Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #971.. (100+) SAIGON, NOV 1 (AP)– UNITED STATES PLANES CARRIED OUT DAYLIGHT MISSIONS AGAINST NORTH VIETNAM TODAY BUT ORDERS WENT OUT TO STOP THE BOMBING BY 9 P.M. SAIGON TIME IN LINE WITH PRESIDENT JOHNSON’S ORDER.”… President’s 31 October 1968 speech to the nation announcing the cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam…
http://www.lbjlibrary.net/collections/selected-speeches/1968-january-1969/10-31-1968.html
Good Morning… Day NINE HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE of a remembrance of the events and warriors of the great air war of 1965-68 code named OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… This post concludes the core collection and archive, which has been called “a monumental and comprehensive work” by Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox, Director of Naval History… Thanks, Sam… RTR will remain active indefinitely to pursue expansion, editing and indexing the archive by Humble Host and his trusty webmaster. In addition, after a short stand down, RTR will resume weekly posts on Monday, 19 November that will continue a remembrance of the Vietnam war and the air strike operations under the COMMANDO HUNT umbrella…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on 1 November 1968…
THE CESSATION: Page 1: “ATTACKS ON NORTH VIETNAM HALT TODAY–JOHNSON SAYS WIDER TALKS BEGIN NOVEMBER 6–PEACE CALLED THE AIM–Saigon and National Liberation Front Can Join In The Enlarged Paris Discussions”… Page 1: “CAUTION VOICED–U.S. Officials Expect The Sessions To Be Long and Difficult”… Page 1: “NIXON HOPES JOHNSON STEP WILL AID THE TALKS IN PARIS… Page 1: “HUMPHREY HAILS DECISION AS WISE–Asserts Vast Majority Will Support It–Aides Look for Campaign Upturn”…
THE WAR: Page 1: “ROCKET ATTACKS ON SAIGON KILL 21–Most Victims at Early Mass–Hue Is Also Shelled With 9 Feared Dead”… “A series of the war’s most damaging rocket attacks in terms of human life rocked Saigon last night and this morning a President Johnson was instructing the military to halt the bombing of North Vietnam…. more than 20 rockets were fired into Saigon, killing at least 21 Vietnamese civilians and wounding more than 70…About 15 rockets fell into Hue, the former imperial capital, killing 9 and wounding 13…Mytho, the largest city in the Mekong Delta, was shelled heavily by mortars but few casualties were reported…. A few hours before the rocket attacks struck Saigon, the United States Military Command reported 109 American deaths last week as a result of combat with the enemy. This was the second lowest weekly toll of the year. The week before 100 Americans died.”…
HEAD LINES: Page 1: “ISRAELI COMMANDO UNITS ATTACK TO NILE BRIDGES”… Page 3: “COMMUNIST PARTY IN SOVIET BACKS INVASION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA–Central Committee Backs Moscow Foreign Policy”… Page 1: “LOST ATOMIC SUBMARINE FOUND OFF AZORES–Parts Of The Scorpion Hull Sighted At 10,000-Feet”… Page 50: “GALLUP POLL: ELECTION TUESDAY WILL SET RECORD WITH 75 MILLION VOTES–65-Per Cent of Eligible Will Vote”…
1 NOVEMBER 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… On the final day of Operation Rolling Thunder one fixed wing aircraft was lost in Southeast Asia…
An F-4J of the VFMA-334 Falcons and MAG-11 out of Danang flown by CAPTAIN G.S. LIBEY, USMC and 1LT W.H. FRIZELL was downed by ground fire attacking an NVA 37mm gun position near Vinh Linh two miles north of the DMZ. CAPTAIN LIBEY was able to fly the damaged aircraft east to the Gulf of Tonkin where both aviators ejected and were rescued: CAPTAIN LIBEY by an Air Force Jolly Green. 1LT FRIZELL was initially rescued by a boat crew of the USS Holmes County LST, then picked up from the LST by the Air Force Jolly Green, and both Marines were returned to Danang for a cold beer, or two… (Additional info provided by Fuzzy Frizzell on 1 Dec 2019…)
CAPTAIN LIBEY and 1LT FRIZELL thereby earned the dubious distinction of being the last aircraft lost to North Vietnamese gunners in Rolling Thunder. The first losses to the NVN gunners occurred on 2 March 1965 with the loss of five Air Force aircraft (3 F-105s and 2 F-100s) in large strike operations in Route Package I, just north of the DMZ. The Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam reported in a 1971 propaganda war film that the first successful downing of an American aircraft was also attributed to the gunners at Vinh Linh. The Vinh Linh success led to the NVN production of a 46-minute film titled “Vinh Linh: The Steel Rampart.”… Humble Host most strongly recommends this superb record of our bombing campaign as viewed and lived by the agrarian villagers in and around Vinh Linh located a few miles north of the DMZ and on the coast line where the bombardment involved both ships and aircraft. This is a great war movie… watch at… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lbSilH7qkc (This edit added 4 December 2019)…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) FOR THE FOUR 1 NOVEMBER DATES OF THE FOUR YEAR OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965, 1967 and 1968… NONE…
1966… LT ALLEN RUSSELL CARPENTER, USN… (POW)… Refer to RTR for 1-Nov-66, Ripple Salvo #244 for LT CARPENTER’s parachute landing in Haiphong Harbor and the race to pull him out of the water won by a North Vietnamese junk to the dismay of two other aircraft and a SAR helo that took battle damage in their effort to rescue LT CARPENTER.
RIPPLE SALVO… #971… NEW YORK TIMES, 1 NOVEMBER 1968, Page 46, Opinion Editorial… I quote…
“A STEP TOWARD PEACE…
“Seven months to the day from his announcement of a partial cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam and his withdrawal from the Presidential race Lyndon Johnson has ordered the rest of the bombing halted. With the ground rule for substantive peace negotiations fixed meanwhile in secret talks, the search for a political settlement of the long Southeast Asian conflict can now begin.
“Most of the principles of a settlement expounded by both sides are similar. The agreed aim is to seek a cease-fire, a phased withdrawal of American and North Vietnamese troops under international supervision and establishment of a neutral, independent South Vietnam committed to free elections and ultimate reunification with the North through agreement.
“The nature of the future government of South Vietnam–the chief issue on which there is no agreement in principle–will not be a simple question too resolve. Nor will the fine print be easy to write on any of the points at issue. But peace can only be achieved one step at a time. The first step needed was to open the way to negotiations. That step now has been taken.
“The device that had permitted this breakthrough evidently was an agreement to admit the Saigon Government and the national Liberation Front to the negotiations without requiring either side to recognize its adversary’s South Vietnamese friends.
‘Mr. Johnson made no claim of obtaining the explicit assurances of future Communist military restraint that he and Secretary Rusk repeatedly had sought in the past in exchange for a complete bombing halt. There is no ‘contract’ with North Vietnam on this, Administration officials admitted last night. Instead, Mr. Johnson said that it had been made clear to Hanoi that ‘talks cannot continue’ in an ‘atmosphere where the cities are being shelled and where the demilitarized zone is abused,’ thus leading to ‘an increase in American casualties.’ He had decided to halt the bombing, the President added, ‘to really determine the good faith’ of the North Vietnamese, ‘who have assured us that progress will result when bombing ceases.’
“The de facto lull in the fighting in the South clearly made Mr. Johnson’s decision easier. Historians will have to decide whether similar evidence last summer was wrongly dismissed as insufficient. What is important now is that a policy that failed has been put aside. More than three years of bombing North Vietnam and escalating the ground war in the South increased the scale of the conflict without ever breaking the military stalemate, much less breaking Hanoi’s will. Now, finally, the bombing has been halted, the fighting in the South is being de-escalated and a serious attempt is to be made to negotiate a political settlement.”Despite a divisive election campaign, the country is largely united behind this move. Hard negotiations–perhaps hard fighting too, as Mr. Johnson warned–lie ahead. But, for the first time, a future prospect of peace can be discerned.”… End quote…
RTR Quote for 1 November: PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, “Report on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident”… Watch and hear at…
Lest we forget… Bear
