Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #707… McNAMARA: “THERE SEEMS TO BE NO ALTERNATIVE EXCEPT TO HOLD IT, AND PUT IN REINFORCEMENTS. I WOULD NOT SEND THE 82nd AIRBORNE OUT THERE… but first…
Good Morning: Day SEVEN HUNDRED SEVEN of a remembrance of a period of American history full of lessons for future generations–lessons paid for in American warrior blood…lest we forget…
10 FEBRUARY 1968… HEAD LINES from the The New York Times on a Saturday full of snow flurries in Flatbush…
TET OFFENSIVE/KHESAHN: Page 1: “U.S. GIRDING ON KHESANH TO AVOID A DIENBIENPHU–WASHINGTON MOOD TENSE–PRESIDENT JOHNSON HOLDS REINS”… “As never Before in the bewildering warfare of Vietnam, the forces of the United States and North Vietnam are gathered for battle, and world attention is focused on one point–Khesanh. For weeks the enemy has made intensive preparations for combat there. Yet no United States military officer can predict with certainty that the North Vietnamese will make a sustained assault against the American Marine stronghold at Khesanh, in the northwest corner of South Vietnam. There is an air of expectancy here, a sense that a titan test of strength and will is about to take place. Five North Vietnamese divisions–40,000 to 50,000 regulars–are poised along or just south of the demilitarized zone, which separates North Vietnam and South Vietnam, two of the divisions closely menacing Khesanh. The allied garrison at Khesahn is manned by the United States 26th Marine Regiment some Army special Forces troops and a few hundred South Vietnamese rangers–5,000 to 6,000 men in all. Probing attacks against some of Khesanh’s outlying positions have taken place. The nearby Army Special Forces outpost at Langvei on the western approach to Khesanh fell two days ago. American forces already confront the enemy along all parts of the demilitarized zone, and sizable reserves have been made ready to reinforce Khesanh and other outposts, as necessary. About 55,000 allied troops are now on station in South Vietnam’s northernmost province. The military and political stakes have become so great President Johnson ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff last month to review plans to defend Khesanh, with instructions not to allow ‘another Dienbienphu’–the decisive military defeat suffered by the French in 1954.”…
“JOHNSON HOLDS REINS”… “The ultimate command post for the developing battle at Khesanh is really a mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue here–office and residence of the Commander-in-Chief, Lyndon Johnson. Is this battle really necessary?… What do we do if we lose that heliport? Who guards those roads, especially if the weather grounds the planes? Are you sure you can hold that bridge? Almost daily, these and other urgent questions flow from the pen of the President, probing policy, tactics, preparations, morale. The response they evoke adds up to the largest volume of messages and reports ever gathered by the White House for a tactical engagement in the war. They are jammed into Mr. Johnson’s ‘night reading’ packet and fed into the basement Situation Room, in the west wing of the White House, where maps and charts are already for the President’s survey of battle at any moment. As he waits for the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces to ‘drop the other shoe’ by moving on Khesanh–if indeed they mean to drop it–Mr. Johnson embodies the concern and tension of many officials, legislators and observers in this capital. Outwardly calm and confident and holding to this routine, including greeting visiting Boy Scouts and foreign students, the President has nonetheless left the impression that he cannot take his mind off the war for long.”…
Page 1: “G.I.’s ENTER SAIGON TO HELP ELIMINATE ENEMY HOLDOUTS–Move Seen As Sign of U.S. Dissatisfaction at Pace of Government Effort–Air Raid Near Haiphong–Bombing appears To Signal End of Month-Long Curb on Attacks in North”… “American infantry troops were brought to Saigon yesterday to help clear the city of guerrillas who have held out here for 12 days. Ten helicopters carrying about 60 United States soldiers landed in the infield of the Phuto race track in the troubled Cholon section in the southern part of the city. There was no fighting in the immediate area at the times and the troops, part of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, fanned out slowly over the weedy race track and began to open cans of rations… The 199th is about 750 men… The number of Vietcong still operating within the city is vague. In recent days official spokesmen have put it at 500 to 1,000 men…. On the city’s outskirts yesterday five companies of American troops, about 750 men, fought a Vietcong battalion of about 400 men and reported they killed 278 of the guerrillas. Seven men of the U.S. Twenty-Fifth Division were killed and 75 wounded in the fight, which flared up in Hocmon, about ten miles northeast from the center of Saigon… American fighter-bombers and armed helicopters gunships firing rockets and multiple machine guns, give American forces an important edge in firepower in such fights.”…
PUEBLO INCIDENT: Page 1: “JOHNSON SENDS VANCE TO DISCUSS ‘GRAVE THREAT’ TO SOUTH KOREA”… “President Johnson sent Cyrus R. Vance, former deputy Secretary of defense to Korea today as his special representative for discussions on the ‘grave threat’ to South Korea. In a two paragraph announcement at 6 P.M. the White House said that Mr. Vance was flying by special Department of Defense plane from New York Kennedy Airport early Saturday. Vance will be escorted by four or five State and defense department advisors.”… “In Seoul, two newspapers reported that crew members of the captured Pueblo had been moved to a village near the South Korean border, presumably for their return to United States hands.”…
Page 1: “PRESIDENT URGED TO CLARIFY DRAFT–House Panel Wants Him To Explain Deferment Policy for Graduate Students”... “…to end the uncertainty over draft policy toward graduate school students…’It is a terribly urgent matter,’said Dr. Nathan M. Posey, the Harvard University President testifying that the abolition of blanket graduate school draft deferments would ‘have a disastrous effect on the production of college teachers unless current draft selection process was changed.’ “…Page 1: “Britain’s Harold Wilson Sees Hope of Reconsideration of Stands of Washington and Hanoi”... “…the positions on peace negotiations could still be reconciled.”… Page 8: “Senator Jacob Javits Bids Soviet Ask Bombing Halt–Asserts U.S. Is At A Military Stalemate in Vietnam”… “…said that U.S. must ‘make it clear to the Soviet Union’ that it recognizes there is a military stalemate in Vietnam and that ‘accordingly we seek a political and diplomatic compromise.’ “... “Gallup Calls Public Disillusioned and Cynical–Director of Poll Cites Feeling Of Inadequate Leadership In International Relations”… “George Gallup, now in his fourth decade of surveying the moods of America, says the public today is confused, disillusioned and cynical and wants desperately to find a way to resolve international problems without going to war.”…
10 FEBRUARY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times… Page 1: “AIR RAID NEAR HAIPHONG--Bombing Appears to Signal End of Month-Long Curb on Attacks in North”... “American military headquarters in Saigon said that carrier-based United States Navy planes bombed the Catbi airfield four miles southeast of Haiphong, the Associated Press reported. The attack appeared to end a month-long restraint on bombing of targets around Haiphong and Hanoi, key cities during attempts to get peace talks started. Catbi was last hit in a radar guided raid January 9.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 10 February 1968.”…
(1) A KC-130F of VMGR-152 and MAG-15 out of Danang was shot down delivering personnel and ammunition, including flame throwers and jet fuel to the bastion at Khesanh. The aircraft burned up on the runway killing 9 with two survivors, including the legendary Marine CWO Henry Wildfang, who escaped the aircraft through the cockpit windows… Chris Hobson has the story…
“One of the main reasons that Khesanh was resisting the siege so skillfully was its resupply by air. This became particularly important when 1,500-tons (representing 98% of the base’s ammunition supply) was hit and detonated by enemy rockets and artillery on the first day of the siege. Much of the resupply was performed by USAF C-123s and C-130s and Marine Corps KC-130s. Normally a detachment of four aircraft from VMGR-152 was based at Danang for transport and air-to-air refueling duties. Prior to 10 February seven C-130s had been hit and damaged on resupply missions into Khesanh. The first transport aircraft lost during the siege was a KC-130 that was hit in the cockpit and fuselage several times by 50 caliber machine gun fire as it approached the airfield on the 10th. The aircraft was carrying a load of flamethrowers and several large rubber bladders full of jet fuel for the Marine turbine-engine helicopters. The Number 3 engine caught fire and a fuel bladder was ruptured and trailed burning fuel. Despite extensive smoke and flames the aircraft touched down normally, but then burst into flames. As the fuel bladders exploded. The pilot and copilot escaped through the cockpit windows after they turned off the runway and firefighters rescued another occupant before fire consumed the aircraft. Eight of the 11 men on board the aircraft were killed and LCpl Jerry Ferren died of his injuries on 1 March. One of the passenger who was killed was Colonel C.L. Peterson from the 1st MAW headquarters. Two days after this incident Seventh Air Force prohibited landings by C-130s at Khesahn, although the prohibition was lifted briefly towards the end of the month. CWO HENRY WILDFANG was awarded his fifth Distinguished Flying Cross for his skill in landing the aircraft at Khesanh.”…
SURVIVORS: CWO WILDFANG, MAJOR ROBERT E. WHITE, and one unidentified crew member.
KILLED IN ACTION: MSGT JOHN D’ADAMS; LCPL DAVIS RALF DEVIL; LCPL JERRY WAYNE FERREN and 5 United States Marines coming to join the defense and fight to hold Khesanh… They perished in the service of our country 50 years ago this day and are remembered with respect and admiration….
CWO HENRY WILDFANG lived to the age of 99 and passed into the blue in June 2015 having logged more than 23,000 flight hours in his 37 years in the Marine Corps. He was awarded five Distinguished Flying Crosses and lived a life of service that made his Dakota Sioux ancestors proud.
RIPPLE SALVO… #707… Humble Host posts three great State Department Historical Documents for RTR mates to include in weekend reading. The documents from 10 February through 31 March 1968 are extremely interesting as the President gets buffeted by the war and a nation of increasingly unhappy folks. I will be including them all over the next five weeks to coincide with what the NYT puts on page 1. So it is with these three documents from the archives dated 9 and 10 February 1968… This is what the President and his Generals are talking about when the cheese gets binding… ( Defined: “When tension mounts, and the outcome of an activity may not be what has been desired’)… “The Agony of Khesanh” ... Document D 63: Top Secret in 1968, this is a telegram shared by Generals Wheeler and Westmoreland and Admiral Sharp…Read the footnotes –background references– first then the text. A review of the situation… Document 64 “Notes of the President’s Meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff” on 9 February: “I asked you to come here on the basis that we would hope for the best and expect the worst. I want to see what we should do in Vietnam.”… Longest read in this series that I can recall… Document D 65. “Notes of meeting”... The President and his Wise Men– “Senior Foreign affairs Advisory Council”… spirited conversation… what’s on the President’s mind in the middle of a war that is taking everything we have to hold our own… The President has a bunch of hard questions and gets a lot of sweaty answers… …read at…
Document 63. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d63
Document 64. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d64
Document 65. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d65
RTR Quote for 10 February: DEMOSTHENES, 320 B.C. : “There is one source, O Athenians, of all your defeats. It is that your citizens have ceased to be soldiers.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
