Thunder in the Night

Written by Bernie Weisz, Vietnam Historian September 18th, 2010 Pembroke Pines, Florida contact: Bernwei1@aol.com E mail: BernWei1@aol.com Title of Review: "In The Navy of the "4th Reich To Return To an Unappreciative Nation!" To understand Ray Kopp's book "Thunder in the Night", a brief overview of events in S.E. Asia must be mentioned. After the 1968 infamous "Tet Offensive", American involvement was doomed. To quickly recap what happened,onJanuary 21, 1968, a shattering barrage of shells, mortars and rockets slam into the Marine base at Khe Sanh. Eighteen Marines were killed instantly, 40 were wounded. The initial attack continued for two days. this was only a prelude, as on January 30 - 31, 1968, which was the Vietnamese "New Year" known as the Tet holiday, Vietcong units fanned out all over supposedly safe and secure South Vietnam. In more than 100 cities and towns, shock attacks by Vietcong sappers and suicide bent commandos were followed by wave after wave of supporting troops. When the battles for the cities of South Vietnam ended, 37,000 Vietcong troops had been killed. Many more had been wounded or captured, and the fighting had created more than a half million civilian refugees. Casualties included most of the Vietcong's best fighters, political officers and secret organizers. Incongruously, for North Vietnam, Tet was nothing less than a catastrophe. But for the Americans, who lost 2,500 men, it was a serious blow to public support. Walter Cronkite pronounced on national television that the Tet offensive was a “defeat” for America and his announcement was widely credited as a turning point in American support for the war. In a famous half-hour news special, he declared that in the aftermath of Tet “it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.” Lyndon Johnson was reported to be dismayed at the prospect of losing Cronkite’s support for the war. And indeed, public support for the war dropped 25% following Cronkite’s declaration and media coverage of the offensive in general. In 1969, President Richard M. Nixon took office as the new U.S. President, replacing L.B.J. . He promised to achieve in Vietnam "Peace With Honor." The plan was to negotiate a settlement with the North Vietnamese, enabling the half million U.S. troops to be withdrawn while simultaneously keeping the corrupt and incompetent South Vietnamese government in power. Nixon's plans looked admirable, but the war rolled on. He authorized "Operation Menu", which was a bombing campaign of North Vietnamese and Vietcong bases within Cambodia, despite supposed government restrictions over ignored "Rules of Engagement" Over the following four years, U.S. forces dropped more than a half million tons of bombs on Cambodia alone. Only 2 months after Nixon's election, a major North Vietnamese offensive took place all over South Vietnam, mimicking to a lesser extent the 1968 "Tet Offensive," killing 1,140 Americans. At the same time, South Vietnamese towns and cities were also hit. The heaviest fighting was around Saigon, but fights raged all over South Vietnam. Eventually, American artillery and air power overwhelmed the Communist offensive. At this point, U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam exceeded the 33,629 men killed in the Korean War. In June of 1969, Nixon met with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu on Midway Island in the Pacific, announcing that 25,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn immediately. Although this would set off nationwide anti war protests throughout the U.S., on April 29, 1970, South Vietnamese troops (known as "A.R.V.N") attacked into Cambodia, pushing toward Vietcong bases. Two days later, a U.S. force of 30,000 -- including three U.S. divisions, mounted a second attack. This incursion lasted for 60 days and uncovered vast North Vietnamese jungle supply depots. It didn't matter that 28,500 weapons, 16 million rounds of small arms ammunition, and 14 million pounds of rice were captured. America was weary of Vietnam and Nixon took on the moniker "Tricky Dickey". Although most of the enemy managed to escape across the Mekong, there were over 10,000 casualties. The war continued, and the body bags of young Americans that paid the ultimate price took the transpacific flight on their "last ride home". A plan to end the war needed to be formulated, where Asian men would fight Asian wars, and the U.S. could extricate themselves from being the "world's policeman". When Nixon first took office, he introduced his policy of what he called "Vietnamization". The plan was to slowly give the South Vietnamese full responsibility for fighting the war, thus enabling the U.S. to gradually withdraw all their soldiers from Asia. Similar to what Adolf Hitler did in the last days of Nazi Germany, a mobilization law was passed that called up into the army all men in South Vietnam aged between 17 to 43. Aside from the aforementioned June, 1969 25,000 troop withdrawal from 540,000 as it's apex, another 60,000 left the following December. nobody wanted to be the last to die in a war America was clearly detaching itself from. Informed by his advisors that the gradual removal of all US troops would eventually result in a large scale North Vietnamese offensive and victory, Nixon and his entourage agreed that the only way America could avoid a humiliating defeat was to negotiate a peace agreement. This took place in Paris, France. In an effort to pressure North Vietnam in these talks, Nixon conceived what has become known as the "Madman Theory." The two U.S. chief negotiators in Paris, Henry Kissinger and Bob Haldeman, were told to give the North Vietnamese negotiators the impression that Nixon was so mentally unstable and his hatred of communism was so fanatical that if the war continued for much longer, the president would seriously consider using nuclear weapons against them. Unbeknown to the American public at the time, Nixon put into high gear the secret Phoenix Program. Vietnamese were trained by the CIA to infiltrate peasant communities and discover the names of Viet Cong sympathizers. When they had been identified, "Death Squads" were sent in to execute them. Between 1968 and 1971, an estimated 40,974 V.C. were executed in this way. The plan looked good on paper, but it ultimately failed because the Viet Cong were able to replace their losses by recruiting from the local population and by arranging for volunteers to be sent from North Vietnam. Slain V. C. bodies had tattoos which translated to: "Born in the North to die in the South." The war ground on. Between February 8 to March 25, 1971, "Operation Lam Son 719" occurred. Three South Vietnamese divisions were transported by American forces into Laos to attack two major enemy bases. Unknowingly, they are walking into a North Vietnamese trap. No American ground units participated. Over the next month, more than 9,000 South Vietnamese troops are killed or wounded and more than two thirds of the South Vietnamese Army's armored vehicles were destroyed, along with hundreds of U.S. helicopters and planes. The campaign was a disaster for the ARVN, decimating some of its best units and destroying the confidence that had been built up over the previous three years. Vietnamization, the policy touted by American civilian and military officials as the best method by which South Vietnam could be saved from communism and the American withdrawal completed, was revealed as a complete failure. In the summer of 1971, herbicides containing Dioxin were banned for use by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Known as "Operation Ranch Hand," America sprayed via airborne C-130's over 11 million gallons of "Agent Orange" containing 240 pounds of the lethal chemical Dioxin on South Vietnam. More than one seventh of the country's total area had been laid waste. Never translating into an American victory, the program's goal was to defoliate forested and rural land thus depriving the North Vietnamese of cover. As part of winning the "hearts and minds" of the South Vietnamese indigenous, another goal was to induce forced urbanization by destroying the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside. In theory this would compel peasants to flee to the U.S. dominated cities such as Saigon, Hue, Danang, etc. thus depriving the Communists of their rural support base and food supply. Enter Ray Kopp. Born on September 19, 1951 in Starrucca, Pennsylvania, he joined the Navy upon graduation from high school. Kopp wrote that there was never a question as to whether he would serve, but rather where his military duty would take place. Despite the fact that Jane Fonda had already committed her treason in visiting the North Vietnamese and sympathizing with them, the 1967 "Summer of Love", Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King had been assassinated. Nevertheless, Ray remained patriotic. Woodstock, N.Y. and the Kent State shootings passed, yet Ray and his family firmly believed that the U.S., would not undertake warfare without just cause. Even if the "Domino Theory" no longer made sense, if America engaged itself in fighting in a foreign land there was a good reason for it, even if that reason was unclear. Trained in the area of radio communications, he was assigned to the communications engineering crew of the 717 foot 1,100' community aboard the heavily armed cruiser class "Newport News". Heavily armed to out-gun anything smaller than itself and fast enough to out-run anything larger, the "Newport News" was dubbed "Thunder". Kopp falsely thought that in 1972 the war was just about over. He incorrectly surmised that any remaining fighting was done in Vietnam's rice patties, jungles, or the Mekong Delta, handled by the "Brown Water Navy." Safely subscribing to the idea that any naval surface warfare off the Vietnamese coast that involved the Newport News would be simply a matter of sitting off shore and lobbing shells to support grunts. Only a few shots would be fired "here and there." However, Ray started to see chinks in the American war armor. Was his nephew's death in vain? What was this big urgency for the Newport News to high tail to Vietnam as part of an armada if the war was being wound down? It is interesting to mention a quote Kopp made as his ship floated rapidly towards Vietnam: "I sure as hell haven't forgotten about my nephew Brian and the thousands of other young American patriots that have been killed in this bogus war. It's about time someone got off their butt and did something to those bastards. And we're going to do it. Bring it on". As the title of this review states, his initial enthusiasm would do a 180 degree reversal once he learned the facts. Nevertheless, Kopp's job was an important one. On January 23, 1968, North Korea seized in international waters in the Sea of Japan the USS PUEBLO, a U.S. Navy intelligence collection auxiliary vessel, and her 83-man crew. The ship's position, as established by her own messages and by North Korean messages monitored by the U.S., was more than 16 nautical miles from the nearest land, the small island of Ung-Do, outside North Korea's territorial waters. Pueblo was taken into the North Korean port of Wonsan and the crew was moved to prisoner of war camps. Some of the crew reporting upon release that they were starved and regularly tortured while in North Korean custody. This mistreatment was increased when the North Koreans saw that crewmen were secretly giving them "the finger" in staged propaganda photos. Commander Lloyd M. Bucher, Commanding Officer of the Pueblo, was tortured and put through a mock firing squad in an effort to make him confess. Eventually the Koreans threatened to execute his men in front of him, and Bucher relented. None of the Koreans knew English well enough to write the confession, so they had Bucher write it himself. They verified the meaning of his words, but failed to catch the pun when he said "We paean the DPRK. We paean the Korean people. We paean their great leader Kim Il Sung". The word "paean" sounded identical to the term Americans use to indicate to urinating on. Following a written admission by the U.S. that Pueblo had been spying and an would not spy in the future, the North Korean government released the 82 remaining crew members. Commander Bucher later wrote a book where he stated that the written apology was preceded by a verbal statement that it was done only to secure the release. On December 23, 1968 the crew was taken by buses to the DMZ border with South Korea and ordered to walk south across the "Bridge of No Return". Exactly eleven months after being taken prisoner, Butcher and his crewmen crossed the bridge. Immediately following this, the U.S. then verbally retracted the ransom admission, apology, and assurance. Similar to the "Robert Garwood Incident" of the Vietnam War, Bucher and all the officers and crew subsequently appeared before a Navy Court of Inquiry, with a court marshal being recommended for Butcher. But the Secretary of the Navy, John H. Chafee, rejected the recommendation, stating, "They have suffered enough." Commander Bucher was never found guilty of any indiscretions and continued his Navy career until retirement. He died in San Diego on January 28, 2004, partly as a result of complications from the injuries he suffered during his time as a POW. As a side note, the Pueblo is still held by North Korea, and is currently the only American naval vessel held in captivity in the world. It is used by North Korea as one of its tourist attractions. Ray Kopp was trained to use the "KY-14" a new FM voice scrambler that guaranteed secure communications within a tactical Task Force. Being the cryptography clerk of this department, another "Pueblo Incident" was his job to prevent, at all costs. The "KY-14" was a device to protect against enemy monitoring of U.S. military communications. Similarly to the "Pueblo", it was Kopp's responsibility to destroy this equipment or any related documents should the "Newport News" be seized and captured. In Garwood's case, in 1965 he was captured by the V.C. south of Danang. Accused of collaborating with the enemy, as a P.O.W. he quickly learned to speak fluent Vietnamese, served as an intermediary between captors and American P.O.W's and received preferential treatment. He supposedly joined the North Vietnamese Army, even walking "point" for them on operations against U.S. forces. Garwood denied the collaboration charges and accused the Department of Defense of trying to rewrite history to make him seem like a liar to downplay his 1984 claims that he had seen other POWs "left behind" after 1973 and that he had been held prisoner for 14 years. Despite inconsistencies in his story, many former POWs claimed to have witnessed Garwood collaborating with the N.V.A, though ironically stating that he should not have been court martialed. Nevertheless, the Marine Corps convicted Garwood of coll