the biggest show of the war so far was laid on. A plethora of new targets around Haiphong was to be hit throughout the day by all three aircraft carriers in the Tonkin Gulf… The morning strike was heavily contested. As Air Wing 21 approached the target, which was very close to a MIG base at Cat Bi airfield, a MIG-17 lifted off the runway and bored right up through the strike formation, squirted off an Atoll heat seeking missile on his way through. The missile flew right up the tailpipe of an A-4 from VA-76 and blew the entire tail section off the airplane. No one in the alpha strike formation saw the pilot Lt. Charles Stackhouse, eject from the burning jet as it spun out of control into the ground….and was presumed to have died in the crash”… (POW repatriated March 1973)…
“Our target was an ammunition storage area just off the edge of Cat Bi airfield. At this time of the war, even though the MiGs were becoming an ever-increasing threat, the Johnson administration would not let us hit the MIG bases for fear that the MiGs would begin to stage out of Red China, as the North Koreans had done in the Korean War.”… “After the air wing briefing we adjourned to VA-212’s ready room for our own briefing and the signal to man airplanes. Commander (Marv) Quaid would be in ship 220, and I was his number two in ship 221. Lt Cdr. Arv Chauncey would lead the second section in ship 232, and his wingman was Lt.(jg) Davy Wolf in ship 233. Lt Tom Taylor would lead the second element in ship 230, his wingman, our tail-end Charlie, was Lt.(jg) Al Crebo in ship 225.”…
“As we approached the coast, one of our fighter escorts called bogeys at twelve o’clock. I glanced ahead and saw three black dots headed toward us on a collision course.”…. “They were F-4 Phantoms from the Kitty Hawk coasting out,,,”… “Commander Quaid (XO) called, ‘Eagles, arm switches,’ as we crossed the coast….”
“As we hit the initial point and started our pop-up, the (SAM) warning light began to flash and the song became an urgent “DEEDUL-DEEDUL-DEEDUL.” My heart jumped, and radio discipline, which was never very good in an alpha strike, went to hell. ‘I got a SAM light!’ I broadcast blind, forgetting to identify myself. The light meant the dreaded SAM was tracking me!.… All through the climb to roll-in altitude the deadly song continued in my ears…. It was with considerable relief that Eagle Lead and I reached roll-in altitude. Since I ended up on the inside of the roll-in turn, the XO rolled toward me to start his run …and I ended up much closer than I would have liked to the XO’s airplane. This error very nearly allowed the North Vietnamese to score a double with their SAM. Relief swept over me as I got my nose down in the run, thinking that the SAM couldn’t get me now. I was only about two hundred feet behind the XO’s airplane, scanning between his A-4 and the target, when I saw his bombs release. I pickled off my bombs just seconds later, using his release point for my own.”…
“We had just finished pullout with our noses coming up to the horizon when a huge explosion ripped across my windscreen and the XO’s airplane disappeared in a fireball and orange smoke. The SAM.s rocket motor, which was still burning, spun right in front of me. I yanked back hard on the stick, putting who knows how many Gs on the air frame, and just missed colliding with it. My airplane flashed on through the debris from the exploded SAM and pieces of the XO’s airplane and emerged to see Eagle Leader’s A-4 enveloped in a cloud of streaming fuel and hydraulic fluid. ‘Eagle Lead, you’re hit! Head for the beach,’ I transmitted. That was unnecessary because our run-out heading was toward the Gulf anyway… “About this time my SAM detector came alive again and an 85-mm antiaircraft gun on a quay jutting our into Haiphong Harbor, close aboard on our left took us under fire… black puffs exploding flak bursting around us … The XO still wasn’t responding to my calls, so I slid in for a closer look and saw him slumped forward with his head down. Sxxx, I thought, he’s dead.”
“The SAM that had caused the second warning was flying level now, coming fast off our starboard quarter. As I watched it approach, Al Crebo, our tail-end Charlie on the roll-in transmitted, ‘This is Eagle Six. I’m hit and I’m losing control.’ Fortunately, the SAM off our port quarter either ran out of steam or lost tracking because it nosed over and crashed into the water behind us as we flew out of 85-mm range. The XO’s ram air turbine (RAT), the back-up electrical power source, flipped open on the side of his fuselage and began to spin, and I realized that the XO wasn’t dead after all... I slid in close and began to describe the damage I could see. The right wing and the fuselage aft of the trailing edge of the wing all the way to the tail were full of holes. He had lost his wing fuel and hydraulic systems and was flying with the backup control system. A carrier landing in this condition would be dicey at best.”
“After I described the extent of visible damage, we turned to join the rest of the Eagle bombers, who were clustered around what remained of Al Crebo’s airplane. One of them looked me over because the XO’s airplane was in no shape to fly formation on me. I was amazed to hear that I had no visible damage. How had I flown through all that exploding debris and flak and come out untouched? The fact that Al Crebo’s airplane was still flying was even more astonishing.”
“About the same time the first SAM hit the XO, Al Crebo was just about to start his roll-in. As he was the last to make the run, he had to hang up at the top of the roll-in waiting for enough separation from his leader. He was down to about 220-knots by this time, which made him a sitting duck to the SAM shooters….The missile must have exploded within feet of Al’s airplane because the explosion flipped the little A-4 over on its back. When Al recovered from the effect of the explosion his nose was pointed at the target, so he elected to continue his bomb run. He began losing carious weapons systems during his run-in but he was able to punch his bombs off before he lost his primary flight control system and the airplane rolled upside down three thousand feet above the ground….Al was doing more than 450-knots when his airplane rolled upside down out of control. He reached down in the cockpit , disconnected the primary control system, and rolled the airplane upright. Later he didn’t remember the maneuver taking a lot of effort, but then again, his adrenalin was really pumping at the time.”…
“The Flying Eagles gathered around Crebo’s crippled airplane began to assess the extent of the damage. That it was still airborne defied imagination. The rudder was completely gone and only half of the vertical stabilizer remained. The turbine section of the J-52-P*A ended at the trailing edge of the wing, so the A-4 had a very long tailpipe. There were at least a dozen holes in Al’s tailpipe, some of them large enough to see daylight through the other side. In fact, there were holes just about everywhere on the airplane except in the cockpit area, and the concussion from the SAM detonation had popped open every access panel on the airplane. If the shrapnel that went through the tailpipe had hit in the cockpit area Al surely would have been killed. As it was, he was incredibly lucky, the shrapnel had come very close. Al’s section leader Lt. Tom Taylor, had a hand-held camera with him and took several photos of Al’s airplane.” (This photo was to become one of the most published pictures of the air war)…
“As we neared the ship, he decided to see what worked and if he should attempt a carrier landing. When he tried to lower the landing gear, only the nose gear would extend….the main landing gear were jammed in the wheel wells… that pretty well decided the issue. Al would climb to ten thousand feet, the altitude… recommended for ejection, and punch out. He made it to six thousand before the engine finally flamed out from fuel starvation. Al grabbed the secondary ejection handle between his knees, pulled it up sharply, and became the first VA-212 pilot of the 1967 cruise to eject. He would not be the last.”…
“The XO landed safely even with a manual flight control system, a feat of superior skill in airmanship. The rest of the strike force landed without incident. Later we learned that more than thirty SAMs had been fired at the air wing, but only two hit their targets. Never-the-less, the events of the day proved that the information we had used to develop our tactics was flawed. After further review, we decided to change our approach-to-the-target to a higher altitude, using a twelve-thousand-foot roll-in and a forty-five degree dive with a five thousand-foot release… ”
End short version of Al Crebo’s most memorable 25 April from fifty years ago today… oohrah to all Rampant Raiders…
Most strongly recommend Stephen Gray’s “Rampant Raider”for summer reading…and a way to remember the years of Rolling Thunder…
RIPPLE SALVO… #415… NEW YORK TIMES, 26 April reporting 25 April event in Saigon…Page 5: “Pilots who took part in the two days of raids, which sharply raised the pressure being exerted by the United States in the hope of forcing North Vietnam to the peace table were flown to Saigon to describe their experiences. ‘The enemy dealt us a full-house,’ said Commander James H. WILSON, leader of the squadron that hit the Kep airbase which is 37 miles northeast of Hanoi. ‘It was the whole works. Triple A, missiles and the MiGs. There was more triple-A fire than you would see in those World War II movies. Tracers, explosions, flares in all colors.’ Commander WILSON has 180 missions to his credit as well as 63 flown during the Korean War.
“Lieutenant Hugh D. WISELY of Wayne, New Jersey, one of the men who flew cover for the bombing runs was credited with downing one of the MIGs…He told how he had hit it with an air-to-air rocket just as it was sliding into the 6-o’clock position on the tail of his squadron operations officer. ‘One of his buddies must have warned him it was coming,’ Lieutenant WISELY said. ‘Anyhow, he broke to the right and the missile went right up his tailpipe.’…”……OOHRAH!
CAG’s QUOTEs for 25 April: SUN TZU: “Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory.”… PATTON; “All human being have an innate resistance to obedience. Discipline removes this resistance and, by constant repetition, makes obedience habitual and subconscious.”
Lest we forget… Bear…
