ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 2 JANUARY 1967

RIPPLE SALVO… #303… NEW YORK TIMES: “THE GREAT SOCIETY”… but first…

Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED THREE of a return to the air war over North Vietnam of fifty years ago…

2 JANUARY 1967… HEAD LINES FROM HOME TOWN, USA… New York Times on a fair but cloudy Monday…

Page 1: “Democrats Grope For Fresh Ideas to Rebuild Party”…”About the only subject on which Democratic leaders appear to agree as a critical new year opens, is that something has to be done about their party. Just what remains a subject for spirited, sometimes bitter debate. Revitalization of the Democratic National Committee , including a new active chairman, and an expanded constructive staff, was the single most popular recommendation by the Democrats from 30 states interviewed in a New York Times survey. ‘Nationally the Democrats are a skeleton organization,’ one middle Western leader said. ‘It needs new drive, new staff, more freedom to move. The national committee is starved almost to death and this is partly the doing of the President. He and others apparently feel there is no necessity for the Committee. It was actually stronger when the Texas brand ran it, but I’m afraid the Texas brand of politics doesn’t understand the situation.’  “… Page 1: “Liberals Shaping Filibuster Fight”…”The little band of liberals who try every two years to change the Senate filibuster rule say their prospects are much brighter this year even though the political climate seems more conservative than it was in 1966…Now the liberals are back at their old argument that Rule 22 (requires 2/3 of the members present and voting to end debate and bring a pending question to a vote) allows a minority of the Senate to thwart the majority.”… Page 1: “Canada In Her Centennial Weighs the Future“…”Everywhere in Canada last night rang in a year of Centennial celebration and of soul searching…”

Page 1: “Vietcong Pledge 7-Day Cease-Fire For Asian Holiday”…”The National Liberation Front said last night that the Vietcong would observe a seven-day cease-fire during the celebration of Lunar New Year next month. Made in a broadcast on the clandestine Liberation radio during the waning hours of the Western New Year cease-fire, which ended at 7AM (6PM Sunday NYC time), the enemy announcement was apparently designed to wrest the propaganda offensive from the allies. The allies had agreed on November 30 to honor a four day or 96-hour truce during the Lunar New Year period. The NLF proposal is a cease-fire from February 8 to February 15.”… Page 1: “Mao Urges Rivals To Return to the Fold”…”Mao Tse-tung and his chosen successor Defense Minister Lin Piao will achieve ‘decisive victory’ in 1967 in their struggle against political opponents, the Chinese press reported today…in addition…an olive branch seemed to be offered to party officials who would repudiate past opposition.”…. Page 1`: “Green Bay and Kansas City Win Pro-Football Titles”… “and will meet in professional football’s first ‘Super Bowl’ in Los Angeles on January 15. the Packers beat Dallas, 34-27, in the National Football League championship and Kansas City beat the Buffalo Bills, 31-7, in the American Football League championship to earn a ticket to the first Super Bowl.”

NYT 31 Dec Page 1: “Johnson Affirms Anti-Poverty Aim”…”President Johnson let it be known today he ‘strongly supports’ his Administration’s antipoverty programs and expects further progress from them. Apparently prompted by Sargent Shriver who visited the LBJ Ranch near here (Austin) yesterday, and perhaps stung by criticism that the war in Vietnam is depriving the antipoverty program of necessary funds, Mr. Johnson instructed White House spokesmen to emphasize his attitude and his daily concern with antipoverty measures. Mr. Shriver, director of the Office of Economic Opportunity had complained of lack of access to the President. LBJ cited need to report the progress that has been made. For example, the number of people living in families with incomes of less than $3,000 a year, the official poverty line, has declined since 1960 from 40.1 million to 32 million plus. There was a decrease of 1.4 million in 1965 and 2.0 million in 1966.”…

2 January 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… NYT (3 Jan reporting 2 Jan ops) Page 1 Lead Story with pictures: “7 MIGs Down By American Jets In North Vietnam”… (Operation Bolo)… “United States Air Force pilots lured enemy jets out of the clouds over North Vietnam yesterday and destroyed seven of them (MIG-21s)… It was the worst day of the war for the enemy. No American planes were lost as Air Force, Navy and Marine pilots filled the skies in the North at the conclusion of the 48-hour New Year’s cease-fire. Targets in many areas were hit with bombs and rockets…The action involving the MIGs was described by LGEN William Momyer, Commander Seventh Air Force, as the largest engagement of the war and the first pure fighter sweep of the war. Ordinarily, American fighters provide protection for fighter-bombers. Yesterday however, the roles were reversed, with the fighter-bombers striking surface to air missile sites to give the fighters a chance to engage as many enemy planes as possible…during the 12 to 14 minute battle the supersonic planes looped and dived across the skies in a 30-mile arc north and northwest of the Capital. Air Force F-4 Phantoms numbered 14 flights of three to five planes each (48 total). Six flights of F-105s engaged the SAM sites. All of the downed MIGs were MIG-21s. The American sweep was led by Colonel Robin Olds, of the 8th TFW. “The MIGs reacted as we had hoped. To make a wonderful story short–they lost.” 

(Webmaster note: Operation Bolo was a smashing success, due in large part to the leadership of then-Colonel Robin Olds. I suggest further reading on the operation, and on General Olds, a WWII fighter ace with a Titanic-sized personality to match. I highly recommend the book Fighter Pilot by his daughter Christina)

The seven MIGs downed in this single engagement brought to 34 the number of enemy aircraft downed by U.S. fighters since June 1965… A total of 451 American aircraft have been lost over North Vietnam since 5 August 1964: 10 by MIGs, 30 by SAMs and the rest (411) downed by AAA. The U.S. has also lost 146 planes in the South… Total fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia making the turn into 1967 = 556…

“VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES” (HOBSON) Chapter Four of his incomparable journal is titled “1967- Rolling Thunder: The Peak Year” …2 January 1967: One fixed wing aircraft downed in Southeast Asia… 1LT GEORGE BRUCE MENGES was flying an O-1F of the 23rd TASS and 504th TASG out of Nakhon Phanom on a FAC mission in Laos using the call sign “Nail” and was downed and Killed in Action by enemy automatic weapon ground fire near Ban Sappeng… On this day fifty years after his death 1LT MENGES is remembered for his incredible courage in executing arguably the most dangerous mission of them all-low and slow and looking the enemy in the eye while directing fire at that same enemy… Humble Host is and always has been awed by the guts of the FACS of Southeast Asia. None more brave (although the Dustoff guys are right in there too)…

RIPPLE SALVO… #303…QUOTES:  “Justice without force is impotent. Force without justice is tyrannical. We must combine justice with force. Blaise Pascal… “It is as natural for me to be a soldier as it is to breathe and would be as hard to give up all thought of being a soldier as it would be to stop breathing.”… Patton…

1 January 1967…NYT  Sunday OpEd: “The Great Society and the Presidency”…

“A year ago Mr. Johnson was gathering plaudits for the measures he had pushed through Congress in the fields of civil rights, education, health, and aid to the poor. But during 1966 it became clear that the great consensus was splitting, in and out of Congress. Labor and management broke the voluntary price and wage limits set by the Administration and Congress balked at several important junctures. It passed amendment’s to health, education and welfare measures, and also the model cities and rent subsidy plans, but the later were only token beginnings. Congress refused altogether to pass a civil rights law outlawing segregation in housing. President Johnson is expected to ask for it again, but, without much hope… The accumulated frustrations and grievances have combined to undermine the President’s popularity and to undermine his reputation for forceful leadership. As the problems grew, more and more complaints were heard about the President’s alleged deviousness and the so called ‘gap’ in his credibility…The President would be in even deeper political trouble if his critics were united against him, but they tend to split, almost evenly into those who would take more military action in Vietnam and those who would take less, and those who would do more for reform at home and those who would do less. As so often in his mercurial public career, the President straddled middle ground, a position from which he has repeatedly picked up a little support on one side and a little on the other until he had a working majority. As practiced by Lyndon Johnson this technique will get the most severe test in the year ahead.”

There will be “no easy days.”…

Lest we forget…        Bear      -30-