Christmas 1972
Missmus Bismus #4: Epilogue
Testimony of Pilot# 26 I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable. — Viktor Frankl All I claim to know is that laughter is the most reliable gauge of human nature. — Feodor Dostoyevsky At the ‘Prom’ – Mike ‘Manny’ Bader, Kent Bader, Ed ‘Boris’ Beakley, Paulette Beakley The four part Missbus Bismus series is based on memories brought on by the Christmas season and particularly those of 1972 during the Vietnam War. I’ve tried very hard to center the writing [...]
Missmus Bismus #3: Shangri-La…found
Testimony of Pilot# 25 The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow. Socrates The human race has only one effective weapon, and that is laughter. Mark Twain Shangri-La is a fictional place sought and wished for by many, described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. He describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley amongst high mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia – a permanently happy land, isolated from the world. USS Midway and Airwing Five had deployed seven weeks early because of the North [...]
Missmus Bismus #2: The Ornaments
Testimony of Pilot# 24 Missmus Bismus, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas USS Midway in San Diego Harbor. Photo by Sandi Whitteker. Remembered Sky was introduced on September 15th of 2012 and the first post included the introductory piece of Ghosts Of Christmas Past written for Christmas 1999 in relation to the upcoming first meeting over the holidays with “Frenchy”- fellow Naval Aviator and my future son-in-law. Ghosts offered the words of writers like James Michener and Herman Wouk as Christmas “ornaments” collected over a career and love affair with flying and Naval Aviation. Originally sent along the old-boy naval aviator e-mail chain, it was [...]
Missmus Bismus #1: The Ghosts of Christmas Past
Testimony of Pilot# 23 “It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!” Jacob Marley (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens) Missmus Bismus, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas The back wall in Boris’s toy shop, the domain of Elvis the Elf, fixer [...]
War and Remembrance 18 December 1972; Linebacker II and the General Who Made It So
On the third night of LB II three B-52s were shot down on the first raid. Seventh Air Force Headquarters Headquarters in Saigon and SAC Headquarters in Omaha went into shock. As a result they recalled the six B-52Gs targeted for Hanoi on the second raid, with the result that the North Vietnamese had done something that the Germans, Japanese, Soviets, Chinese, and North Koreans had never been able to to achieve - they had made an American bombing raid abort for fear of losses (Michelle, The Eleven Days of Christmas). On the third wave, two more G's were lost with [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories, Epilogue: Linebacker II and the POWs – Prelude to Coming Home
Note this post includes two videos, the first discussing B-52 tactics and the second finishing with comments from our POWs during the days of the Christmas operations. On the third night of LB II three B-52s were shot down on the first raid. Seventh Air Force Headquarters Headquarters in Saigon and SAC Headquarters in Omaha went into shock. As a result they recalled the six B-52Gs targeted for Hanoi on the second raid, with the result that the North Vietnamese had done something that the Germans, Japanese, Soviets, Chinese, and North Koreans had never been able to to achieve – [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (Final) Gifts, a Tree, and a Turkey with all the Trimmings
As the story has been told – as I noted previously- the end of the war in Vietnam is considered the result of the Christmas bombing operations of Linebacker II, and so the convention of telling this story. I’ll end the “Christmas Stories” series discussing what I choose to refer to as the gifts of Christmas 1972 – memories beyond price. […]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (8) “A-rab Beeper, come up voice.”
Professional history of war mostly addresses major battles, the dates, the generals, the admirals, tactics and technology, and then analysis of results, all for obvious reasons. But significant detail is invariably lost particularly when one event leads to a most significant occurrence -the end to the conflict. Almost without exception, this thread – the ending of Linebacker II with the agreement by the North Vietnamese to return to the negotiations in Paris on 2 January 1973, leading to President Nixon’s announcement on the 23rd and formal end of the Vietnam war on 27 January, and finally the return of our POWs – constitutes the concluding remarks of the [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (7) A Gentlemen’s Gentleman
Linebacker II was halted on 29 December 1972. The North Vietnamese agreed to come back to the negotiations in Paris. Having enjoyed Christmas, Midway left Singapore and celebrated New Years Eve at sea on the way back to the Gulf of Tonkin to continue combat missions into both North and South Vietnam. Missions were restricted above the 20th Parallel - no flights into Route Pac 6, the Red River Valley, Hanoi or Haiphong. Still it was wartime footing and operations off of a carrier are always problematic. Within days of recommencing we were to learn that lesson twice more. On [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (6) “We had been there too long!”
As I write this post, it is fast approaching 0659 30 December 2012 in Hanoi – 40 years exactly from the end to Linebacker II. President Nixon’s decision – the Linebacker II campaign – in the face of world wide denunciation and in opposition to many in his own cabinet has left NVN militarily “Winchester” – without the SAMs. Indeed Snako noted in Not on My Watch that in his memoirs published in 2007, General Giap, the highly respected leader of the NVA and victor at Dien Bien Phu, included the following quote: “What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped [...]
Blogroll
Christmas 1972
Missmus Bismus #4: Epilogue
Testimony of Pilot# 26 I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable. — Viktor Frankl All I claim to know is that laughter is the most reliable gauge of human nature. — Feodor Dostoyevsky At the ‘Prom’ – Mike ‘Manny’ Bader, Kent Bader, Ed ‘Boris’ Beakley, Paulette Beakley The four part Missbus Bismus series is based on memories brought on by the Christmas season and particularly those of 1972 during the Vietnam War. I’ve tried very hard to center the writing [...]
Missmus Bismus #3: Shangri-La…found
Testimony of Pilot# 25 The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow. Socrates The human race has only one effective weapon, and that is laughter. Mark Twain Shangri-La is a fictional place sought and wished for by many, described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. He describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley amongst high mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia – a permanently happy land, isolated from the world. USS Midway and Airwing Five had deployed seven weeks early because of the North [...]
Missmus Bismus #2: The Ornaments
Testimony of Pilot# 24 Missmus Bismus, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas USS Midway in San Diego Harbor. Photo by Sandi Whitteker. Remembered Sky was introduced on September 15th of 2012 and the first post included the introductory piece of Ghosts Of Christmas Past written for Christmas 1999 in relation to the upcoming first meeting over the holidays with “Frenchy”- fellow Naval Aviator and my future son-in-law. Ghosts offered the words of writers like James Michener and Herman Wouk as Christmas “ornaments” collected over a career and love affair with flying and Naval Aviation. Originally sent along the old-boy naval aviator e-mail chain, it was [...]
Missmus Bismus #1: The Ghosts of Christmas Past
Testimony of Pilot# 23 “It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!” Jacob Marley (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens) Missmus Bismus, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas The back wall in Boris’s toy shop, the domain of Elvis the Elf, fixer [...]
War and Remembrance 18 December 1972; Linebacker II and the General Who Made It So
On the third night of LB II three B-52s were shot down on the first raid. Seventh Air Force Headquarters Headquarters in Saigon and SAC Headquarters in Omaha went into shock. As a result they recalled the six B-52Gs targeted for Hanoi on the second raid, with the result that the North Vietnamese had done something that the Germans, Japanese, Soviets, Chinese, and North Koreans had never been able to to achieve - they had made an American bombing raid abort for fear of losses (Michelle, The Eleven Days of Christmas). On the third wave, two more G's were lost with [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories, Epilogue: Linebacker II and the POWs – Prelude to Coming Home
Note this post includes two videos, the first discussing B-52 tactics and the second finishing with comments from our POWs during the days of the Christmas operations. On the third night of LB II three B-52s were shot down on the first raid. Seventh Air Force Headquarters Headquarters in Saigon and SAC Headquarters in Omaha went into shock. As a result they recalled the six B-52Gs targeted for Hanoi on the second raid, with the result that the North Vietnamese had done something that the Germans, Japanese, Soviets, Chinese, and North Koreans had never been able to to achieve – [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (Final) Gifts, a Tree, and a Turkey with all the Trimmings
As the story has been told – as I noted previously- the end of the war in Vietnam is considered the result of the Christmas bombing operations of Linebacker II, and so the convention of telling this story. I’ll end the “Christmas Stories” series discussing what I choose to refer to as the gifts of Christmas 1972 – memories beyond price. […]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (8) “A-rab Beeper, come up voice.”
Professional history of war mostly addresses major battles, the dates, the generals, the admirals, tactics and technology, and then analysis of results, all for obvious reasons. But significant detail is invariably lost particularly when one event leads to a most significant occurrence -the end to the conflict. Almost without exception, this thread – the ending of Linebacker II with the agreement by the North Vietnamese to return to the negotiations in Paris on 2 January 1973, leading to President Nixon’s announcement on the 23rd and formal end of the Vietnam war on 27 January, and finally the return of our POWs – constitutes the concluding remarks of the [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (7) A Gentlemen’s Gentleman
Linebacker II was halted on 29 December 1972. The North Vietnamese agreed to come back to the negotiations in Paris. Having enjoyed Christmas, Midway left Singapore and celebrated New Years Eve at sea on the way back to the Gulf of Tonkin to continue combat missions into both North and South Vietnam. Missions were restricted above the 20th Parallel - no flights into Route Pac 6, the Red River Valley, Hanoi or Haiphong. Still it was wartime footing and operations off of a carrier are always problematic. Within days of recommencing we were to learn that lesson twice more. On [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (6) “We had been there too long!”
As I write this post, it is fast approaching 0659 30 December 2012 in Hanoi – 40 years exactly from the end to Linebacker II. President Nixon’s decision – the Linebacker II campaign – in the face of world wide denunciation and in opposition to many in his own cabinet has left NVN militarily “Winchester” – without the SAMs. Indeed Snako noted in Not on My Watch that in his memoirs published in 2007, General Giap, the highly respected leader of the NVA and victor at Dien Bien Phu, included the following quote: “What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped [...]