ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 24 MARCH 1967

RIPPLE SALVO… #384… BACK TO BAC GIANG and a mystery… but first…

Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED EIGHTY-FOUR of a return to archives of historic Operation Rolling Thunder…

24 MARCH 1967… HEAD LINES and LEADS from the Ogden Standard-Examiner on a cloudy day just east of the Great Salt Lake…

Page 1: “Weather Fails to Deter Nation’s Easter Plans”... “The earliest Easter in 18 years Sunday and wintry weather in many parts of the country apparently haven’t dampened plans for traditional sunrise religious services and display of finery in Easter parades. In the extended five-day period the Weather Bureau said temperatures would average below normal with rain covering most of the nation.”… Page 1: “90th Congress Bad, Good? Views Varied”… “Leaders disagree about what if anything the 90th Congress can boast about after 11-weeks of activity. But as they left today on the first prolonged recess of the year, there was general agreement that tough problems lie ahead for the five months between April 3 when the session resumes and Labor Day when Congress quits for the year. House Democratic Leader Carl Albert of Oklahoma said he was pleased and I believe the country should be pleased, at the progress we are making and the pace we are setting in the house. That wasn’t the way House Republican Leader Gerald Ford of Michigan saw it. Congress, said Ford, ‘is wallowing in inaction and its record is near zero.’ “… Page 1: “8 Educators, Pilots Die in Vietnam air Crash”… “A small twin-engine plane carrying eight U.S. educators crashed into a mountain in turbulent weather north of Danang Thursday and all eight and their two pilots were killed. The team leader was Dr. James Albertson, President of the Stevens Point branch of the Wisconsin State University. The group was in Vietnam to study problems of high school education. The tour was sponsored by the Agency for International development. The plane was operated by Air America, a civilian charter firm employed by the U.S. mission in Vietnam.”…

Page 3: “Columbia University Acts to Withhold Rankings From Draft Board”... “Columbia University has taken a major step toward adopting a policy of withholding class standings of its students from draft boards and the Selective Service…Class standings are used by draft boards as an aid in determining whether a student’s draft deferment should be continued. Wayne State University and Reed College in Oregon have previously decided to withhold the rankings.”… Page 3: “Officials Deny NATO Involvement In Europe-wide Soviet Spy Group”…”The Italian defense ministry Thursday night denied press reports that i officials of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been implicated in the Soviet spy ring it is investigating.”… Page 3: “San Francisco Jerks Mat of Welcome For Hippies”…”Led by the Mayor, San Francisco is pulling the welcome mat, so far as hippies are concerned. It is also putting the squeeze on resident hippies. Official reaction came after a resident of the Episcopal Haight-Asbury District told a group of Episcopal clergymen he expected swarms of the bearded and sandaled youngsters to arrive this summer and asked that the city make plans to feed the hungry. Mayor John Shelley in a letter to the board of supervisors asked Thursday that a predicted migration of 100,000 be declared officially unwanted.”…

24 March 1967…The President’s Daily Brief… CIA (TS sanitized 2015) VIETNAM: We can now cite additional indications the Communists may be getting ready for something big south of the demilitarized zone. North Vietnamese forces in and just above the zone have built up from about three to four divisions with supporting artillery. Substantial elements of one of these divisions are now operating in Quang Tri Province….Reports tenuously suggest sizable recent infiltrations, including possibly two regiments near the Special Forces camp at Khe Sanh in western Quang Tri… We cannot be sure what all this adds up to, but the Communists certainly seem to be in a position to follow up their barrages against our artillery positions at Con Thien and Gio Linh with ground action. (refer to the RTR Maps link for geography refresher).

24 MARCH 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…Ogden S-E Page 1: “Strike planes from the Enterprise teamed with other Navy fliers from the USS Hancock and pilots claimed destroying or damaging 53 cargo barges and other coastal craft. In other raids Navy fliers reported destroying a railroad bridge 17 miles west-southwest of Thanh Hoa and setting fire to a storage area three miles south of that city.”…

“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were two fixed wing military aircraft downed in Southeast Asia on 24 March 1967…

(1) CAPTAIN JOSEPH PATRICK MURPHY, USMC, and 2LT WALTER LEROY ALBRIGHT, USMC, were flying an EF-10B Skynight electronic warfare aircraft from the VMCJ-1 squadron and MAG-11 out of Danang on a test flight and failed to return from the flight. CAPTAIN MURPHY and 2LT ALBRIGHT are presumed to have been Killed in Action and they rest where they fell in the service of our country… On this 50th anniversary of their sacrifice our thoughts are with their families.

(2) LCDR JOHN COOLEY ELLISON and LTJG JAMES EDWIN PLOWMAN were flying an A-6A Intruder of the VA-85 Black Falcons embarked in USS Kitty Hawk on a major night, all-weather strike on the Bac Giang thermal power plant. After delivering their bombs on target they disappeared and are presumed to have been downed by AAA well north of the target in Ha Bac province.  See Ripple Salvo below for the rest of the story…

RIPPLE SALVO… #384… The Main Battery of the United States Navy from 1965 through Desert Storm into the 1990s was the A-6 Intruder. Any questions??? And in March 1967 when the hand wringing in Washington about the lack of effectiveness of the forces of Rolling Thunder was at its peak, it was the Intruder planes and aviators that picked up the pace and potency of the thrust of the air war into the heartland of the enemy. Every night, in any weather, through any and all opposition, to delivery the largest payloads of any tactical aircraft employed by our country in the air war. Then during the day they were the choice to lead the Rolling Thunder Alpha strikes comprised of aluminum clouds of air wing aircraft. So it was on 24 March 1967 when VA-85’s Black Falcons mounted up on USS Kitty Hawk  to take on another set of targets in the Bac Giang complex. From my collected stuff…

On 24 March 1967 a major night all-weather attack was conducted against the strategic and heavily defended Bac Giang thermal power plant in North Vietnam. This Joint Chiefs of Staff designated target was composed of  multi-story concrete boiler house, generator hall and administrative buildings. Located twenty-five miles northeast of Hanoi and near Kep airfield, it was the newest and largest major power facility and produced nine percent of the North Vietnam’s national capacity. Three A-6 strike aircraft manned by Commander Ron Hayes (again), Commanding Officer of the VA-85 A-6 squadron, and his B/N LT Ted Been; LCDR John Ellison and his B/N LTJG James Plowman; and LCDR Ron Waters and his B/N LTJG John Schalde and one surface-to air-missile suppression aircraft (Ironhand) flown by LT Frank Wagner and his B/N LT Dick McKee were assigned to the mission of national importance. For deception and mutual protection the attack was planned for strike aircraft to approach the target from three separate routes with an extremely close interval between aircraft over target. The Ironhand aircraft was to enter the area from still another direction taking position near Kep airfield in order to suppress any missile activity in the target area.

LCDR WATERS/LTJG SCHALDE in the second aircraft used minimum altitude and inclement weather to shield penetration and approach to the maximum extent possible from the AAA and active missile sites in the Red River Valley around the port of Haiphong. Maneuvering continually to avoid the heavy AAA fire and electronic indications of tracking fire control radar, the crew employed the complex A-6 Intruder weapons system skillfully to maintain the required track and time separation. LTJG SCHALDE expertly acquired the target on radar and directed a straight path, wings level, precision bombing run even though the aircraft was subjected to intense AAA fire, indications of missile tracking and the constant threat of interceptor aircraft which were based due north only seconds away. After bomb release a low altitude, high-speed track through mountainous terrain was used to retire successfully from the target.

Shortly after launch, the Ironhand aircraft suffered failure of its search and track radars and had unreliable inertial and doppler navigation systems, a condition which normally would have dictated an abort. LT WAGNER/LT McKEE, realizing the importance of the missile suppression role to the success of the mission unhesitatingly elected to continue. After updating the assumed position through the airborne CIC aircraft, the dead reckoning mode of the ballistics computer and LTMcKEE’S vast navigation experience were used to navigate to and maintain the pre-planned position near Kep airfield, one of the enemy’s major interceptor bases. LT WAGNER identified and utilized as a navigational check point the heavy barrage of anti-aircraft fire from the airfield. After expending all weapons, LT WAGNER/LT McKEE remained in the target area five minutes longer than planned, in an attempt to communicate with the third strike aircraft of LCDR ELLISON/LTJG PLOWMAN which had disappeared from the scopes of the airborne CIC aircraft while retiring from a successful bombing run on Bac Giang. Unfortunately, LCDR ELLISON and LTJG PLOWMAN did not return from the mission and were reported missing in action. For the rest of the story see below.

The mission of Commander RON HAYS and LT TED BEEN on 24 March was executed with the same expertise and intrepid gallantry as that of the LCDR WATERS and LTJG SCHALDE and mirrors their previous strike on Bac Giang that I summarized in RTR of 18 March that made the front page of the New York Times…oohrah… (Humble Host notes that CDR HAYS was leading from in front… two trips to Bac Giang in a week…)

The 24 March strike summarized above is as close to “your average flight of an Intruder” and as “distinguished flying” as you can get… Those guys were out there every night carrying the fight to the enemy… oohrah…

Now, the rest of the ELLISON/PLOWMAN story as told by Chris Hobson… “An A-6 from Kitty Hawk disappeared during a four aircraft night strike on a thermal power plant at Bac Giang near Kep. After the crew radioed they had released their bombs the Ellison/Plowman Intruder was tracked by radar (probably by an E-2 Hawkeye) to be about 10 miles north of their planned retirement course. The radar plot disappeared in Ha Bac province when the aircraft probably fell victim to AAA. One source claims that LCDR Ellison made voice contact with a SAR force but neither crewman was rescued or ever heard from again although rumors persist that at least one of the men was held captive in China. However, after the end of the war when China released the US airmen who had been shot down over China territory, neither Ellison or Plowman was among them. Photographs of POWs taken by the North Vietnamese together with first hand information from a released POW indicate that one or both men may have been captured.

“In 1980 Ellison and Plowman were declared dead for administrative purposes (“bodies not recovered”) but the mystery surrounding their disappearance still persists. John Ellison had been forced to abandon an A-6A on 15 May 1966 when the aircraft was unable to refuel airborne and crashed due to fuel exhaustion.”… end quote…

Leave no man behind???… Gone but not forgotten on this day, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of a mystery that cries out for resolution…

Lest we forget…     Bear