Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #600… (400 to go) What EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM looks like: COLONEL JOHN FLYNN; CAPTAIN HAL HENNING; CAPTAIN ROWLAND SMITH; and, CAPTAIN DAVID WILLIAMS on 27 October 1967, among dozens of other days, and for Colonel Flynn, the next five years… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED of remembering the 1,000 day history and the gallant aviators of Operation Rolling Thunder…
27 OCTOBER 1967…HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a Friday full of rain in New York…
Page 1(28 Oct reporting 27 Oct Rolling Thunder Ops): “RAID NEAR HANOI HITS NEW TARGET; U.S. LOSES 3 JETS–Barracks Near City Bombed–Constant Air Attacks Disrupt Life in City…” …”United States Air Force pilots yesterday (27th) bombed a barracks and storage area close to Hanoi for the first time and also damaged a major bridge near the North Vietnamese capital while fighting off swarms of MIG fighters. One MIG-17 was reported shot down in a fight while three American planes were downed by ground fire, a military spokesman reported in Saigon.
“Air Force pilots were credited with the destruction of two more MiGs after extensive reports on crews who took part in the raid on the MIG air base at Phucyen on Thursday, the spokesman added. Air Force pilots have been credited with pilots have been credited with the destruction of four MIG-17s and a Navy pilot (Burner Bob Hickey and Jeremy Morris off Connie) with one MIG-21 shot down in the last two days.
“Pilots flying F-105 Thunderchiefs from bases in Thailand bombed the Hanoi railroad and highway bridge crossing the Canal des Rapides, five miles northeast of the city, and the Hanoi barracks and storage are, three miles south-southwest of the capital. Pilots reported having damaged the center span of the bridge. the barracks and storage area consisted of 19 barracks and 11 warehouses. The pilots said intense antiaircraft fire and smoke prevented damage assessment. Direct hits were also reported on the boiler house and transformer yard.
“Marine pilots, in a night raid, bombed the Yenbai storage area, 65 miles northwest of Hanoi, and a surface-to-air missile site 60 miles from the city. Pilots reported that all bombs had been on target, but darkness prevented a full assessment. Navy pilots from the aircraft carrier Oriskany attacked the Uongbi power plant 13 miles northeast of Haiphong. They reported having struck the generator building and heavily damaged the transformer yard. Direct hits were also reported on the boiler and pumping station.”
BATTLES RESOUND IN HANOI…(Agence France-Presse)
“For the last four days, Hanoi has experienced an almost uninterrupted series of alerts, bomb explosions, antiaircraft barrages, falling planes and missile bursts. Life in the capital is regulated by alerts and bombings. Continuous activity is impossible. a reporter writes a dispatch and finds it is out of date before its finished. The general feeling among foreigners here and among the North Vietnamese themselves is that Hanoi must dig in and prepare to live from now on the way it has been living for the last few days.
“It is now common (on a sunny day) to hear: ‘What awful weather today! The planes will be over in droves.’ In the capital and its vicinity members of the armed forces never leave their guns. Helmeted girls bring them food and drink. All civil defense units are on a permanent alert.
“Neighborhoods near targets have been evacuated. In the last two days there has been a massive departure for the country. With bicycles and pedicabs, people are taking suitcases, bundles of clothing and linen and household wares. At dawn today, many trucks were reported leaving the city. Yet life continues in Hanoi. After every bombing the hum of traffic resumes in the streets. The city has evacuated a large part of its population, but the residents who remain maintain a brisk pace.
“At the embassies, people play tennis at dusk, between afternoon and night alerts. On the sidewalks, women come out to find their baskets of bananas and other tropical fruit, and resume sales. During the day, workers take up their tools as soon as the all-clear sounds. So far, everyone is holding up. there is no sign of collapse or any attitude or gesture to indicate nerves have given way. But people go into their shelters very quickly now, sometimes even before the pre-alerts are announced over loud speakers. When a woman’s voice, always the same one, announces that the planes are about 20 miles from the city, people lay down near their bicycles and get near the entrances of individual shelters.
“Mothers sweep up their children and get down in the bottom of the holes. Adults leave just their heads sticking out, but with the first shot of a cannon they disappear. This is because when jets are reported 20 miles by the woman on the loudspeaker, they are sometimes already roaring over Hanoi. The police are very severe with those who refuse to get into shelters and even foreign reporters must battle with them to stay free in order to get an accurate picture of the attacks’
“The best vantage points are high places, but those are rare in Hanoi. However, some buildings are tall enough to afford an overall picture. With Hanoi lying at his feet a reporter in a steel helmet can see the battle rage, now subside and now pick up again. The show is different according to the kind of attack and time of day. Sometimes it looks like an air meet, sometimes a firework display. When a plane manages to escape being hit by a shell from the ground, the pilot turns, gains altitude over a faraway suburb and then comes in like a cannonball at the battery that tried to knock him down.
“Watching this always sets the heart pounding. But then suddenly the eye is attracted to another corner of the sky where a missile, like a silver needle spouting a cluster of fire silently streaks for a plane whose pilot has not seen it.’
“Will it hit or will it not? If it does, there is a cheer from the antiaircraft batteries. Then the voices fall silent and there are now waves of planes and bursts of gunfire. The opinion of observers here is that in view of the antiaircraft fire power some American pilots must feel that flying over Hanoi is almost a suicide mission.
“Sometimes a surface-to-air missile just keeps on going without swerving toward a plane. But sometimes the collision is inevitable. When this happens there is an orange ball of fire in the sky and a black speck–the pilot being ejected with his parachute still unopened.
“The damage to the block of houses around the electric power station here yesterday was the biggest the capital itself has ever suffered. The bombs cut a 65-foot wide path through several rows of houses. At least 25 of them were completely pulverized. The search for victims under the rubble stopped this morning. In a street off Dienbienphu Boulevard, which leads to the foreign ministry, a two-story house was demolished. Half a mile away, just off Hue Street, two houses were smashed.”
COMPANION ARTICLE, Page 1 of 28 October NYT: “ADM. McCAIN’s SON, FORRESTAL SURVIVOR, IS MISSING IN RAID”... “It was almost three months ago that the young prematurely gray Navy pilot was sitting in a villa in Saigon, sipping a scotch with friends recalling the Holocaust that he managed to live through. He was John Sydney McCain, 3rd, a lieutenant commander… Yesterday, two months after his 30th birthday, Commander McCain was hurled from the steam catapults of the Oriskany into the blue sky over the Gulf of Tonkin for perhaps the hundredth time. the target was the main power plant in Hanoi, only a few blocks from the mansion where Ho Chi Minh lives. Commander McCain did not make it. His father was informed tonight by the Defense Department that he was missing in action, and the North Vietnamese–who may have read of his escape from his burning plane in July–broadcast a detailed account of his capture. The North Vietnamese broadcast said that Commander McCain had been ‘blasted down by a ground-to-air missile before the plane could strike.’ The plane, Hanoi said, crashed into a compound of a factory–perhaps the cement plant near the power station– and Commander McCain fell into nearby Trucbach Lake. ‘From an observation post on the shore of the lake,’ the enemy broadcast went on, ‘A shout rang out: Get him! Get him!, right away.’… The broadcast said that Commander McCain had been shot in the leg while still in his airplane. Before being taken to a detention camp, he was said to have been treated by a nurse for his wounds. Many people who happened to be on the scene swam toward the fallen air pirate, the broadcast went on, ‘four of his captors hauled him up. Two locked both his arms while the others put his head on a bamboo tube to keep him afloat.’ After the Forrestal fire…McCain was asked whether he thought capture by the North Vietnamese would be more horrible than the carrier fire. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think so. Pilots get paid to take chances. We’re all professionals.”…”
THE NYT 27 OCTOBER PAGE 1 HEAD LINES… “House Approves A Military Pay Raise And Rent Aid Bill”… “Detroit Industry Hiring In Ghetto’… “A Jubilee Amnesty Expected In The Soviet–50th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution 7 November”… “Vietcong Reject Bid By Thieu In Advance of Offer Of Peace Talks”…
President’s Daily Brief…SOVIET and MIDDLE EAST: Moscow is “annoyed” at the sinking of the Israeli destroyer and the refinery shelling. Renewal of fighting on any scale would delay withdrawal of Israeli troops, one of Moscow’s main goals since the end of the six-day war. The Soviets are also anxious to have the Suez reopened. Egyptian newspapers are claiming that three Soviet naval vessels will arrive in Port Said today….
27 OCTOBER 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) Four fixed wing aircraft were downed in Southeast Asia on 27 October: three F-105s and an F-4B…
(1) COLONEL JOHN PETER FLYNN, F-105B, 388th TFW Vice Commander (POW), Korat
(2) CAPTAIN JON DAVID BLACK (POW) and 1LT LORENZA CONNER (KIA), F-4D, 435th TFS/8th TFW, Ubon
(3) MAJOR ROBERT LEWIS STIRM, F-105D, 357th TFS/355th TFW, (POW), Takhli
(4) An F-105D of the 354TFS and 355th TFW suffered an engine fire on takeoff from Takhli and the pilot ejected and survived to fly again…
Commentary by Hobson: “On the morning of the 27th the USAF flew a major raid against the Canal des Rapides Bridge about five miles northeast of Hanoi. Col John Flynn, the 388th TFW vice-commander, led the raid. As Col Flynn rolled his Thunderchief at 15,000-feet to dive on the target it was rocked by an explosion from an SA-2 missile. The aircraft became a mass of flames and Col Flynn ejected near the target. He was quickly captured and became the highest ranking officer to be held POW. With his fellow leaders, CDR Jim Stockdale and LCOL Robbie Risner, he organized the Fourth Allied POW Wing.
“Within seconds of Col Flynn’s Thunderchief being shot down, one of the CAP flight Phantoms ( Captain Jon Black and 1LT Conner) was hit by AAA as it orbited over Thud Ridge, about 20 miles northwest of Phuc Yen. The aircraft’s port engine caught fire and the pilot ejected a few minutes later. The fate of the WSO, 1Lt Lorenza Conner was unknown at the time, but it appears he was unable to eject and died in the crash. Captain Black was captured and taken to the Plantation prison in the center of Hanoi. (1LT Conner’s remains were returned to the United States in December 2007 and identified in May 2008 for return to his family for burial… So young, gone… Well done Joint Recover Team) … Captain Jon Black was only held in captivity for four months. On 16 February 1968 he and two other POWs were released into the custody of two US peace activists and flown back to the United States…
“Major Stirm …was shot down. He was captured and imprisoned to be released on 14 March 1973.
“Later in the day the F-105s were back over Hanoi, but this time bombing a storage area about 10 miles southwest of the city. As the formation approached the target area and rolled in, one of the aircraft (Captain Temperly) was damaged by AAA. With the rear end of his aircraft on fire, Captain Temperley turned southwest but only flew for about ten miles before he was forced to eject. He landed in a tree and was immediately captured and taken to the New Guy Village in the Heartbreak Hotel area of the Hanoi Hilton. He was released in March 1973. Captain Temperley’s situation was that he had taken off from Korat as the airborne spare that accompanied most strikes up to a certain point and then turned back if the rest of the formation was serviceable. On this occasion one of the F-105s had to abort due to mechanical problems and Captain Temperley took his place (on a one way trip–Fate is the hunter).
RIPPLE SALVO… #600… 27 October 1967 A Day of EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM and AIR FORCE CROSS Awards…
EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM… COLONEL JOHN PETER FLYNN, United States Air Force… the AIR FORCE CROSS…
“The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Air Force Cross to John Peter Flynn, Major General (then Colonel), U.S. Air Force, for extraordinary heroism in military operations against an opposing armed force as a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam from 27 October 1967 to 10 November 1967. Captured at the height of the air war, General Flynn, the most senior officer in captivity, was exposed to forceful interrogation, intimidation, and brutal treatment because the enemy believed he was with holding valuable tactical information which, if obtained by the Vietnamese, would clearly have jeopardized the lives of those still flying. By his display of heroic resistance through this ordeal of extreme cruelties, General Flynn reflected the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.”
Among General Flynn’s personal combat awards: The Air Force Cross, the Silver Star, seven Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Bronze Star with V, fifteen Air Medals, the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War Medal… Other awards: two Air Force Distinguished Service Medals and three Legion of Merit awards….
EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM… CAPTAIN HAL P. HENNING, United States Air Force… the AIR FORCE CROSS…
“The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Air Force Cross to Hal P. Henning, Captain, U.S. Air Force, for extraordinary heroism in military operations against an opposing armed force as an F-105 Pilot in Southeast Asia on 27 October 1967. On that date, Captain Henning was the leader of a force of twenty Thunderchiefs assigned to attack an extremely vital military storage area in the vicinity of Hanoi, North Vietnam. En route to the target, his aircraft was extensively damaged by shrapnel from a surface-to-air missile. Without hesitation and with complete disregard for his own safety, Captain Henning continued on to the assigned target with his crippled aircraft. Diving through intense antiaircraft fire, delivering his bombs precisely on target, he was successful in heavily damaging the storage complex. Through his extraordinary heroism, superb airmanship and aggressiveness in the face of hostile forces, Captain Henning reflected the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.”
Among Captain Henning’s personal combat awards: the Air Force Cross, the Silver Star, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, and twelve Air Medals… Other awards include four Meritorious Service Medals and the Air Force Commendation Medal…
EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM… CAPTAIN ROWLAND F. SMITH, JR., United States Air Force…the AIR FORCE CROSS…
“The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Air Force Cross to Rowland F. Smith, Jr., Captain, United States Air Force, for extraordinary heroism in military operations against an opposing armed force as a Pilot leading a flight of F-105 Thunderchiefs attacking a vital military target in the vicinity of Hanoi, North Vietnam, on 27 October 1967. On that date, with his aircraft hit and burning, Captain Smith exhibited the highest order of courage as he continued to fly through intense and accurate antiaircraft fire to attack and destroy a hostile surface-to-air missile complex that was threatening a large F-105 strike force. With his aircraft still in flames, he remained in the target area while initiating rescue efforts for his downed wingman. Captain Smith then flew his crippled aircraft 300-miles to a skillful emergency landing. Through his extraordinary heroism, superb airmanship and aggressiveness in the face of hostile forces, Captain Smith reflected the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.”
Among Captain Smith’s personal combat awards: the Air Force Cross, three Silver Stars, DFCs and Air Medals…
EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM… CAPTAIN DAVID H. WILLIAMS, United States Air Force…the AIR FORCE CROSS…
“The President of the United States Air Force takes pleasure in presenting the Air Force Cross to David H. Williams, Captain, United States Air Force as the Electronics Warfare Officer for the leader (Captain Smith, above) of an F-105 Thunderchief flight attacking a vital military target in the vicinity of Hanoi, North Vietnam on 27 October 1967. On that date, with his aircraft hit and burning, Captain Williams exhibited the highest order of courage as he continued to guide his pilot through intense and accurate anti-aircraft fire to attack and destroy a hostile surface-to-air missile complex that in initiating rescue efforts for a wingman down in the target area. Captain Williams then constantly provided positions as the pilot flew the rippled aircraft 300 miles t a skillful emergency landing. Through his extraordinary heroism, superb airmanship and aggressiveness in the face of hostile forces, Captain Williams reflected the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.”
And that’s the way it was, on 27 October 1967, 50 years ago on Air Force Cross Day over the Red River Valley…
RTR Quote for Air Force Cross day: SENECA: “Courage is a scorner of things which inspire fear.”
Lest we forget… Bear
