ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 28 MARCH 1968

RIPPLE SALVO… #753… PRESIDENT JOHNSON ONCE DESCRIBED HIS TERM AS PRESIDENT TO BE “SPLENDID MISERY.” In his book VANTAGE POINT, he referred to the election year of 1968 as “living in a continuous nightmare.” A quick review of the year, and in particular, the first quarter of the bad dream –1968– is today’s RS, compliments of Defense Department historian Edward Drea…  but first…

GOOD MORNING: Day SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY-THREE of a remembrance of a war and an era of transformation for the United States that produced seeds of dicontent, roots of division and forces of self-destruction that plague America today…..

HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a fair Thursday, 28 March 1968…

GROUND WAR & KHE SANH: Page 1: “G.I.s BATTLE ENTRENCHED FOE NORTH OF SAIGON”… “…In the ground war, United States infantrymen, crawlilng through hedgerows and dried up rice paddies, fought a bitter, all-day battle yesterday with an entrenched Vietcong force 28 miles northwest of Saigon. The combat zone, near Trangbang, 10 miles from the Cambodian border, has been the setting for the sharpest fighting of the alllied offensive known as Determined to Win, which was begun more than two weeks ago in an effort to destroy, or at least disperse the 8,000 to 10,000 enemy soldiers threatening Saigon…FIRING INTENSE NEAR VILLAGE…A force of about 350 soldiers of the United States Infantry Division came under intense but sporadic fire from Vietcong units in bunkers, tunnels and caves near the village. At times fighting was so close that battalion commanders called lin artillery strikes only 50 yards away. Reports from the scene indicated that 99 Vietcong had been killed, many of them by Tactical aircraft and helicopter gunships. American casualties were reported to be 2 soldiers killed and 38 wounded…. Since the operation began, a total of 161 allied troops have been killed, 69 of them American. The official enemy death toll is 1,842.”… Page 2: “U.S. OFFICER SAYS AIR POWER MAKES KHE SANH A DISASTER FOR FOES”… Danang. “A Marine colonel leans across his desk at a forward command post and tells his listener to mark his words well: Khe Sanh will never prove a disaster for the United States Marines, but American air power is making it one for the enemy. Still another colonel, a marine, reads a letter from his wife and flushes with anger. His wife says some neighbors and stateside editorial writers cannot understand why the Marine Corps units hang on at Khe Sanh, getting pounded day after day by artillery, mortar and rocket fire. ‘Damn it,’ says the colonel, ‘we are hardly getting pounded at all. For every round they drop in on us, we drop a whole planeload of bombs on them.’… The senior officers are so convinced that the aerial bombardment is a major success that they have no plans for pulling the marines out no matter how much the enemy might increase his shelling at Khe Sanh.’…”… Page 3: “A Defector Tells Of Foe’s Hospitals–Surgeon Traces Locations of 5 Stations in Cambodia”… Page 3: “ABRAMS LEAVES FOR VIETNAM AFTER TALKS IN CAPITAL”… Page 4: “In Hue Graves Disclose Executions By The Enemy”… Page 13: “GENERAL SHOUP REVEALS VIETNAM PEACE PLAN”… “General David H. Shoup told an audience of 500 here in Vermont last night that he offered last spring an alternative plan for negotiations in the Vietnam war to Secretary of Defense Robert F. McNamara. He said the proposal never got to the President.”…

Page 1: “YURI GAGARIN KILLED AS TEST PLANE FALLS”… “Yuri A. Gagarin, the world’s first man in space, was killed yesterday in an air accident… that occurred during a training flight and also killed Colonel Vladimir S. Seryogin, described as chief of the detachment. Both victims will be buried in the Kremlin wall.”…Page 1: “TAX BILL DELAYED AS SENATE BACKS TEXTILE QUOTAS–Dirksen Lose in Appeal to Speed Excise Levies as Import Curbs Are Voted”… Page 23: “PENTAGON SEEKING TO CURTAIL NAVY’S F-111–Develop Alternative”… Page 13: “Senate Unit Bars Navy F-111B Jets– First Loss of The Air Force Model Lost in Asia”… Page 5: “Defense Official Discounts Letters From Pueblo’s Crew”… Page 15: “21 In House Offer Tonkin Repealer–Would Void War Resolution to Assert A P{olicy Role”… Page 26: “SOCK IT TO ‘EM’ KENNEDY SLOGAN–Audiences Urge Him On As He Campaigns Vigorously”… Page 26: “Entertainers Pledge For Kennedy”… Page 26; “Coast Democratic Leader Finds Johnson Underdog”… Page 28: “Reagan Jocular On No-ncandidacy”… Page 27: “ROLE FOR NEGROES; IS URGED BY NIXON–In Radio Talk He Says They Must Share In Power”…

Page 1: “LOOTING AND VIOLENCE DISRUPT A MASSIVE PROTEST MARCH IN MEMPHIS–A NEGRO IS KILLED IN MEMPHIS MARCH–Violence Erupts On Route Of Protest Led By Dr. King–50 Persons Injured”… Page 29: “SHIFT IN POSITION IS HINTED BY KING–He Says He May Be Forced To Pick A Candidate”… “The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said today that the ‘crucial’ nature of election issues at home and abroad might force him to abandon his customary nonpartisan stance and declare publicly for a Presidential candidate… Dr. King acknowledged that if the President were to negotiate an end to the war and ‘escalate the war on poverty at home,’ it was a very possible that those who are disenchanted with President Johnson could support him.’…. He told his Newark audience that black people ‘must develop and maintain a continuing sense of somebodyness. Stand up with dignity and self-respect,’ he declared. ‘Too long black people have been ashamed of themselves. Now I’m black, but I am black and beautiful.’ There was a long outburst of applause, cheers and whistles.”…

 28 MARCH 1968… THE PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF (TS-SI partial declas): NORTH KOREA: Satellite photography of 16 March shows the USS PUEBLO at the Najin naval shipyard, only about 20 miles from the Soviet border. It was moved there sometime after 22 February… ISRAEL: Last week’s big raid into Jordan was costly, and the Israeli public is grumbling. Despite heavy casualties and much forced criticism, the country’s borders are no more secure now than before… NORTH VIETNAM: Hanoi’s army daily on 25 March claimed that the recent Tet offensive had contributed significantly to a political crisis in the US in which President Johnson was increasingly isolated from his colleagues and his critics. The army editorial was broadcast both to audiences in North Vietnam and in English to Havana for replay to the US….The domestic broadcast indulged in unusually harsh language, calling the United States President a wounded “wild beast” who “shouted for war.” The broadcast to Havana zeroed in on the President’s critics within his own party and said President Johnson was facing his “darkest tragedy” since his accession to the presidency. The newspaper reported that Senator Kennedy and Senator McCarthy were using the Vietnam question as a “trump card,” and that the New York Senator was demanding an end to the war, a change of US policy, and the removal of the President….

STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of the Historian. Historical Documents. Foreign Relations. 1964-68. Vietnam: One short note  (163) documenting an important two-hour murder board of the President’s speech set for delivery on the 31st. It will shock the world… At the session SecState Clifford expressed a feeling that “we are in a hopeless bog” and the idea of going further into the bog strikes of madness. Others agreed and the Harry MacPherson “hard-line” draft that supported current war policies should be set aside to create a new alternate draft that “emphasized negotiation and de-escalation”… worth a quick look to find out which draft the President chose for the future of the war… read at…

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d163

28 MARCH 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…The New York Times (29 Mar reporting 28 Mar ops)… Page 1: “FIRST F-111 JET LOST AND NORTH VIETNAM REPORTS DOWNING IT”… “The United States command announced today that an Air Force F-111 fighter-bomber had vanished yesterday (28th) on a combat mission, the first of the planes lost in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese said in a broadcast later that they had shot it down. The brief United States announcement said that the supersonic swing-wing jet, which carries a crew of two, was overdue in Southeast Asia. One Air Force official said before the Hanoi claim was broadcast, ‘At the moment, we honestly don’t know why the plane is overdue.’… The F-111’s landed in Thailand and flew combat missions on Monday over North Vietnam for the first time. The swing-wing jets are capable of moving at 1,500-miles an hour. The announcement of the loss of the plane was made as the command reported new strikes against North Vietnam by the F-111s. The command gave no indication that the aircraft might be grounded because of the loss after only four days of combat … Yesterday the Air Force planes–designated F-111A to distinguish them from the proposed navy version, the F-111Bs–attacked truck parks in North Vietnam’s southern panhandle, touching off three secondary explosions indicating hits on ammunition or fuel. The strikes were made west-southwest of Donghoi… United States officials said no enemy MIGs were sighted over North Vietnam yesterday. The described antiaircraft  fire in North Vietnam as light to moderate and a few surface-to-air missiles were sighted but they were well north of the F-111 missions. —AIRFIELD IS ATTACKED– In other raids yesterday, American pilots struck the Phucyen airfield 18 miles northwest of Hanoi, and the Catbi air base, four miles southeast of Haiphong…”…

Humble Host flew #126: Night MILKY… Headed southwest from Yankee to Hillsboro hoping for a FAC but the weather had a stack of bombers holding for a target. Several orbits with a wingman before being steered at 15,000 to somewhere a little north of the DMZ to drop (Hack) on what MILKY said was a SAM site… .8 instruments.

“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were three fixed wing lost in Southeast Asia on 28 March 1968…

(1) LCDR MICHAEL WALTER WALLACE was flying an RF-8G of the VFP-63 Detachment embarked in USS Ticonderoga on a directed air support mission in South Vietnam. He accompanied five A-4 Skyhawk dive bombers and the flight was working targets 17 miles southeast of Khe Sanh under the control of a FAC. During the engagement the FAC observed the Crusader in a flat spin into the ground. It was assumed that LCDR WALLACE lost control of his aircraft while attempting to fly his F-8 in a pattern of A-4s… The possibility of being gunned down by ground fire was also considered a possibility. There was no chute or beeper. LCDR WALLACE’s remains were recovered and returned for a burial in the USA in 1988 where he rests on this 50th anniversary of his last flight…

(2) CAPTAIN T. DAVIS and CAPTAIN K.L. PETERSON were flying an O-1F of the 21st TASS and 504th TASG out of Nha Trang and shot down by small arms fire while on a FAC mission 12 miles north of Phang Rang… Both survived the crash and were recovered to fly and FAC again…

(3) MAJOR HENRY ELMER MacCANN and CAPTAIN DENNIS LEE GRAHAM were flying an F-111A of he 428th TFS and 424th TFW out of Takhli on a low-level all-weather strike mission on a truck park north of the DMZ. The aircraft was last seen on radar in a holding pattern ten miles west of Donghoi. MAJOR MacCANN and CAPTAIN GRAHAM perished on this day 50 years ago. Neither the wreckage of the aircraft or their bodies have been found. The search goes on and they remain an active case for the DEFENSE POW/MIA ACCOUNTING OFFICE… leave no man behind is the goal…

RIPPLE SALVO… #753… A QUICK REVIEW OF 1968 … Historian/author Edward J. Drea labeled 1968 “The Year of Crises” in his McNamara, Clifford and the Burdens of Vietnam,  Volume Six of the Defense Department: “Secretaries of Defense U.S. Historical Series“…

YEAR OF CRISIS

“Lyndon Johnson spoke of his first year in office–1968, an election year– ‘living in a continuous nightmare,’ a perception that aptly described a succession of international military incidents and emergencies that required quick reactions from the Department of Defense. Although overshadowed by the demands following the dramatic upsurge in fighting in Vietnam commencing with the Tet offensive in February, the unforseen military requirements growing from these contingencies placed further burdens on an already strained DoD. Violent unrest at home and a Congress hostile to many of the government’s policies–Vietnam, NATO, foreign assistance, taxes–added to the troubles of the administration in its closing year.”The year began with three major aircraft crashes in January, inaugurating a time of seemingly unending disasters. After a U.S. Marine transport plane crashed on 11 january 1968 in Nevada killing all 19 aboard and a high-speed, high-altitude SR-71 crashed in California, the next day on 21 January a B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed in Greenland. On that same date North Korean commandos boldly attacked the Blue House, the official residence of the South Korean president. Two days later, North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, an intelligence collection vessel, on the high seas, beginning a procession of Navy misfortunes. Three ships ran aground in a single week; one in the Persian Gulf, one off Rhode island, and one in the Aegean Sea. On 11 February a jet trainer crashed into the Oakland Bay Bridge in California. The worst naval disaster of the year occurred in late May when the nuclear submarine Scorpion with 99 men aboard was reported overdue and presumed lost at sea. In the meantime, federal troops were called on to suppress rioting that erupted across the United States during early April following the assassination of Martin Luther King. Growing disillusionment over the Administration’s Vietnam policies fomented antiwar sentiment that crystallized in larger more violent protests in the aftermath of the Tet offensive. On 30 June a U.S charter aircraft carrying 214 U.S. Army replacements to Vietnam violated Soviet airspace and was forced to land in the Kuril Islands by Soviet fighters. In August the administration’s hopes for an arms limitation agreement with the USSR vanished when Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia. Nor had much progress been made toward a Vietnam settlement, despite the President’s 31 March decision not to seek reelection and to suspend bombing of much of North Vietnam.”

RTR Quote for 28: SHAKESPEARE, Othello: “Chaos has come again.”…

Lest we forget….    Bear…