Bear Taylor 
A POST REMEMBERING THE FINAL FLIGHT OF COLONEL JOHN L. ROBERTSON, USAF, WHO PERISHED 52 YEARS AGO … and remains left behind… and to honor his wife Barbara, who carried on with uncommon courage and boundless hope and faith…
RIPPLE SALVO… #925… FROM THE 15-SEPT-68 NYT, “WORDS ON THE WAR”… As the war dragged for American troops on the ground and under enemy fire in South Vietnam at the point where more than 27,000 had been killed-in-action and 173,000 wounded, the war in Vietnam was the focus of increasing debate at home in the Presidential campaign. The New York Times picked through the plethora of campaign coverage to publish one excerpt “on the war” each for: President Johnson; Vice President Humphrey, running fot the Democrats; former Vice President Richard M. Nixon for the Grand Old Party; and ex-Governor of Georgia, George C. Wallace, “third party candidate,” running as an independent… The excerpts below…but first…
Good Morning… Day NINE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE of a daily blog returning to the Vietnam war and the great cadre of American military pilots who alone took the war to the heartland of the North Vietnamese from 1965 to 1968… Those were the YEARS of Rolling Thunder…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times when it was The Gray Lady on Monday, 16 September 1968…
THE WAR: “SOUTH VIETNAMESE KILL 114 IN 2 CLASHES NEAR DANANG”… “Sharp fighting broke out south of Danang yesterday, and in two clashes South Vietnamese troops killed 114 of the enemy. A spokesman said that casualties among Government soldiers were light. The two engagements developed wet of Dienban, about 20 miles north of Danang…Allied troops operating in thick jungles north of Saigon uncovered 27 tons of enemy ammunition. The day before U.S. marines operating near the demilitarized zone found a North Vietnamese cache containing 10 tons of munitions…Early yesterday, allied troops continued to skirmish with enemy around Tayninh, northwest of Saigon, and in the Mekong Delta and the vicinity of Quangngai, in the northern region. The largest of the enemy ammunition dumps included 1,290 rockets, 212 60-mm mortar shells, 180 anti-tank mines and 92 cases of ammunition for AK-47 automatic rifles…. In a delayed report, a South Vietnamese military spokesman said that Government troops capture 49 North Vietnamese regulars Friday in an action 375 miles northeast of Saigon.”… Page 1: “THIRD NEGRO GENERAL GETS HIS STAR”… “Frederic Ellis Davison, who believes that the United States Army is a ‘truly democratic institution, had the silver stars of a brigadier general pinned on his collar today. He is the third Negro to achieve the rank of general in the history of the armed forces. ‘I can think of no man who has worked harder or who deserves the promotion to general officer more than General Davison,’ said General Creighton Abrams, the United States Commander in South Vietnam, who pinned the stars to General Davison’s tunic.”…
Page 1: “HUMPHREY URGES JETS FOR ISRAEL–Apparent Split With Johnson”… Page 1: “MAYOR DALEY’S TV FILM DEFENDING CHICAGO COPS SHOWS CONVENTION WEEK CLASHES”… Page 33: “MELEE IN SAGINAW, MICHIGAN QUELLED BY POLICE–Negro and Mexican Youths Are Expelled From Fair”… Page 35: “SOCIALISTS URGE DEFEAT OF NIXON–Humphrey Half Heartedly Approved as Only Choice at Socialists Convention”… Page 39: NEW HOUSE IS LIKELY TO BE MORE CONSERVATIVE–Fiscally and More Inclined To Decentralize Programs”… Page 40: “DNC CHAIRMAN O’BRIEN TELLS VOTERS NOT TO BACK HUMPHREY RIVALS ON BASIS OF BIGOTRY–Concern Voiced Over Racial Fear–Humphrey Aide Says Nixon Is Evading the Issues”… Page 40: “NEW YORK’s NEW SENATOR IS DEEPLY DISTURBED BY NIXON’s CIVIL RIGHTS VIEWS–Favors Holding Back Federal School funds To Enforce Laws”… Page 38: “AGNEW PROMISES CURBS ON DISSENT– Would Set Up Guidelines To Limit Confrontations”…
Page 1: SOCIALISTS WIN IN SWEDEN VOTE– BIG MARGIN SEEN SERIOUS THREAT TO 36-RULE DISSOLVES AS PARTY GAINS ON RIGHT AND LEFT–Opposition Lacks Unity–Soviet Union Invasion of Prague Was Also a Factor Working In Favor Of Erlandeer”… Page 1: “CZECH’s CERNIK REASSURES COUNTRY ON PRESS–He Tells Czechs New Censorship Laws Will Have Room Fro Criticism”… Page 11: “CZECHS REMEMBERING “A CRUEL MORNING”–Poem To The Dead Is Read By Soldier In Prague– “TO THE FALLEN” (See RTR Quote for 16 September below)…
16 SEPTEMBER 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times..No coverage of air operations over the North on 16th… VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 16 September 1968…
(1) LCDR W.R. LAMBERTSON and LTJG T.I. McPHERSON were launched from USS Constellation in a VF-143 F-4B. The pilots instrument panel came loose on the cat shot and as a result the pilot was unable to counter excessive nose up. As the aircraft stalled in front of the carrier, the two aviators safely ejected before the Phantom crashed at sea. They were rescued to fly and fight again.
(2) An F-102A Delta Dart of the 509th FIS and 405th FW was retuning to Udorn after a training flight and collided with an F-4 on the landing rollout. Damage to the aircraft was so substantial that the aircraft was scrapped.
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) FOR THE FOUR 16 SEPTEMBER DATES OF THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1968… NONE…
1967…MAJOR BOBBY RAY BAGLEY, USAF… (POW)… and… MAJOR WILLIAM LEE NELLAMS, USAF… (KIA)… and… 1LT PETER ARTHUR GRUBB, USAF… (KIA)…
1966… MAJOR JOHN LEIGHTON ROBERTSON, USAF… (KIA)… and … 1LT HUBERT ELLIOT BUCHANAN, USAF… (POW)…. The loss of Major Robertson and 1Lt Buchanan was reported in RTR of 16 Sept 1966 and RS #199. Read the Task Force Omega report on Major Robertson, which includes remarks on the infamous “The Three Amigos” picture.
AMONG THE REMEMBRANCES left for COLONEL JOHN LEIGHTON ROBERTSON at “The Wall of Faces“ are two from Barbara Robertson…Left on 9/12/02… “Today is our 50th wedding anniversary. I am so happy we made that magical walk down the aisle so many lifetimes ago. You are, and always will be, my love, my hero, and my best friend.”… and on 9/29/01… “I am still in love with you and always will be waiting for your return. You have nine grandchildren. We have had 13 live sighting reports concerning you this year and therefore we will never give up hope. You are the guiding light and the wind beneath our wings. You would be so very proud of the wonderful family you have produced. We all love you so very much. Goodnight honey, and I will see you in the morning. I love you. Barby.”
“They also serve who wait,” and wait, and… “Where do we get such women?”… to paraphrase James Michener
COLONEL JOHN L. ROBERTSON went down in North Vietnam 52 years ago this day and he remains missing. Left behind. His status is “XX”–“Presumptive Finding of Death”…
1965… LCOL JAMES ROBINSON RISNER, USAF… (POW)… and… MAJOR RAYMOND JAMES MERRITT, USAF… (POW)…
RIPPLE SALVO… #925… IN MY POST YESTERDAY THE HEADLINE AND LEAD was the American Legion’s 1968 resolution “on the war.”… IMHO they had it right… “The Legion adopted a resolution calling for an intensification of the war by the United States, unless there were positive results soon from the Paris talks. If a lasting and honorable peace does not come shortly, the Legion recommended that the United States and its allies make a maximum effort in manpower and resources to secure ‘a total and lasting victory’ in Vietnam. This effort would include intensified bombing and shelling operations, the removal of all sanctuaries, the closing of all enemy ports and the widening in scope of military targets.”… The NYT excerpts “on the war”… “
PRESIDENT JOHNSON: “The bombing will not stop until we are confident that it will not lead to an increase… We yearn for the day when our men can come home. No man can predict when that day will come…”
VICE PRESIDENT HUMPHREY: “I would think that, negotiations or no negotiations, we could start to remove some of the American forces (from Vietnam) in early 1969 or late 1968.”…
NIXON: “I pledge to you tonight that the first-priority foreign policy objective of our next Administration will be to bring an honorable end to the war in Vietnam.”…
WALLACE: “We should tell those nations (allied with the U.S.), ‘Either you are going to help us (in Vietnam) or we are going to not only cut off foreign aid, we are going to start collecting all that you owe us, from World War I right up until this minute.”…
RTR Quote for 16 September 1968. NYT, 16-Sept-68, Page 11, “CZECHS REMEMBER A ‘CRUEL MORNING’–Poem to the Dead is read By a Soldier in Prague”… Reported by Tad Szulc… “The young Czech soldier knelt this noon at the edge of the flower bed at the foot of the equestrian statue of King Wenceslas to read a poem carefully written in blue ink on a sheet of white paper. It was rainy and the soldier had to squint to discern the words on the soggy paper. The ink had begun to run despite a piece of cellophane. The newly planted flower bed was a memorial to the young Czechoslovaks who gave their lives on Wenceslas Square fighting Soviet tanks and soldiers in the first days of the occupation. Men and women pressed to hear the words of the anonymous poet.”…
TO OUR FALLEN…
“Who will heal the pain; Who will cure the wounds,
Then burn our hearts–Who will answer?
WHY?
Death came from afar in iron by machine guns,
Over the graves of the fallen, life goes on,
Who would not cry over the beloved dead?
Now our people stand firmly, stand proudly
Your grief and defiance you must nurture in your hearts,
But the cruel morning you must remember well.”
“The Russians who no longer really occupy this capital but surround it with tanks and artillery from a dozen miles away, prefer that the morning of August 21 be forgotten.
“But the people standing at the flower bed have only to raise their eyes to remember that morning. some 200 yards behind the statue, the huge National Museum rises on the raised eastern end of the vast rectangular square, which the Czechs call Vaclavske Namesti. The aged stone facade, peppered with thousands of whitish holes and nicks looks as if some mad artist had sprayed it with white paint. But the holes and the nicks are from a fusillade of Soviet machine-gun bullets. Machine gunners on Soviet tanks sprayed the museum from the roof to the first floor to scare away thousands of shouting and jeering youths who filled the wide front stairs of the building. The Russians fired overhead but the museum itself became a target. This gray Sunday, the flower bed, the poem, the holes in the facade of the museum and workingmen still replacing the windows were the only visible reminders that a battle raged on Wenceslas Square almost four weeks ago.”… End quote… Jefferson: “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
