Bear Taylor 
GOOD MORNING… Day EIGHT HUNDRED FIVE of remembering the events and gallant warriors who fought the air war called Rolling Thunder fifty years ago…
RIPPLE SALVO… #805… “TASK FORCE OMEGA, INC. (TFO) IS IN THE FOREFRONT OF NATIONAL PRISONER OF WAR AND MISSING IN ACTION ORGANIZATIONS…. Since its inception in 1983, TASK FORCE OMEGA, INC. has concentrated its effort on the Return of the POWs abandoned in Vietnam and Laos after the Vietnam War. Information has also been discovered that reveals the same situation existed following World War II and the Korean War. Extensive research into National Archives by associates of TASK FORCE OMEGA, INC. revealed that over 20,000 American POWs who were ‘liberated’ by the Soviet Army from German prison camps were never released to the United States. Documents show their destinations were Siberian gulags and prison camps. Their fate was spending years of hard labor in Soviet coal mines.” The Chairman of this Blue Ribbon organization is PATRICIA B. HOPPER, who includes these comments in her “Message from the Chairman”…
“Over the past few years people have asked me where I find the strength to keep going in the POW/MIA issue. Where does the energy, the drive, the ability to keep pushing forward come from when everything around us seems stacked against us and there appears to be nowhere to turn? The only way I know how to answer you is this way….
“Survivor guilt is not experienced only by veterans. Survivor guilt strikes family members, too. This guilt is a plague we all feel. It strikes at our very core not only because of our own demons, but because of our anger over our government’s mishandling of the war…. Now, to the point, how do I keep going? There is a burning rage inside me where the issue is concerned. How dare our government abandon–throw away–military men for political expediency. How dare they think that all military men, like my husband, were and are expendable. How dare they think they can play God with all our lives…. As a person, I need to find peace for myself: to find closure to that War. The only way I know to do that is to fight for what is right using that strength and ability God grants me. I will find peace when I assure myself that all POW/MIAs–both dead and alive–are home.”…
Patricia B. Hopper’s book is: MORE THAN MERELY NAMES…
For full appreciation and understanding of the contributions of this organization, read their report on CAPTAIN HARLEY HALL, USN. It will water your eyes… In addition, read the TFO report on COLONEL TERRY JUN UYEYAMA, USAF, and CAPTAIN TOMMY E. GIST, USAF, who were downed in North Vietnam on 18 May 1968. Colonel UYEYAMA was captured and returned home in 1973. The fate of his navigator, Captain GIST, “remains in doubt.”…
Other TFO files can be found on the Task Force Omega page on Rolling Thunder Remembered.
Viva TASK FORCE OMEGA!!! Viva Patricia Hopper, who has done, and continues to do, so much for others…
HEAD LINES from THE NEW YORK TIMES on Sunday, 19 May 1968… PEACE TALKS: Page 44: “PARLEY IN PARIS ENDS FIRST WEEK ON TOUGHER NOTE–U.S. SAYS EVASION IS TACTIC OF HANOI, WHICH COUNTER-CHARGES ‘MANEUVER AND RUSE’–Next Talks Wednesday–Visit By Harriman and Thuy to deGaulle Scheduled Before 4th Session”… “The United States and North Vietnam ended their first week of preliminary talks today in a toughening mood of mutual recrimination. W. Averell Harriman, the chief American delegate, accused the North Vietnamese of evasive tactics on what he termed a basis for progress: an acknowledgment by the North Vietnamese that they have troops in the South. Xuan Thuy, the chief North Vietnamese delegate, said that the United States was trying to elude the central question of ending the bombing of North Vietnam. The American negotiating technique, he said, ‘is maneuver and ruse.’… In the third session of the talks in the former Majestic Hotel, there was a harsher edge to the language the two sides used. In addition, there seemed in one respect to be a hardening in substance of the North Vietnamese position. All week Mr. Thuy has pressed the demand that the United States cease all ‘bombing and other acts of war’ against North Vietnam. Today he gave much emphasis to American military actions in the South. ‘The United States,’ Mr. Thuy said, ‘is waging acts of war, terror and repression against the population of South Vietnam.”… In addition to the emphasis on American action in South Vietnam, Mr. Thuy spoke repeatedly about alleged American incursions into Laos and Cambodia. He seemed to be making all of Indochina his concern.'”… Page 43: “NEW PEACE TALKS URGED BY KENNEDY–Gibing at Humphrey He Bids Saigon Hold Own Parleys”… ‘ Senator Robert F. Kennedy suggested today that the Government of South Vietnam hold its own peace talks with the National Liberation Front. ‘That at least might help to avoid the embarrassment and confusion of the last two days, the contradiction between the Vice President and members of the Administration,’ Senator Kennedy said.”…
Page 1: “STRIKES SPUR FRENCH REDS TO URGE A POPULAR FRONT”… “Waldeck Rochet, Secretary General of the French Communist party called today for a popular-front government and declared that the Communist party was ‘ready to assume all its responsibilities.”… Page 1: “CZECHS REASSURE NATION ON SOVIET–REGIME INSISTS AFTER TALKS WITH KOSYGIN THAT KREMLIN SHOWS UNDERSTANDING”… “Czechoslovak official sources reiterated that the Soviet Union had apparently decided to accept Czechoslovakia’s democratization within a Communist framework.”… Page 1: “J. EDGAR HOOVER FINDS PERIL IN NEW LEFT ACTION”… “Hoover says that revolutionary stands taken by militant black nationalist groups and students of the New Left pose a threat to the nation’s security. He told Congress that the black nationalist groups he had in mind were the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Black Muslims and the Revolutionary Action Movement. They are, he said,’a distinct threat to the internal security of the nation.'”…
Page 1: “56 COLUMBIA REBELS SEIZED AMONG 171 AT SIT IN HERE–Non Violence Marks Raid By Policemen On Apartment Owned By University”… “A total of 171 persons were arrested early yesterday morning during a sit-in at a Columbia University-owned apartment were arraigned yesterday in judges’ chambers set up as emergency courts. The prisoners were charged with disorderly conduct or criminal trespass.”… Page 1: “LEADER OF MARCH OF POOR CALLS REPORT OF FUNDING CRISIS A SNAFU”… “The Executive vice president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference denied today that the Poor People’s Campaign was in financial or serious managerial difficulties and described the crisis in the organization was just a ‘goof.’ “… Page 1: “Preakness Taken By Forward Pass”…
19 MAY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (20 May reporting 19 May ops)… Page 1: “136 RAIDS ON THE NORTH”… “American pilots flew 136 raids into the southern region of North Vietnam darting through moderate to heavy antiaircraft fire. An Air Force F-4 Phantom jet crashed near Dong Hoi two days ago, a spokesman said in a delayed report, and both men were listed as missing in action. The cause of the crash is not known, he said. It was the 839th American aircraft reported lost over North Vietnam. The northernmost target was a truck convoy 158 miles above the demilitarized zone, and two miles south of the 19th Parallel.”… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost on 19 May 1968…
(1) CAPTAIN JOSEPH EDWIN DAVIES and 1LT GLENN DEWAYNE McCUBBIN were flying an F-4D of the 497th TFS and 8th TFW out of Ubon on a night armed reconnaissance mission over the Ho Chi Minh Trail and struck a target about 25 miles west of the DMZ. The wingman completed his attack and departed for Ubon. He had observed three explosions on the ground that he had assumed were CAPTAIN DAVIES ordnance exploding. However, Captain Davies’ aircraft failed to make the briefed rendezvous and a search was initiated. Post war investigations confirmed that the aircraft had been shot down with the loss of both men…. For a much expanded summary of the loss of warriors Davies and McCubbin, please see their respective pages on POW Network.
(Webmaster note: The remains of Glenn McCubbin were recovered on 24 January 1989 and subsequently identified on 12 June 2006. Joseph Edwin Davies remains unaccounted for)
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 19 MAY FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION…
1965… NONE…
1966… NONE…
1967… MAJOR ROY ABNER KNIGHT, USAF… (KIA); COMMANDER RICHARD RICH, USN… (KIA); LCDR WILLIAM ROBERT STARK, USN… (POW); LTJG JOSEPH CHARLES PLUMB, USN… (POW); LTJG GARETH LAVERNE ANDERSON, USN… (POW); LT EUGENE BAKER McDANIEL, USN… (POW); LT JAMES KELLY PATTERSON, USN… (MIA); CAPTAIN HAROLD JAMES HELLBACK, USMC… (KIA); LCDR KAY RUSSELL, USN… (POW); LTJG WILLIAM JOHN METZGER, USN… (POW); LCDR JAMES LLOYD GRIFFIN, USN… (POW–Died in Captivity); and LT JACK WALTERS, USN… (POW–Died in Captivity)…
(Webmaster note: Both Griffin and Walters died in the Hanoi Hilton. Their deaths could have been from injuries sustained by AAA, during ejection, or inflicted by the NVN on the ground. The search for LCDR James Kelly Patterson is ongoing, with his loving younger brother and former Marine Luck Patterson leading a relentless quest for the truth. I write in detail about the loss of Kelly and other men on 19 May 1967 in chapter one of my book Across the Wing)
1968… CAPTAIN JOSEPH EDWIN DAVIES, USAF… (KIA) and 1LT GLENN DEWAYNE McCUBBIN, USAF… (KIA)…
Humble Host flew #169 and #170. The first flight was a night armed recce with flares and bombs south of Vinh, north of Ha Tinh. No trucks so put out the flares and lit up a small bridge for the 6 Mk-82s times 2 with wingie nailing the bridge… Light 37-mm with hosing tracers all around… Second flight was a full-load– 3 Mk-83s centerline and a Mk-82 on stations 1 and 5… worked west of Tchepone with FAC and got “road cuts and a building on fire”…
RTR quote for 19 May: CERVANTES, Don Quixote, 1605: “Sweet is the love of one’s country.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
