Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #379… THE HISTORY PROFESSOR WITH SOME ADVICE... but first…
Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED SEVENTY-EIGHT of a return to the where the action was for American TacAir in the spring and summer of 1967…the skies over North Vietnam…
19 March 1967… HEAD LINES and LEADS from The New York Times on a cold and sunny Sunday in NYC…
Page 1: “Saigon Assembly Adopts Charter; Vote Unanimous”…”The Constitutional Assembly unanimously approved the text of a new constitution for South Vietnam tonight. In the last chaotic hours of debate, the deputies made substantial concessions to the governing junta, chiefly in the provisions dealing with the transition from military rule to elected government. But they did not go as far as Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Thieu, the chief of state, demanded yesterday. The compromise took the form similar to that proposed by Premier Nguyen Cao Ky in a meeting with assembly deputies at his house Tuesday. The proposal was refined in a series of meetings as the constitution neared conclusion. Ky and Thieu continue to vy for the top job in the new government.”… Page 1: “B-52s From Guam Pound Foes Base”... “United States B-52s swept in from Guam for a series of six raids last night and today on enemy base camps and supply depots in South Vietnam. It was the largest assault by the Stratofortresses since the seven raids on February 16…The first of the raids was on a base camp near the Laotian border 27 miles west-southwest of Hue. This site was hit again later in the day. Other raids were in support of Operation Junction City and hit bases 18 miles west of Saigon in War Zone C.”... Page 1: “President Avoids Asking Governors To Back War Aims”…”Faced with the Republican resistance, President Johnson passed up a chance to ask the nation’s governors for a new expression of support for his Vietnam policy today. He neither asked for or received a formal resolution endorsing his Vietnam stand. The Governors, Democrats and Republicans drank to the success of his meeting in Guam next week. The toast was proposed by the Republicans. Governor Rockefeller said: “He deserves our support and the support of the American people.”… Page 1: “Civil Rights Bill Split to Save It”... “The Administration is making an unusual legislative move to breathe some life into its moribund civil rights bill. The move may however increase vulnerability of the bills controversial fair housing provision. Under the new strategy, developed on the Hill with the consent of the White House, the bill has been broken up into several bills which are being introduces on the Senate floor.”…
Sports: NIT Finals: Southern Illinois over Marquette, 71-58. NCAA: Still alive: Dayton, Houston, UofCal, and Boston College… Skiing: The French team led by Jean Paul Killy, who won his seventh race in a row, captured the team title at Vail…
Page 1: “Johnson Leaves for Conference In Guam”… “President Johnson left late last night for Guam, the farthest American possession across the Pacific for counsel of war with his aides and all is for south Vietnam. Mr. Johnson took off on his three-day trip from Dulles International Airport at 11:34 pm after a White House banquet for State governors. He will spend half of the 72-hours in the Presidential plane Air Force One. He will have meetings with Premier Ky and General Westmoreland, Henry Cabot Lodge and his deputy William Porter and their replacements Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, his deputy Eugene M. Locke and Robert Komer.”… Page 2: “Russian Rebukes Nixon on Vietnam”...”Richard M. Nixon, who was snubbed by Kremlin leaders while in Moscow, exchanged views on the Vietnamese war with Soviet citizens in Alma-Ata in Kazakhistan where a veteran of World War II told the former Vice President: ‘Get American troops out of South Vietnam.’ “… Page 3: “Catholics Seek a Review on War”… “Ten Roman Catholic College Presidents and the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minnesota, have endorsed an open letter to American Catholics calling for reassessment of American involvement in Vietnam.”…
19 March 1967…The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized 2015) COMMUNIST CHINA: The top-level feuding goes on. Supporters of Chou En-lai are now putting up wall posters defending him against unnamed opponents. this is a clear sign that Chou–the most prominent voice of reason in the tumult –has been the target of more radical leaders trying to undercut him. Other signs of resurgent radical efforts are cropping up. The compromise arrangements reached last month with leaders in strategic border regions like Sinkiang are now coming under violent attack from powerful Red Guard groups in Peking…. VIETNAM: …rent defector reports indicate North Vietnamese units in the Demilitarized Zone may be getting ready to attack in force US Marine and South Vietnamese airborne elements operating in northern Quang Tri Province. At least four Communist regiments, supported by two heavy weapons battalions, are believed available. a major attack might have the dual purpose of neutralizing the heavy US artillery near the Demilitarized Zone and of diverting allied attention from continuing infiltration of Communist units from Laos into western Quang Tri…. LEBANON: The country seems headed for dark days. This is the feeling among official and unofficial contacts of the US Embassy in Beirut. The fear is that despite its vaunted neutrality, Lebanon is being drawn willy-nilly into the whirlpool of Arab rivalries beyond its borders.”…
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM…MAJOR JOHN M. ROWAN, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE…. AIR FORCE CROSS… 19 March 1967…
“The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the AIR FORCE CROSS to JOHN M. ROWAN, MAJOR, U.S. AIR FORCE, for extraordinary heroism in military operations against an opposing armed force on 19 March 1967. On that date MAJOR ROWAN made United States Air Force history by successfully leading a flight of three F-105 Thunderchiefs on an unprecedented and daring low-level, high-speed attack on a vital thermal power plant deep in North Vietnam. This tactic of weapons delivery was an original concept formulated and submitted by MAJOR ROWAN to higher headquarters. Despite extremely hazardous flying conditions consisting of extremely low clouds and poor visibility, an intense barrage of antiaircraft artillery fire over the target, and a near miss by an SA-2 surface-to-air missile, MAJOR ROWAN heroically led his flight through rugged mountainous terrain to accomplish this highly significant mission. Through his extraordinary heroism, superb airmanship, and aggressiveness in the face of hostile forces, MAJOR ROWAN reflected the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.”…. oohrah…
19 MARCH 1967… Operation Rolling Thunder…New York Times (20 Mar reporting 19 Mar ops)… Page 1: ‘In the air war over North Vietnam American fighter-bombers struck the Thai Nguyen steel complex for the fourth time in nine days since the industrial target was first bombed. American war planes also severed a major North Vietnamese road link to Laos. Bad weather precluded immediate bomb damage assessment in the raid at Thai Nguyen, 38 miles North of Hanoi, carried out by carrier based Navy A-6 all-weather Intruders. Air force F-105 Thunderchiefs pounded the power plant nearby at Viettri…In other air activity over North Vietnam F-4C Phantoms set off a large secondary explosion in a raid on a storage unit in the DMZ. Navy pilots from the carrier Kitty Hawk bombed a military headquarters 33 miles northeast of Thanh Hoa and the Phuduc warehouse 30 miles north of Vinh.”
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 19 March 1967…
(1) CAPTAIN BARRY RONALD DELPHIN was flying an F-100D of the 614th TFS and 35th TFW out of Phan Rang on a close air support mission north of Saigon and was struck by ground fire on his initial weapons delivery pass. The aircraft never recovered from the dive. CAPTAIN DELPHIN was Killed in Action and died the death of a warrior on the battlefield fifty years ago today. He is remembered…
(2) LCOL JOSEPH CLAIR AUSTIN was Killed in Action flying an F-105D of the 34th TFS and 388th TFW while leading one of the first trial mission using the F-105 radar for navigation and targeting. The report on this loss by Chris Hobson is quote in full… I quote…
“On 19 March the two F-105 Wings flew the first trial missions using radar bombing techniques against a target in North Vietnam. This was part of a Seventh Air Force effort to bomb targets in bad weather which the Navy could do with their A-6s but the Air Force had no realistic all-weather low level bombing capability. As part of the trial each wing flew a practice mission to Laos on the morning of the 19th before the real mission in the afternoon. The targets chosen were in the passes on the Laos/North Vietnam border. As the three F-105s from Korat made their radar run through thick cloud to bomb a road in the Ban Karai Pass, one of the aircraft hit the top of a hill and exploded. The other two managed to pull up in time to avoid hitting the ground but Lt Col Austin was killed instantly. The afternoon missions were more successful and completed without loss. (Humble Host surmises that the mission of CAPTAIN ROWAN detailed above for his AIR FORCE CROSS was one of these successful missions…???) The results of the radar bombing trials eventually led to the formation of Ryan’s Raiders, a flight of the 13th TFS equipped with F-105Fs. Under the code name Commando Nail, the aircraft were fitted with expanded radar scopes and an improved radar bombing system for all-weather operations. Joseph Austin was a well known lacrosse player and captain of the Army national championship lacrosse team…. end quote. The body of LCOL AUSTIN is today where he fell in the service of our country 50 years ago on this day. A valiant warrior unto death…
RIPPLE SALVO… #379… HERE COME ‘DA PROFESSOR… HISTORY IS THE TEACHER? World renowned historian Arnold Toynbee had this to say about the war in Vietnam in this article from the New York Times of 19 March 1967 page 5… Listen up, take notes… History 404 in session…
“Toynbee Doubts U.S. Can Win War”… “Dr. Arnold J. Toynbee, the historian and philosopher expressed doubt during the week that the United States could prevail in Vietnam unless the American Army is prepared to stay there forever. In an interview in the offices of his publisher Oxford University Press in New York City, Dr. Toynbee said: “I am very pessimistic about the resolution of the Vietnam conflict. Certainly bombing the North is not going to help. Being bombed only makes the North Vietnamese more dogged and more determined. Look at my country, Britain.”
“Moreover, such a primitive country as North Vietnam finds it easy to resist bombing and even perseveres under it. After all bombing does little damage, as witness World War II when Britain and Germany survived under intense bombing.”
Dr. Toynbee said: “If American leaders were wise they would realize that Ho Chi Minh is their natural ally. The part Ho ought to be playing is like Tito’s in Europe. The President of Yugoslavia is one of the main securities against Communist expansion in eastern Europe. He is probably more afraid of China than he is of the United States. He fears that China may want to colonize Vietnam, whereas he knows the United States would not.”
The white-haired 77-year old historian who has elaborated a universal rather than national approach to history in books and lectures, said, he believes the United States is running counter to the present day historical current in Southeast Asia. “I don’t think the United States is gaining by staying in the South. What you are up against is the strong determination of non-Western people not to be dominated by the West anymore..”
Dr. Toynbee described the Vietnamese, North and South, as an intensely nationalistic people and said the two will eventually reunite unless the United States Army stays in Vietnam forever. He indicated a belief that a prolonged military occupation of South Vietnam was in prospect unless United States leaders changed their policy. As to the present American policy there the British historian said: “I find most people are more and more unhappy about it.”
Dr. Toynbee said he would still like to see the 1954 Geneva agreements that ended the French Indochina war and partitioned Vietnam carried out. “Under these,” he noted,”the people of South Vietnam and North Vietnam would vote on their destiny without foreign interference. I believe the Vietnamese would end up voting for Ho,” Dr. Toynbee asserted.
Dr. Toynbee is in the United States chiefly to teach a course on communication at Stanford University in Palo Alto. He will be there from the 1st of April until June. In addition to his teaching, he has locked in a heavy schedule of lectures and panel discussions. His most recent book: “Change and Habit: The Challenge of our Time.”
Humble Host: Too bad the prophetic Dr. Toynbee didn’t have time in March 1967 for a panel discussion with the President’s White House “Tuesday Lunch Bunch.”
CAG’s QUOTES for 19 March: MACARTHUR: “Good commanders do not turn in heavy losses.”…. PATTON: “Remember above all, that speed and vigor of attack are the sure roads to success and that you, must succeed.”
Lest we forget… Bear
