ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 26 MARCH 1966

Good Morning…Day TWENTY- SIX in a 50-Year Flashback to Operation Rolling Thunder….

26 MARCH 1966 (NYT)… ON THE HOMEFRONT... Cloudy and cold in New York but the street demonstrations in response to a call by “The National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam” for an “International Days of Protest.” NYT published five articles on the world-wide protests, including two in New York. Several hundred youth protest the draft in Union Square where 15 American veterans and reservists burned their discharge and separation papers to the cheers of the rauc0us crowd. In Boston at the Boston Army Base, 11 persons were arrested while cheering one person burning his draft card. A similar protest was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Ann Arbor, Michigan, 200 students staged a “walk-in” at the draft board office. Three were charged by police with disorderly conduct. Two thousand demonstrated in Paris and three thousand in Manila. For today, the 26th of March, big parades were scheduled for New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Berkeley, California. The parade in New York was expected to attract 20,000, assemble in Central Park, and march down 5th Avenue from 96th to 72nd streets. These functions were sponsored by the Vietnam Peace Committee…In a separate protest, American Delegate to the U.N. Arthur Goldberg attempted to give a speech defending U.S. Vietnam policy in Berkeley on the 25th and was booed and jeered so loudly by 10,000 students the noise was heard across the campus. University President Clark Kerr took the stage and mike to calm the crowd. He said: “May I suggest that if these individuals who ask for the protection of their free speech rights would be willing  to grant it to others we would be able to proceed.” No follow-up on whether or not the speech continued…

26 MARCH 1966…ROLLING THUNDER… Monsoon weather kept air ops at the fringes of North Vietnam. There were no aircraft losses… A C-130 ran off a runway after landing at Tuy Hoa… Therefore, let’s pause and go back to an historic series of events in Rolling Thunder 1965 that marks the entry of the SA-2 to the gauntlet of defenses the Yankee Air Pirates and Red River Rats would have to master in order to effectively attack economic and military targets in the heartland of North Vietnam. Let’s go back to BLACK FRIDAY.

24, 27 JULY and 11, 12 and 13 AUGUST 1965… The first SAM sites were observed under construction in North Vietnam in April 1965 in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas. A conclusion was reached that Russians and/or Chinese personnel were on the sites assisting with the addition of surface-to-air missiles to the defenses of North Vietnam. That led to a Washington decision to exempt and restrict the SAM sites from attack by Air Force and Navy aircraft. Additional sites were constructed and discovered by recce aircraft in June and July. The first American aircraft lost to an SA-2 SAM occurred on 24 July when an F-4C from the 47th TFS piloted by CAPTAIN ROSCOE HENRY FOBAIR, and back-seater CAPTAIN RICHARD PAUL ‘POPS’ KEIRN was hit by an SA-2 at 23,000-feet, 40 miles west of Hanoi. CAPTAIN FOBAIR was Killed in Action and CAPTAIN KEIRN captured and imprisoned as a POW, again. He had been shot down in WWII in a B-17 crew and spent 7-months in a Stalag. American reaction to the loss was to take SAM sites off the restricted target list. On 27 July The Air Force flew 55-sorties against two SAM sites west of Hanoi. The weapons of choice were GP bombs, rockets and napalm. Weapons deliveries were from low altitude and six F-105s and five pilots were lost in the day of attacks. Killed in action were: CAPTAIN WALTER B. KOSKO, 563rd TFS, Takhli; CAPTAIN WILLIAM J. BARTHELMAS, 357TH TFS, Korat; and MAJOR JACK GRAHAM FARR, 357TH TFS, Korat. Captured and imprisoned as POWs: CAPT KYLE DAG BERG, 563rd TFS, Takhli; and, CAPTAIN ROBERT BALDWIN PURCELL, 12th TFS, Korat. Also shot down but rescued, CAPTAIN FRANK J. TULLO, 12th TFS, Korat.

All was quiet for two and a half weeks until the night of 11 August. Two A-4Es from VA-23 and USS Midway were on an armed recce mission 30 miles northwest of Thanh Hoa and assessed two lights in the clouds below them as flares. Seconds later two SAMs exploded in their two-ship formation killing wingman LTJG DONALD HUBERT BROWN, Killed in Action. Flight leader LCDR F. LEE ROBERGE’s A-4E sustained 50 shrapnel holes of damage, but recovered on USS Midway. Following the loss of LTJG BROWN, the Navy was finally given permission to attack SAM sites. Finding the SAM sites required visual recce missions at altitudes that increased the risk to searching aircraft. These initial SAM hunting missions were labeled “Iron Hand” and that identifier held for the rest of the air war.  The Navy anti-SAM hunt lasted three days and failed to locate a single operational SAM site. However, by the end of the second day the Navy had lost six aircraft to AAA and small arms fire: (1) 12 August– LT W.T. FIDELIBUS of VA-155 and USS Coral Sea. His A-4E aircraft sustained major 37mm damage while searching an area 20 miles west of Thanh Hoa, but was flyable for the 250-miles back to the carrier but was uncontrollable in the landing configuration and he was forced to eject and be rescued by a Coral Sea based helicopter. (2) 12 August– LTJG GENE RAYMOND GOLLAHON, VF-111 and USS Midway was Killed in Action flying his F-8D in a search area 20 miles north of Thanh Hoa when hit by AAA and subsequently crashed. LTJG GOLLAHON’s wingman saw the F-8D, sans canopy, on its last descent into the ground. LTJG GOLLAHON was listed as KIA. 13 August (Black Friday) — (3) LT W.E. NEWMAN of VA-22 and USS Midway was flying an A-4C in an area north of Vinh when he was hit by AAA destroying the nose cone of his aircraft. He was able to pilot the plane to feet wet before ejecting and being rescued by the SAR destroyer. (4) COMMANDER HARRY EUGENE THOMAS of VA-155 and USS Coral Sea was Killed in Action 30 miles north of Thanh Hoa. His aircraft took a direct hit and immediately rolled into the ground. Thirty years later his remains were returned, identified and buried. (5) CAPTAIN FREDRIC MOORE MELLOR, USAF, of the 20th TRS and Udorn, flying an RF-101C was Killed in Action searching for SAM sites west of Hanoi. He was hit by AAA near Van Yen, 50 miles west of Hanoi while returning to base. On fire, CAPTAIN MELLOR ejected and was safely on the ground and in radio contact with his wingman. He was instructed to lay low until a rescue mission could be summoned. Nothing more was heard from CAPTAIN MELLOR and a three day search failed to find the downed pilot. In February 1991 investigators interviewed a villager who said that the pilot evaded capture for some time, but when cornered, died in a shoot out with Vietnamese militia…oohrah… (6) LT J.R. HYLAND of VA-165 and USS Coral Sea was flying an A-1H on a recce south of Vinh when hit by ground fire coincident with an attack on some trucks. His badly damaged aircraft held together until he was five miles off shore where a USAF HU-16 picked him up. To cap off a day of tragic events, CAPTAIN GEORGE HAROLD NORTON and A2C JERRY WAYNE TOON were killed when their USAF O-1F from the 6253 CSG, Nha Trang, released their ordnance on take-off on a FAC mission and exploded under the aircraft. BLACK FRIDAY!!!

RIPPLE SALVO… The reader is enjoined to reread the Black Friday account and draw his own conclusions concerning the preparedness of our war machine to deal with advances in enemy war fighting capabilities. In this case, our country responded with new equipment, electronic countermeasures, and the AGM-45 Shrike missile. New weapons and black boxes enabled the Navy and Air Force to make changes in tactics to effectively fight the SA-2. But war is a come as you are business and our country does not do a good job of preparing our armed forces for the early days of a conflict. Brave men are always sent forward to do their duty. And they do. Just as the anti-SAM searchers did on August 12 and 13. Unfunded requirements in Department of Defense budgets are serious business. Unfunded requirements assume prudent risk and accept the consequences. A nation’s warriors always pay the price. Our nation has a paramount obligation to train and equip our warfighters to meet and defeat our enemies. Readers who contend that buying “butter” is more important than buying the “guns” required to guarantee the safety of our country fail to appreciate the cost in blood of that contention. The Navy executed Rolling Thunder on a shoe string requiring the rotation of assets from off going carriers to oncoming carriers. These were called Yankee Team Assets. Unfortunately, assets to train aircrews and technician replacing lost and combat limited aircrews were not available back in the states.  We also operated short on ordinance in the last months of 1965. I seriously doubt that the current administration of our country is any different than any in our history about being really ready for the first blow of the next fight. We have never been ready and have always taken our lumps in the early days of our wars. Black Friday is a case in point. So is Pearl Harbor. So is World War I. So is the War of 1812. History is the teacher. Too bad our politicians haven’t the time to do their homework — too busy fund raising for their next reelection cycle, I guess. That’s my opinion, what’s yours…???    Lest we forget…. Bear

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