Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #411… AMONG THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE… but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED ELEVEN of a look back in history to the second greatest air battle in American history–Operation Rolling Thunder–the air war over North Vietnam…
20 April 1967… HOME TOWN HEAD LINES and leads from The New York Times on a fair and cool Thursday in NYC…
Page 1: “U.S. Bids Enemy Join in Forming New Truce Zone”... “The United States proposed today that each side in Vietnam pull back its military forces 10 miles from the demilitarized border zone as a first step toward peace talks. The current zone is six miles deep–three on each side of the 17th parallel, which separates North and South Vietnam. The American proposal would in effect widen it to a combat-free zone of 26-miles deep. The State Department in making the proposal public, said acceptance by Hanoi would be a constructive step…” For more on this proposal refer to: (A conversation between Harriman and the Russians on the subject)
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d140
… Page 1: “Surveyor 3 Lands On Moon and Sends TV Pictures”... “An unmanned American spacecraft, carrying a television camera and a robot claw for digging landed softly today on the eastern edge of the moon’s Ocean of Storms. The three spindly legs of Surveyor 3 the second such spacecraft to land on the moon, came to rest in what appeared to be a small crater after an almost perfect 65-hour journey from earth. The camera is in good working order and performing spectacularly more than 50 pictures sent back so far. The craft landed within 2.4 miles of target on smooth plain.”... Page 1: “Konrad Adenauer, Re-builder of West Germany Dies”... “Konrad Adenauer,’der Alte’ (‘the old man’), who led a disgraced West Germany to unparalleled material prosperity and a place of respect died today. He was 91. President Johnson plans a brief trip to Europe for the funeral but no firm plans yet.”… Page 3: “Green Beret is Arrested in Chicago as Draft Defier”… “A green beret clad Army reservist who allegedly burned his draft card at an anti-war rally in New York last Saturday was arrested here today by FBI agents on charges of violating the Selective Service Act and illegally wearing a uniform to the event.”…
Page 7: “U.S. Aide Asserts MiGs Curb Raids”... “A high official in the Defense Department has acknowledge that North Vietnamese MIG jet fighters and anti-aircraft missiles have cut down the effectiveness of United States bombing even though they have destroyed relatively few American planes. Dr. John Foster, Director of Defense Research and Engineering also says that the SAMs over North Vietnam force U.S. planes into evasive patterns that make them more vulnerable to concentrations of anti-aircraft artillery…. United States officials take the position that attacks on MIG fields might force the North Vietnamese air force to take refuge on bases in Communist China.”…
Page 1: “U.S. Finds That Only 1% On Welfare Are Employable”… “Less than 1% of the 73-million Americans on public welfare are capable of getting off the relief roles and going to work, according to a government analyst. The results of the analysis–representing the systematic attempt to determine the number of ’employables’ on welfare–were disclosed tonight by a Presidential aide, Joseph Califano, Jr. in a speech in Washington at the National Press Club. Mr. Califano asserted that at any given moment only 50,000 of the 7.3 million on welfare are ‘capable of being given job skills and training that will make them self-sufficient.‘Of the 7.3 million on welfare: 2.1 million are women age 65 or older, with a median age of 71; 700 thousand are either blind or so severely handicapped that their work potential is severely limited; 3.5 million are children whose parents cannot support them; and the million others are the parents of those children–about 900,000 mothers and 100,000 fathers. Two-thirds of the fathers are incapacitated.”
20 April 1967…The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized) SOUTH VIETNAM: Yesterday afternoon Ky told General Lansdale that the generals have decided to back him for President. The word was even then being passed to the still-hospitalized Thieu. This sentiment on the part of generals does not surprise us–and probably was not altogether news to Thieu… (see also State Department Historical Document referenced below)… COMMUNIST CHINA: There are strong signs that the Mao-Lin Piao-Chou En-lai alliance is beginning to crack. Red Guard groups close to Lin Piao are mounting a scathing attack on Foreign Minister Chen Yi. Chen Ye, we feel quite sure, is under the wing of Chou En-lai… UNITED KINGDOM: London has reopened the question of pulling its forces out of Singapore and Malaysia… SOVIET UNION: Moscow and its east European allies have come up with an agreement to establish a communications satellite system open to world-wide membership... FRANCE: After checking with Couve de Murville, Herve Alphand says the French Government will do everything possible to prevent the Bertrand Russell trial from being held in France…
State Department Office of the Historian: two 20 April 1967 pertinent documents of interest:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d138
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d142
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM… 1LT KARL WENDELL RICHTER, USAF… AIR FORCE CROSS… 20 April 1967…
“The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the AIR FORCE CROSS (Posthumously) to KARL WENDELL RICHTER, First Lieutenant, U.S. Air Force, for EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM in military operations against an opposing armed force while serving with the 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron, 388th Tactical Fighter Wing, Korat Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand, SEVENTH Air Force, as the leader of a flight of F-105s on a mission over North Vietnam on 20 April 1967. The target, a very important railroad facility, was defended by several hundred antiaircraft artillery emplacements and SA-2 missiles. Lieutenant RICHTER’s mission was to destroy or limit fire from these defenses immediately before a strike on this facility by fighter-bombers. Arriving over the approach to the target, he found clouds obscuring navigational references and increasing the danger from unobserved SAM launches. Despite weather conditions, Lieutenant RICHTER, with great professional skill and undaunted determination, led his flight through a barrage of missiles to the target. Braving the heavy concentrated fire of the antiaircraft artillery, he positioned his flight and attacked the defenses, causing heavy damage. As a result of his efforts, the fighter-bombers of the main strike force encountered only limited defensive fire and destroyed this vital railroad facility. Through his EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM, superb airmanship, and aggressiveness in the face of hostile forces, First Lieutenant RICHTER reflected the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force. “…. The rest of the story is a RIPPLE SALVO post below….
20 APRIL 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (21 April reporting 20 April ops) Page 1: “U.S. Jets Bomb Haiphong; First Attack Inside City;Knocked Out Power Plant:2nd Unit also Hit: Port Area Spared; One Residential Section Damaged”... “United States planes struck targets inside Haiphong…for the first time. Dozens of fighter-bombers from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk pounded a power plant a mile from the center of the port city’s business district. At the same time, planes from the carrier Ticonderoga hit a second power plant on the northeastern fringe of the city two miles from downtown. On board Kitty Hawk the Admiral said, ‘Between the power plant and a small canal to the east of it is a small street. There was some destruction in there but very few places. We saw no evidence of damage of any significance to homes in our photographs.” Rear Admiral David Richardson of Meridian, Mississippi, Commander of the Carrier Task Force operating in the Gulf of Tonkin, conceded that some damage had been inflicted on a residential district in the attack on the plant a mile from the center of Haiphong. Despite heavy antiaircraft fire, no U.S. aircraft was lost in the attacks. Both targets were well removed from the docks, where ships of the Soviet Union and occasionally, non-communist nations, are moored. The presence of these ships has often been cited as a reason for avoiding attacks in Haiphong.
“One senior American official who was unwilling to permit the use of his name, described the strike on Haiphong as a tremendously important intensification –escalation, if you will–of the air war. He said it was part of a series of steps ordered by the White House to penalize North Vietnam for refusing to agree to negotiate. Other power plants have been struck in the past, including a number substantially larger than either of these hit today. But the symbolic significance of bombing Haiphong itself for the first time outweighed this fact, diplomats here (Saigon) said. a pilot who took part in the raids, described them as ‘the most sensitive so far.’ Pilots returning to the carriers reported that had destroyed 80% of both plants. Late tonight pilots of reconnaissance planes said that both Haiphong and Hon Gai, a smaller port to the northeast, were without lights.”
Page 1: “Last night, the Ticonderoga and Kitty Hawk with their protective screen of destroyers left their usual positions in the Gulf–Yankee Station–and moved north. The exact location of their launch position is secret. The first attacks were carried out about noon with more than 50 aircraft. A second attack was made about 4PM. It was somewhat less successful than the first. Pilots assigned to bomb the plant within the city approached it from the south, flipped around 180-degrees and made their bomb runs from north to south. The weather was unstable with thick clouds and patches of blue. Commander Richard Powell of Bayside, Long Island, one of the flight leaders, said no bombs had struck within 150-feet of the small residential section east of the plant.’ Commander Hank Urban, Air Wing Commander on Kitty Hawk, said, ‘We were told to surgically remove just the power plant, and that is just what we did.’ Pilots reported encountering moderate to heavy flak and dozens of surface-to-air missiles, but no enemy fighters. Only one plane from Kitty Hawk was damaged.”
Page 6: “Hit in Downtown Haiphong”… “… ‘We hit in downtown Haiphong, which we had not done before,’Admiral Roy L. Johnson, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific fleet said today aboard the carrier Kitty Hawk as pilots returned from North Vietnam’s major port. Rear Admiral David Richardson, Commander, Task Force 77 said: ‘The strikes were very successful with moderate damage to complete destruction.’… Commander Billy Phillips, of Cleveland, TN, Ticonderoga’s air wing commander, said he and his colleagues ‘like this kind of activity,’ “… oohrah….
RIPPLE SALVO… #410… AMONG THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE… 1LT KARL RICHTER, USAF… “With glory gained and duty done…”
There is more to young 1LT KARL WENDELL RICHTER’s story than the citation for the Air Force Cross above. For starters, he was credited with downing a MIG-17 on 21 September 1967… Then there is this paragraph from Chris Hobson’s “Vietnam: Air Losses”– LT RICHTER’s final flight on 28 July 1967…
“It was usual in the F-105 squadrons to assign a pilot who was nearing the end of his tour to the relatively easy targets in the southern provinces rather than the ‘hot’ targets around Hanoi and Haiphong in the North. Karl Richter was approaching his 200th mission at the end of his second tour and had already signed up for yet another tour in Southeast Asia, this time in the F-100.
“1Lt Richter and his wingman were on an armed reconnaissance mission when they spotted a bridge in the mountains 35 miles west of Dong Hoi. Richter rolled in on the target but his aircraft was hit by AAA as it pulled up from the dive. The burning aircraft headed northwest but after about 35-miles Karl Richter was forced to eject. Unfortunately, Richter landed badly on the sharp limestone karst and was severely injured. When an HH-3E arrived, Parachute Jumper SSGT Charles D. Smith was lowered 150-feet down on the hoist and found that Richter had been critically injured with multiple broken bones indicating that he had probably snagged his parachute on a rock or tree and then fallen some distance. 1Lt Richter died in the helicopter on its way back to safety.
“Despite his youth and the fact that he had only been in the USAF for three years at the time of his death, Karl Richter was regarded as one of the most experienced, dedicated and proficient F-105 pilots in Southeast Asia. He had shot down a MiG-17 on 21 September 1966 during a raid on SAM sites northwest of Haiphong and flew his 100th mission just three weeks later. After persistent requests he was allowed to return to Thailand to start another tour and it is thought that Richter may have actually passed the 200 mission mark before being killed.”
1LT KARL WENDELL RICHTER’S combat awards included: the Air Force Cross, Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross (four awards), Bronze Star, Purple Heart (two awards) and multiple Air Medals…
“Lord hold them in thy mighty hand
Above the ocean and the land
Like wings of Eagles mounting high
Along the pathways of the sky
Immortal is the name they bear
And high the honour that they share.
Until a thousand years have rolled
Their deeds of valour shall be told.
In the dark of night and light of day
God speed and bless them on their way.
And homeward safely guide each one
With glory gained and duty done…” Anonymous
CAG’s QUOTE for 20 April: George Patton: “I do not know of a better way to die than to be facing the enemy.”
Lest we forget…. Bear
