Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #771… ON 15 APRIL 1968 AMERICAN ESSAYIST HENRY J. TAYLOR POSTED A COLUMN TITLED “6,000 KHE SANH MARINES DESERVE NATION’S SALUTE”… FIFTY YEARS LATER WE REMEMBER… “Before the horrible siege was lifted, more than 40,000 rounds of mortar, artillery and rocket fire fell on them in their tiny America and on the three nearby hill positions. The barrages that engulfed them like a flaming Niagara often fell for four agonizing hours at a time. They stood lit by no comet of glory. They stood trapped.”... Newsweek called it “The Agony of Khe Sanh”… but first…
GOOD MORNING: Day SEVEN HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE of a remembrance of an American war fought for a dozen years that took the lives of more than 58,000 of our country’s boldest and bravest and a 40-month air war therein that was called Operation Rolling Thunder, but only beyond closed doors…
HEAD LINES from the OGDEN STANDARD-EXAMINER on Monday, 15 APRIL 1968… the day after a rainy Easter Sunday…
THE WAR: Page 1: “MARINES TAKE HILL 881 NORTHWEST OF KHE SANH–REDS LOSE 108 IN BASE AREA”… “U.S. Marines seized a hill northwest of Khe Sanh from its North Vietnamese defenders in an Easter Day battle. An American source said South Vietnamese troops soon will take on a bigger share of the fighting along the northern frontier. The battle for the Hill 881 North, five miles from the Khe Sanh combat base, was one of several sharp fights over Easter. AP correspondent John Lengel reported from Marine headquarters at Da Nang that 108 North Vietnamese were killed on 881 North–most of them by artillery and air strikes that preceded the Marine assault. Six Marines were reported killed and 12 wounded. STORMED SLOPES… Troops of the 26th Marine Regiment stormed up the slopes. Sporadic shooting continued after the hill was declared secure early in the afternoon…. Near Khe Sanh, an enemy company attacked two companies of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, but the Americans repulsed the assault after 15 minutes. Eight U.S. soldiers were killed and six wounded…. the Khe Sanh airstrip was hit by six mortar and rocket rounds Sunday morning, two minutes after 6,000 Easter eggs arrived by helicopter for the garrison. Three Marines were wounded. ‘They say the siege of Khe Sanh is over,’ aid Marine Pfc. Frank Fauer of Easton, Pa., who was on the strip when the barrage hit. ‘Who are they trying to kid?’ “… Page 1: “JOHNSON LEAVES FOR HAWAII TALKS”… “President Johnson ended a relaxed Easter weekend at his ranch and headed today for Honolulu for talks with South Korea’s president and with U.S. military chiefs in the Pacific area. The plane bearing the President left Bergstrom Air Force Base at 9:22 a.m. for the flight of about eight hours to Hawaii. A last-minute addition to the party was Cyrus Vance, a former deputy secretary of defense on whom Johnson frequently calls for special assignments.”…
Page 1: “HOPES FOR PEACE WIN LIFT IN EASTER PRAYERS”… “Easter–the day of resurrection and hope–brought prayers throughout the Christian world for peace in Asia and an end to racial strife, class hatred and domination of the weak by the strong. ‘we are at the end of our despair in the nation’s cities. Thank God for Easter Sunday and for the hope it brings,’ said the Reverend Arthur Lee Kinsolving of St. James Episcopal Church in New York.”…. Page 1: “HUNT SPEEDS FOR SUSPECT ION KING’S ASSASSINATION AS FBI PRESSES SEARCH”… “FBI agents from Virginia to Florida were making an intensive hunt today for the mystery man whose abandoned white Mustang fits descriptions of a car seen leaving the scene of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination. The subject of the widening search was Eric Starve Galt, 37 known only as an unemployed seaman from Birmingham., Alabama.”… Page 1: “SPUTNIKS LINK UP–PART AFTER ORBITS”… “Two unmanned Soviet Sputniks automatically linked up in orbit today, circled together for 3 hours and 50 minutes and then separated.”… Page 1: “DAM ON COLUMBIA– U.S. TO ‘TURN OFF’ MIGHTY COLUMBIA”… “The Dalles, Ore.”… “The flow of the mighty Columbia River will be shut off Tuesday morning as though a faucet valve were turned. massive gates in John Day Dam some 25 miles upriver from here will slide shut under hydraulic control and the water racing downstream will pile up against the concrete nd steel barrier that stretches more than a mile between Oregon and Washington. Lake Umatilla, the reservoir behind the biggest dam ever built by the Army Corps of engineers will bill quickly. By Wednesday morning it will be at the bottom of the spillway gates. By Friday the lake will be 76 miles long, running upstream from John Day to McNary Dam. Its level will be some 80-feet above the present river. And under it will be abandoned town sites, abandoned railroads and highways and mysterious rock carvings of long vanished Indian tribes.”…
STATE DEPARTMENT. OFFICE OF THE HISTORIAN. HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS. FOREIGN RELATIONS. 1964-68. VIETNAM. One document dated 15 April 1968 of note for RTR. The President sent a note to Special Assistant Walt Rostow from Honolulu listing alternative sites for the slow developing peace talks. The President requests Rostow get the message to the Soviets with the aim that they will put a fire under Hanoi to get the ball moving. LBJ notes that so far he has given up bombing of 90% of North Vietnam and, so far, has received no response… read at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d197
15 APRIL 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… OGDEN S-E …Page 2: “U.S. pilots flying missions against North stayed below the 19th Parallel for the 18 th successive day. The deepest reported penetration was a strike by Navy Intruders on a railway siding 22 miles north of Vinh, about two miles south of the limiting parallel.”… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were five fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 15 April 1968…
(1) An O-1C Bird Dog of the 19th TASS and 504th TASW out of Bien Hoa folded the main landing gear on takeoff resulting in a wing contacting the ground and the aircraft leaving the runway as a marker rocket set fire to the wing. This led to the destruction of the aircraft. The pilot survived to fly and FAC another day…
(2) and (3) Two F-4Bs of the VF-114 Aardvarks embarked in USS Kitty Hawk collided mid-air and the four aviators were required to eject over the Gulf. All flour were rescued to fly and fight again. Updated ejection seat, water survival, and helicopter pickup quals were Aardvarks: LCDR J.F. Farnsworth, LTJG R.L. McCready, LTJG J. Sarnecki, and, LTJG G.K. Baer….
(4) COLONEL DAVID W. WINN was flying an F-105 of the 357th TFS and 355th TFW out of Takhli on a strike in Route Pack I about 10 miles south of Dong Hoi when hit by 37.mm antiaircraft fire. He was able to fly the burning Thunderchief eastward over the Gulf before having to eject about 25 miles short of his goal–Da Nang. He was rescued by an Air Force HH-3 to fly and fight again. (Until 9 August 1968 when he was downed again and captured to finish the war in Hanoi.)
(5) MAJOR JAMES HARDIN METZ was flying an F-105D of the 34th TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat on a strike into the same area near Dong Hoi in RP I when downed by AAA. The following excerpts from the compilation “34 TFS/F-105 History” by Howie Plunkett tell the story…
“15-Apr-68: F-105D 610206 34 TFS 388 TFW Korat Hit by 37/57-mm AAA during an armed reconnaissance mission. Crashed 20 miles north of Dong Hoi in RP-1, North Vietnam…. Call sign: ‘Pancho 01’. Major James Hardin Metz. 34 TFS pilot ejected but rescue efforts were unsuccessful. He died as a POW. Major Metz was lead of a flight of two on an armed reconnaissance mission in North Vietnam at 1718N/10644E. The other member in the flight was Major Eugene P. Beresik, Pancho 02. The flight took off from Korat at 13;01 and major Metz was shot down at 15:00.
“Major Eugene P. Bereski (sic), Pancho 02, described the circumstances surrounding the loss of Pancho 01 as follows: … On 15 April 1968, I was the pilot of an F-105D flying armed reconnaissance following an AGM-12C (Big Bullpup) launch. While flying at 4000′ AGC?420KCAS, I observed intense flak at co-altitude. While attempting to notify Lead (Major Metz) I observed his aircraft on fire apparently hit by flak. I notified him that he was on fire and turn and climb to the right since the coast was only about 8 miles away. approximately 15 seconds after I first noticed the aircraft on fire, I observed the canopy and pilot in the ejection seat depart from the aircraft at 4500-feet/400KCAS. I observed a good seat separation and immediate chute deployment. I made a circle to the right and observed the aircraft impact and the chute in a tree about 1 and a half from th aircraft crash site. I heard a strong interference on Guard channel. I was unable to make contact with the pilot. The pilot landed on the side of a hill in dense trees. I made several passes over a road approximately 400-feet from the chute but did not see anyone. After refueling, i returned to the area for approximately 30 more minutes. The chute was no longer visible and despite repeated attempts to contact the pilot on Guard channel, contact was not made. I did not observe anyone on the ground in close proximity to the downed crew member.”
SAR operations were conducted for approximately one and a half hours, terminating at 1652 local, without any sighting or contact with Major Metz.
“On 16 April 1968 Radio Hanoi reported the downing of an F-105 over Quang Binh Province t 1530 hours that day, and also reported that the pilot had bailed out and was captured. Metz was the only pilot shot down in that area that day. Three weeks later, intelligence sources reported that Metz had been seen alive on the ground with his captors shortly after the crash. In May 1968 the Defense Department changed Metz’ status from missing to captured. When 591 Americans were released in 1973 Operation Homecoming at the end of American involvement in Southeast Asia, Jim Metz was not among them. Military officials expressed dismay at the time that hundreds of Americans known or suspected to be prisoners were not released. For years the Vietnamese denied knowledge of the fate of Jim Metz, even though the U.S. believed he was captured. Then on March 18, 1977, the Vietnamese returned the remains of Jim Metz. He was finally home.
Fifty years ago today Major Jim Metz was shot down and captured. He is remembered with respect and admiration as he continues to rest in peace.
Humble Host flew #142: Led flight of four on armed recce Route 1 from Ben Thuy to south of Hatinh. Nothing on the road or under the trees. Possible trucks among houses in Hatinh (sanctuary). Dropped 3 MK 83s x 4 on the road south of Hatinh and left a couple of big holes in the road at a point where there was nothing but rice paddies on either side of the highway. No visible opposition. Spent 25 minutes over the beach trolling… …
RIPPLE SALVO… #771… “6,000 KHE SANH MARINES DESERVE NATION’S SALUTE” by HENRY J. TAYLOR…
“Day after day has passed and an America distracted by the city-burnings and rioting, and memorials for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has at the same time failed to properly salute our incredible 6,000 United States Marines who stood by our flag at Khe Sanh, God bless them.
“General Eisenhower once exploded to Ernie Pyle: ‘I get so eternally tired of the general lack of understanding of what the infantry soldier endures…. I get so fighting mad because of the general lack of appreciation of real heroism–which is the uncomplaining acceptance of unendurable conditions–that I become completely inarticulate.’ Or listen to Ernie Pyle himself: ‘All afternoon men kept coming around the hill, but the sag of their bodies speaks their unhuman exhaustion…. Underneath, they are just guys from Brooklyn and Main Street and there is agony in their hearts…. Their world can never be known to you, but if you could see them just once, for an instant…. ‘
LOOK CAREFULLY
“Unendurable conditions? Agony in their hearts? In our distractions we should pause to look carefully at the America of these Marines.
“It was America far from home. The hills around this America at Khe Sanh hid about 40,000 Oriental fanatics creeping forward, with their flashing knives and guns, in an ever tightening circle. Every man from Brooklyn and Main Street knew the Oriental horrors that the screaming, clawing waves would mean to him. And there they stood. Not for a few minutes, not for a few hours or days, but for 11 solid weeks, the only thing each man did not know was when the ghastly waves would appear.
“The enemy’s dugouts and tunnels approached closer and closer to each surrounded objective. The guns and mortars, deeply dug into caves or employed in the hills and carefully camouflaged, are extremely hard to detect and even harder to destroy. We should be told, and we are entitled to know, that our highly publicized flash-and-sound ranging devices to locate enemy guns have proved to be one of the greatest technological failures to date in Vietnam.
“Where did these men from Brooklyn and Main Street stand?
“Before the horrible siege was lifted, more than 40,000 rounds of mortar, artillery and rocket fire fell on them in their tiny America and on the three nearby hill positions. the barrages that engulfed them like a flaming Niagara often fell for four agonizing hours at a time. They stood lit by no comet of glory. They stood trapped.
“They stood where death, the agony of blindness and of cruel wounds that tear a friend and helper to pieces, inches from you, was their meat and drink, their fare. ‘If you could see them once, for an instant.’
“1,000 YARD STARE”
“Many developed what the Marines call ‘the 1,000-yard stare,’ an unblinking, vacant look that reveals a shattered mind trying to come to grips with the horrors while the mesmerized eyes are fixed on the hills.
“Food was short. Water was even shorter as shells perforated rubber storage tanks. While garbage workers staged strikes in Memphis, New York and elsewhere, what about the problem where these men stood? Six thousand Americans lived, slept and died in trash and the dreadful stinking heaps on heaps of unmovable garbage while the rats multiplied. An American officer friend of mine, blinded forever by a grenade at Khe Sanh, estimates that the number of rats clawing at our men, multiplying at more than one for one within the first 10 weeks of the siege. These vicious rodents, disease, steel splinters from exploding shells, rockets and grenades killed more than 200 Marines and wounded 1,600–nearly a third of the Marines’ strength. They could only watch each other die.”…. End Column…
General Willliam Westmoreland said of the siege of Khe Sanh: “Khe Sanh will stand in history, I am convinced, as a classic example of how to defeat a numerically superior besieging force by coordinated application of firepower.” Total casualties for the eleven week campaign in and around Khe Sanh were 730 Americans KIA and 2,642 wounded. Enemy dead were estimated between 14,600 and 28,600… Humble Host had the honor and duty to support the Marines on Khe Sanh logging about a dozen direct air support bomb, rocket and strafing missions, including two right up to the perimeter fence, before returning from each flight to my clean sheets, ice cream, and ice cubes with the tea on the good ship Enterprise. How better to appreciate your lot in life than to see, understand and respect the incredible hardships of the grunts among us. Gang way, foot soldier….
Lest we forget…. Bear
