Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #802… WITH THE PRESIDENT’S 31 MARCH 1968 DECISION TO LIMIT ROLLING THUNDER TO TARGETS BELOW 19-DEGREES NORTH, THE GAME CHANGED. There were very few “strategic” targets in the Panhandle of North Vietnam. The list of targets came down to the road and rail systems with bridges, trucks and rolling stock the most available targets, with trucks the 24/7 object of the missions in the armed recce category. Truck hunting-killing was open season, no limit, and a worthy challenge. Wayne Thompson’s TO HANOI AND BACK is the source for the following: “Left with a smaller field of action, Seventh Air Force tried to make the best of it. Chasing trucks in Route Package One was at least less dangerous than bombing targets in the Red River Delta, and the North Vietnamese did less than expected to change that situation in the summer of 1968. They did nearly double their antiaircrtaft guns in the panhandle to perhaps twenty-six hundred, but most of their surface-to-air missile batteries remained near Hanoi and Haiphong–with only four or five active sites near the nineteenth parallel. There was no effort in 1968 (as there had been in 1967) to install missiles near the Demilitarized Zone. Hence the Navy bore the brunt of the remaining SAMs, as well as the MiG threat…. The North Vietnamese panhandle was… a much more deadly place for pilots than the Laotian panhandle. In Laos the Air Force was beginning to have some success finding and strafing trucks with guns mounted on a relatively slow, propellor-driven transport aircraft (a Lockheed C-130 Hercules), but such a fixed-wing gunship could not survive in the North Vietnamese panhandle. Nor could forward air controllers (FACs) use their customary light propeller-driven aircraft to look for targets and call in fighter-bombers. Instead the FACs flew in two seat F-100F jets. They were fortunate indeed to see a truck in the daylight from forty-five hundred feet at four hundred knots, and most North Vietnamese trucks did not take to the road until after dark.”…. More below..
GOOD MORNING: Day EIGHT HUNDRED TWO of a return to the air war with North Vietnam fought fifty years ago… It was secretly called Rolling Thunder… (For reasons Humble Host will never understand. Does anybody know why the operation title was classified for years after it became part of the popular vernacular?)
HEAD LINES from THE NEW YORK TIMES on a cloudy Thursday, 16 May 1968 in New York City…
THE WAR: Page 1: “DROP IN U.S. RAIDS LINKED TO TALKS–BOMBING IN NORTH REDUCED IN WEEK OF CLEAR WEATHER– Allies Kill 147 Of Foe”… “United States pilots have reduced the number of air raids against targets in North Vietnam during the last seven days, despite the best weather of the year. The reductions led to speculation that the preliminary peace talks in Paris were influencing military strategy. It was recalled that air officers had said only recently that air strikes over the North would increase once the weather cleared. The military command had no official comment on the matter. An air officer however, shrugged and said, ‘look at the figures and draw your own conclusions.’…
PAST AVERAGE HIGHER… “During the last seven days the United States has flown an average of 113 missions each day in near perfect flying weather. During a seven-day period last month, when the monsoon season shrouded the land in heavy clouds, an average of 122 missions a day were flown. On April 19, when the weather over the panhandle–the area immediately north of the demilitarized zone–was described as scattered to clear along the coast in the afternoon,’ American aviators flew 160 missions, the highest number since President Johnson announced a curtailment of the bombing on March 31. Although the number of missions has dropped in recent days, it is still higher than the daily average of those flown during the first three months of this year against all of North Vietnam. Since the President’s announcement, which was later interpreted as precluding bombing north of the 20th parallel, American planes have pounded suspected troop concentrations and supply points below the 19th parallel. In the days just after the President’s order for a bombing curtailment, military officers here said that Mr. Johnson was wise in ordering it while weather conditions were less than favorable for all-out bombing. The largest number of missions flown in the last seven days came on Saturday, when 124 raids were carried out in weather described as fair.
MISSILE COMPLEX ATTACKED:… “Today the military said that American aviators flew 101 missions over the North, once again in fair weather. The pilots reported having destroyed or damaged a surface-to-air missile complex, a highway bridge, a number of trucks and supply boats and several buildings. A Navy A-4 Skyhawk was downed between Vinh and Donghoi and the pilot was listed as missing in action. (LTJG BARRY KARGER, VA-93) The loss of the aircraft brought the unofficial total of planes downed over the north to 836. The northernmost target was a waterborne supply craft about 12 miles south of the 19th parallel.”
GROUND WAR: Page 1: “In South Vietnam, North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces continued to harass military installations and South Vietnamese civilians. During the night more than 50 mortar and rocket rounds landed in a residential neighborhood in Cholon, the Chinese quarter of the capital. Five persons were killed and 27 were killed and 27 were wounded. At Canau in the Mekong River delta province of Anxuyen, four civilians were reported to have been killed when six rounds of 60-mm mortar fire struck the town. The United States base at Dongha, 11 miles south of the DMZ, was blasted by more than 45 rounds of 152-mm artillery shells…casualties were light. Fighting in the countryside around Saigon continued and elements of the American 199th Light Infantry Brigade were said to have killed 50 enemy soldiers in a battle 10 miles southwest of the city. There were no American casualties. About 17 miles northeast of Saigon, two platoons of Thai soldiers were reported to have killed 10 in an ambush of an enemy force of about 150 men. The Thai infantrymen reported light casualties.”… Page 17: “INFILTRATION RISE SEEN IF RAIDS END–MILITARY OBSERVERS PREDICT INCREASE OF 15 TO 20-PER CENT”… “Cessation of the bombing has been Hanoi’s chief demand in the Paris talks.”… Page 20: “SAIGON PEOPLE RESIGNED TO BLOWS OF WAR”…
PEACE TALKS: Page 1: “HARRIMAN’S MOVE TO SKIRT IMPASSE SPURNED BY THUY–AMERICAN URGES THAT PARIS SESSION GO INTO AREAS OF POSSIBLE AGREEMENT–Hanoi Reiterates View–Demand for Unconditional Bombing Halt Is Presented Even More Strongly”… “Ambassador-at-Large W. Averell Harriman attempted today to move the Vietnam talks into what he termed areas of possible common ground, but the response was negative. Xaun Thuy, the chief North Vietnamese delegate, focused even more strongly than at the first session Monday on Hanoi’s opening demand in these preliminary talks that the United States ‘definitively and unconditionally stop the bombing and all other ‘acts of war’ against North Vietnam. The language of Mr. Thuy’s statement, as given to the press , seemed more abusive than his earlier remarks. Afterward the North Vietnamese spokesman, Nguyen Thanh Le, elaborated the criticism at a two-hour briefing…. Mr. Le accused the United States of ’14 years of aggression’ in Vietnam. He went back to the fall of Dienbienphu in 1954 and said ‘the General Staff’ had then recommended the use of tactical nuclear weapons’ in aid of the French defenders… Next session Saturday.” Page 1: “SHIFT ON VIETNAM IS DENIED BY U.S.–Article Brings Affirmation On Stand On Settlement:…”Washington Post article reported that the U.S. had decided to offer the communists a much greater role than it was acknowledged and one that Saigon would refuse to accept. The denials were aimed beyond the story to the implications.”…
Page 1: “FRENCH WORKERS OCCUPY PLANT–PROTESTS FLARE IN WEST GERMANY“… Page 1: “YUGOSLAVIA HAILS CZECH ARMS–Praise By Tito”… Page 1: “Soviets To Help U.A.R. Build Industrial Complex–Project Second on Size Only To Aswan High Dam”… Page 1: “Twister Kills 35 In Three States–Hundreds Injured In Iowa, Arkansas and Illinois”… Page 1: “House Postpones Action On Taxes And Spending Cuts”… Page 1: “KENNEDY BUOYED BY VOTE PATTERN–Aides Say Nebraska Victory With 60% Of Farm Bloc Shows Broad Appeal”… Page 8: “EISENHOUR MAKES PROGRESS IN WALTER REED ARMY HOSPITAL”…
Page 20: “Kennedy Attacks Humphrey Base–Hits “Politics Of Happiness’… “Humphrey Shugs Off Kennedy Victory–Gibes at Rockefeller”… “Nixon Bids Columbia Oust Anarchist Students”… …
STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of the Historian. Historical Documents. Foreign Relations. 1964-68 Vietnam. Document 235 is the fifty-first weekly report to the Secretary of State and the President Ambassador Bunker in Saigon… Includes this observation: “Hanoi, I think, is taking a calculated gamble, believing that our desire for peace and to deescalate the war is now so great that we cannot reverse this trend, that we will not dare to restore full bombing o the North or retaliate against Hanoi.”… Very interesting document 4-Stars… read at;
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d235
16 MAY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (see above THE WAR) … Most extensive coverage of the air war on page 1 in several months…”Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson)… There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 16 may 1968…
(1) MAJOR DAVID J. RICKEL and 1LT GERALD JOSEPH CROSSON, Jr. were flying an F-4D of the 435th TFS and 8th TFW out of Ubon on a Night Owl mission 15 miles north of Dong Hoi in North Vietnam when they perished. MAJOR RICKEL called a target and attack. They were apparently hit by enemy ground fire on their first diving attack and subsequently crashed. Searches failed to find any wreckage or sign of the two aviators and they were listed as missing in action for the remainder of the war with the hope that they had survived and been captured. When the return of our POWs in 1973 did not include either man, they were presumed to have been killed in action. Fifty years later MAJOR RICKEL an 1LT CROSSON remain where they fell on their final flight. Left behind, but remembered with admiration and respect for their service and sacrifice. The search goes on…
Humble Host flew #164 and #165. The first sortie was another double Bullpup to knock down a small bridge southwest of Vinh at San Dinh. I missed the bridge with my first Small Bullpup but my wingman blew it away. We went hunting with the second ‘Pup and I resisted the temptation to fire it at a guy on a motorcycle. We found a barge or logistic craft in the river west of Vinh and scored two bullseyes… Opposition was assumed but no flak was observed. Put my wingman (Jesse James) in for an award and it was turned down by the ship’s award board. Kid got two great hits in the middle of Indian country and gets 1/10th of an Air Medal… Beyond human understanding… Second flight of the day #165 was led by the squadron CO Bob Thomas and the flight of four armed with three Mk-83s each nailed a road bridge on Highway 1A south of Ha Tinh. 1/10 of an Air Medal and 1.9 flight hours of Green Ink in the log books all around. Also, a couple of words in a blog fifty years later… oohrah…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 16 MAY FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION…
1965… NONE…
1966… NONE…
1967… LT RONALD WAYNE DODGE, USN… (POW-Died)…
1968… MAJOR DAVID J. RICKEL, USAF… (KIA)… and … 1LT GERALD JOSEPH CROSSON, USAF… (KIA)…
RIPPLE SALVO… #802… HUNTING AND KILLING TRUCKS… Back to Wayne Thompson’s TO HANOI AND BACK for a few words…(Page 144 I quote)…
“Many of the trucks moving south through Route Package One in the summer of 1968 were carrying ammunition and supplies for North Vietnamese units located in and just north of the Demilitarized Zones dividing North from South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese had never had much problem infiltrating forces through the DMZ, and perhaps thirty thousand of their soldiers operated in the I Corps region of South Vietnam. Supplying these forces through the zone was much more difficult than infiltrating them. Most trucks with supplies for communist forces in South Vietnam went around the DMZ by driving west through the mountain passes into Laos (MuGia, Nape, and Ban Karai)…
“Because the arrival of heavy rain in May made truck travel on dirt and gravel roads in Laos difficult, the North Vietnamese emphasized resupply of units in South Vietnam during the dry northeast monsoon of November through April. The southwest monsoon brought rain to the North Vietnamese panhandle as well, but the amount was somewhat less on the lee side of the mountains and the roads were somewhat better. From the North Vietnamese point of view, the major problem with the seasonal character of their resupply system was that the seasons favored American air attack in Laos, there were relatively few clouds overhead to protect the trucks from the planes. The fighter-bombers, however, rarely got such good weather in North Vietnam, because the relatively dry northeast monsoon produced heavy cloud cover along the coast and over the Red River Delta. The best opportunities to bomb Hanoi and Haiphong had occurred during the breaks between the heavy rains of the southwest monsoon when the skies did clear. Hence the American bombing had focused on the Laotian panhandle during the northeast monsoon, but during the previous southwest monsoons the American effort had necessarily been divided between North Vietnam’s panhandle and the Red River Delta.
“Even in the summer of 1967, at the height of bombing in the Red River Delta, more than half of the Air Force’s fighter-bombers attacking North Vietnam had bombed in the North Vietnamese panhandle. Whenever clouds over the delta did not permit attack, Air Force fighter-bombers had been diverted to Route Package One. Seventh Air Force had frequently argued that this practice produced in Route Package One an over abundance of air power which might better have been used in the Navy route packages farther north. After the bombing cutback in March 1968, Seventh Air Force had the resources to double the number of sorties sent into Route Package One to more than six thousand a month. While absorbing Air Force sorties that had formerly struck the northern route packages, Route Package One could be bombed without using a high percentage of attacking aircraft for suppression of enemy defenses. Occasionally Seventh Air Force would send a big formation of strike aircraft with escorts into Route Package One, but only to practice technique in case the President once gain permitted them to bomb targets near Hanoi.”…
Truck kill scorecard tomorrow…
RTR quote for 16 May: GENERAL ERWIN ROMMEL: “Winning the men’s confidence requires much of a commander. He must exercise care and caution, look after his men, live under the same hardships, and above all–apply self-discipline. But once he has their confidence, his men will follow him through hell and high water.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
