Posted on 05/24/2016 10:59:57 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
More than four decades after the fall of Saigon, Washington is still holding on to various classified details about its fight in Southeast Asia. Among the Pentagon media arm’s still-secret records are photos and video of updated World War II-era bombers the U.S. Air Force sent to hit Laos.
In May 1966, pilots and crews from the 603rd Air Commando Squadron brought eight B-26K Invaders from their base in Louisiana to Nakhon Phanom Air Base in Thailand. Desperate to stem the flow of troops and supplies flowing down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam, the flying branch had sent the modified planes to help hunt down enemy convoys.
“It was a fantastic improvement over the old aircraft,” Air Force colonel Joseph Kittinger, a veteran of the deployment, said in an official interview in 1974. “[But] the aircraft wasn’t designed for what we were using it for.”
War Is Boring obtained this and other previously secret internal oral histories through the Freedom of Information Act. As of April 2016, the Defense Media Activity said it had at least two classified items relating to these sometimes hair-raising missions in their archive.
Well before the United States became embroiled in its war in Vietnam, the Douglas B-26 Invader had a storied history in the American military.
Originally called the A-26, the planes had attacked German and Japanese forces during World War II, bombed North Korean and Chinese formations during the Korean War and become a sometimes infamous symbol of small wars and covert actions in the early stages of the Cold War.
For its time, the twin-engine Invader boasted an impressive top speed of over 350 miles per hour combined with a range of 1,400 mile
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
I was Army so I don’t pretend to know that much about what kinds of thing the Air Force was doing with these old planes. I was SW of Pleiku City in 1967-68. I was an aircraft mechanic for Army fixed wing stuff but had to OJT on Beavers and Hueys after you guys “stole” our Caribous. Since I was right on the airstrip I got to see a lot of odd birds, especially some of the stuff Air America flew.
I’ve always been a WWII plane buff - I must have built a model of every plane the Allies as a kid in the 1950s. One thing I do know is that it took a helluva lot of killin’ to bring down an A-1E!
And at 12:00 tonight, the “Lion of the Senate” can add one more day to the days he has not had a drink.
I usually do not make light of the Dearly Departed. But in Ted’s case, along with Hillary and Bill, if I am still alive when they go to their reward, I will make an exception.
"Good answer. I like the way you think,"
Karma
Barack Hussein Obama, a man with no record of personal accomplishment, no leadership experience, and a man with strong connections to terrorists, criminals, racists, and anti-American Communists pulled it off and was elected then re-elected President of these United States. What does this mean and what does it say about the American people? Could it be that karma will finally bestow the consequences of dishonorable behavior on the American people?
Why do I say this? In answer to my question, let me remind you of this statement and where these words took the American people:
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Inaugural address, Friday, January 20, 1961
With these words ringing in our ears, my generation went to Vietnam and promised the Vietnamese people we would stand shoulder to shoulder with them until their freedom was secure and the enemies of liberty were defeated. By 1973, with the Paris Peace Accords signed by the United States, South Vietnam, and North Vietnam, the Vietnam War was effectively over and the United States and South Vietnam had effectively won the war.
But, it is to America’s eternal shame and disgrace that the American people then sided with Communist North Vietnam and betrayed the South Vietnamese people who had believed and trusted us. In 1974, the American people elected Democrats to our Congress who had rather see our country defeated than allow a Republican President to receive credit for defeating our enemies. This Democrat led Congress (the infamous 94th) cut off funding and support for South Vietnam and abandoned a valiant ally to their fate. American troops were withdrawn, but we departed with the hollow promise that we would return if the Republic of South Vietnam was ever invaded by Communist North Vietnam. As we all remember, in 1975 Communist North Vietnam invaded the South and the United States did nothing in response.
The tactic we had taught the South Vietnamese was to, when invaded by the North, fall back to a defendable position, stall the communist advance, force the communists to mass their forces before South Vietnam’s defenses, and this would allow time for American forces and air power to return to assist them as we had promised. South Vietnam did just that; for twelve days, outnumbered ten to one, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) held and stalled the communist’s advance outside Saigon near a little town called Xuan Loc.
Outside Xuan Loc during April 1975, in an effort as gallant as that of the Spartans at Thermopylae, the ARVN 18th Infantry Division held two North Vietnamese Army Corps at bay for twelve days. Every infantryman in the ARVN 18th Infantry Division died in that stand. None ran away and none survived. They died to a man fighting overwhelming odds and believing to the end we Americans would return as promised.
Just before the last ARVN soldier of the 18th Infantry Division died, he might have rolled over on his back and looked to the sky hoping to see the contrails of American B-52 bombers and he saw nothing. This last ARVN soldier then knew that he, along with all the Vietnamese people, had been betrayed. With his dying breath, this soldier must have then turned his gaze heavenly and beseeched God to Damn America.
Yes, there is such a thing as karma where dreadful consequences are meted out in recompense for dishonorable behavior. The American people’s just rewards for abandoning a valiant ally during their time of need could have been that the chickens came home to roost on the American people with an Obama Presidency, a Nancy Pelosi Congress, a Harry Reid Senate, a John Roberts Supreme Court, and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving people.
The election of 2008 and re-election of 2012 was about more than just Obama, his arrogance, his empty resume, and his traitorous comrades. Just as karma provides consequences for dishonorable behavior, there are also adverse consequences for irresponsible behavior. As a people deserve the government they vote into office, they also deserve the consequences resulting from that government’s actions or inaction. The consequences of a government not securing a country’s borders is that a people will lose their country as we are now losing ours to an invasion of illegal aliens. The consequences of not securing a country’s electoral processes to prevent voter fraud is the country will lose its Democracy to a Thugocracy as we have lost ours to a Chicago-mob run Coup d’état.
But the final insult to our Republic is with the election of Barack Hussein Obama, an avowed Marxist Communist, a significant chapter in American History finally closed. Our sixty year long Cold War with Communism is over and the Communists won the war.
These words precede those of President Kennedy, so no one can say we didn’t see this coming:
“We cannot expect the Americans to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of Socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have Communism.”
Nikita Khrushchev, 1959
As we Americans continue to live out the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”
By
Donald J. Taylor
A Vietnam Veteran
I followed Vietnam since 1962. Wish I’d never heard of the place.
The Peace Treaty designed by Kissinger and Nixon was part of the Vietnamization of the war. To extricate our combat troops from a war that our political leadership had no intention of winning, going all the way back to the “strategy” designed by Robert McNamara, William Bundy and John McNaughton.
Hanoi was biding their time waiting for us to quit the field. Cutting off Saigon made the process much faster for the Communists, but the defeat of South Vietnam was baked into the cake at the point when we refused to treat Hanoi like we had Berlin and Tokyo. And that decision was made in 1964.
I’ll definitely check out the HR McMaster book, and thank you (I guess) for the coffee nose-flush your tag line just caused.
The South Vietnamese government was never all that popular. The perception was that it gave too much power to the minority Catholic population.
That was the WWII b-26 in Tampa Bay, not the A-26. It was the old B-26that was the hard to fly one. The Baltimore whore.
Were it in my power, I'd then make their remains available to every known necrophiliac in the country.
You’ve probably already seen my #32, but if not, take a look. Clearly we’re on the same page regarding the history. It’s amazing how ignorant most are about this.
We defeated the insurgency in 1968, irregular warfare by the north from 68-71 and the helped the ARVN beat the first conventional invasion in 1972. When Congress cut off support, the North attacked with four Corps in 1974, including armor, artillery and air support. It was too much for the ARVN.
“The South Vietnamese government was never all that popular. The perception was that it gave too much power to the minority Catholic population”
That was certainly President Kennedy’s opinion. So he approved of a coup d’etat against President Diem that resulted in Diem’s assassination and the decapitation of the government of South Vietnam three weeks before JFK himself was killed.
Hanoi could hardly believe their good fortune when Diem was killed. South Vietnam was left in chaos for years with a revolving door of failed governments. The murder of Diem contributed to Lyndon Johnson’s decision to deploy American ground combat troops in South Vietnam, although without consulting the JCS on what they should do.
My Dad was XO of a Caribou company in SVN in 66-67 IIRC. He was mostly in Can Tho.
..the 123’s were special..*smiles*..electronic warfare..(inferred) they went hunting for truck convoys...could pick up spark plug firing...then call in Spectre....or a flight of F-4s...to clean up
Ouch. That’s one heckuva assessment, and I find no faults.
Yeah, you’re #32 is completely accurate. The cutoff of ammo, gas and parts sealed South Vietnam’s doom.
My difference with some other posters on this thread is whether that alone was why South Vietnam was conquered. The JCS had warned Johnson as early as 1964 that we either had to go in extremely heavy or stay out. Johnson wanted half-measures that gave the appearance that we were doing something but wouldn’t win the war. He didn’t care about that, it was all about perceptions and he was willing to sacrifice the lives of American GIs to that end. Nixon inherited a doomed strategy and his decision was to slowly extricate us.
Kennedy should have drawn the line in Laos back in 1962, but he was too feckless to do it. That would have kept the center of gravity outside of South Vietnam and in a place where we could have brought our superior military power to bear.
...Ever see the C-119’s
There is a man who was in there and knows. Communists are very good at killing people who disagree. ARVN could NOT fight without equipment and ammo and airplane maintenance etc. The Democrats assassinated a country that we had bleed and paid for. The end came with the Cooper/ Church Amendment (in 75) to the budget cutting off the pathetic little we were sending TOTALLY. DEMOCRATS are totally to blame after 55,000 died — 125,000 AMERICANS!!wounded. 2.7 million served there. Over 300,000 ARVN died fighting for freedom AND WE CUT OFF THE MONEY? And this war is not even mentioned in any public school? See If I’m wrong!! 100% DEMOCRATS!!i DON’T KNOW HOW THEY SLEEP AT NIGHT.
We could have won the Vietnam war but the generals were not allowed to do what's necessary to win. Not sure I would classify it as a win. More like a stalemate / draw.
Now we won the Iraq war. But the aftermath ...not so much (sarcasm).
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