Run Run Cricket Run, page 20
“Our greatest defenses were two giant bodies of water between us and the Germans and Japanese, which seemed to counsel, ‘Don’t risk more American lives just to save the Europeans again.’ Pearl Harbor, of course changed all that. Admiral Yamamoto feared he had awakened a sleeping giant, and he was right. He would live to regret it and die because of it. By 1944, the Japanese had captured all of the colonies in South East Asia including what was called Indochina: Laos, Cambodia, and Viet Nam. They installed a puppet French government called the Vichy Regime to manage the territory since they didn’t have the manpower to both govern and continue their expansion.
“There were several groups in Indochina, including the communists, who established operations in the early forties to fight the Japanese. Most of the Vietnamese opposition was based over the border, in China. Our allies, the Nationalist Chinese led by Chiang Kai-shek, created and funded a Vietnamese resistance movement called the Dong Minh Hoi, later called the Viet Minh; this included both communists and non-communists. They were hoping for Intel on their common enemy, the Japanese, and when it didn’t materialize, they released Ho Chi Minh from jail. Ho returned to Viet Nam after 30 or so years in exile to lead an underground movement to liberate his homeland from the Japanese. Western intelligence agencies assisted Ho, primarily the American Office of Strategic Services. The Free French also used him to undermine the Vichy French-Japanese collaboration. Ho was employed by the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA) in our clandestine operations against the Japanese. He also rescued American pilots shot down and brought them back to safety.
“We weren’t in the war with the Japanese because there were two big oceans protecting us, but were obviously sympathetic to the French and other European allies. At the request of the French, we put embargoes on exports of steel and oil to Japan. In retribution, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, both to punish us for the embargo and hoping to defang us to allow them to solidify control over the entire Pacific.”
“Are you saying Pearl Harbor was payback for our support of the French in Indo-China against the Japanese?” The colonel was obviously puzzled. This was not a topic widely discussed in most history lectures he ever attended. Of course, as he admitted later, he was an engineering major.
Thatcher took a sip of his drink and answered, “Yep. The die was cast. We would have been involved sooner or later, but the oil embargo triggered the resultant Pearl Harbor attack and resulted in two dramatic changes: first, it accelerated our involvement by leading to a huge outpouring of nationalism which would never have materialized without the direct provocation to our nation. Think about it for a minute. Can you imagine a huge influx of young American men volunteering for service to help the French and British? Volunteering to put their lives on the line to save the French, again? It’s doubtful a draft would have been successful without a direct attack on us. So, our support of the French, while not entirely altruistic, indirectly led to the attack on Pearl Harbor and a sea change in our outlook on the war. The draft boards were overwhelmed. American boys were being drafted right out of high school, although some volunteered without waiting for a notice. The change in American attitudes was not only dramatic, but also in some sense it’s why we’re here today.”
Dinner was served and the history lesson was suspended. Then Thatcher continued.
“In a nutshell, the French were here before the war to exploit the natural resources. To be honest, they weren’t inclined to come back after the drubbing they took in WWII, but Eisenhower encouraged and supported them to return. Eisenhower was concerned both as General and President that a domino effect such as we witnessed in Europe and Korea would be replicated in Southeast Asia. Remember, the communists took half of Germany, and all of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Eisenhower was the author, if you will, of the policy of containment. In Southeast Asia, he feared the Chinese Communists taking everything as far as India, including Laos, Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Indonesia. Ironically, he was worrying about the wrong communists. The Russians were far more aggressive in the final analysis. That’s why our F-105 pilots are flying against them in North Viet Nam raids, not the Chinese.”
“In any event, the French came back to re-exploit their colonies, if I may use that expression, especially Viet Nam, with our encouragement using tanks and mechanized vehicles and by building an impregnable fort, the now infamous Dien Bien Phu. They suffered a humiliating defeat there in 1954 despite our effort to assist them with aerial re-supply and bombardment.”
“Eisenhower, incidentally, originally wanted to use Laos as the stopper in this western policy of communist containment, not Viet Nam. How Viet Nam became ended up as the line in the sand is a long story, but we’ll pick that up another time.”
Coffee and desert were served. Then the history lesson was concluded, beginning with Col. Melendez. “But we’re not French, and we’re not using mechanized convoys in this current war. We’re using Green Berets and Smart Bombs, infrared photography, and seismic and acoustic sensors transmitting real-time information on truck traffic.”
“Without being insubordinate, colonel, is there really that much difference in the French approach and our efforts to stop human porters walking under triple canopy jungle on the trail using F-4s and B-52s? We all know how much of their operation is hidden underground and under triple canopy jungle. We all know about the Tonkin Gulf Incident in which we probably faked at least one of the two attacks on the U.S.S. Maddox and how that led to Congressional Authority to support the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. That opened the door to insert American ground forces over here in August of 1964. What we should have done was to recognize Ho Chi Minh as more of a nationalist than a communist and supported him with some anti-Chinese strings attached. America, and only America, could have intervened in 1954. It was a great opportunity. China will never be a friend of America as long as the communists are in charge.
“There was a perfect model in President Tito in Yugoslavia. He was a communist, but like Ho Chi Minh, he was considered one of the most effective resistance leaders in WWII Europe. Some have suggested he was too authoritarian, but most Yugoslavs liked him, and he was considered one of the leaders in the non-aligned movement along with Nehru in India, Nasser in Egypt and Sukarno in Indonesia. Expecting an American style democracy in a third world nation with practically zero educational attainment was, if I may opine, not rational.”
“Well,” answered the colonel, “our Bomb Damage Assessments say we’re doing a pretty good job of containment. As a matter of fact, you’re doing a pretty good job. Didn’t you kill 12 trucks night before last?”
“I just did what my navigator, Steve Kelso, told me to do, colonel. The A-1s that dropped the napalm destroyed the trucks. I always find trucks with Steve, but the real question is, while we were attacking them, how many more were driving with impunity a half a mile away, knowing they were completely safe since we were preoccupied? My assessment is that we are spending enormous sums of money to destroy what I am sure is a very small percentage of the total capacity. We might be better off just offering to buy the trucks from them.”
The two senior officers laughed. Coffee was brought, and there was only a temporary lull in the conversation. The Squadron Commander resumed the questioning. Sam was starting to doze.
“Let’s change the conversation to something more strategic.” The commander was showing true concern, not simply a casual interest. “Based on your first tour and this one, what does your personal experience tell you about the future? Is there no hope at all?”
“No Sir. As my mother used to say, ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans’. Our efforts here are hopeless. The outcome of this was determined before we ever got involved.”
“Based on what? Tea leaves? A Ouija Board?” Colonel Travers asked. Travers was perhaps a little belligerent, not at all as sincerely interested as the Squadron Commander.
“No sir, rice.” Thatcher was not insubordinate but calm, showing no sign of irritation.
“Rice?” asked Colonel Melendez.
“Yes sir. Bernard Fall answered your question with an old Viet Nam proverb: ‘A grain of rice is worth a drop of blood.’”
“Does that mean something as simple as food is a part of the North Vietnamese motivation?” Travers replaced his former belligerence with more than a little curiosity.
“Actually, yes, sir. Its significance is that our concept of democracy, which means so much to us, is not even in their top ten. Democracy doesn’t work very well when starvation is an ever-present threat and people couldn’t read a constitution if there was one. According to Bernard Fall, the Asian economy is highly sensitive to food, especially rice. The population growth is outstripping the food supply in many Asian regions, including North Viet Nam. A bad crop there can mean starvation for thousands. South Viet Nam is a rice-surplus region. They can actually triple the crop there, although they don’t bother, and rice is a major factor in the war. The North would love to squeeze every grain they could out of the South to feed their people. And let me insert one more little-known fact: North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese aren’t monolithic: they are more like Yankees and Rebels here in the United States. Their dialects are noticeably different, much like our Northern and Southern dialects. South Viet Nam is much warmer. It rarely dips below 68°F in Saigon, even at night. In the North, average temperatures can average 60°F from January to March. During these months, you’ll see people in the North wearing thick winter jackets; the mornings are especially cold, even dipping into single digits. Farther North, in the mountains, it snows. Coffee there is less prevalent; most Northerners would prefer a cup of tea and cafes are rare. Northerners prefer noodles to rice, although rice is still the staple crop in most of Southeast Asia. While you’ll certainly find exceptions to this rule, Southerners tend to be quick to smile, whereas Northerners are seen as more aloof. I’m not suggesting the presence of foreigners, ‘round eyes’, as we’re called, doesn’t offer a tremendous incentive to launch an invasion of the South. No one wants a foreign country dictating its policies. Let’s not forget our own Revolution. And we were fighting people who looked like us and spoke the same language. But in a nation where starvation is an ever-present threat, a grain of rice is, literally, worth a drop of blood. We view communism as evil, which certainly makes sense in a western nation where liberty is cherished, but we don’t understand that simple survival, and especially food, trumps everything else in Southeast Asia. On a personal level, it’s obvious. What hasn’t been so obvious to the planners in Washington is the North can’t give up trying to unite the two halves of Viet Nam since they mate perfectly, the North being the industrial sector, and the South being the food supply. And it’s not just Viet Nam. The same situation exists in many regions of the Orient, as Professor Fall pointed out.”
“So, is that the major lesson of Viet Nam?” asked Lt. Col. Travers.
“Probably the most misunderstood. Imagine our Midwestern breadbasket states being forcibly carved out of the U.S. and given to another country, such as Canada. How would we react?”
“I get your point.” The colonel, finishing his coffee, motioned for another. “One last cup, Ted? Sam?”
His question woke Sam up; he was hoping for something a little stronger than coffee, but he decided to put on a good front.
“Thank you, sir.” They both spoke at once. While waiting for the coffee, Thatcher made one concluding remark.
“One last factor here is the corruption that exists in an artificially contrived government. For example, on his many visits here, Professor Fall kept reading reports in Saigon newspapers about the South Vietnamese government claiming loyalty from a suspiciously high percentage of the towns and villages, around 80-percent of them. This is important because the culture here is that the rule of the Emperor stops at the Bamboo Gate, meaning the state doesn’t control the towns or villages even though their loyalty to the government is obviously important. Kind of like our concept of States’ Rights. By reading the same newspaper every morning in Saigon, Fall plotted the reports of the assassinations of the regional governors and village chiefs. He found the actual territory controlled by Saigon was about 20-percent, not the 80-percent claimed by the Vietnamese government. The U.S. hadn’t even questioned the reports of the South Vietnamese government and the Western press parroted the remarks of the Saigon officials. What we have here is an artificially created government with little loyalty from the population. The money we gave them, and still do, for public works and other government services is largely pocketed by corrupt officials. We’ve already lost the war. If the U.S. Armed Forces were not here, pandemonium would be instant and not very pretty.”
Lt. Col. Melendez was silent for a while, pondering the implications. “I guess what Fall was saying is that a western nation, even one with no economic aspirations, cannot possibly appreciate the dynamics of the economic and social structure of a third world nation.”
“You get an ‘A’ from Professor Fall, colonel. Frankly, the North Vietnamese soldiers we face are well fed, some for the first time in their lives, and they have a sense of importance they would never have growing rice. And the southerners, like our American southerners, have a culture that despises a central government. And all they want to do is live at peace, behind their Bamboo Gate, with no interference from anyone. The government we created in South Viet Nam has very little loyalty.”
Thatcher paused and finished his coffee. He didn’t speak right away, but collected his thoughts and then replied.
“Ho helped us get rid of the Japs, and he’ll have no problem getting rid of us. Now all we have to do is figure out what we’re doing here.”
Lt. Colonel Travers responded somewhat emphatically, “I know why I’m here! Getting ahead in the military means logging some serious duty. There may never be a WWIII, but if there is, we need men with experience in combat. I’m not so naïve as to believe we’re making the world safe for democracy, but the atrocities of the North Vietnamese against civilians and our own POWs allows me to sleep at night after a successful airstrike.”
Thatcher nodded. “I understand what you’re saying colonel, and I don’t disagree. But I’m also here for the same reason Professor Fall was. I’m hoping the pressure we’re applying may result in a negotiated settlement to prevent a bloodbath when we realize we can’t win. But, I’m not optimistic.”
Sam, who had dozed through much of the conversation, chimed in, slurred in actually. “Hell, this is the only war we’ve got. What are we going to do without it?”
The other three officers laughed. Sam was a character, one who endeared most men to him. The ones who didn’t like him were, as a rule, arrogant and superficial. The great dinner made the evening a pleasant diversion from the flak-filled skies the four officers would encounter in the days to follow.
Col Melendez lit a cigar and looked directly at his dinner companions. “Ted and Sam, I have enjoyed this. Thanks for the company and the conversation. I have no quarrel with your prediction of failure, Ted. We’ve done nothing but backpedal for years, and from what I’ve personally seen, we can’t blow up enough trucks to win this war. If we destroy one, two more take its place. So, how exactly, and when, do you think the end will come?”
Thatcher finished his drink, paused briefly, then concluded: “based on what I’ve seen since my last tour two years ago, colonel, we won’t have to wait long. I can’t see any decrease in truck traffic despite the substantial increase in bombing, and the anti-aircraft fire is much greater now than two years ago. My guess is there are plans in the works in Washington to try one last desperate attempt to close the trail long enough to get us out. How, I don’t know, but the trail is the key. Stop the supplies and the NVA and Viet Cong will be weakened. The war will still be lost because of the rice problem, but it might take years more.
Thatcher paused for a few seconds.
“While I’m at it, colonel, I would like to encourage your continued support of our Laotian allies. The war in the Plain de Jarres is not going well nor is our effort right across the River. Laos is practically submerged in the news because of the attention Viet Nam is getting. Most Americans back home couldn’t find Laos on a map. The Laotians aren’t hopeful. Maybe we can discuss that over dinner the next time we meet.”
“I would look forward to it, Ted. Let’s do this again.”
The officers finished their drinks and exited from the cool air conditioning of the Club to the oppressive humidity and hot air of a Thailand summer. As they put on their flight caps, an OV-10 roared by overhead, outbound for the trail. The war was back on.
22
Tanks for the Memory
Nail 77, Lt. Tom Stevens and his navigator, Maj. Art Kazinski, launched at 2200 hours, paired again by the Squadron Ops officer to put the most inexperienced pilot with the most experienced navigator. On three previous missions, they performed well, amassing a total of over 50 trucks, thanks to good weather and the professional job done by the NKP-based A-1s. In the past week, no one on the night missions was hit, let alone shot down by AAA. The daytime FACs were not so lucky. One O-2 returned, miraculously, missing half of the rear propeller. Capt. Ron McClannahan, the pilot, was marking a 23mm gun for an attack by F-4s and got hit as he pulled off after firing a Willy Pete. That night in the Nail Hole a cluster of Nails, anxious to hear his story, asked what it felt like.
“It felt like the plane was going to shake apart.”
Someone asked if he shut down the rear engine.
“Hell no! As long as that puppy was turning, I was going to get all the push I could out of it.”
The laughter was immediate and predictable. Staying alive meant getting as far away as possible from an active gun. Saving an aircraft engine was so far down the list it didn’t register.
