ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 18 MARCH 1967

RIPPLE SALVO… #378… THE READY ROOM ALL-READ BOARD: read and initial before leaving the ship…”There will be no liberty until morale improves.”…XO …but first…

Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED SEVENTY-EIGHT of a 1000-blog journal written fifty years ago by the valiant warriors of Operation Rolling Thunder in the skies over North Vietnam…

18 March 1967…HEAD LINES and LEADS from The New York Times on a cold, icy and sunny Saturday in NYC…

Page 1: “Lone U.S. Jet Raids Major Power Plant In the Hanoi Region”…(with picture: Commander Ronald J. Hays, USN. Stern. Steely eyed. Tight lipped. Squadron ball cap. Flight suit zipped to the top) …

“A single engine jet fighter-bomber of the United States Navy sliced through the skies and violent anti-aircraft fire last night in a daring raid on one of North Vietnam’s most important power plants.

“The two seat A-6 Intruder was piloted by Commander Ronald J. Hays, 39 years old, of Olla, LA. His bombardier-navigator, who released 13 1000-pond bombs over their target, was LTJG Ted Been, 33, of Houghton, Michigan.

“A United States spokesman said darkness and bad weather made impossible an assessment of damage to the Bac Giang power plant 27 miles northeast of Hanoi. A thermal power plant, in contrast to a hydroelectric plant burns fuel to generate electricity. American pilots flew 77 other strikes and reconnaissance missions in North Vietnam. Most of them were aimed at targets in the Red River Valley south and east of Haiphong and in the southern part of the North Vietnam…. The Bac Giang power plant is reported to be the newest in North Vietnam. It generates 9-per cent of the nation’s power, including much of the power used in Hanoi. American bombers have attacked the plant several times but the raid yesterday was believed to be the first carried out by a lone plane… One of the exploding bombs jolted the skittering plane. Back at the carrier Kitty Hawk Commander Hays said: ‘I’ve had enough excitement for a lifetime.‘ He said that anti-aircraft shells had exploded around him as he dived on the power plant and that he had to twist away from four surface to air missiles as the bombs fell…”…   oohrah, Admiral & Ted…

Page 1: “65,000 Brave Gusts For Annual Parade Up 5th Avenue”...”It is certain now, what was merely believed before: when the Irish set out to honor St. Patrick on his day, no howling threat of a blizzard, no northeaster with gusts as sharp as knives, no sub-freezing cold will stop them. There were not the promised 122,000 marchers in 54 battalions. But 65,000 swung up 5th Avenue with rhythmic tread of a tightened version of the spectacle…  “3 to 5 Inches of Snow Snarled Traffic Here in Near Blizzard”...”A snow storm that reached near blizzard proportions sneaked into the city early yesterday snarling air and highway travel and delaying commuters. The suburbs were harder hit getting up to 8-inches. the storm brought temperatures of 22-below zero in Maine. The low in New York was 10.”…

Page 1: “Cracks Reported In Vietcong”...”United States officials preparing for the conference at Guam next week on the Vietnam War report increasing signs of slight cracks in the Vietcong guerrillas structure. The evidence is encouraging but ‘spotty’: *The number of Vietcong defectors this year is nearly double that for the corresponding period in 1966; *Isolated patches of the country have been abandoned by the Vietcong and regained by the South Vietnamese government forces; *The miles of ‘safe road’ has doubled; * Captured documents indicate morale and recruitment problems. Some captured documents indicate the Vietcong think their cause is lost.”… Page 5: “Peking Criticizes Hong Kong On U.S.; Assails Use of Port by Navy Ships Serving in War”... “The Chinese Communists press made an unusually heavy attack today against British authorities in Hong Kong. Reporting the arrival of the nuclear powered USS Enterprise on Tuesday, March 14, Hsinhua, the Chinese press agency, said the ship had been used in ‘the massacre of the Vietnamese people.’…the Seventh fleet use of Hong Kong as a rest and recreation port has previously been criticized by Peking, which asserts that the British Colony is being used as a base for aggression in Vietnam. Hsinhua said: ‘With the support and connivance of the British Government, United States imperialists are making more rigorous efforts to turn Hong Kong into a base of activities to extend their war of aggression and a place to carry out war provocation against the Chinese people.’…”….The liberty was great!!!

18 March 1967… The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized 2015) NORTH VIETNAM: “We think Hanoi could be gearing up for a propaganda spectacular involving US prisoners in North Vietnam, but we have no solid evidence when this might come. Such a spectacular might be similar to the mass confessions on ‘germ warfare’ the Communists exploited during the Korean war. It would be a key element in the Communists’ present well orchestrated, world-wide campaign to blacken the US for ‘war crimes.’ We have good reason to believe that ‘confessions’ have been extracted from all or most of the US prisoners in the North. Some individual statements have been released from time to time, but we believe Hanoi is holding back on a goodly collection still in its file for later use.” … EGYPT: “...is on a collision course with the US, and recognizes a “duty to oppose and foil US policy in the Middle East and other parts of the world.” This is a line of an editorial put out yesterday by one of Nasir’s semi-official press spokesmen. The piece also says that Nasir told Ambassador Battle that Egypt would withdraw its long-standing request for renewal of the PL-480 wheat program.” (HUMBLE HOST: Mid-East War coming in June 1967. Things are heating up)…

US STATE DEPARTMENT Office of Historian… four documents for reading, if interested (no extra credit given, but these four high level and formerly secret or higher classification communications ahead of the imminent March muster in Guam are interesting and informative)…

109. Telegram from Rusk to Embassy in Vietnam (Bunker): A Guam talking paper.

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d109

110. Telegram from Westmoreland to Sharp: Force level of 470K won’t do it, need the 556K.

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d110

111. Telephone conversation between President and Rusk: Highly recommend a reading… a look behind what the public sees to what the President is really thinking… good stuff…

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d111

112. Memo from Rostow to the President: This follows 111. Rostow’s explanation and thought behind the wordsmithing of a response to UN Secretary General U Thant, who has jumped in the middle of the effort to find a path to a cease-fire and negotiations… Nitty-gritty staff puke paperwork, but interesting never-the-less…

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d112

18 March 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (19 Mar reporting 18 Mar ops) Page 1: “In air strikes over North Vietnam yesterday, carrier based Navy pilots attacked five 40-foot supply boats 15 miles east-southeast of Haiphong and reported destroying one of them and damaging one. Air Force flying in from Thailand bases reported causing a landslide that blocked a highway 12 miles northeast of the Mugia Pass… In other raids pilots reported cutting up roads in the area of Mugia Pass in four places and setting fire to a storage area near Dong Hoi.”… Page 2: “2 Planes Lost and Ship Struck” A propeller-driven Navy A-1 Skyraider was shot down 22 miles northeast of dong Hoi, but the pilot was rescued. (see RTR for 17th)…Over South Vietnam a Marine A-4 Skyhawk went down 360-miles northeast of Saigon. The pilot is listed as missing (CAPTAIN BEALE, VMA-214, KIA)…A shore battery about 25 miles northwest of Dong Ha put a hole 10×18 inches in the starboard side of USS Stoddard. There were no injuries. The ship remained on patrol.”…

“Vietnam: Air Losses (Hobson) There were three fixed wing American aircraft were lost in Southeast Asia on 18 March 1967…

(1) MAJOR DAVID WHITTIER MORRILL and 2LT MAXIM CHARLES PARKER were flying an F-4B of the  VFMA-314 Black Knights and MAG-13 out of Chu Lai on a strike on an active automatic weapons position in the DMZ. On their fourth diving attack the aircraft was presumably hit by ground fire and flown into the ground killing both MAJOR MORRILL and 2LT PARKER. Dueling with enemy gun and missile positions is risky business, but somebody has to do it…  Only the brave…

(2) 1LT C.W. CLARKE, USMC, was flying an F-8E of the VMF(AW)-232 Red Devils out of Danang and suffered an electrical failure that led to fuel exhaustion and an ejection… and survival….

(3) CAPTAIN MICHAEL J. DUGAN was flying an A-1E of the 1st ACS and 14th ACW out of Pleiku and leading a flight of two on an XM-66 personnel mine laying mission on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Steel Tiger when hit by ground fire requiring he bailout by inverting the aircraft and falling free of the aircraft. Hobson says: “It is claimed that Capt Dugan made the last successful unassisted bail out from an A-1E aircraft.” CAPTAIN DUGAN spent the night evading capture before being rescued the next day by Air Force helicopter. CAPTAIN DUGAN went on to four-star rank and Command of Air Forces Europe.

RIPPLE SALVO… Humble Host googles countless sites in North Vietnam to visit what were targets fifty years ago. Just curiosity. Today I dropped in on Bac Giang. If you are interested, try…

https://www.travelvietnam.com/administration-units/bac-giang.html

Finally, a March 18, 1967 late afternoon telephone conversation between a President and a Vice President. LBJ needs help convincing the American people and Congress that there is a lot of good going on in our war in Vietnam: “We have saved the world from Communism.” So he calls Hubert Humphrey and cajoles his Veep into getting on the soap box to spread the word that he outlines in this conversation. LBJ the speechwriter for his XO… Good history (and leadership?) lesson here from 50 years ago…

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d113

CAG’s QUOTES for 18 March: KARL VON CLAUSEWICZ: “If the attack is inferior in physical power, it must have superiority in morale.”… PATTON: “I shall be delighted to lead you men against the enemy.”…

Lest we forget…    Bear