Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #663… TO AMERICANS OPPOSING THE WAR: “WE SHALL WIN, AND SO SHALL YOU.”…… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED SIXTY-THREE of a review of history recorded fifty-years ago in the skies of North Vietnam, the jungles of South Vietnam, the streets of America, and at LBJ’s desk in the Oval Office…
30 December 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a nice Saturday in New York…
Page 1: GROUND WAR: “Northern Troops Kill 67 Marines In Buffer Clashes–106 Americans Wounded–Enemy Death Toll 60 in Battles in Two Provinces–Jets In Strafing Error- South Vietnamese Force is Attacked by 2 B-57s, 4 Die, 37 Hurt”…”…the United States command announced this morning that 48 marines died and 81 were wounded in battle Wednesday in a coastal village just north of the boundaries of Quangtri and Thuathien Provinces in the northern region of South Vietnam. At the height of the fighting an entire Marine battalion was under heavy fire from the North Vietnamese companies in camouflaged bunkers and fortifications. In the second action just to the south in nearby Quannam Province 19 marines were killed and 25 wounded on Thursday when two marine companies on a search and destroy mission were attacked from heavily fortified positions seven miles southwest of Holan. Yesterday the United States command announced that two Air Force B-57 jet bombers mistakenly strafed a South Vietnamese military unit on Thursday, killing 4 and wounding 34. Two American advisors were also wounded.
“A spokesman said that in South Vietnamese forces were locked in battle when the strafing took place in a jungle coastal area in Binthuan Province about 125 miles northeast of Saigon. The clashes in the northern I Corps zone marked the end of a relatively quiet period in that area. Military officials here have predicted that the northern provinces would be the scene of intense fighting in the next few months.”…. “Other ground action in the war was scattered with skirmishes and some brief, bitter clashes in areas from the demilitarized zone straddling the border with North Vietnam to the Mekong delta in the south.”…
Page 1: “Sihanouk’s Offer On Talks Weighed–State Department is Giving Careful Study To Idea of Cambodian Discussions”… Page 1: “Paul Whiteman, ‘The Jazz King’ Of The Jazz Age is Dead at 77”...”…made jazz respectable…reigned supreme as the ‘monarch of sweet danceable, jazz-like music in the 1920s and early ’30s.”… Page 1: “7 Men Sentenced in Civil Rights Killings–Two Get 10-Year Terms–Maximum in Mississippi Klan Plot Against 3 Slain in 1964″… Page 2: “4 U.S. Deserters Arrive in Sweden–Granted Temporary Visas After Asking Asylum”… “…from the Untied States carrier Intrepid arrived today from Moscow and said they hoped for become Swedish citizens. They have been granted temporary visas while their application for asylum as political refugees is considered…Asked why they had chosen to seek asylum in Sweden, they said that since Sweden was a traditionally neutral country and had stayed out of wars for 150 years, they thought it would be a suitable country for persons who intended to work actively for peace.”… Page 5: Picture of Lieutenant General Leonard Chapman relieving General Wallace Green as Commandant of the Marine Corps yesterday… Page 11; “OOPS!!! It’s The Icing On a City’s Winter”... “The Storm left a 1,200 mile stretch of the Appalachians, the interior of New York buried in snow and ice with more than a foot of snow in Albany.”… Page 14: “Night Clubs Plan Rocking Revels to Welcome 1968–New Years to Be Noisy and Expensive”… Page 21: “New Urban Riots Foreseen in United States–Psychologist Contends No Effective Deterrent Exists”…
30 December 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (31 Dec reporting 30 December ops)… Page 1:”…in North Vietnam American pilots were held by bad weather to 66 strike missions. They attacked supply points north of Haiphong. A Navy Phantom jet was shot down as it flew relatively low over a North Vietnamese island on a reconnaissance mission. (Reported in Hobson as downed on 29 December–LT J.F. Dowd and LTJG Garth Flint from USS Coral Sea). The two crewmen flew their crippled plane out over the Gulf of Tonkin, bailed out and were picked up by a helicopter. It was the 771st United States plane reported lost in North Vietnam in the war.”... “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were tow fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 30 December 1967…
(1) MAJOR D.A. SIBSON and CAPTAIN D. SNYDER were flying an F-100F Misty FAC of the 612th TFS and 37th TFW out of Phu Cat to provide control of a strike on a suspected SAM site southwest of Song Hoi when hit by 57mm anti-aircraft fire approaching the target area. They turned east and after crossing the coast, both MAJOR SIBSON and CAPTAIN SNYDER safely ejected from their doomed Misty Super Sabre and were rescued by an Air Force helicopter…. to fly and fight again…
(2) MAJOR SMITH J. SWORDS and 1LT MURRAY LAMAR WORTHAM were flying an F-4C of the 480th TFS and 366th TFW out of Danang on a night armed recce in Steel Tiger about 35 miles west of the DMZ when they spotted the lights of a convoy of trucks. The Phantom went down on its first attack on the target. MAJOR SWORDS and 1LT WORHAM were never heard of seen again. Searches were unsuccessful. Fifty years later neither warrior has been found. Both are “presumed dead.”…Left behind but not forgotten…
RIPPLE SALVO… #663… NYT 31 Dec 67, Page 2: “HO CHI MINH SENDS GREETINGS TO AMERICANS OPPOSING THE WAR”…
“President Ho Chi Minh of North Vietnam sent New Year’s greetings today (30th) to Americans opposed to United States involvement in the Vietnam war. ‘We shall win, and so will you,’ he said. The message, reported in full by the official North Vietnamese press agency and monitored in Tokyo, said:
“I send you, friends, my best wishes for the new year 1968. As you all know, no Vietnamese has ever come to the United States. Yet half a million United States troops have been sent to South Vietnam who, together with over 700,000 puppet and satellite troops, are daily massacring Vietnamese people and burning down Vietnamese villages and towns. In North Vietnam, thousands of United States planes have dropped over 800,000 tons of bombs, destroying schools, churches, hospitals, dikes and densely populated areas.
“The United States Government has caused hundreds of thousands of United States youth to die or be wounded in vain on Vietnamese battlefields. Each year, the United States Government spends tons of billions of dollars, the fruits of the American people’s sweat and toil to wage war in Vietnam. In a word, the United States aggressors have not only committed crimes against Vietnam, they have wasted United States lives and riches and stained the honor of the United States.
“Friends, in struggling to make the United States Government stop its aggression in Vietnam you are defending justice and at the same time, you are giving us support. To insure our fatherland’s independence, freedom and unity, with the desire to live in peace and friendship with all peoples the world over, including the American people, the entire Vietnamese people, united and of one mind, are determined to fight against the United States imperialist aggressors. We enjoy the support of brothers and friends on the five continents. We shall win, and so will you. Thank you for your support for the Vietnamese people.”…
RTR Quote for 30 December: WALT WHITMAN: “I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
