Need internet info (free pls?) On Prairie Fire Ops and Bright Light Ops

[Sublime]

Interesting thank you.

However as you and Emrys pointed out by 1943 there was a tiny gap that wasnt covered by air, and we were producing so many liberty ships their chance was over.  Off topic but Ive always wondered at the verscity of a claim I read once saying the Soviets extended peace feelers in spring 42 and the Nazis rejected them outright.

Emrys, true the Allies however from what I understand already were pretty upset and worried about Germany - in fact as the historical narrative changes somewhat these days Chamberlin gets off lighter as buying time for Britain to rearm.  Im not going to comment one way or another to be honest - I dont feel well read enough in extreme detail about Chamberlins efforts to conclude wheter or not he got a bad rap as an opinion.

JK - thanks for the wishes.  Yes its an utter disaster and Ill tell ya if you really want to feel even lower than you ever already did just lose a job with a kid and know deep down that without friends and families help right now Id be totally F'd

[Sublime]

Kettler thanks for the link thats actually a very good story. I also realized now I mistitled my post as prairie fire was a radio code apparently akin to broken arrow meaning a LRRP or SOG unit was in danger of being overrun.  I wonder if Shining Brass is the same or was the ops names.   I know Bright Light was a type of mission.  Regardless a good read and yeah those guys probably saw some of the worst and ugliest combat of the war.  And we'll never know 99.9% of those stories - ever.

O/T a little but if you search in youtube "in a b52 over hanoi linebacker II" theres an audiotape of an entire linebacker mission with the crew intercom and radio chatter audible along with US losses.  Theres anither on youtube where you hear a RF4 doing BDA get shotdown...   

 

[Michael Emrys]

7 hours ago, Sublime said:

...in fact as the historical narrative changes somewhat these days Chamberlin gets off lighter as buying time for Britain to rearm.  Im not going to comment one way or another to be honest - I dont feel well read enough in extreme detail about Chamberlins efforts to conclude wheter or not he got a bad rap as an opinion.

I think he did. He gets blamed for a lot that the Baldwin government did and left for him to deal with. I don't want to get into this in the length that it truly deserves, but to some extent it wasn't so much anyone's fault as it was just an impossible situation. What with the Depression and the economic wreckage following WW I, there wasn't a lot of money to be spent. It was easy for Churchill to stand on the sidelines and say that more needed to be spent on defense when there were other things needing to be funded too. Things unfolded in such a way as to make it look like Churchill was right all along. But that whole game of rearmament chicken could have gone the other way. Hitler came very close to utterly crashing the German economy in order to cover his bets and got through by the skin of his teeth. From that point onward, the German economy stayed alive on transfusions of loot taken from conquered nations. If the Allies had called his bluff over the Rhinelands, even more than Munich, the game would have been over.

*sigh* Ah, might-have-beens!

Michael

[Sgt.Squarehead]

29 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

*sigh* Ah, might-have-beens!

Oh I dunno.....If it had gone that way the CM family would be rather dull. 

[Sublime]

41 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

I think he did. He gets blamed for a lot that the Baldwin government did and left for him to deal with. I don't want to get into this in the length that it truly deserves, but to some extent it wasn't so much anyone's fault as it was just an impossible situation. What with the Depression and the economic wreckage following WW I, there wasn't a lot of money to be spent. It was easy for Churchill to stand on the sidelines and say that more needed to be spent on defense when there were other things needing to be funded too. Things unfolded in such a way as to make it look like Churchill was right all along. But that whole game of rearmament chicken could have gone the other way. Hitler came very close to utterly crashing the German economy in order to cover his bets and got through by the skin of his teeth. From that point onward, the German economy stayed alive on transfusions of loot taken from conquered nations. If the Allies had called his bluff over the Rhinelands, even more than Munich, the game would have been over.

*sigh* Ah, might-have-beens!

Michael

Oh I agree. I also laugh at the what ifs of Nazi victory. Its all there in Mein Kampf. Hitler would have had Germany in forever war - peace time would merely be strategic pauses.  This meant for any nation including the US or USSR but let alone Germany failure was ineviteable.  You cannot take the entire world over. Its never been done; dont think it ever will be.

I had an excellent class on 20th century warfare and the teacher focussed in the Reichswehr and cheatinf Versailles. Hitler was explicitly warned especially in thw Rhineland that ANY French military response would be a total disaster.  Its also come out that even a minor French military response probably would have led to a coup of Hitler.

[Sublime]

14 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Oh I dunno.....If it had gone that way the CM family would be rather dull. 

i know you jest but Id give up computers entirely if I knew it saved 1 million lives let alone 100

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Much as I like my p00ter, I'd probably join you in that. 

[Michael Emrys]

3 hours ago, Sublime said:

Its also come out that even a minor French military response probably would have led to a coup of Hitler.

I read somewhere years ago that the leadership of the army was agreed that if the French had not accepted the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the army would have arrested Hitler. I doubt that he would even have made it to trial, and if he had it would have been a quick one that night before a military tribunal and a firing squad in the morning.

About all the Germans had for a show of force was a few battalions of border police and it is even uncertain that they would have even resisted an incursion by the French army. If true, this was probably the most serious blunder by the Allies of that whole decade.

Michael

[John Kettler]

Sublime,

Here is some additional material. The first link is but a small piece of a far larger site, but it defines what Prairie Fire missions were initially all about. 

http://aircommandoman.tripod.com/id11.html

Leaping Lena and Prairie Fire

http://www.macvsog.cc/sog,_an_overview.htm

A second account of the John Plaster Double Prairie Fire mission, by the pilot of the OV-10 he was in!

http://www.usafa68.org/History/ch8.htm

Prairie Fire Emergency and Bright Light in the A Shau Valley. Epic in the truest sense of the term. 

Part 1

https://www.sofmag.com/nva-general-to-sog-recon-team-we-suffered-90-percent-casualties/

Part 2

https://www.sofmag.com/nva-general-to-sog-recon-team-we-suffered-90-percent-casualties-part-2/

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sublime]

Thank you JK

O/T but i have something you can look for for me if you want - and yes Im looking for conspiracy theories but nothing with aliens or psychics please- I just want plausible theores or evidence supportinv the idea K129 had gone rogue and was going to nuke America and or there was a mini underwater sub war in 68.  Its interesting the Scorpion was lost in the Azores and Azorian waa to retrieve k129.  Along with k129s supposed extra 15 men and being off station.  This could all be total nonsense its all anecdotal except there was a k129 and project azorian..

Ourang ourang ill put up with too thoughta without hittibg my hot buttons? (Aliens, ufos, predator suits in Grenada)

[John Kettler]

Sublime,

You're welcome. Would like to clarify something you said, since there seems to be confusion on your end. PRAIRIE FIRE (this is how program names are always typed) is the code name for covert MACV-SOG ops into Laos and Cambodia, apparently originally intended to install IGLOO WHITE sensors after aerial delivery proved futile. IGLOO WHITE included seismic, acoustic and, so help me, urine sniffers, something swiftly countered by putting urine where there were no troops. When a PRAIRIE FIRE team got into trouble, that was a PRAIRIE FIRE EMERGENCY which brought every available aircraft with ordnance to the scene in a total mission override. The extraction teams, what we would call today the QRF, were called BRIGHT LIGHT. You can see this all play out in the two part story from SOF I posted. 

Funny you should mention the USS Scorpion and K129, for I am expecting a book on PROJECT AZORIAN shortly and need to replace two books on the sinking of the US sub. It appears they were delivered and then purloined or maybe even delivered and kept by the carrier.  I think this whole sub & sub recovery project discussion is best done away from this post, indeed off the Forums. I still have your email and would like to communicate that way if possible. Am sure you're up to you eyeballs, so am ruling out phone calls unless otherwise informed. Please advise. There are certain matters quite pertinent I can't get into here, none of which fall in the category of what you don't wish to hear about.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sublime]

Actually yes thank you you I was aware of what BRIGHT LIGHT, LEAPING LENA, AND SHINING BRASS ARE.  What tripped me up is in the transcript The 2nd LRRP team calls "Prairie fire! Prairie Fire!!"  Almost like Col Moore calling Broken Arrow at the Ia Drang. (Though that always confused me too. I thought that meant a lost nuke)

I did clarify later that SHINING BRASS just morphed it into it.

I was aware of Igloo White before but had thought the program failed and the LRRPS were a whole diff shebang - not that they came about especially because Igloo White.

Yes I got the same email.  Only the subs or Ourang Ourang JK please or we.re gonna just trade insults..

Hey by the way reading one of the sites you sent - it talked about different ops they did for the LRRPs including " a large raid to attract NVA fighters to be destroyed by fighter bombers.  Any info on that op?  That sounds ridiculously hairy..