Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #833… NYT, 16 JUNE 1968, PAGE 1: “NEW FIGHT FLARES AT SAIGON’S EDGE; SHELLING GOES ON–Enemy Sends Four Rockets Into Park Area As Allies Press Hunt For Sites”… “Four enemy rockets struck at the port of Saigon early this morning, and the allied military command reported significant fighting at the edge of the city….In an afternoon of sharp fighting five miles north of the capital’s central business district, South Vietnamese paratroops pursuing infiltrators and enemy rocket teams reported having killed 80 North Vietnamese and Vietcong soldiers… In the action around Saigon usually reliable sources said that the South Vietnamese paratroops fighting in the small gardens and tin-roofed homes that fan out from the city had relied on their personal weapons instead of calling for destructive air strikes. The sources said the enemy troops appeared to be remnants of units that have been appearing for brief fights on the northeastern fringes of Saigon for more than a month.”… Correspondent Gene Roberts takes it from there in Ripple Salvo below…but first…
GOOD MORNING: Day EIGHT HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE of a studious look-back at a few years that flew by fifty years ago… Humble Host is still trying to figure out what the Hades happened in those years of Rolling Thunder…
HEAD LINES from THE NEW YORK TIMES on Sunday, 16 June 1968…
MORE WAR: Page 1: “In the Khe Sanh area near the demilitarized zone, Marine units operating south of the American outpost reported having killed 186 North Vietnamese in a day of fierce fighting. After attacking the marines at dawn and hammering them for three and a half hours, the North Vietnamese pulled back, but within an hour the marines had renewed the action and it raged until late afternoon. A total of 18 marines were reported killed and 61 wounded….Elsewhere in South Vietnam the most significant action was a marine engagement south of Danang in which 21 of the enemy died and three Americans were wounded.”… B-52 RAID NEAR SAIGON…American B-52 bombers pounded enemy infiltrating routes near Saigon with 150 tons of bombs today. the explosions were clearly heard in the capital as the bombers made two strikes 20 miles northwest of the city.”…
PEACE TALKS: Page 9: “HANOI SCORES REPORT ON RAID-HALT TALK”… “The North Vietnamese radio in Hanoi today described as ‘sheer fabrication’ a report published in The New York Times that North Vietnam had indicated a willingness to respond to a cessation of United States bombing under certain conditions. The North Vietnamese press agency quoted the radio as having said, ‘According to a foreign news agency, the New York Times recently spread the rumor that North Vietnam has indicated to the United States delegation in Paris its willingness to respond to complete cessation of the United States air strikes by some closely identified action should the United States give up its condition of a military reciprocity.’ The radio added, ‘This is a total fabrication.’…Through eight sessions the North Vietnamese delegation has demanded that the United States completely put an end to its aggression in Vietnam.”…
Page 1: “TOP ARMS MAKERS BACK BAN SALE OF RIFLES BY MAIL–RIFT APPEARS IN GUN LOBBY AS 3 COMPANIES ENDORSE KEY PART OF JOHNSON BILL–A Shift By Mansfield–Senator, Foe of Curbs, Supports Plan Requiring Permits On Fire Arms”… “A split developed today in the ranks of the gun lobby as three leading manufacturers came out in favor of a compromise version of the Administration’s gun control bill. Remington, Winchester and Savage announced they are supporting legislation banning the interstate mail order sales of rifles and shotguns.”… Page 30: “GOVERNORS URGE CURBS–ASK ATTACK ON VIOLENCE AND SELF-HELP DRIVE FOR POOR”…”The Republican Governors lled today for stronger gun control legislature within constitutional limits, an attack on violence ‘loose in our land’ and a self-help program for the poor…. The proposals were unanimously adopted for a policy statement to be presented to the platform committee for the Republican National Convention.”… Page 33: “UNIFORM GUN-CUB LAW SOUGHT BY PRESIDENT IN ALL 50-STATES”… “Citing an ‘extraordinary’ demonstration of public support, the White House moved today to persuade local officials to work toward the adoption of a uniform gun law by the 50 states.”… Page 2E: “Gun Control: A DEMAND FOR ‘MORE PROTECTION FOR THE INNOCENT’ “… “Among the thousands of letters deluging Congress last week was one from a Baltimore housewife: ‘This is the first letter I have ever written to a Senator or a Congressman. I feel strongly we should have stronger gun control laws in this country…. I n just a housewife, but as the mother of six children, I am horrified at the violence existing in this country today. Perhaps this letter will ease my conscience because of the events of last week.”… There was other news, but gun control was on everybody’s mind in the wake of the Robert Kennedy Assassination…
16 JUNE 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (17 June reporting 16 June ops) Page I: “In a delayed report a United States military spokesman said that two Navy F-4 Phantoms and two North Vietnam MiG-17s engaged in a seven minute long dogfight in the vicinity of Vinh Friday. The spokesman said that the jets exchanged fire but that there were no hits. The MiGs eventually fled to the north. MiG pilots were first reported to be operating in the southern panhandle region of North Vietnam early in May. So far they have shot down one Navy F-4 in the region. American pilots attacking in North Vietnam darted through moderate to heavy enemy antiaircraft fire as they carried out 130 missions. They said there were no MIGs or surface-to-air missiles in the sky. No American planes were reported lost.”…
VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 16 June 1968…
(1) MAJOR WAYNE A. FERGUSON was flying an O-1F of the 21st TASS and 504th TASG out of Nha Trang on a FAC mission near Phuoc Long 25 miles southwest of Qui Nhon. MAJOR FERGUSON was diving to mark the target when hit by anti-aircraft fire and was unable to escape the aircraft before it hit the ground in the dive killing MAJOR FERGUSON…
(2) COMMANDER WALTER EUGENE WILBER and LTJG BERNARD FRANCIS RUPINSKI were flying an F-4J in a section of the VF-102 Diamondback Phantoms embarked in USS America on CAP mission northwest of Vinh when vectored to intercept two enemy MIG-17s. “As COMMANDER WILBER and his Radar Intercept Officer LTJG RUPINSKI, who was flying his first mission over the beach, split into combat spread from their wingman (LT BROWN) they were responding to the call of ‘Migs in the air.’ The expectation was that the North Vietnamese aircraft would be using a high/low tactic in a potential dog fight. the high MiGs were on every radar scope in the theater while the low MiGs were using terrain masking to hide his maneuver. Wilber was to take the high aircraft while Brown looked out for the low aircraft as it was expected to engage the most vulnerable aircraft in the flight. The USN cruiser USS St Louis was patrolling in the Tonkin Gulf and controlling the intercept. As the high MiG and the Wilber F-4J raced toward each other, the St. Louis CIC gave Wilber a reciprocal vector which caused him to think the MiG had somehow gone past him. (The reason for the vector may have been to preclude flying north of the 19th Parallel) Wilber pancaked (?) over to pursue the MiG which was still heading towards him. The high MiG launched an air-to-air Atoll missile which went up the tailpipe of the Wilber F-4. Wingman Brown saw Wilber eject but no one came out of the rear seat before the Phantom exploded. The minute Wilbur hit the ground he became a very valuable POW as a squadron commander and propaganda asset. (Article by Jim Harding, who was a Journalist aboard America at the time)
LTJG BERNIE RUPINSKI perished in the Phantom, killed in action, on 16 June 1968 on what was apparently his first combat mission over North Vietnam. LTJG RUPINSKI was 24 years old fifty years ago when he died for his country on a distant battlefield where he remains today. Remembered, with sorrow.
COMMANDER WILBER spent the rest of the war as a POW, and Humble Host refers you to the plethora of articles and documents on the internet that report his performance while imprisoned. Search the internet for CAPTAIN WALTER EUGENE WILBER, USN, Vietnam POW and read on…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 16 JUNE FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965… NONE…
1966… NONE…
1967… NONE…
1968… CAPTAIN WALLACE EUGENE WILBURN, USN… (POW)… and … LTJG BERNARD FRANCIS RUPINSKI, USN… (KIA)…
Humble Host flew #187 and #188. First mission was a night cat shot to watch the sun come up, then provided Ironhand/flak suppression for a flight of four going for a POL storage target on the river southwest of Vinh. Ripple salvoed 16 5-inch Zunis into a hot flak site but brought the Shrike home: nothing to shoot at. Second flight: led a division to put total of 20 delay fused Mk-82s into a road intersection southwest of Vinh. Enterprise completes Yankee Station duty on 27 June. Ten flying days to bag a dozen more “counters” to round it off at 200… Gonna be close (but I know how it comes out)…
RIPPLE SALVO… #833… GENE ROBERTS, NYT, 16 JUNE 1968… “IN SAIGON, ‘EVERYWHERE IS DANGER’… “…
“Saigon–When enemy troops moved into the outskirts of Saigon in early May, one Vietnamese night-watchman packed up his family and moved into the lobby of the building he guards in the downtown district. For nearly six weeks, the family slept on the floor in the lobby and ate on the doorsteps, but with no complaints. Life on the floor, the family explained in broken English, was not comfortable, but it was peaceful.
“Then, as dawn broke last Tuesday, at least 15 rockets screamed downtown business district. The thunderous explosions hurled hotel guests from bed, shattered windows, tore gaping holes in stores and apartment houses and spread horror in the streets. Less than 50 yards from where the night-watchman’s family slept, two cooks died with the morning’s groceries in their arms. Two beggars who had gone to sleep in a doorway, just 75 yards away, never woke up.
“Jolted awake by the blasts and the clatter of shrapnel on the sidewalk just outside the lobby, the night-watchman’s four-year-old son scampered to the doorway, saw the agony of the wounded and dying, and then cried for half an hour. That afternoon the family moved back to their home on the outskirts of the city, between Tansonnhut Air Base and Saigon’s Chinese district. Within 48 hours, the family was back in the lobby again; rockets had crashed into the air base nd nearby residential districts.
“‘Everywhere there is danger,’ the watchman’s wife wailed from the lobby floor. ‘Everywhere is bad, Beaucoup rockets every day, everywhere.’
“Life was like that for tens of thousands of Saigonese. hardly any area of the city or its suburbs had escaped the rockets and mortar shells which the enemy fired on 26 of 42 nights. No one knew where to turn. Was ech step leading you out of danger, or directly into it? ‘Just being here is like playing Russian roulette,’ said one American woman as she rushed to the airport to board a plane for Hong Kong.
MOST RESIDENTS STAY…
“Some of the wealthy sent their families to Vungtau, a coastal resort, and some of the poor rushed to provincial towns that only a few weeks ago had been considered unsafe by the Saigonese. But the overwhelming majority of the city’s residents decided to stick it out in the city. The price of sandbags doubled almost overnight as families began building backyard bunkers,
“What were the almost daily bombardments doing to the city’s morale? What were the political ramifications? The most conspicuous reaction was one of anger–at the enemy for shelling the civilian population, at Americans for not trying to stop the bombardments with retaliatory bombing of Hanoi, at the South Vietnamese government for not providing better protection.
“Th Senate and House Chambers of parliament rang with angry outbursts, especially from the militantly anti-Communist Catholic and Dai Viet lawmakers. ‘No government in the past has ever let the people live in such a state of insecurity as now,’ said one legislator. ‘For each rocket in Saigon, there should be a bomb in Hanoi. It is absurd if we all sit here helplessly.
RISKS OF PEACE…
“The Saigon Daily News warned that unless the Governments found a way to protect the city ‘more people may think it is better to run the risks of peace. Just how many people thought a settlement with the Vietcong–rather than increased militancy and retaliatory raids–was the answer was problematical. On the surface, militants appeared to outnumber pacifists.
“In Vietnam it is officially a crime–punishable by jail sentence– to advocate such a solution as a coalition government with the Vietcong as a step toward peace. At the end of the week, Minister of State Phn Quang Dan was fired from the Cabinet for advocating ‘direct talks’ with the Vietcong. With jitters growing, the Government was faced with either rallying the people as the British Government did in London during World War II, or of providing complete security for the city. And rallying the people is difficult as it is in this politically fragmented country, seemed simpler than trying to stop the rocket attacks.
“United States and Vietnamese military leaders said no complete halt in the attacks was possible if the enemy decided to keep them up. ‘Three or four men can slip within six or eight miles of the city and fire off a half-dozen rockets,’ one American general said, ‘To stop them completely we would have to assign three or four divisions to do nothing but throw a cordon around the city. And we can’t spare that many men.'”… End quote…
To allow the enemy to strike with impunity is inexcusable. An eye for an eye is the appropriate policy.
Lest we forget… Bear
