ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 10 NOVEMBER 1966

RIPPLE SALVO… #253… ON ROLLING THUNDER 52…   but first…

Good Morning: Day TWO HUNDRED FIFTY-THREE of a remembrance of war in our time… Operation Rolling Thunder…

10 NOVEMBER 1966… HOMETOWN HEADLINES from the New York Times… On a rainy Thursday in the Big Apple…

Page 1: “G.O.P. Finds ’68 Outlook Brighter As It Counts Election Successes and gain of 47 seats in the House and 8 governorships…Party is spurred”… Page 1: “Victories Bring Four Men to Front in picture for Presidency (Romney, Nixon, Reagan and Percy)” …Page 1: “Rockefeller Again Asserts He Won’t Run for the Presidency.”… Page 1: “Saigan Assembly Battles Veto Power of Ky Regime.”… Page 1: “U.S. General Says G.I.s Blunt Key Enemy Drive in Operation Attleboro…leader of six day fight says it foils start of a Winter Offensive…battles waged 50-65 miles west of Saigon by 1st Infantry”… Page 1: “Democrats Shaken by Minnesota Rout”….Page 1: “Reagan emerging in 1968 spot light… Page 2: “China Watchers: Upheaval clouds their view… recent events in the recent struggle in Peking are puzzle to analysts.”…

7-10 NOVEMBER 1966… THE PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF…CIA (Ts sanitized)…SOUTH VIETNAM: Major General Do Cao Tri, a former I Corps commander who is now picking up his military contacts after two years in exile, says morale in the South Vietnamese Army officer corps is deteriorating all the time. He blames this largely on favoritism in promotions and on corruption among the armchair generals. Tri says that the army’s new stress on pacification will make this situation considerably worse. Company and field grade officers will feel that they are being relegated to jobs beneath the dignity of fighting men. Tri claimed dissatisfaction was already at such a level that a relatively minor incident could easily touch off a major explosion. The general obviously has a number of axes to grind, but he also has influence and contacts…. SOUTH VIETNAM: Consumer prices, which had risen for two consecutive weeks fell about four per cent between 31 October and 4 November. This drop resulted from increased deliveries of foodstuffs–especially live hogs–into Saigon following the 1 November national holiday…  SOVIET UNION: Soviet officials in London are busily denying that they invited British Foreign secretary Brown to Moscow. they say the initiative came from the British side… NORTH VIETNAM: Hanoi radio told its listeners today that “there will certainly be no new foreign policies as a result of the US elections.” Hanoi’s Communist Party daily claimed that the American people were opposed to “the war of aggression” in Vietnam… COMMUNIST CHINA: Yesterday a People’s Daily editorial ordered workers and peasants not to leave their posts to participate in the cultural resolution, except in their spare time. The Red Guard were told–as they had been in September– to stay our of industrial enterprises and agricultural areas. Peking’s jumpiness is understandable since the over-all economy–especially food production–could have serious consequences….

10 NOVEMBER 1966… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… NYT… No reports on the air war over North Vietnam.. (bad weather)… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) Three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 10 November 1966…

(1) CAPTAIN JOHN LAWRENCE O’BRIEN was flying an A-1E of the 1st ACS and 14th ACW out of Pleiku on an armed reconnaissance mission in Steel tiger and was shot down while strafing team of pack animals (oxen and elephants) on the Ho Chi Minh trail. CAPTAIN O’BRIEN was Killed in Action fifty years ago today in the service of our country and is quietly remembered today and will forever be honored on the Vietnam Wall in Washington…

(2) MAJOR DAIN W. MILLIMAN of 469th TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat was killed when his F-105D’s engine failed on takeoff on a strike mission… MAJOR MILLIMAN was Killed in Action and is remembered on this, the 50th anniversary of his tragic death…

(3) LT THOMAS JOSEPH McATEER, LTJG WILLIAM THOMAS CARTER, AX3 JOHN MICHAEL RIORDAN and AX3 ERIC JOHN SCHODERER, flying an S-2E Tracker of the VS-21 Fighting Redtails embarked in USS KEARSARGE, an anti-submarine aircraft carrier, launched on a patrol mission from which it did not return. A search locate4d wreckage and personal flight gear 55 miles northeast of Hue in the Gulf of Tonkin. There were no survivors. LT McATEER, LTJG CARTER, AX3 RIORDAN, and AX3 SCHODERER were Killed in Action and died doing their duty in a combat zone. They are remembered here on the 50th anniversary of their deaths. This was the only aircraft lost in four deployments by USS Kearsarge…

RIPPLE SALVO… #253… At this point in the air war, Operation Rolling Thunder was “at ease.” In Washington the JCS and the Secretary of Defense were in a holding pattern awaiting the completion of the 8 November elections to pass so they could get a decision from LBJ on the targets to be included in the Rolling Thunder 52 plan. At Yankee Station and the Air Force bases in Thailand and South Vietnam the northeast monsoon was severely limiting strike operations over North Vietnam. Here is how “The History of The Secretary of Defense”(Vol IV, Drea) records the period…(pages 79-80)…

“The latest policy debate over the air war pitted the Joint Chiefs and Rostow, who with certain exceptions favored an expanded bombing campaign, against McNamara and Rusk, who agreed to some but not dramatic escalation. Johnson meanwhile postponed any decision until after the 8 November mid-term congressional elections. Then, typically, he sought a compromise by approving on 10 November targets not selected by McNamara from the JCS recommendations, as well as authorizing strikes against a steel plant, a cement factory, and two thermal power plants, four targets not chosen by McNamara but on the Chiefs’ list. McNamara conjectured that the president acted apparently feeling that he had world opinion on his side, but the next morning the secretary convinced Johnson to defer attacking the four specific targets for at least two weeks. Wheeler attributed the postponement to an effort not to rock the boat during the British Foreign Secretary George Brown’s impending visit to Moscow and anticipated clearance to hit the four targets around 25 November, after  the foreign secretary departed the Soviet Union. In any case, constant cloud cover delayed the strikes on most Rolling Thunder 52 targets until December.

“Brown’s visit and bad weather were not the only factors complicating the strikes. Marigold, an initiative underway for some months to seek negotiations with Hanoi, involved the Polish representative to the International Control Commission in Vietnam, and Lodge, with the Italian ambassador to Vietnam serving as an intermediary. As the talks continued, the State Department sent word to Hanoi that Washington would suspend the bombing if North Vietnam reciprocated with mutual forms of de-escalation. Meantime the JCS and the field forces prepared for Rolling Thunder 52, still uncertain of the content, timing, and duration.”

And that’s the way it was on 10 November 1966…

Admin note: RTR will be adding a Prager University history lesson to our links entitled: “The Truth About the Vietnam War,” a six minute short shot of history at:

https://www.prageru.com/courses/history/truth-about-vietnam-war

Lest we forget….                Bear                            -30-