Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… IN THE ARENA….but first…
Good Morning: Day FORTY-FOUR of a return to 1966 and Operation Rolling Thunder…”the air war”…
13 APRIL 1966 (NYT)…ON THE HOMEFRONT… Page 1: Lead item “Chinese Reds Say Fighters Downed U.S. Attack Plane,” charges that American aircraft intruded for military provocation over Southern Mainland. The Chinese filed: “The strongest possible protest has been made by the appropriate department against this cut-throat behavior of United States imperialism. Navigation error suggested for the intrusion…Also on page 1, more on B-52 employment in SE Asia: “Steady Bombing by B-52 Jets of North Vietnam Likely,” against area targets” once a week or every ten days. The first raid was executed by 30 B-52s dropping a total of more than 1 million pounds of HE bombs. Report said destruction concentrated on a 3-mile section of the 21 miles of the Mugia Pass and the weapons were 750-pound and 1000-pound general purpose bombs. R.W. Apple wrote: “The decision to send the B-52s north clearly had political as well as military significance, and many diplomats here (Saigon) expect anti-war publicists in all parts of the world to attack the new American move.”… Page 1: “Saigon’s Air Based Shelled; 8 Dead and 160 Wounded, 23 U.S. Helos and 3 Air Force Aircraft Hit.”… Viet Cong guerrillas announce the raid was in retaliation for B-52 attacks… Another ominous news item on page 1: “Loyalty of Mountain People in Saigon Fades”…. as political situation deteriorates and Buddhists prevail… headline and pictures of: Atlantic Storm Kills 21 on liner Michelangelo,”… “The waves were very high– 35 feet — and the wind was very hard,’ said a member of the crew. Hard hit was taken 2-days out of Genoa headed for New York with 775 passengers. While the ship was never in danger, a British cargo ship hit in the same storm lost five crewmen overboard…Page 2: “Peking Reports on Huge Militia,” says their reserve force totals 1oo million, and that People’s Liberation Army will be maintaining tightening political control over this force… good news from Saigon: “Saigon Parley Leaders say plans for convention to draft constitution is on track… On Wall Street: “War Protesters Upset Exchange– Trading Halted temporarily by Vietnam demonstration.” Protester message: end the war in Vietnam and bring the troops home, “Big Firms Get Rich–GIs Die,” and “Youth Against War and Facism.”…On page 10 “Brooklyn Navy Pilot Killed in California.” ENSIGN DANIEL S. KAPNER failed to pull out of a practice bomb run. He was attacking targets in the Chocolate Mountain impact area and was assigned to a Light Attack squadron based on USS Oriskany…. President Johnson off to Mexico for two days… Page 42 editorial comment by James Reston under the headline: “Washington: The Cool Man on a Hot Spot.”…”If Washington (the President) knew what the Buddhists wanted, that would make it somewhat easier, but it doesn’t even know that. It’s a mess, one top official said here today, and that’s about all we know so far… The best thing the United States can do about the political turmoil in South Vietnam is to exert every possible effort to stay out of it.”….
13 APRIL 1966… ROLLING THUNDER… An all around bad day for USAF aircraft… In the early hours of April 13 Viet Cong guerrillas attacked the Tan Son Nhut airbase with a mortar and recoilless rifle attack on the flight line destroying a C-123B and damaging 60 others, including 5 SP-2V Neptunes of Navy squadron VP-One…More than 245 rounds of mortar and recoilless rifle fire accounted for the damage. Other damage: 34 vehicles destroyed and a half million gallon fuel tank was fired and destroyed. Revetments installed as a consequence of earlier raids at Bien Hoa and other installations were responsible for limiting the damage. The raid was the heaviest guerrilla attack on an air base attack to date…USAF lost an O-1E from the 22nd TASS out of Binh Thuy on a coastal recce in the Mekong Delta when hit by ground fire. Pilot CAPTAIN R.M. OVERLAND and an unidentified passenger survived a crash landing and were rescued by an Army helicopter… A Navy A-1H from Attack squadron 52 from USS Ticonderoga was downed by a SAM 15 miles southwest of Vinh while flying at 7000-feet en route to a bridge target in the area. The Pilot, Squadron Commander JOHN CLEMENT MAPE was Killed in Action. His remains were finally recovered in 1994 and later identified as those of COMMANDER MAPE…Today, fifty years later, we remember a warrior leader who died in the service of our country…He rests in peace… The Air Force also lost an RF-101C in a landing accident at Udorn…the pilot survived but the aircraft was a strike…
RIPPLE SALVO… IN THE ARENA... On April 23, 1910 Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech entitled “Citizenship in a Republic” at the Sorbonne in Paris, France…Thousands of words in length, the most often quoted paragraph finds an attentive audience wherever warriors muster. And rightfully so. No cadre of human beings in my lifetime deserves more “credit,” as defined by Roosevelt, than the aviators who executed the missions of Operation Rolling Thunder. The skies over North Vietnam were the perilous battlespace where determined defenders and valiant attackers fought with ferocity and finality. Every day River Rats and Yankee Air Pirates mounted up to carry and deliver death and destruction to military and economic targets in the heartland of North Vietnam. They were opposed by well armed and courageous defenders who took no quarter. It was brutal head to head violence. It was Rolling Thunder. It was the arena of our time. It was “the arena” of Roosevelt.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short time and time again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.”
Every paragraph in the Roosevelt speech is fit for mulling. “The man in the arena,” paragraph stands out. But there are many others, not the least of which is the final paragraph of his 1910 speech to the French. I find it most appropriate for the times in which we live… See if you agree…
“And now my hosts, a word in parting. You and I belong to the only two republics among the great powers of the world. The ancient friendship between France and the United States has been, on the whole, a sincere and disinterested friendship. A calamity to you would be a sorrow for us. But it would be more than that. In the seething turmoil of the history of humanity certain nations stand out as possessing a peculiar power or charm, some special gift of beauty or wisdom of strength, which puts them among the immortals, which makes them rank forever with the leaders of mankind. France is one of these nations. For her to sink would be a loss to all the world. There are certain lessons of brilliance and generous gallantry that she can teach better than any of her sister nations. When the French peasantry sang of Malbrook, it was to tell how the soul of this warrior-foe took flight upward through the laurels he won. Nearly seven centuries ago, Froisart writing of the time of dire disaster, said that the realm of France was never so stricken that there were not left men who would valiantly fight for it. You have a great past. I believe you will have a great future. Long may you carry yourselves proudly as citizens of a nation which bears a leading part in the teaching and uplifting of mankind.”
Noted historian and author of the 20th century, Robert Strauz-Hupe, wrote that it is the historical destiny of the United States to expend itself establishing for eternity that a democratic republic is the most perfect form of government. The current agony of France, and perhaps calamity, is a sorrow for us. France, a nation and republic Roosevelt spoke so highly of in 1910 is sinking and in dire need of “men who would valiantly fight for it.” The lesson for our own country is before us. Will we find the men to stand in the arena and fight for our Republic and individual freedom, fraternity, equality, and opportunity in order to delay indefinitely the forecast of Strauz-Hupe and the relentless forces of an all-powerful central government?…
LEST WE FORGET……. Bear …………….. –30– ……………….
