One man was lost and three rescued after their A3B plunged into the ocean 45 minutes following take off from the flight deck of Coral Sea on the 24th of February. The lost member of the crew was identified as Dwight Glenn Frakes, RMCA, USN, a member of Coral Sea’s ship company. Shortly after being catapulted from Coral Sea, the aircraft developed a malfunction. Following numerous unsuccessful attempts to correct the situation, Lieutenant Commander G. Gedney, pilot of the plane, ordered his crew to bail out of the aircraft approximately eight miles from Coral sea. Helicopters from Coral Sea and USS Yorktown CVS-10, alerted ten minutes prior to the crew’s bailing out, were on scene and immediately rescued two members of the crew. They were Lieutenant (jg) John D. Berry, co-pilot, and Everett Bishop, AQB2, crewmember/navigator. Minutes later, LCDR Gedney was safely recovered. The fourth member of the crew, Frakes, is assumed to have drowned when he became entangled in the shroud lines of his water-soaked, sinking parachute shortly after dropping intothe water following a seemingly successful parachute jump. Numerous attempts to rescue Frakes by the Coral Sea and Yorktown helicopters were unsuccessful. His remains were never recovered.
Dwight has a memorial stone at Golden Gate National Cemetery. He is remembered on the Wall at Panel 1E, line 94.
President Johnson gave the go-ahead orders for Operation Rolling Thunder, the continuing bombing of North Vietnam. By the end of 1965, there would be 55,000 missions flown.
U.S. Air Force B-57 bombers and F-100 fighter-bombers from the Biên Hòa and Đà Nẵng air bases attack concentrations of Việt Cộng forces in Bình Định Province. The United States Embassy disclosed today that American jet aircraft were sent on air strikes against the Việt Cộng in South Vietnam during the last week. The bombing raids, including one today in Bình Định Province, where there is a heavy guerrilla concentration, mark the first use of jet bombers in the war in the south. An announcement by the United States mission said the strike today had been made by F-100’s and B-57’s from Biên Hòa and Đà Nẵng air bases. A Pentagon spokesman said he had no information on the number of planes involved. An embassy spokesman said information on the strikes was not made public earlier because an element of surprise had still been possible during the “several” raids made since the first use of the jets last Thursday.
The target today was a large concentration of Việt Cộng troops in a mountain pass between An Khê and Pleiku, where a strong attack by the Communist insurgents had trapped a government unit. The United States statement began by observing that the strikes had been made “at the request of the Government of Vietnam.” A spokesman declined to say when authorization for the use of jet bombers had been given by Washington. In the past the bombing raids on which American pilots have flown, in propeller-driven A-1H Skyraider fighter-bombers, have been officially described as “training flights.” To conform with the United States’ position that its troops here are military advisers and not combatants, the American mission had maintained that a Vietnamese trainee accompanied the United States pilot on all flights in the two-seat Skyraiders. No such statement was made today with regard to jet bombers.
Military spokesmen attribute the use of the jets to a change in Việt Cộng tactics. In the past, they said, there have seldom been assemblies of guerrillas in areas far enough from villages to make bombing possible. Starting with a battle in the An Lão Valley early last December, the Communists have stepped up their attempt to divide South Vietnam at the southern boundary of Bình Định Province. The result would be the separation of the central Vietnamese provinces of Quảng Trị, Thừa Thiên, and Quảng Nam, the relatively secure provinces that include the cities of Huế and Đà Nẵng, from Saigon and the southern part of the country. A week after the An Lão battle, American advisers confirmed that 500 well-armed government militiamen had broken and ran under Communist gunfire. The number of government casualties in that action has never been reported.
A similar rout occurred on February 7 and 8, when the Việt Cộng caught government forces in an ambush, effectively putting five companies out of action. As many as 400 government soldiers were killed or are still missing. In the last three days a series of engagements in the province, 250 to 300 miles northeast of Saigon, have left one United States Marine officer and one Army enlisted man dead and nine American advisers wounded. Although officials in Saigon would not comment on the probable size of the Việt Cộng force in Bình Định Province, American officers on the scene estimated that the Communists had eight full-strength battalions, or about 4,000 men.
Both Bình Định and the province to the North, Quảng Ngãi, strongly-favored the Communist-Nationalist forces in the war against the French that ended in 1954. The tens of thousands from the area who went north after the Geneva agreements have provided the Communists with dedicated soldiers to infiltrate back to the villages with which they are familiar. “The Việt Cộng are everywhere,” one Vietnamese commander lamented recently. One example of the severity of the problem in Bình Định has been the experience in the Phú Mỹ District. Of the 115 hamlets controlled by the government in September, only 10 have not been absorbed by the Communists.
Two U.S. Air Force officers were reportedly killed in today’s raids when their Skyraider was shot down; and a navy enlisted man died when his carrier plane, a Skywarrior, crashed in the ocean.
The Johnson Administration tacitly acknowledged today that it had changed the rules of United States involvement in the war in South Vietnam. It cited Congressional authority for the move. The use of American planes and crews on combat missions against the Việt Cộng guerrillas supplants an earlier policy of having Americans “advise and assist” the South Vietnamese, and fight only in self-defense. The acknowledgment of the change had the effect of stiffening Washington’s position in the face of continuing appeals abroad for negotiations. The White House summarized official responses to these appeals by stating that it had received “no meaningful proposals” for negotiation. By implication, the statement made little of the mediation efforts of U Thant, Secretary General of the United Nations, and of British and French diplomats who have been sounding out the Soviet Union.
“There are no authorized negotiations underway with Mr. Thant or any other government,” George E. Reedy, the White House press secretary, said. “I am not going into any diplomatic chit chat that may be going forth, or way-out feelers,” he added. “But authorized or meaningful negotiations — no.” His statement also implied that no encouraging offer of a settlement developed at the regularly scheduled meeting in Warsaw today between the Ambassadors of the United States and Communist China. Officials here have repeatedly said that they cannot envision negotiations until Communist China and North Vietnam indicate a willingness to “leave South Vietnam alone.” They say they have seen no such indication and doubt that Moscow can speak for its Communist allies.
This view is also being endorsed more vigorously on Capitol Hill. A growing number of members of both houses of Congress are speaking out in defense of the Administration’s reluctance to define the limits of possible military action in both North and South Vietnam and its refusal to consider negotiations now. The “advise and assist” definition of the role of American troops in Vietnam was abandoned by the State Department today in its assessment of the disclosure that B-57 bombers and F-100 fighter-bombers with American crews were now being used to attack Vietcong troops in support of ground action.
The jets were sent into action at the request of the Government of South Vietnam, a spokesman said, adding: “Such action was carried out because of the concentration of Việt Cộng in this area [Bình Định Province] as a result of increased infiltration of men and equipment in recent months. “This is consistent with the Congressional resolution approving and supporting the determination of the President as Commander in Chief to prevent any further aggression and is in accordance with the government’s stated policy of continuous action that is appropriate, fitting and measured.”
The reference was to a joint Congressional resolution on Southeast Asia adopted with only two dissenting votes in the Senate and unanimously by the House, last August 7. That was after North Vietnamese PT boats had attacked United States warships in the Gulf of Tonkin, leading to retaliatory air strikes against the boats’ bases in North Vietnam. The resolution defined peace and security in Southeast Asia as “vital” to the national interest and said the United States was “prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force” to assist any nation that belongs to or is covered by — as South Vietnam is — the Southeast Asia collective defense treaty. It also supported “the determination of the President” to take all measures necessary “to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”
South Vietnamese Premier Phan Huy Quát said today that his country was “suffering too much” and “we want to end the war with honor.” Dr. Quat was speaking at a ceremony at which Lieutenant General Nguyễn Khánh, the former armed forces chief, turned over his command to Major General Trần Văn Minh. General Khánh spoke briefly without a trace of bitterness in his voice. He said he wanted the army to be united to fight the Communists. Dr. Quát said that the situation in South Vietnam “is not very good.” The government is sending General Khánh abroad to explain to the world the truth about Vietnam,” he said.
The Secretary General, U Thant, advocated today informal negotiations for the establishment of a stable government in South Vietnam and the withdrawal of United States forces “from that part of the world.”
A Democratic member of two powerful House committees said in a speech prepared with State Department help that the Johnson Administration cannot consider an immediate negotiated Vietnamese settlement under present unfavorable circumstances.
President Charles de Gaulle said that France is ready to cooperate with the Soviet Union to bring peace to Southeast Asia through an international conference.
The United States and the Chinese Communist Ambassadors met today in a spacious Warsaw hunting lodge, a relic of prewar Poland. The Vietnam situation was discussed. The U.S. and People’s Republic of China have no formal relations; all contacts are held in Poland.
East German President Walter Ulbricht visited Egypt. The United Arab Republic rolled out the red carpet today for Ulbricht, at the start of his first official visit to a non-Communist country. His presence here was a personal political triumph for the 72-year-old President and a severe setback for West Germany and its claim to be considered the only legitimate representative of divided Germany. Chancellor Ludwig Erhard of West Germany warned last week that Bonn would retaliate against Cairo for Mr. Ulbricht’s visit by stopping economic aid and possibly by taking political countermeasures.
President Gamal Abdel Nasser went the limit in defying warnings from West Germany. The Egyptian leader provided Mr. Ulbricht with as ardent a welcome as possible for a visiting chief of state from a country that Cairo does not formally recognize. Then, a few hours later, after Bonn announced that it had now halted economic aid to the United Arab Republic, Mr. Nasser struck a surprisingly conciliatory note toward West Germany. At a state banquet in Mr. Ulbricht’s honor, Mr. Nasser declared that Egypt was “still exerting our maximum and most sincere efforts so that matters do not deteriorate any further” in Cairo-Bonn relations. “We have always been careful to maintain good relations with Federal [West] Germany,” he asserted, blaming the current crisis on a “stab in the back,” his term for West Germany’s arms deal with Israel — now in a state of suspension.
Mr. Nasser in his speech warmly welcomed Mr. Ulbricht. He told the East German President that Egyptians “know how to appreciate our friends and to express our appreciation.” He then bestowed on Mr. Ulbricht Egypt’s highest decoration, the Grand Collar of the Nile, and received in return East Germany’s gold medal of the Order of the Grand Star of International Friendship. As Mr. Ulbricht’s silver-gray ship steamed into Alexandria harbor, Egyptian naval vessels boomed out the traditional 21-gun salute for a visiting chief of state, Mr. Ulbricht received another honorary 21-gun salvo as a special train carrying his party pulled into Cairo four hours later. On hand in Cairo to greet him were President and Mrs. Nasser, the Egyptian Cabinet, top military officers, Communist diplomats and some members of the nonaligned nations’ diplomatic corps. Thousands of cheering Egyptians jammed the station square.
A State Department spokesman in Washington, Robert J. McCloskey, said today that the United States did not “look with favor” on Walter Ulbricht’s visit to Egypt “for the good reason that we support the Federal Republic of Germany as the representative of the German people.”
West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard’s government changed its mind and ordered parliament to find a way to extend the statute of limitations so the hunt for Nazi killers can continue. The cabinet of West Germany’s Chancellor Ludwig Erhard reversed their previous decision of November 11 not to seek an extension of the statute of limitations on Nazi war crimes beyond May 8, 1965, the 20th anniversary of Germany’s surrender. A feature of Germany’s constitutions for the past century had been that indictments could not be made for any crime more than 20 years after it had been committed.
West Germany has granted economic concessions to Communist East Germany to consolidate and possibly widen trade between the two parts of divided Germany.
Spanish police attacked 5,000 University of Madrid students with batons and water hoses. According to one report, “A bugle sounded and hundreds of policemen jumped out of the jeeps with rubber truncheons drawn. The water hoses were turned on the students but they remained seated. When the bugle sounded again, the police charged, beating the students. Men and women students were hustled into the jeeps. Later, many of the students threw stones at the policemen. The police charge was believed to be one of the most brutal against students in Madrid since the Civil war.”
The Syrian Government rejected United States protests against the trial and execution of Farhan Attassi, a naturalized American who was hanged yesterday as a spy for the United States. Minister of Information Mashour Zeitoun said today that the Interrogation and trial had been carried out “in complete freedom and without any pressure.” The State Department charged yesterday that Attassi had been held incommunicado by Syrian authorities for 75 days and had been denied the legal protection that United States citizens “should and could expect in American courts.”
United States Ambassador Howard P. Jones has denied that any American agency has supported any movement hostile to the Indonesian Government, an embassy spokesman said today.
The Soviet Union for the last year has kept the United States under regular surveillance by photo reconnaissance satellites, according to an article in the current issue of Aviation Week.
Ugandan Prime Minister Milton Obote accused Congolese troops today of making almost daily incursions into Uganda’s territory. He said that the Congolese had also intruded deep into the interior of the country in a case that just had come to the Government’s attention. The Prime Minister declined to say whether it was a military raid, sabotage or political intrigue, but he said that the United States was to blame for the Congolese war spilling over into Uganda. The United States has continued to supply arms to Premier Moise Tshombe of the Congo, he said, and allowed the Tshombe regime to recruit for his army people known to be anti-African.
“We are told that the American government sympathizes with us over South Africa, but how can you interpret that sympathy when in the Congo South African mercenaries are being recruited openly and are being given American arms?” he asked. “We have no cause to blame” the Congolese Government,” he said. “But whatever is our military strength, we are determined to defend our territory.” The Prime Minister spoke at a news conference in the West Nile district, the rolling, remote bush country in the far northwest of Uganda.
The Congolese Army has retaken the frontier post of Kasindi on the shores of Lake Edward near the Uganda border, according to reports reaching army headquarters today. Rebels captured the post last week. Unconfirmed reports said that Ugandan troops had aided the rebels.
Pio Gama Pinto, the publisher of the official newspaper of the Kenya African National Union political party and a member of the Kenyan House of Representatives, was shot and killed outside of his home in Nairobi.
The Canadian province of New Brunswick adopted a new flag, shortly after the new national flag of Canada was inaugurated.
Paul Bellesen lost his job as the Great Titan for the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for the state of Idaho, one day after he had received his membership card and had shown it to reporters. “I just figured they might do something like that”, said Bellesen, who was both an African-American and Roman Catholic. Bellesen, the operator of a janitorial service in Nampa, Idaho, commented, “It was a great challenge to me to see just how secret the Klan is and if I could get in. I did.” He noted that he had also applied to the Imperial Wizard of the United Ku Klux Klan, but that “He asked for my photograph.” When Imperial Wizard James R. Venable received the news, his only comment was “His membership is hereby revoked.” Bellesen admitted that he had signed a statement saying that he was a “white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant”, but that “Being a Negro and supposedly unable to read anyway, I signed it.”
The campaign for Black voting rights in the Alabama Black Belt relaxed today. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spiritual leader of the movement, flew to California last night for speaking engagements that will keep him away until Sunday. About 200 Blacks ignored a slow, chilling rain here today to march on the Perry County Courthouse. The demonstration was brought on by an apparent misunderstanding of an action by Sheriff William Loftus. The sheriff, standing at the courthouse door, had turned away a group of Black students seeking to attend the scheduled trial of a civil rights worker, and then had cleared the courtroom. It developed later that the trial had been postponed.
Selma Blacks can win progress in their civil rights drive only by pressure of demonstrations, is the view of one of several white ministers interviewed. With continued lack of leadership at the local level, Blacks in Selma can expect progress in their civil rights drive only by pressure of demonstrations. That is the opinion of a white minister there, Dr. John L. Newton, pastor of the 675-member First Presbyterian Church. Dr. Newton, who has tried without success to establish communications between white and Black ministers in Selma, said in an interview: ‘If they stop the demonstrations, the white community won’t liberalize the laws or their attitudes or make one effort to meet the Blacks’ grievances. All progress that has been made has been made under duress.” Dr. Newton pointed out that Blacks failed in their attempts to integrate Selma restaurants and hotels immediately after enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but that public accommodations were integrated here in January when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began leading demonstrations.
The Student Nonviolent coordinating Committee, which recruited hundreds of young persons for last summer’s civil rights campaign in Mississippi, said yesterday that it would concentrate next summer on applying political pressure in Washington to unseat Mississippi’s delegation in the House.
The State Board of Education in Jackson, Mississippi agreed today to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and thus prevent the discontinuation of Federal assistance to public schools in the state.
The New York police asserted yesterday that they were “on the right track” in the hunt for the Negro killers of Malcolm X, militant black nationalist leader.
The homes of a civil rights leader and the Mayor of Mobile, Alabama were fired on last night. No one was injured. The police said the incidents occurred while the families of the Black leader, J. L. LeFlore, and Mayor Charles S. Trimmier were watching a Mardi Gras parade.
Walter W. Jenkins denied for a second time today that he had ever used coercion or pressure on Don B. Reynolds, an insurance salesman, to buy advertising time on a Texas television station owned by President Johnson’s family. Mr. Jenkins, former special assistant to the President, also denied other assertions by Mr. Reynolds, who sold two $100,000 policies on Mr. Johnson’s life before he became President. Mr. Reynolds was once a business associate of Robert G. Baker, former secretary to the Senate’s Democratic majority. Mr. Jenkins’s denials were made in answers to 40 written questions submitted to him February 10 by the Senate Rules Committee, which is investigating Mr. Baker’s private business affairs. A transcript of the questions and answers was made public by the committee today. Mr. Jenkins was excused from appearing personally before the committee earlier this month. He has been under intensive psychiatric treatment for “severe depression” since resigning from the White House staff last October after his two arrests on morals charges were disclosed. His statement today said two psychiatrists had informed him his appearance would be “injurious to my health.”
Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr. contended today that revisions in the immigration law asked by President Johnson provided new discriminations in the guise of eliminating discrimination. For example, the North Carolina Democrat said, “it discriminates against the people who have made the greatest contribution to building up our country because they have a preference under the law now.” He identified the countries as England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian nations. Senator Jacob, K. Javits, Republican of New York, protested Mr. Ervin’s remarks and clashed with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, who was acting chairman of the Immigration subcommittee hearing at which Secretary of State Dean Rusk was the witness.
A Senate Judiciary subcommittee was told today that Americans who wanted to receive Communist propaganda from overseas could do so now without fear of possible harassment. It was disclosed that lists of those who have indicated they want such mail have been ordered burned by March 15. No new lists will be compiled, it was said. The subcommittee, which is seeking to learn whether government agencies are invading the privacy of citizens, heard witnesses from the Post Office and Treasury Departments.
Two leading economists generally praised the Johnson Administration’s economic program today, but both warned strongly against any move toward higher interest rates.
Gaspar DiGregorio was identified by U.S. Department of Justice authorities as the new overlord of New York City’s “Five Families” of the American Mafia. DiGregorio was summoned before a federal grand jury to answer for the October disappearance of Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno.
President Johnson joined close friends and associates of Felix Frankfurter at a private memorial service today for the retired Supreme Court Justice who died on Monday at the age of 82.
Sargent Shriver appealed to Americans today to donate a million books for use of school children in rural areas of Appalachia.
Labor Secretary W. Willard Wirtz turned down a plea by nine California congressmen and state officials that he approve importation of Mexican laborers to harvest California crops.
A California Assembly committee approved a resolution calling for a legislative probe of alleged false figures used by the Department of Employment to help convince federal authorities that domestic farm workers were available to harvest California’s crops.
The U.S. Army demonstrated today its new, highly portable hospital-in-a-box, attempting to prove the unit is necessary life-saving equipment for the battlefield.
The Beatles begin filming “Help” in the Bahamas.
Richard Rodney Bennett’s first full-length opera, “The Mines of Sulphur,” premiered at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 897.84 (+5.88)
Born:
Jane Swift, American politician, former acting Governor of Massachusetts (2001-2003), in North Adams, Massachusetts.
Paul Gruber, NFL tackle (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), in Madison, Wisconsin.
Paul McJulien, NFL punter (Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams), in Chicago, Illinois.
Tim Hendrix, NFL tight end (Dallas Cowboys), in De Soto, Texas.
Alessandro Gassman, Italian actor and son of Vittorio Gassman and Juliette Mayniel; in Rome, Italy.
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