Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO #314… THE CASE FOR A HEAVIER BOMBING PROGRAM…but first…
Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED FOURTEEN of a review of the second most historical bombing campaign in American history…
13 JANUARY 1967… HEAD LINES FROM the New York Times on a cloudy Saturday with rain in the forecast…
Page 1: “Bomb Controversy: View From the Ground”… “U.S. Says its Targets are all Military–Hanoi Dissents”…”The most controversial subject concerning military operations in Vietnam is the United States air bombardment, what the United States is seeking to bomb and what the bombs are hitting. President Johnson has stated American policy in simple terms. He said that the United States was bombing ‘steel and concrete’ and that he was convinced American pilots were carrying out those orders. The North Vietnamese contend that the United States is pursuing a deliberate policy of terror bombing, with civilian population and non-military objectives as targets. Wherein lies the truth? After two weeks of painstaking observation and inquiry on the ground North Vietnam, this correspondent can report only what he saw and what he heard. Many bombs have fallen on targets that unquestionably are military objectives by any definition. Many bombs have also fallen on targets that are not military targets.”… Page 1: “Control of Army Tightened by Mao Amid Dissension”…Mao Tse-tung and Lin Piao took steps today to ensure the army’s loyalty to their faction in the bitter power struggle that has plunged Communist China into political crisis.”… Page 3: “U.S. Warns Soviet on New Magazine”…”The State Department told the Soviet Embassy here today that continued distribution of the new Soviet magazine–‘Sputnik.– in the United States would depend on Soviet permission for American publications like Reader’s Digest and New York Times to circulate in the Soviet Union.”… Page 6: “Allies Press Attack a Tough Plodding Operation”… “Operation Cedar Falls, the largest allied offensive of the war, took on today the plodding unspectacular characteristics that some American military officers predicted for it from the outset. Bombs and artillery shells continued to shred the jungle growth of the Thanhdiem Forest and the Iron Triangle, but American and South Vietnamese infantrymen fired three rifles only occasionally…They set out Sunday to make untenable to the enemy two sanctuaries that they have used for twenty years.”… Page 6: “U.S. Casualty Count Revised”… “…am unofficial casualty account for the Vietnam War has been adjusted to a year end summary from the Pentagon. It listed 6,731 Americans killed in action and 38,217 wounded in action over the last six years. In addition, 1,534 have died of accidents or other non-hostile causes. For the past week: 67 killed in action and 479 wounded in action. American troop strength now at 395,000.” …Page 23: Obituary…”Commander of Pacific Force Directed Major Offensives at Tarawa and Saipan”… General Holland M. (Howlin’ Mad) Smith, leader of the assault on Iwo Jima died January 12 at the age of 84. His book: ‘Coral and Brass’ based on long underlying friction between the Army and the Marine Corps.”…Dow up 7.6 to 829.95…
Page 50: “Clay Remains Classified 1-A” …”Cassius Clay suffered another setback today when his draft board refused to consider his request for an exemption as a Black Muslim minister. ‘As of now Cassius Clay is still 1-A,’ said the board chairman…It was the second reversal in a week for the 24-year old World Heavyweight Champion. The Kentucky Selective Service Appeals Board on Tuesday denied Clay a classification as a conscientious objector. Clay’s attorney said he would ask General Lewis Hershey, Director of the National Selective Service to order the case reopened. He said he would carry the case to the Supreme Court if necessary. ‘It should make no difference that he is the heavyweight champion. His ministerial duties are his vocation.’ The lawyer, Hayden Covington, said he had presented the Draft Board 43 statements and 93 petitions, signed by 3,810 Black Muslims testifying that Clay was a full-time minister. Clay maintains that he preaches the Black Muslim gospel wherever he goes. When originally informed about his 1-A classification status Clay created a stir by saying: ‘I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.’…”
13 January 1967… The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized) COMMUNIST CHINA: We are beginning to suspect something is amiss in the Mao Tse-tung–Lin Piao relationship. Lin, who has been advertised as Mao’s alter ego since last August, has not been seen or heard from in nearly two months. The recent statements launching a new purge in the army failed to mention Lin at all — a surprising omission for a highly touted military comrade.
13 JANUARY 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (14 Jan reporting 13 Jan ops) Page 4: “American pilots flying through continued bad weather in North Vietnam carried out 77 strike and armed reconnaissance missions. Hanoi radio reported that U.S. planes bombed and strafed a dike and many populated areas and economic establishments yesterday. It also charged that American warships had shelled a number of populated areas in Quangbinh province.”… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 13 January 1967…
(1) CAPTAIN MORVAN DARRELL TURLEY was flying an F-100 D of the 352nd TFS and 35th TFW out of Phan Rang in a flight of four F-100s striking a Vietcong supply area in South Vietnam and delivering a napalm bomb when hit by ground fire. The aircraft erupted in fire and crashed killing CAPTAIN TURLEY fifty years ago today. He died a warrior’s death–on the attack… and is remembered on this day…
(2) LTJG MICHAEL PAUL CRONIN was flying an A-4E of the VA-23 Black Knights embarked in USS CORAL SEA on an armed reconnaissance mission 30 miles south of Thanh Hoa. His aircraft was hit by ground fire at 4,000-feet as he and his flight were attacking railway cars on a siding at Vin Loc. The aircraft was hit in mid fuselage and broke up making LTJG CRONIN”s ejection problematic, however he got clear of the aircraft over the beach with the wind blowing the wrong way-in, not out. As a consequence, he was captured and entered the North Vietnamese prisoner system starting at Little Vegas. He was on his second combat cruise with VA-23 on Coral Sea… (On 21 May 1967 he was caught teaching new POWs the tap code and was… “bound hand and foot for five days in a bent over twisted position that prevented sleep and caused excruciating pain…” quote from “Honor Bound” ). Then came time in Dirty Bird and Dirty Bird West that “doubled as a punishment facility for “hardliners.” In 1968 LTJG CRONIN was moved to “Camp Hope.” He was repatriated in March 1973 to resume his Naval career…. No easy days…
RIPPLE SALVO #314… Meanwhile, back in Hawaii and Washington the grumbling military commanders were making the case for an expanded and heavier bombing program to an unreceptive Secretary of Defense… The following from “The Pentagon Papers: Gravel Edition, Volume 4” provides what might have been and what came out as Rolling thunder #53 on 28 January 1967. The page heading: “The Year Begins with No Change”…. I quote pages 139-141….
ESCALATION PROPOSALS
The Year 1967 began with the military commands still grumbling about the Christmas and New Year’s truces ordered from Washington. Both had been grossly violated by multiple VC incidents, and both had been the occasions of major VC/NVA resupply efforts. The restrictions placed on U.S. forces were felt by the field commands to be at the expense of American life. U.S military authorities would argue long and hard against a truce tor the TET Lunar New Year holiday, but in the end they would lose.
Early in 1967, CINCPAC reopened his campaign to win Washington approval for air strikes against a wide list of targets in North Vietnam. On January 14 CINCPAC sent the JCS a restatement of the objectives for ROLLING THUNDER he had developed in 1966, noting his belief that they remained valid for 1967. Four days later he forwarded a long detailed list of proposed new targets for attack. What he proposed was a comprehensive destruction of North Vietnam’s military and industrial base in Route Package 6 (Hanoi-Haiphong). This called for the destruction of 7 power plants (all except the one in the center of Hanoi; and the 2 in Haiphong included in a special package); 10 “war supporting industries” (with Thai Nguyen iron and steel plant at the head of the list); 20 transportation support facilities; 44 military complexes; 26 POL targets; and 28 targets in Haiphong and the other ports (including docks, shipyards, POL, power plants, etc). CINCPAC optimistically contended that this voluminous target system could be attacked with no increase in sorties and with actual decline in aircraft lost to hostile fire.
The proposal was evidently received in Washington with something less than enthusiasm. The Chiefs did not send a recommendation to the Secretary and there is no evidence that the matter was given serious high level attention at that time. On January 25 in a cable on anti-infiltration (…the barrier), CINCPAC again raised the question. He was careful to note…that, “…no single measure can stop infiltration.” But he argued that the extraordinary measures the enemy had taken to strengthen his air defenses and generate a world opinion against bombing was evidence of how much the air strikes were hurting him.
These arguments were reinforced by the January CIA analysis which also made something of a case for heavier bombing campaign. It considered a number of alternative target systems–modern industry, shipping, Red River levees, and other targets–and two interdiction campaigns, one “unlimited” and the other restricted to the southern NVN panhandle and Laos, and concluded that the unlimited campaign was the most promising….
Other considerations, however, were dominant in Washington at the highest levels. In mid-January another effort to communicate positions with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam had been made and there was understandable desire to defer escalatory decisions until it had been determined whether some possibility for negotiations existed. Moreover the TET holiday at the beginning of February, for which a truce had been announced, made late January an unpropitious time to expand the bombing. Thus, on January 28, ROLLING THUNDER program # 53 authorized little more than a continuation of strikes within the parameters of previous authorization…. end quote
WHITHER WE GO? … more of the same… THE STRATEGY OF GRADUAL DEFEAT… “IT ISN’T WORKING, LET’S KEEP DOING THIS”… UFN… “we’re thinking”….
CAG’s QUOTES for 13 January: KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ: “War is the domain of uncertainty.”… PATTON: “Drive for the one thing on which you have decided.”
Lest we forget… Bear -17- (Railroad yard at Trinh Ha)
