Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #710… THANK YOU HUNGARY… As a consequence of the Hungarian diplomats suggestion, as the exclusive go-between the US and North Korea, the USS Enterprise was ordered out of the Sea of Japan as “a gesture of conciliation to encourage the North Koreans to release the Pueblo and the 82 men in her crew.”… at least, that’s what they said… but first…
Good Morning: Day SEVEN HUNDRED TEN of a return to Southeast Asia and the air war over North Vietnam, when the weather permits…
13 FEBRUARY 1968…HEAD LINES… from The New York Times on a cloudy, cold Tuesday in New York…
TET OFFENSIVE/KHESANH: Page 1: “GI’s AND VIETCONG FIGHT TWO BATTLES–95 OF ENEMY KILLED IN CLASHES–Rockets Hit Base In Bien Hoa–Foe’s Goals Restudied–No Major Attacks Initiated By Enemy, But More Expected”... “American riflemen fought Vietnam guerrillas twice yesterday in widely separated regions of South Vietnam. about 350 men of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade reported having killed 78 Vietcong soldiers near the coastal town of Quangngai in the northern part of South Vietnam. One American was killed and four were wounded. In a suburb of Saigon, men of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade fought small groups of guerrillas and reported having killed 17 of them…. At 3 this morning the air base at Bien Hoa, 15 miles northeast of Saigon, was hit by 10 rounds of 122mm rocket fire. Two Americans were wounded, but damage to aircraft was described as ‘very light.’… almost all the military planners here are agreed on is that a major Vietnamese assault will be launched against the big United States Marine combat outpost of Khesanh, near the Laotian border. In a sense the Tet Offensive began–after months of relative quiet–with the first heavy shelling on January 21, but it is still in the preparatory phase, the sources said… Khesanh was reported to be quiet today, but there is almost always some shelling there.”… Khesahn Air Support: “To disrupt enemy operations United States aircraft continued a massive bombardment of the hills, gorges and forests around the camp. Jet fighter-bombers flew 261 bombing sorties–more than are sometimes flown throughout South Vietnam in less critical times–and used about 1.3 million pounds of bombs and napalm. Other unannounced bombing raids are taking place in eastern Laos to disrupt movement on the Ho Chi Minh Trail…
Page 1: “AT KEHSANH, LIFE ON THE BULLSEYE–5,000 Sandbags Seem Thin to Marines Crouching At Center of Foe’s Target”… Page 1: “Anonymous Call Set-Off Rumors Of Nuclear Arms For Vietnam”… Page 3: “U.S. Marines Add To Forces In Hue–Strength Now about 800–Foe Still Entrenched”…
Page 6: “Pentagon Identifies Vietnam War Dead… posts names of 139 warriors killed in action.”
LINCOLN’s 209TH BIRTHDAY…
Page 1: Picture of the President at the Lincoln Memorial standing in prayer in front of the huge Sitting Lincoln statue after laying a wreath. He is alone. The caption quotes President Johnson: “He stuck it out. I promise to do the same.”… Humble Host skips the rest of the head lines to report this fine Lincoln birthday story… “PRESIDENT HONORS LINCOLN AND LIKENS THEIR WAR ORDEALS”… by Max Frankel…
“President Johnson placed a wreath at the Lincoln Memorial today and compared his ordeals to those of the Civil War leader. ‘Sad but steady–always convinced of his cause–he stuck it out,’ Mr. Johnson said of President Abraham Lincoln. ‘Sad but steady, so will we,’ he added. This is a time that Lincoln would have understood, Mr, Johnson went on, explaining: ‘He heard the charges that the war was long and wrong. He saw Americans die–and he brooded. He saw dissent, riot, rebellion. He saw heavy taxes and inflation. He saw hunger and poverty.’
“But the central issue, the President argued, was the same then as now. ‘Since Lincoln’s time, that idea–that revolutionary American dream of human dignity and equality for all–has been spreading across the world,’ he said. ‘And so, today, when Americans asked to help Lincoln’s ideas flourish in places far from these steps we ask ourselves the hard and searching questions: Are these ideas still valid? Do they deserve a hearing elsewhere if free men so choose? Are we ourselves safer and stronger when they do get a hearing and when they flourish? If we answer those questions affirmatively–and I believe most Americans repudiate moral isolationism–we are sometimes forced by an adversary to back our belief with steel–just as Lincoln did. And we must stick it out–as Lincoln did.’
“Mr. Johnson addressed barely 100 persons who happened to be at the memorial on this frigid anniversary of Lincoln’s birth in 1809. The Temperature was 22 degrees and the President soon abandoned his plan to go through the ceremony without an overcoat.
” ‘Perseverance by itself is a minor virtue,’ he continued, ‘and Lincoln has more than that to tell us today. He looked beyond a time of strife to a time of unity. Where others sought to open wounds and rub them raw in their frustration and troubles. Lincoln sought to bind them up.
“The President praised Lincoln for insisting on national elections in the midst of the Civil War and otherwise bearing responsible dissent. Mr. Johnson recalled the March on Washington by civil rights advocates in 1963, pledged his own rededication to the cause of full equality and used Lincoln’s words to caution those who would violate the law in protest:
“‘Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and children’s liberty.’ “…
STATE DEPARTMENT, Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations, 1964-68, Vietnam… Document dated 13 February 1968, the “Notes of the President’s Luncheon Meeting”… (“The Tuesday Luncheon”)… The President with Rusk, McNamara, Wheeler, Helms, Clifford, Rostow, Christian, and Johnson. Only a short mention of targets in North Vietnam, but interesting never-the-less… Read Document 74 at… https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d74
13 FEBRUARY 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times… Page 1: “A North Vietnamese MiG-21 was shot down north of Hanoi by an F-4 Phantom using an air-to-air missile.”… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in Southeast Asia on 13 February 1968…
RIPPLE SALVO… #710… Humble host begs your indulgence as I add this article about my ride to the Rolling Thunder–USS Enterprise–to the RTR archives…Enterprise and Carrier Air Wing NINE were diverted to the Sea of Japan in response to the Pueblo seizure and we flew from 24 January through 12 February from first, a hole in the water about 100 miles off North Korea, then repositioned for easy access to the Yellow Sea (for some strange purpose nobody can ever talk about) … My twelve flights to drop Mk-76s at Ashiya was about par for the course. All the flying was zippered in an exposure suit so the flying was uncomfortable, but fun never-the-less. On this day 50 years ago Enterprise passed the Korea watch to USS Ranger and headed south…
New York Times, 7 February 1968, Page 1: “CARRIER SHIFTING FROM KOREA POST–Order to Enterprise Said to be Gesture to Aid Talks to Free Pueblo and Crew”… byline: Neil Sheehan…
“The aircraft carrier Enterprise has been ordered to withdraw from a position off the North Korean coast. Informed sources said that the order, issued within the last 24 hours, was an apparent gesture of conciliation to encourage the North Koreans to release the Pueblo and her 82 surviving crew members.
“The United Nations command in Korea announced late tonight (Wednesday, Korean time) that the United States and North Korea would meet openly later in the day at the truce village, Panmunjom. A State Department spokesman declined to comment on why the open meeting had been arranged, but observers here noted that the South Koreans have protested sharply over recent bilateral meetings held in secret about the Pueblo and her crew.
“After the Pueblo was seized January 23, the Enterprise and other American warships were ordered to assume a position just south of the 39th parallel, a line that runs just below the North Korean port of Wonsan, and to stay at least 75 nautical miles–about 86 statute miles–out to sea. It is believed that the warships have cruised in this general position since.
“The sources said the Enterprise has now been ordered to assume a position several hundred miles to the southwest. The position was not disclosed, but it is believed to be within or on the western side of the Korean Strait. The news followed a suggestion from the Hungarian mission to the United Nations that the withdrawal of the Enterprise might create a better atmosphere for the so far unsuccessful negotiations over the intelligence ship.
“At the United Nations it was reported that the suggestion was made last Friday through the United States mission Hungary was chosen by North Korea as its contact with the West. In making the suggestion to remove the Enterprise, however, the Hungarians were said to have emphasized to American diplomats that they were not speaking for North Korea. The suggestion by the Hungarians did not mention the two other carriers in the United States naval task force off Korea, and these have been instructed to remain on station, sources said. They are the attack aircraft carrier Ranger and the anti-submarine warfare carrier Yorktown.
“Two cruisers, the Canberra and the Chicago, and a number of escorting destroyers and support ships are also in the task force. The 76,000-ton nuclear powered Enterprise is the largest aircraft carrier ever built.”…
Humble host contends that the Hungarian tale was cover for what was happening on the Yellow Sea side of the Korean peninsula that we will never know about…
RTR Quote for 13 February: SUN TZU, The Art of War, 400 B.C.: “O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.”
Lest we forget… Bear
