Blog Mirror: Breakfast in the Boonies

 

Breakfast in the Boonies

Musings Over a Barrel: Bourbon Independence Day: A Toast to America’s Nat...

Musings Over a Barrel: Bourbon Independence Day: A Toast to America’s Nat...: On May 4, 1964 , Senate Concurrent Resolution 19 (S. Con. Res. 19) was passed, declaring that bourbon “is a distinctive product of the Unite...

Saturday, April 26, 1975. The attack on Saigon begins.

The NVA commenced its attack on Saigon with a bombardment of the Bien Hoa Air Base.

Cable from Graham Martin, Ambassador to South Vietnam, to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger Concerning the Evacuation of Vietnam

TV Guide had an article on Sex and Violence in television, which is interesting given the context of the times.

It also featured McCloud, which was a popular police drama in the era of police dramas.  The show featured Gunsmoke veteran Dennis Weaver as a New Mexico police detective somehow assigned to Brooklyn.  I recall my father used to watch it.  That entire plot line sounds a lot like the plot of 1968 film Coogan's Bluff, which featured Clint Eastwood as a sheriff's deputy from Arizona on assignment in New York.

TV Guide was a weekly magazine my father subscribed to.  I don't know if it exists anymore.  It ran all of the television schedules for the week.  I always thought it was an odd thing to subscribe to really, but it came to the house.

Last edition:

Friday April 25, 1975. White Christmas.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Australia, Communism, Mexico, Mexico City, Portugal, Saigon Vietnam, South Vietnam, Terrorism, The Fall of Saigon, United States, Vietnam, Vietnam War

April 21, 1975. The end at Xuân Lộc.

The ARVN, which had fought hard at Xuân Lộc, finally abandoned the city and retreated toward Saigon.

Thiệu in 1968.

President Thiệu resigned, leaving the government in the hands of Vice President Trần Văn Hương.

He was a career army officer who interestingly started off in the Việt Minh, in which he rose to be a district chief.  He left them, however when it became obvious they were Communist and were committing atrocities.  He enrolled in the French controlled Vietnamese governments Merchant Marine Academy but rejected a position on a ship when he discovered that the French owners were going to pay him less than his French colleagues.  He thereafter  transferred to the National Military Academy in Đà Lạt, graduating in 1949.  He was part of the junta that overthrew Ngô Đình Diệm in 1963, after having prevented a coup a few years earlier.  He was elected President in 1967 after the US insisted on democratic elections.  He was reelected in 1971, as the only candidate running, as opponents believed the polls would be rigged.  His resignation speech was a whopping two hours long, but did include the memorable lines,"I resign, but I do not desert."

He was a convert to Catholicism.

He died on September 29, 2001, in Boston.  In Hawaii to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife Mai Anh, the September 11 attacks impacted him psychology and contributed to his death which occurred after his return to his home in Boston.

Kissinger bizarrely believed that his resignation would lead to a negotiation to save Saigon, which is something that apparently his successor, Dương Văn Minh, also believed would occur.

The last New Zealanders at their embassy in South Vietnam were evacuated from the country.

Last edition:

Saturday, April 19, 1975. The ARVN withdraws from Xuân Lộc.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Army of the Republic of Vietnam, Battle of Xuân Lộc, Cambodia, Khemr Rouge, Marriage, North Vietnamese Army, South Korean Army, Vietnam, Vietnam War

Tuesday, April 8, 1975. "Over in a month".

U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater claimed that the Vietnam War "would have been over in a month" had he been elected President in 1964.

1964 Goldwater bumper sticker.

Seems doubtful.

Goldwater was the most right wing truly conservative Republican candidate to have ever been nominated, far more conservative than Ronald Reagan, and a true conservative, unlike the current occupant of the Oval Office.

A South Vietnamese pilot, Nguyễn Thành Trung, dropped bombs on the Presidential Place and then defected.  

This is an event that I can recall occuring.

He want on to serve in the North Vietnamese air force and then worked as a commercial pilot for Vietnam Airlines.

South Vietnamese Major General Nguyễn Văn Hiếu was found shot dead in his command post.at the  Biên Hòa airbase, 

The Godfather Part II won an Academy Award for best picture, the first sequel to do so.

Frank Robinson became the first black manager in Major League.  More on Robinson:

April 8, 1975: Frank Robinson Becomes Baseball's 1st Black Manager

Last edition:

Monday, April 7, 1975. A meeting in Thailand.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Cambodia, Cambodian Civil War, Indochina, Japan, Khemr Rouge, Operation Babylift, Thailand, U.S. Air Force, Vietnam War, Women

LARC-V. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

This is a 5-ton LARC-V amphibious vehicle.  A highly successful amphioxus truck, they entered service in 1963 and remain in use today.

Last edition:

M59 APC. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: Military, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Tracked vehicles, Vietnam War, Weapons, Wyoming (Dubois)

M76 Otter. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

This is a M76 Otter, an amphibious cargo carrier used by the USMC in the 1950s and into the 1960s.  This one, apparently, was used by the Army.

The vehicle did see use in the Vietnam War.

Last edition:

Miscellaneous wheeled transport of World War Two. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: 1930s, 1940s, 4x4, 6x6, Military, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Transportation, World War Two, Wyoming (Dubois)

Saturday, March 29, 1975. NVA takes Da Nang.

World Airlines made its fourth and last refugee evacuation flight from Da Nang.  The flight was designed to take out refugees, but 400 ARVN soldiers forced their way onto the plane.   At the same time, the NVA entered the city center.

Of the ARVN in I Corps, 16,000 of the 160,000 in the area managed to escape.  And of course, while they could not know it, for the most part all of the people escaping would soon simply be further south in the country when the Communist prevailed.

Da Nang had been the site of the first U.S. Marine Corps landings in Vietnam on March 8, 1965.

Last edition:

Friday, March 28, 1975. Managing the defeat.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Cambodia, Campaign 275, Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, New Zealand, South Vietnam, U.S. Navy, Vietnam War

M38 A1s, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

M38A1 with a recoilless rifle.

The first automobile I ever owned was a M38A1.

The prototype for the modern Jeep, basically, it entered civilian use as the CJ5, after entering military use in 1952.  Doubtless examples are still in use, and civilians varians are still produced by Roxor in India.

 Last edition:

M151 Jeeps. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 4x4, Automobiles, Military, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Radio, Trucks, Wyoming (Dubois)

Friday. March 26, 1875. Violence in Texas.

Syngman Rhee or Lee Seungman (이승만) was born in Whanghai Province to Rhee Kyong-sun, a member of the aristocratic Yangban family.

Elected by the South Korean parliament in 1948, he'd assume dictatorial powers and govern the country until forced out of the country following student unrest in 1960.  He lived in Hawaii thereafter until his death in 1965.

In certain ways, Rhee symbolized a strategy that both Democratic and Republican administrations employed during the Cold War of supporting right wing autocrats in the belief that their countries would evolve into democracies.  In the case of South Korea, they were right.

Last edition:

Tuesday, March 23, 1875. The Marianas Trench discovered.

Labels: 1870s, 1875, Geology, Marianas, Marianas Trench, Pacific Ocean, Royal Navy, Science

M151 Jeeps. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

The M151 "Mutt" entered service in 1959 and carried on into the 1990s.  It had fantastic off road capabilities, and was also fantastically dangerous, given its independent wheel suspension system.

The last Jeep to see general use in the U.S. military, it was replaced by HumVeh's, although speciality vehicles, and even modern commercial Jeeps, continue to see some use.  In these examples, the radio mount for a period radio is displayed.

I personally have a lot of experience from the 1980s, with both the M151, and this model of military radio.

Last edition:

M32 Tank Retriever, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Armor, Korean War, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Tracked vehicles, World War Two, Wyoming (Dubois)

M32 Tank Retriever, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

This is a M32 tank retriever, which is obviously based on the M4 Sherman chassis. These were used by the U.S. Army starting in World War Two, although a tank retriever based on the Lee/Grant chassis was also used.

These remained in use during the Korean War and into the 1960s when it was replaced by the M88.

Last edition:

M24 Chaffee, National Museum of Military Vehicles.Labels: 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Armor, Army, Army of the Republic of Vietnam, Korean War, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Vietnam War, Weapons, World War Two, Wyoming (Dubois)

M24 Chaffee, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Like the M26 Pershing, the M24 Chaffee shows the speed of armor evolution during World War Two.  A much more modern light tank than the M3, it remained in service until 1953 with the U.S. Army, and various other armies long after that.  The tank was heavily, if not terribly successfully, used by the ARVN during the Vietnam War.

M577 and M113. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

M577 Command Post with M113 Armored Personnel Carrier.

 The M577 Command Post is based on the M113 and entered service in 1963.  They remain in use.

Last edition:

M113A1 Fire Support Vehicle. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: Armor, Australian Army, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Tracked vehicles, Vietnam War, Wyoming (Dubois)

M60. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

The M60 was the great U.S. tank of the Cold War, and continues to be a great tank to this day.

Effectively an improved variant of the M48, so much so that in some armies it would be regarded as a variant of the prior tank, the M60 took all of the improvements to the M26 line of tanks over the decades and more or less perfected them.  Indeed, some of the improvements, such as the 105mm gun, were retrofitted to the prior M48.

M60s remain in use around the world in upgraded versions.

M48 Patton. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

The fourth tank to descend from the M26 Pershing, including the Pershing, the M48 was a long serving and very successful U.S. tank. It entered service in the mid 1952 in the U.S. Army, and it is still in service with various nations, including South Korea and Taiwan.

The M48 was the second of the US Cold War tanks to actually see action in a Cold War war, the M46 being the first in Korea, with the M48 seeing extensive use by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in Vietnam.  The tank was already a second class tank in the US military by that time, the M60 having come on, but it was a perfectly modern tank and more than able to take on anything in theater.  The tank was later upgraded to near M60 capabilities with the change from a 90mm gun to a 105.

The M48 entered US service in 1952, and was last used in the National Guard in 1987.

Related Threads:

The M26 and its children

Last edition:

M47 Tank. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: 1940s, 1949, 1950s, 1953, 1955, Armor, Army, Korean War, National Museum of Military Vehicles, The Cold War, Tracked vehicles, World War Two, Wyoming (Dubois)

Amongst the USAID work stopped by the Trump administration is . . .

the cleanup of agent orange at the former US air base, Bien Hoa, outside of Saigon.  They also stopped payments for work already completed.

The South Vietnamese didn't ask for us to abandon them to their fate, and they didn't ask for us to leave a chemical disaster.

This is wrong.

M103 Heavy Tank, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

A M103 Heavy Tank.

A Cold War giant, the M103 served from 1957 to 1974, with its final years being used by the Marine Corps.  By the time it entered service, the M60b was already in use and the Army regarded the heavy M103 as obsolescent.

While very impressive in size, the tank was too big even for its own era, and plagued with various problems accordingly.

This one must be a rebuilding project.  It's the second one I've seen, the other being at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center / USAHEC

Last edition:

Mortars. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: 1930s, 1940s, 1960s, U.S. Navy, Vietnam War, Weapons, World War Two

Mortars. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Last edition:

Helmet Development. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: Military, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Wyoming (Dubois)