Silver Star
CITATION:
The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Silver Star (Posthumously) to Lieutenant William Marcus Barschow (NSN: 0-642739), United States Navy, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in service with the Naval Advisory Group, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, assisting friendly foreign forces engaged in armed conflict with Viet Cong guerrilla forces, from May 1964 to April 1965. During this period, Lieutenant Barschow was in more than fifty combat operations in Viet Cong-controlled territory. On 5 April 1965, the ship convoy in which he was participating came under sudden heavy enemy gunfire from both banks of the river. Maintaining his position at the side of his counterpart aboard the command craft, Lieutenant Barschow performed his advisory duties with exceptional bravery and effectiveness while subjected to the enemy fire, which wounded many men on the craft and temporarily silenced most of the ship’s guns. While momentarily standing alone and firing at a machine gun emplacement on the bank, Lieutenant Barschow was fatally wounded by enemy fire. By his courage and inspiring leadership, he contributed greatly to the eventual success of the convoy in breaking the enemy ambush and gaining a major victory. His heroic efforts were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
William is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, Brook Park, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. He is honored on the Wall at Panel 1E, line 101.
A fierce three-day battle in the Mekong Delta leaves six Americans dead and a reported 276 Việt Cộng fatal casualties. In an air and amphibious assault at Vĩnh Lộc, Cà Mau Peninsula, 16 ARVN troops are killed.
United States Marine troop transport helicopters airlifted an American Marine battalion and elements of South Vietnamese Army Rangers into an area north of Đà Nẵng this morning in search of Việt Cộng intelligence agents and suspected guerrillas. The 38 transports were escorted by armed helicopters and they landed troops without encountering enemy fire. No contact with the Việt Cộng has been reported so far.
The United States mounted two more air strikes against North Vietnam today. The American planes did not encounter any enemy MIG’s during the raids. Two United States aircraft were shot down by the Soviet-built fighter planes in attacks yesterday. American and South Vietnamese Air Force officers conferred today on ways to meet the challenge posed by the MIG’s. Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor, returning from consultations in Washington, declined to comment on the Communist air assault yesterday, saying that he had not yet been briefed on the incident.
In another development, intelligence officers received reports that Việt Cộng units in two key areas of South Vietnam had been ordered to move north. It was not clear whether they were being shifted to new positions in the South or to North Vietnam. Communist ground fire brought down another United States Air Force F-105 today during American armed-reconnaissance attacks on two highways in the central sector of North Vietnam. The pilot was recovered.
At 10 AM, an hour before the Air Force struck, United States Navy pilots from the USS Coral Sea, an aircraft carrier of the Seventh Fleet, bombed an early warning radar station at Vĩnh Linh. The South Vietnamese Air Force first bombed Vĩnh Linh, just north of the demilitarized zone at the 17th Parallel, which divides Vietnam, last February 8 in the second in the current series of air strikes. At that time Lieutenant General Nguyễn Khánh, then Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, announced that 70 percent of the targets had been destroyed. In its report today, the United States Military Assistance Command said the Vĩnh Linh target had been “heavily damaged” by the 30 bombers and the 20 F-8 and F-4 support aircraft. Twenty-five tons of general purpose bombs and fiery napalm (jellied gasoline) were dropped on the radar station. No anti-aircraft weapons were fired during the raid and all of the Navy planes returned safely to the carrier.
Ten United States Air Force F-105’s, supported by six jet fighters, flew a more general mission over two east-west highways in North Vietnam. Route 7 is about 120 miles south of Hanoi, and Route 8 is a few miles south of Route 7. The Air Force pilots hit a diesel train, which they saw explode, and another locomotive. They left two trucks burning from rockets and 20-mm. cannon fire. Pilots described the ground fire as “moderate to heavy.”
Vietnamese Air Force sources said that the consultations today on MIG capabilities dealt largely with the North Vietnamese air base at Phúc Yên, about 20 miles north of Hanoi. Intelligence reports have confirmed the presence there of at least 30 MIG-15’s, outdated, Soviet-made jet fighters used during the Korean War, and possibly some MIG-17’s of 1954 vintage. United States sources say that the North Vietnamese have a sizable number of the MIG-17’s, while South Vietnamese officials contend that the MIG-17’s are Chinese planes based at Hainan and along the Chinese-Vietnamese border.
The intelligence from both countries indicates, however, that the Chinese Communists first sent the MIG’s to North Vietnam after last August’s Gulf of Tonkin incident in which American planes attacked Hanoi’s torpedo-boat fleet and bases along the North Vietnamese coast. The raids were in retaliation for torpedo-boat assaults on two United States destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. There is agreement among intelligence men that the Chinese Communists trained the North Vietnamese to fly the MIG’s.
The MIG 17’s are not as fast, nor are they equipped with as much firepower, as the F-105’s shot down yesterday. But they are evaluated by the United States Air Force as a maneuverable plane with ability to reach high altitudes quickly. The MIG-15 and MIG-17 are usually armed with 37-mm and 23-mm cannon and fly at 670- and 730-mph speeds respectively. The F-105 has a top speed of 1,500 miles an hour, can carry a 13,000-pound bomb load, and is also armed with 20-mm cannon.
A U.S. Navy RF-8 Crusader reconnaissance aircraft photographed an SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile (SAM) site under construction in North Vietnam for the first time. The discovery, 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Hanoi, of an antiaircraft system that could fire the SA-2 guided missile “sent shivers down the spines of task force commanders and line aviators alike”, a historian would note later, but official permission to attack a site so close to the capital of North Vietnam would not be given “until the Navy and Air Force lost a few jets to the SA-2s.”
Commander Raymond A. Vohden, 34 years old, of Lemoore, California, is listed as missing after his jet was shot down by MIGs, according to a telegram from the Defense Department received last night by his parents. Vohden was interned as a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam after he was shot down on April 3, 1965, and was held until his release on February 12, 1973. He and his wife Adriana resided in Virginia until his passing in 2016.
Communist China rebuffed today Britain’s moves toward a peaceful settlement in Vietnam with a strong attack on Britain’s “dirty role as accomplice of United States aggression.” At the same time, Peking renewed its opposition to negotiations on Vietnam before withdrawal of all United States forces.
The Soviet Union and the United States proved the impossibility of defining aggression with a surprisingly bitter exchange of views on the war in Vietnam during a United Nations committee session.
President Johnson will make what was described as a definitive speech on Vietnam. President Johnson will speak on the Southeast Asia crisis at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore Wednesday night in what is expected to be a major foreign policy address.
The superhighway linking the former German capital of Berlin with the West was closed for four hours today by Soviet and East German authorities. It was the first time since the Berlin blockade ended 16 years ago that the 110-mile highway had been shut down, although there have been various instances since then of harassment of Allied military convoys.
The action was a reprisal against Wednesday’s scheduled meeting of the West German Bundestag in Berlin. The Bundestag is the lower house of Parliament. The East Germans say that Berlin is not part of West Germany and that Parliament has no right to hold sessions here. Traffic was halted from 9 AM until 1 PM. Only a trickle of automobiles were cleared for passage along the main access route to this city during the rest of the day.
While the main autobahn was closed, traffic was processed speedily on the HamburgBerlin road to the north. But at the same time a slowdown was in force at the Juchhöh and Wartha crossing points, where traffic from southern Germany is cleared onto the two other interzonal highway routes. The Soviet Union openly threw its support to the harassment measures introduced three days ago by East German authorities.
Marshal Andrei A. Grechko, commander of the combined forces of the Warsaw Pact military alliance, underlined Soviet backing by appearing today in East Berlin. Soviet officials at the Berlin end of the interzonal autobahn prevented three Western military cars — two British and one American — from proceeding during the shutdown.
Egyptian Air Force planes operating from Yemen have bombed the Saudi Arabian seaport town of Qizan during the last week, diplomatic sources reported today. It was the first such incident since the United Arab Republic and Saudi Arabia agreed last fall on a truce in their power struggle in Yemen and pledged to work together for a peaceful settlement of Yemen’s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war. The peace efforts virtually collapsed in January. Despite recent efforts to revive them there have been indications of increasing friction between the United Arab Republic and Saudi Arabia, with open criticism of Saudi Arabia in the Egyptian press. Authoritative Egyptian circles said, however, that they had no information about any air raids against Saudi territory.
The Foreign Ministry acknowledged today that France was prepared to sell supersonic fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, but said that French pilots would be forbidden to fly the craft in combat missions.
Indonesian Government officials today expelled a young woman Peace Corps worker because “Indonesia does not need the Peace Corps.”
The Soviet leaders came to Communist Poland today to mark 20 years of Polish-Soviet friendship and to sign a new treaty for another 20 years.
The Canadian Government announced today that it would present a comprehensive anti-poverty program to the new session of the Canadian Parliament.
Increasing Spanish pressure against Gibralatar brought a declaration by the British Government today that it would “take whatever measures may be necessary to defend and sustain” its fortress colony.
A senior agricultural official disclosed today that the Communist Government in Bucharest was preparing important measures to better the lot of Rumania’s three million cooperative farm families, who have had hard times since World War II.
The Soviet Union announced today the demotion of another high Khrushchev nominee.
The FBI arrested former U.S. Army Sergeant James Allen Mintkenbaugh, who had been spying for the Soviet KGB intelligence agency, in Castro Valley, California. In his confession, Mintkenbaugh identified a high-level U.S. Department of Defense employee, Sergeant Robert Lee Johnson, as his partner in espionage since 1953. Later in the day, Johnson was arrested while working at his desk inside The Pentagon. Sergeant Johnson, unhappy in being passed over for a promotion, had supplied his Soviet handlers with details of American nuclear missiles, classified documents and photographs, and a sample of rocket fuel, and received $25,000 in return. On July 30, 1965, he and Mintkenbaugh would be sentenced to 25 years in prison. Johnson would serve only seven years before being stabbed to death in 1972.
President Johnson proposed to Congress today revisions in the farm program designed to cut Federal costs, raise farm income and put more reliance on the open market for farm prices. President Johnson’s farm programs, as presented to Congress, would mean slightly higher prices for bread, other bakery products and rice.
The Supreme Court held today that the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of the right of accused persons to be confronted with the witnesses against them applied to state criminal trials. The Supreme Court declared that defendants in state courts have the right to cross-examine their accusers, a right that already had been guaranteed in federal courts.
The Supreme Court held today that a television advertiser could not show a false demonstration to prove a claim about a product, even if the claim was true.
Senate and administration leaders reached agreement on a revised voting rights bill extending coverage to any area where Blacks are barred from voting. In the latest draft of the Dirksen-Administration voting rights bill, federal courts would be empowered to suspend state and local poll taxes when they are used to prevent Blacks from voting.
The Mayor of Camden, Alabama turned back five civil rights marches today by arresting 11 leaders and lobbing smoke and tear-gas bombs into the crowd of demonstrators.
Selma Mayor Joe T. Smitherman and a friend, visiting in the nation’s capital, were reported to have been “conned” out of $107 by a Black who had offered to provide them with “booze and excitement.”
Criticism of remarks on civil rights demonstrations in Selma, Alabama, made Sunday at a policemen’s communion breakfast here by William F. Buckley Jr. came from several quarters today.
Another notable change in labor’s top leadership was foreshadowed by a government finding that James B. Carey had been wrongfully declared re-elected as president of the International Union of Electrical Workers over Paul Jennings of Newark.
United Air Lines announced yesterday plans to buy 75 jetliners at a total cost of $375 million — the largest and most expensive purchase of jet aircraft by a single commercial airline.
Manned Spacecraft Center announced that Walter M. Schirra, Jr., and Thomas P. Stafford had been selected as command pilot and pilot for Gemini 6, the first Project Gemini rendezvous and docking mission. Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Young would be the backup crew.
The final countdown for the launching of the world’s first commercial satellite is expected to begin at 10 AM tomorrow, officials of the Communications Satellite Corporation said tonight.
The U.S. performs a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site.
At the 37th Academy Awards, “My Fair Lady” won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Rex Harrison won an Oscar for Best Actor. Mary Poppins took home five Oscars. Julie Andrews won an Academy Award for Best Actress, for her portrayal in the role. The Sherman Brothers received two Oscars including Best Song, “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”
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Born:
Cris Carpenter, MLB pitcher (St. Louis Cardinals, Florida Marlins, Texas Rangers, Milwaukee Brewers), in St. Augustine, Florida.
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