Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #857… SUN TZU: THE ART OF WAR… “IF YOU KNOW THE ENEMY AND YOU KNOW YOURSELF, YOU NEED NOT FEAR THE RESULT OF A HUNDRED BATTLES. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”… Humble Host posts a 9 July 1968 New York Times review of a book– HO CHI MINH: A Political Biography, by Jean Lacouture (Translated from the French by Peter Wise)– that contributes to “knowing our enemy.” The short review by Thomas Lask is akin to a Classic Comic Library rendition of “The Tale of Two Cities” serving a high school sophomore as a weak substitute for the 600 page, 4-pound novel by Charles Dickens. But the review is knowledge on the hoof and has a place in the RTR archives. I’ll order the book from abebooks.com for a couple bucks and read it later….. The review is easy reading, too…At Ripple Salvo, below…
Good Morning… Day EIGHT HUNDRED FIFTY-SEVEN of a daily post to remember an air war called Rolling Thunder and the warriors who fought it for nearly four years… of course, the long, bitter, bloody battle never even rated a campaign ribbon to recognize the participants in OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (or LINEBACKER I/II)… Shame on you, America… AND MR. PRESIDENT…STRIKING A MEDAL FOR THE DOOLITTLE RAIDERS WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. AND THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN, AND THE WWII EUROPEAN THEATER FIGHTER PILOTS, TOO. NOW, DO THE RIGHT THING AND HONOR THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF ROLLING THUNDER BY STRIKING A COMMEMORATIVE MEDAL TO HONOR A CADRE OF THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE…thank you, sir…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Wednesday 10 July 1968…
THE WAR: Page 6: “U.S. TROOPS FIGHT 3 SHARP BATTLES WITH ENEMY NEAR SAIGON”…”American forces patrolling the jungles and streams skirtng Saigon fought three sharp battles last night and today. Infantrymen killed 35 enemy soldiers in two actions and American Navy patrols killed three and sank sampans on a major waterway 11 miles east of the South Vietnamese capital. There were no American casualties in the naval action or in one of the infantry encounters in the paddies southwest of Saigon. But four Americans were killed and 13 wounded in the third fight 28 miles northwest of the city. The American infantrymen were part of a force of 70 allied battalions that has been sweeping the jungles and paddies ringing Saigon in an effort to stave off another major assault by Vietcong and North Vietnamese troops…. There was a delayed report that 89 North Vietnamese were killed in two battles with United States Marines Sunday near the abandoned Khe Sanh outpost. Thirteen marines were killed and 38 wounded.”… MARINES VOW TO HOLD OUT…United States Marines atop Hill 689 near Khe Sanh today vowed to hold the peak until the last attacking North Vietnamese has been killed. American commanders reported 350 of the enemy killed in the fighting….oohrah… ‘We are going to move off this hill, but not until we have defeated the North Vietnamese,’ Major General Raymond Davis commander of the Third Marine Division, defending the hill said. He described the enemy forces as poorly led by inexperienced officers…. HANOI CLAIM IS DENIED…A spokesman for the United States Fourth Marine Regiment denied today a Hanoi radio report that the Vietcong flag had been raised on the Khe Sanh combat base, abandoned last week…it was agreed that the enemy might have gone into the base during the night to look over the situation. Marines still have artillery bases and observation posts in the area around Khe Sanh… “…Page 4 (11 July): “The B-52’s struck six times in the last 24 hours at jungles near Saigon. The strikes ranged from 25 miles east-northwest of Saigon. The huge planes have been pounding the jungles around the city for the last two weeks in an effort to discourage an expected enemy assault.”…
PEACE TALKS: Page 6: “25 GROUPS TO SEND ENVOYS TO VIETNAM TALKS IN PARIS”… “Representatives of more than 25 peace, human rights and religious groups announced yesterday their intention to send a delegation to consult with United States and North Vietnamese representatives in Paris on the status of the peace talks there. In a ‘peace crisis declaration’ that urged an immediate and unconditional end to the bombing of North Vietnam the 33 sponsors expressed their concern that ‘as now conducted by the Administration, the Paris peace talks may be a cruel and dangerous hoax.”…
Page 1: “VIETCONG RULE OUT A VOTE IN VIETNAM UNTIL U.S. GONE–Appeals for Direct Talks”… Page 1: “CHOU EN LAI SAYS UNREST IN CHINA HALTED HANOI AID–Asserts Factional Strife In China Interfered With Railroad Movements”… Page 1: “EGYPTIANS AT SUEZ BITTER OVER SHELLING BY ISRAELI FORCES”… Page 1: “Czechs Bar Call For Warsaw Bloc Party–But It Says It Would Discuss Democratization With Individual Partners“… Page 1: “DeGAULLE LIKELY TO DROP POMPIDOU AND NAME COUVE–Finance Chief Indicates He Will Get The Post”…
Page 1: “HOUSE COMMITTEE VOTES 10-5 TO BAR GUN SALES BY MAIL–Wide Margin spurs Belief The Bill Will Pass–Flooor Action Due This Week”… Page 1: “JOHNSON BLAMED BY JAVITS FOR CUT IN SUMMER WORK FOR YOUTH–New York Senator Says President And Writz Contrived a Facade–Wants Facts In Focus”… Page 1: “COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY REBELS LOSE COURT ROUND–U.S. Judge Says University Can Discipline Protesters”… Page 15: RADICALS SET UP GRADUATE SOCIETY–‘NEW UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE’…” … Sports: Baseball All-Star Game; Nationals win 1-0–Unearned run in first inning; Willie Mays scored on a double play and is MVP…. Page 31: “NFL STANDS FIRM IN PLAYER DISPUTE–Pension Demands Rejected Again”…
10 JULY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (11 July reporting 10- July ops) Page 4: “In the air war, a United States Navy pilot shot down a MiG-17 southwest of Vinh in North Vietnam. LCDR JOHN B. NICHOLS, 35 years old, brought down the Soviet-designed jet with a heat seeking Sidewinder missile on his 155th mission over North Vietnam…(LCDR NICHOLS’ MIG kill was logged on 9 July…In addition, the F-8 war record attributes the kill to cannon fire and records it as the last MIG downed by cannon in the Vietnam war) ESCORTING A PHOTO PLANE…Commander NICHOLS said he was cruising at 5,000 feet as escort to a photo reconnaissance plane when he sighted the MiG. The enemy jet was diving on the reconnaissance craft. Commander NICHOLS gave chase and fired two missiles and a couple of bursts of cannon fire. The MiG was the 107th credited to American pilots in the Vietnam war.”
Humble Host will return to honor COMMANDER JOHN NICHOLS, USN (1931-2004) in Ripple Salvo #858…
“American pilots flew a total of 135 missions over North Vietnam and reported damaging or destroying 83 trucks, 16 warehouses or storage areas and 15 supply boats. In South Vietnam, an Air Force F-100 crashed ten miles southwest of the vast supply complex at Dongha. No cause for the crash was given. The pilot was rescued, but the plane was destroyed.”…
VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 10 July 1968…
(1) MAJOR H.R. JENNINGS was flying an A-1H of the 602ne ACS and 56th ACW out of Nakhon Phanom on a Barrel Roll mission in Northern Laos and was hit by ground fire while strafing Pathet Lao buildings and troops. He was able to eject from the doomed Spad and was rescued by an Air America helicopter a few minutes before the Pathet Lao could catch him…
SUMMARY OF OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 10 JULY FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE AIR WAR OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965… NONE…
1966… LCDR GEORGE HENRY WILKINS, USN… (KIA)… (Ripple Salvo #132, 10 July 1966 provides information on LCDR Wilkins final flight. Humble Host was a squadronmate of George in VF-21 before it became VA-43 in 1959 in Oceana. George was my tutor for the firing and fuzing schematics for a couple of bombs –MK-7 and MK-28). He is remembered with respect and admiration on this 52nd anniversary of his last flight….
1967… NONE…
1968… NONE…
RIPPLE SALVO… #857… HO CHI MINH: A Political Biography by Jean Lacouture (Trans. by Peter Wiles)
Review titled “Vietnam Was Never Far” by Thomas Lask… I quote…
“This ‘political biography’ of the Vietnamese leader by a French journalist gives us a look at the public side of the man and a look at his character. It is a picture of the patriot as a 20th-century revolutionary. Born in 1890 in the north of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh was early made aware of the harshness and degradation of French colonial rule. In his twenties he left his country and by World War I had settled in France. There he came in contact with revolutionary agitation and came to know a side of France he had not met back home. After going to Moscow in 1923, he spent the next two decades in Communist activity of various kinds in Russia, China and Siam. He was hounded by the police, spent time in jail, and worked under a pseudonym. His death was reported and mourned more than once.
“But in those years he was being tempered for the job he took on after the defeat or France in 1940. In all that time he was selfless, dedicated and intense. In the words of W.H. Auden, he desired to .’..make it his mature ambition To think no thought but ours To hunger, work illegally, and be anonymous.’
A LESSON FOR AMERICANS…
“But the record also makes clear why it was unwise and unrealistic for Americans to have expected a quick and easy victory in Vietnam. The architects of the war may have felt righteous about what they were doing in Vietnam, but to Ho the American presence was one with Chinese overlordship, French colonialism, Japanese occupation–another force to be endured and defeated.
“Mr. Lacouture is not trying to replace the Communist by the patriot. There is no variant of the Chinese agrarian reformer in his book. He makes quite clear Ho’s dedication to communism and an analytic chapter is also interesting in showing how close the Communist and patriot are and how far Ho departs from orthodox teaching when he thinks it is necessary.
“As far as 1922 he wrote with open-eyed realism, ‘The French (Communist) party must contend with the indifference of the proletariat at home toward the plight of the proletariat in the colonies… and with the prejudices of the French worker, to whom the native is an inferior being. At a time when those working with him were automatically internationally minded, Ho put his country first. More than one witness commented that in the midst of an abstract, monolithic internationalism, Ho projected an ardent nationalism.
MODERATE AT THE START…
“However, the Western influence did make him see the problem of Vietnam as one with those of Algiers, Senegal, Madagascar. It also made him feel that there was a side of France that he could deal with. His early demands on France, at the beginning of his bargaining for independence, were exceedingly moderate. Whether that moderation would have remained is questionable, but a settlement on the basis of those early terms might have avoided some of the bloodshed to come.
“Ho differed from the orthodox Communist also in that, long before Mao, he emphasized the revolutionary role of the peasantry, who had no high standing with the industrial minded comrades. And he was ill at easy in the hothouse world of quotation that was the native habitat of the party theoreticians. He was instead the militant organizer and activist. The samples of his prose included here make dull reading and the ideas are simplified to primer level.
“But it was Ho, a complete unknown, who tackled the Versailles peace conference after World War I with the demand for Vietnam independence, who pressed the colonial problem onto the consciousness of his coworkers, who wrote, organized and mediated between groups and who became the inspiration for the young people of his country. There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that had the referendum promised by the 1954 Geneva conference taken place, Ho would have won.
SUBJECT OUTWEIGHS WRITING…
“Whether it is due to the translation or to the author’s style, ‘Ho Chi Minh’ is not very bright reading. The prose is lacking and sluggish. But the subject is so compelling that it conquers even these blemishes. The author read all the sources, spoke to the people who knew Ho at various times in his career, and interviewed the man himself.
“He is sympathetic but fair. A good example is his attitude to Ho’ sweetness, charm and humor, attested to by everyone who has met him, including Americans. Mr. Lacouture lets us know that a good deal of this is play-acting, that there is a ruthless and driving side to the Vietnam leader not always hidden by this facade.
“It figures. No one who has fought two major powers for 25 year, beating one and holding off the other to a standstill, can get by on charm or good humor alone.”
… End Thomas Lask’s review…
RTR quote for 10 July: HO CHI MINH: “Our resistance will be long and painful, but whatever the sacrifices, however long the struggle, we shall fight to the end, until Vietnam is fully independent and reunified.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear
