Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #426… “THE DECISION TO DELAY TARGETING THE AIRFIELDS IS COSTING LIVES AND LOSSES”…but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX of a long look back on OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER one day at a time…
5 MAY 1967… HEAD LINES and leads from The New York Times on a wet and cloudy Friday in NYC…
Page 1: “U.S. Marines Drive For Final Stretch of Hell in Vietnam”…”The United States Marines began another push today toward the top of Hill 881 North, the last enemy mountaintop directly threatening their isolated base camp at Khe Sanh. They moved out after North Vietnamese troops striking before dawn laid waste to an American run camp for local militiamen at Lanvei, four miles west of Khe Sanh. More than 40 men, two of them U.S. officers were killed in the attack…. 300 North Vietnamese troops struck against 2 Americans and 200 irregulars of the Bru tribe of the Montagnards (Hill people). Marine General Walt said 157 Marines had been killed and 738 wounded in the last 11 days of fighting in the area. Confirmed enemy dead at 506.”… Page 1: “Discussion of War By Fulbright Leads to Apology to Colleagues”...”Senator J.W. Fulbright, Democrat of Arkansas, was reported today to have charged that some leading Congressional supporters of the Vietnam War were influenced by their interest in booming defense industries in their home states…Mr. Fulbright then issued an apology for ‘any embarrassment’ to members of Congress. The Senator had criticized the military–industrial complex in a Newsday interview and mentioned Senators Russell and Jackson and Representative Mendell Rivers s benefiting from defense spending in their constituencies…. Senator Fulbright also said to Newsday: ‘Johnson is now determined to win a military victory in Vietnam and as a result there is little hope for peace negotiations. Newsday’s publisher is Bill Moyers, former press secretary for President Johnson.”…
Page 1: “Draft Bill Voted By Senate Panel”... “The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously recommended today a four-year extension of the Selective Service act that would preserve President Johnson’s power to draft eligible 19-year olds.”…James Reston comment on draft on Editorial Page: “The long argument over the military draft is ending in a compromise. It will not satisfy anybody–including the Joint Chiefs, or the students, or the drop-outs, or the Congress–but it will undoubtedly be more equal than the present Selective Service system.”…Page 6: “Sarte At War Trial Terms Rusk a ‘Mediocre Functionary'”…”Paul Sarte, the French philosopher who heads the International War Crimes Tribunal denounced Secretary State Dean Rusk and defended Bertrand Russell: ‘The old Englishman is the most famous of British savants and a serious gentleman, who refuses to waste his time with him (Rusk)–he is a mediocre functionary.” (Rusk had said: “I don’t want to gt into an argument with a 94-year old British philosopher.”)… Page 2: “South Vietnam’s Armed Forces Cut Desertion”… “…forced labor camps are one way South Vietnam is reducing desertions. Desertion rate is down by half in one year.”... Page 8: “Students at CCNY Rally Hurl Eggs At Supporters of War”…” ‘We can’t sit here and listen to your lies,’ and with that shout as a signal about three-quarters of the 250 students at a rally yesterday in support of the war walked out. Speakers at the rally were drowned out by chanted antiwar slogans. The chairman and organizer of the rally said ‘their intolerance is amazing. They are the chief practitioners of what they call suppression of dissent.’…”... Dean Thaddeus Seymour of Dartmouth said of such behavior: …’The students flagrantly abused the cardinal principle that a man’s opinions, however unpopular or controversial deserve a free and unobstructed platform.'”..
5 MAY 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (6 May reporting 5 May ops)… Page 2: “New Hanoi Raid Reported”... “The Hanoi radio reported that American planes bombed and strafed the North Vietnamese capital and its suburbs in ‘a serious escalation of the war.’ It said seven United States United States planes were shot down in the Hanoi area and a number of pilots had been captured…The American planes attacked a heavily populated Hanoi and suburbs and some commercial installations in Hanoi yesterday.”…
“U.S. spokesman said American jets flying our of Thailand attacked the Yen Vein rail yards six miles east of Hanoi and the Hadong army barracks four miles southwest of the capital.”…”Air Force pilots attacked a surface-to-air missile transporter carrying three missiles 12 miles north of the demilitarized zone. Two of the missiles were destroyed and there were six secondary explosions on the transporter indicating it was carrying live warheads. The transporter was attacked on Highway 101 about two miles north of the SAM site that was reported on and destroyed in a strike on April 29 by American ships and aircraft.”
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 5 May 1967…
(1) 1LT JAMES RICHARD SHIVELY was flying an F-105D of the 357th TFS and355th TFW out of Takhli on a flak suppression mission supporting a strike on the rail yards at Yen Vien. His aircraft was downed by ground fire as the strike group was egressing from the strike. 1LT SHIVELY was forced to eject about 15 miles southwest of Hanoi and was captured immediately. He was interned as a POW and returned in February 1973.
(2) LCOL JAMES LINDBERG HUGHES was flying an F-105D of the 469th TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat and leading a strike on the Hadong army barracks when hit by 85-mm fire at 17,000-feet approaching the target area. He was forced to eject about 15 miles west of Hanoi near Hoa Lac and was captured and imprisoned. He was released and returned to the United States in 1973.
(3) LCOL GORDON ALBERT LARSON was flying his 94th mission in an F-105D of the 469th TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat and leading an element of the strike on Hadong when LCOL HUGHES aircraft was downed. LCOL LARSON immediately diverted the strike effort into a SAR operation. Unfortunately, his aircraft was hit by an SA-2 missile forcing him to eject at very high-speed. He survived the ejection and was subsequently captured and imprisoned in Hanoi. He was released and returned home in March 1973.
RIPPLE SALVO… #426… The reluctance of the President, Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara to authorize strikes on the six airfields in North Vietnam was a costly error. That was the message HANSON BALDWIN relayed to the world in a “news analysis” under a headline “U.S. Bombs vs. MIGs” in the NYT on 5 May 1967… I quote…
“United States attacks on two of the six principal fields used by the North Vietnamese Air Force have had relatively little effect on the air war so far. Officers agree that the bombings, though perhaps of political and psychological importance were bound to have limited military effectiveness because of the restrictions that govern them.
“Air officers say that the attacks, which began April 25 violated some of the basic principles of war. Normally, the enemy’s air fields are the first target in any war in which air power is involved. Neutralization of the enemy’s air power is essential to gain and maintain air superiority with a minimum of losses. But the United States has been bombing North Vietnam for two years and the principal jet bases were not bombed at all until 10 days ago. The delay permitted gradual development of a North Vietnam Air Force that virtually did not exist three years ago. North Vietnamese pilots trained in the Soviet Union have received ‘advanced on-the=job training’ in North Vietnam. New planes have been provided by the Russians and the North Vietnamese air order of battle now includes 100-120 fighters, some of them equipped with the Soviet A-2 heat seeking missile.
“Second principle of war violated: the attacks were restricted to only two of the six airfields, and they were the least important. Indeed, Kep’s runway is being lengthened and there weren’t any aircraft there when the the airfield was attacked.
“Finally, the delay has allowed North Vietnam to develop an increasingly effective integrated air defense system of MIGs, SAMs and 5,000 to 7,000 antiaircraft guns in addition to well armed civilians. (and EW and GCI radar)…
“Greater freedom of action and more effectiveness for United States aircraft should be , as these officers see the situation, the strategic objective of the airfield bombings. But because the bombings have been piecemeal and delayed, and because Hanoi has been forewarned and used the time well, they say this result cannot now be achieved without much greater United States effort and more casualties than would have been required a year of two ago.”…
Humble Host conclusion: Gradualism is a Strategy of Defeat…
Lest we forget… Bear
