Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #401… of the “TRIPLE MOON GODDESS” of Greek mythology… but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED ONE of a visit to the past not to be forgotten– the air war over North Vietnam of the 1960s…
10 April 1967… On the home front: HEAD LINES and LEADS from The New York Times on a rainy Monday in NYC…
Page 1: “Gay Brewer Victor in Masters”…with a 280 score, one better than Bobby Nichols and Bert Yancey. Arnold Palmer at 285, Jack Nicklaus and Julius Boros at 286, and Ben Hogan at 290.” …
Page 1: “Pro-Mao Members Are Said to Obtain Control of Politburo”... “Japanese reports from Peking said today that Chairman Mao Tse-tung and his supporters had gained control of the politburo of the Chinese Communist party’s Central Committee, China’s highest policy-making body…six of the eleven members of the standing committee of the Politburo sided with Chairman Mao with the other five on the side of President Liu Shao-chi.”…
Page 1:”Apollo Fire Review Board Finds Many Deficiencies; Calls For Safety Moves”… “A board of review said today that the fire that killed three astronauts in their Apollo space capsule last January 27 was probably caused by a faulty electrical wire in its final report, the board strongly criticized those involved in the entire Apollo project, whose purpose to get men to the moon by 1970 for ‘their many deficiencies in design and engineering, manufacture and quality control…the eight man board produced a 3,000-page report after a 10-week investigation that concluded that the exact cause of the Apollo disaster will probably never be ‘positively identified.’ “… Page 1: “Truck Shutdown in Nation Grows”… “A major trucking shutdown spread across the nation today as the Government searched for a key to unlock the labor dispute that caused it. Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz stepped into the controversy for the first time as scores of companies locked out thousands of teamster union members in response to the order by Trucking Employers, Inc, a coalition of 1,500 operators who have 2/3 of the industry volume.”... Page 1: “Goldwater Sides With Johnson On Strategy of President Johnson”… “Barry Goldwater applauded President Johnson today or issues of the Vietnam War. Speaking on the ABC program, ‘Issues and Answers’… he praised Mr. Johnson’s conduct of the war and encouraged him to intensify it further…’For the last two weeks President Johnson has finally disregarded the words of Bobby Kennedy and Bill Fulbright and others who would pull out at any cost, recognizing that Hanoi will not come to the bargaining table.”…
Page 1: “Rioting Nashville Negroes Fire on Cars, Stone Police”… “Negro rioters fired rifles at passing cars, stoned policemen and set at least one white owned-operated grocery store ablaze last night and early today in a flare-up that left a Negro student seriously wounded. It was Nashville’s second consecutive night of Negro rioting and by early this morning the toll had risen to more than 15 injuries and 40 arrests. Two of those arrested were field secretaries of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. The two–George Washington Ware and Ernest Stevens of Atlanta–were charged with inciting a riot. Student tempers flared last week when the Tennessee State Senate and other organizations attempted to prevent Stokely Carmichael, the chairman of the student committee, from speaking at Vanderbilt University on Saturday.”... Page 1: “Revisions in Poverty Law Sought to Abate Criticism”… “Seeking to soothe Congressional critics, the Administration will ask tomorrow that the anti-poverty law be sharply revised to prevent abuses. The proposed changes would bar anti-poverty workers from partisan political activity, rule out the use of Federal funds for ‘illegal picketing or demonstrations,’ screen out troublemakers from the job corps, and require annual audits on all anti-poverty programs.”… Page 10: “Tensions Rise in Cleveland Ghetto forces closure of super-market. Operator: ‘I can’t get insurance anymore.’ 13 insurance companies in a syndicate of 20 have canceled coverage in the ‘Tough Hough’ area ‘due to tension and looting last summer.”
10 April 1967… The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized) COMMUNIST CHINA: The strident campai9gn against Liu Shao-chi has entered its second week. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese surged through Peking streets again yesterday chanting demands for his ouster. Lurid anti-Liu cartoons blossomed on the streets over the weekend, one of them depicting Liu’s wife as a painted prostitute… SOUTH VIETNAM: Local elections went off smoothly yesterday for the second successive Sunday. Voter turnout was again high, probably even better than the 80.5 percent recorded last week...SYRIA-ISRAEL: The border is quiet in the wake of Friday’s major outbreaks. Syria lost six of its 26 MIG-21s…
10 APRIL 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times…(11 Apr reporting 10 Apr) “In the air war over the North, poor weather limited operations to 96 multi-plane missions flown by American fighter-bombers on Sunday. But aircraft carrier A-6 Intruders attacked the Thainguyen steel complex for the ninth time. Darkness and weather precluded damage assessment… (Bear#55mk82KemNacbridgedropped)…
“Vietnam: Air Losses”(Hobson) Two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 10 April 1967…
(1) MAJOR JOHN FRANCIS O’GRADY was flying an F-105D of the 357th TFS and 355th TFW out of Takhli on an armed reconnaissance flight in the area of the Mugia Pass. The flight developed a target of enemy troops and commenced attacks.On MAJOR O’GRADY’s second run his aircraft was hit by ground fire forcing him to eject at the target. A parachute was observed but no beeper or voice comms were heard. An extensive search produced no contact and MAJOR O’GRADY was assumed to have been captured and listed as missing in action. Unfortunately he was not among the POWs returned in 1973 and was at that time presumed to be dead. It is also presumed that MAJOR O’GRADY died of his injuries at or near the crash site. His body has not been recovered, he rests in peace where he fell fifty years ago in the service of our country…
(2) LCDR G.W. SHATTUCK was flying an A-4E of the VA-192 “World Famous Golden Dragons” embarked in USS Ticonderoga on an armed reconnaissance mission 20 miles north of Vinh and hit by enemy ground fire preparing to attack a group of barges. The damage limited his control of engine power and eventually resulted in a flame-out and ejection. He was rescued by Navy helicopter.
RIPPLE SALVO… #401… Adapted from a piece I put in an email back in 2009 while pondering the death of a Naval Aviator I respected and admired greatly…
Back in the 1950s when we were all rookies and FNGs in the carrier flying business a best seller book by Ernest Gann was titled, “Fate is the Hunter.” Gann wrote of the hazards of flying in the first decades of commercial flying and the loss of many of his friends to what he called “Fate.” And in the 1950s Fate had a field day in Naval Aviation. Hundreds of Naval Aviators were hammered by “the fickle finger of fate” — the annual average was about 200 killed while flying, with the destruction of an average of 600 aircraft every year. We knew the score when we signed up and accepted two facts: (1) FATE is the hunter and (2) the trade– tailhooker– required a sustained attitude that “I am invincible, at least for the time being. If it’s gonna’ get me, it’s gonna get me. Press on.”…
As the decades have flown by, scores of friends have fallen, claimed by fate. The originators of Greek Mythology, including “The Fates,” have proven ever more impressive in their grasp of life and death on earth. The Fates, three conjoined Goddesses, as defined in Greek Mythology, remain a valuable lesson in the modern world. I defer to “The Greek Myths” from my library for a lesson for today from the ancient Greeks… I quote:
THE FATES
“There are three conjoined Fates, robed in white, whom Erebus begot one Night: by name Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Of these Atropos is the smallest in stature, but the most terrible.
“Zeus, who weighs the lives of men and informs the Fates of his decision can, it is said, change his mind and intervene to wave whom he pleases, when the thread of life, spun on Clotho’s spindle, and measured by the rod of Lachesis, is about to be snipped by Atropos’s shears. Indeed, men claim that they themselves can, to some degree, control their own fates by avoiding unnecessary dangers. The younger Gods, therefore laugh at the Fates and some say that Apollo once mischievously made them drunk in order to save his friend Admetus from death.
“Others hold, on the contrary, that Zeus himself is subject to the Fates, as the Pythian priestess once confessed in an oracle; because they are not his children, but…daughters of the Great Goddess of Necessity, against whom not even the gods contend, and who is called “The Strong Fate.”
“At Delphi only two Fates worshiped, those of Birth and Death, and at Athens Aprodite Urania is called the eldest of the three.”
“This myth seems to be based on the custom of weaving family and clan marks into a newly-born child’ swaddling bands, and so allotting him his place in society: but the…Three Fates, are the Triple Moon Goddess–hence their white robes and the linen thread which is sacred… Clotho is the spinner, Lachesis is the measurer, Atropos is ‘she who cannot be turned or avoided’... Zeus called himself ‘The Leader of the Fates’ when he assumed supreme sovereignty and the prerogative of measuring man’s life; hence probably, the disappearance of Lachesis, the measurer, at Delphi. But his claim to be their father was not taken seriously at the summer ‘solstice.'”… end of lesson in Greek Mythology…
Lesson learned: ZEUS is the boss, FATE is the hunter and ATROPOS is the one to watch for–she has the shears to snip your fragile, vulnerable thread of life… but if TERRIBLE ATROPOS is gonna get you, she’s gonna get you… “she can’t be turned or avoided.”… press on…
Lest we forget… Bear
