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JeffLPH sends – this was the USS Okinawa ‘Family Newsletter’ from 15 May 1965. May not ring bells with many of you, but we got ourselves briefly involved in another hot spot then, half-way around the world from Vietnam.<\/p>\n
He notes that the deployment went so rapidly that they had trucks piling up on the piers and chains of all the enlisted basically just hauling the supplies onto the ship and into the reefers.I am guessing like the proverbial bucket brigades? The chopper pictured on the lower right, caught ground fire and injured the co-pilot, during Operation Power Pack and has a Purple Heart painted on the side of the fuselage.<\/p>\n
On 24 April 1965, young military officers rose in revolt in the Dominican Republic. Four days later US troops invaded the country. It was the first US military intervention in Latin America in more than three decades. These dramatic events brought to center stage a small, backward Caribbean republic where until 1916 civil war and dictatorship had been the rule, democracy and honest government the fleeting exception. Then the United States invaded, and the eight-year US occupation paved the way for the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, which stretched from 1930 until his assassination in May 1961.<\/p>\n
In December 1962 the Dominican Republic held its first free elections in almost four decades. The victor, Juan Bosch, established a government characterized by administrative probity, political freedom, and the promise of social reform, but the Kennedy administration decided that he was soft on Communism. Bosch was overthrown in September 1963, and the de facto government that replaced him indulged in an orgy of corruption. As long as it ruled, there would be no social reforms and no free elections. When young officers rebelled on 24 April 1965 and announced that they would return Bosch to the presidency, the population responded with relief and enthusiasm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Note that only two months later would be November 22 1963… a date which distracted us nationally.<\/p>\n
Urged on by Washington, \u201cloyalist\u201d generals attacked the capital, the stronghold of the revolt, only to be defeated by thousands of armed civilians and hundreds of rebel soldiers. On 28 April the US embassy warned, correctly, that it was a matter of days before the rebels took control of the entire country. It also alleged that Communists had gained control of the revolt. President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in the troops. A four-month stalemate ensued in the glare of the international press, with the rebels holding out in downtown Santo Domingo while the United States and the Dominican government it had created controlled the rest of the country. Oxford Bibliographies.com<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Took till 1965 for a provisional government to be set up. Supposedly touted as a fair compromise, later document declassification showed it to be pretty much a mandate of the US government.<\/p>\n
60 years ago.. a bit of history many of you don’t know, and that 20 year old Jeff experienced it first-hand.<\/p>\n
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