Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #754… THE JCS TARGET LIST AND TUESDAY LUNCH BUNCH PICKING TARGETS GOES OUT THE WINDOW… and an interdiction, armed reconnaissance air war takes over for a strategic harassment air war that was doomed to failure from the very start by a strategy of gradual escalation…Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp called it a “Strategy for Defeat” (his book title)… but first…
GOOD MORNING: Day SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY-FOUR of a remembrance of a 40-month air war fought by some of the bravest of the nation’s aviation warriors…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Friday, 29 March 1968… see Ripple Salvo #753 (28 March 1968) Humble host inadvertently included head lines from 29th NYT along with those for the 28th… oops… No wonder I was up later than usual…
29 MARCH 1968…THE PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF by CIA (TS-SI):
ISRAEL (late item): Four Israelis were killed this morning by a terrorist mine on a farm inside Israel’s territory…A Foreign Ministry official said Israel must take action. Ambassador Barbour notes the obvious danger that the Israelis will mount another reprisal. This is true even though they acknowledged that past reprisals have not stopped the terrorists….
VIETNAM: Signs are accumulating in intercepts (redacted) that a few Communist offensive may be imminent. In the past few days there have been six references in Communist traffic to “N-Day,” The Communist equivalent of D-Day. Dates between March 28 and 2 April have been mentioned. The last multiple references to N-Day came just before the Tet offensive… We believe the heaviest attacks could come in the central highlands…
NORTH VIETNAM REFLECTIONS OF US POLITICAL ATTITUDES ON THE AIR: Hanoi Quotes US Press: Although Hanoi’s coverage of the US political scene has picked up somewhat in the last two weeks, yesterday’s domestic broadcast quoting the North Vietnamese Army newspaper was an unusually direct and independent commentary linking the war to the elections. More typical treatment is found in an item on Hanoi radio’s international service 28 March which leaned entirely on quotes from the US press. The item played up colorful sentences coming from US news media covering the war, which the broadcast described Newsweek were singled out as “demanding an end to the present US strategy in Vietnam.” Hanoi quoted the Times at length on the transfer of General Westmoreland and on the results of the Communist Tet Offensive. It stressed the alleged frustration the offensive produced in Washington, the economic impact of the war, and widespread popular opposition to administration policies in Vietnam…
MORE ON NLF INTERVIEWS: The Japanese correspondent who interviewed Liberation Front representative Nguyen Van Tien in Hanoi on 25 March continues to publish copy on the interviews. In the 27 March issue of Asahi, Thieu is quoted at greater length on the accomplishments of the Tet offensive. He claims; that the Communists still have local troops and guerrilla forces inside the city of Hue and that the Communist-sponsored Revolutionary Administrative Committee is still functioning. Tien alleged that Hue was virtually under a state of siege, surrounded by Communist troops who were poised to strike any time. He also claimed that the Tet offensive had enabled the Liberation Army to “double its strength.”…
HANOI BROADCASTS US SERVICEMAN’S “APPEAL”… Hanoi’s English language broadcast to American servicemen in South Vietnam on 27 March carried an “appeal” by one “MCKINLEY NOLAN,” who was described as an US enlisted man who defected from the 1st Infantry Division. The American-accented voice claiming to be Nolan said he had been treated well and went on to give a standard Communist spiel that US troops ask to return to the US. Once home they were admonished not to interfere with the antiwar demonstrators “who are rising up to overthrow the American Government…. HUMBLE HOST ADDS: search the internet for MCKINLEY NOLAN and read more about this deserter whose story was made into a documentary produced by Hollywood’s Danny Glover. “The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan”..A Huffington Post review of the film is at:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/film-review-emthe-disappe_b_635830
STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of the Historian. Historical Documents. Foreign Relations. 1964-68. Vietnam: Two very interesting and informative documents are suggested for your reading pleasure and relentless search for knowledge and things to talk about with authority at your next curmudgeon luncheon… Document 165 is a telegram from Secretary Rusk to ambassador Bunker giving him a heads-up on what’s coming in the President’s 31 March speech. As almost always, the bombing of North Vietnam is a part of the message. In this telegram Rusk is issuing orders and considerations for Bunker to employ in dealing with Thieu and Ky… Document 166 may be the most interesting document in the series. This is a memorandum for the record that records a meeting of Secretary Clifford and his back-up Paul Nitze with the JCS, who have been watching from the sidelines while the wise men in suits have been advising the President. Now is the time the uniforms get told what has happened while they were at parade dress. Each is given the opportunity to comment and each indicates a modicum of unhappiness with what is fate accomplished. at the bottom line they all sign off on the President’s plan to reorient the bombing to not much north of Vinh… This is a classroom example of “civilian control of the military” and the tough line between loyalty and principle… read these two 5-STAR documents at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d165
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d16629
29 MARCH 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (30 Mar reporting 29 Mar ops), Page 1: “SEARCH CONTINUES FOR AIR FORCE F-111″… “The search for the F-111 jet fighter-bomber that failed to return on Thursday from a mission in North Vietnam continued yesterday (29th) without success. The Hanoi radio announced that the aircraft, the newest and fastest American warplane, had been shot down near Laos about 100 miles north of the demilitarized zone…But the United States high command in Saigon would say only that the plane was ‘overdue’ on a mission in Southeast Asia.’ (Humble Host notes: neither the wreckage or the remains of the two pilots have been found, despite continuing efforts by DPAA to locate and return MAJOR HENRY MacCANN and CAPTAIN DENNIS LEE GRAHAM to their homeland)….. In action in North Vietnam yesterday, an Air Force F-4 Phantom jet battled a Soviet designed MIG-21 northwest of Hanoi. The crewmen of the F-4 Phantom reported that one of their missiles had hit the enemy plane. They said that they had seen smoke or fuel streaming from the MIG, but that the enemy jet had made a turn into clouds and they had not seen it hit the ground….In other air action, Phantom jets bombed the Hadong army barracks, eight miles southwest of Hanoi and a surface-to-air missile site 11 miles to the southwest. Clouds prevented an assessment of the damage at the barracks, the pilots said, but they reported that they had silenced the radar equipment at the missile site.”….
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 29 March 1968…
(1) LT LCOL H. C. JOHNSON and MAJOR J.T. DORAN were flying an O-2A of the 23rd TASS an 504th TASG out of Nakhon Phanom on a FAC mission in Route Pack I 15 miles southeast of Dong Hoi when hit in an engine by ground fire. LT COL JOHNSON turned westward and attempted to return to NKP on one engine. Bad luck. Both aviators successfully bailed out over Laos and were rescued 45 miles short of NKP. Hobson reported this as the first successful bailout of an O-2 after five fatal O-2 downings. Good news for O-2 FACs…
RIPPLE SALVO… #754… With the President’s speech on 31 March 1968 the air war against North Vietnam turned from Phase III to Phase IV– as defined by a 1972 University of Cornell Air War Study Group in a study entitled “The Air War in Indochina,” edited by Raphael Littauer and Norman Uphold. Phases II and III covered the period 29 June 1966 to 1 April 1968, the months of the air war –Rolling Thunder– that concentrated on the strategic targets on the JCS target list over and above the sustained employment in the interdiction, armed reconnaissance and directed air support roles. The Cornell study defined Phase IV thusly: I quote from page 42…
“The fourth and last phase of the sustained bombing of the North began when President Johnson announced a partial bombing halt to begin on April 1, 1968. This represented precisely that de-escalation which had been discussed the previous spring, although in effect it did not reduce the level of bombing; indeed, the intensity of the bombing south of the 20th parallel increased. President Johnson’s decision was motivated partially by military and economic factors.; but if the air war against North Vietnam had been launched partly for political-strategic motives, then the bombing halt, too, was conditioned by political considerations. There was continuous concern over the domestic and international spectacle of massive air power brought to bear on a small, underdeveloped, agricultural country which represented no threat to the security of the Unite States; moreover, the whole American posture on the Vietnam war had undergone a drastic change in the aftermath of the NLF Tet offensive early in 1968. The shock of that offensive, demonstrating a wholly unexpected striking power and determination on the part of the NLF, was great. After Tet, Administration thinking turned to de-escalation rather than escalation; this attitude, culminating in what is today known as the policy of Vietnamization, is directed toward disengaging U.S. forces and shifting the burden of ground fighting to the ARVN. The U.S. supportive role is to be restricted to the minimum needed for ARVN to operate with success. Interdiction of supplies and men going south from North Vietnam on the interdiction mission. Moreover, when the air war against North Vietnam stopped on November 1, 1968, many of the planes thus made available immediately took up interdiction duty over the same supply routes further west and south, known collectively as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”
Humble Host is here–50 years later– by the grace of God, and the move from Phase III to Phase IV… In April 1968 a squad of newsmen came aboard Enterprise and conversation with air crew was on their agenda. Humble Host was usually sent to his stateroom when there was press aboard due to personal traits, which are now identified as politically-incorrect behavior and language. On this occasion I was allowed to speak to John Lengyl of the LA Times, as I recall. I went on record with an evaluation of Phase IV flying below the 19th parallel, versus the Phase III Alphas in the Red River Valley, ie, going downtown: I said the flying is twice the fun, five times more effective in results (bridges down, etc), and ten times safer. Thank you, Jesus…
RTR Quote for 29 March: LIEUTENANT GENERAL ADOLF GALLAND: “Only the spirit of attack, born in a brave heart will bring success to any fighter aircraft, no matter how highly developed it may be.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear
