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Contact Info
Home Town San Francisco
Date of Passing Sep 14, 1983
Location of Interment San Francisco National Cemetery (VA) - San Francisco, California
"Lam Nut Bau troi, Rung chuyen Trai Dat" (Crack the Sky, Shake the Earth)
~ Signal to communist forces telling them to commence the greatest battle in the history of Vietnam. The Tet '68 offensive was countrywide and well coordinated, with more than 80,000 communist troops striking more than 100 towns and cities. The main offensive was preceded by attacks on the border towns of Tay Ninh, An Loc, and Loc Ninh, which were initiated in order to draw defensive forces from the cities. Col Fair was the commander at Tay Ninh.The enemy was quickly beaten back there.
General Fair was one of the toughest officers I ever ran into. He and I crossed paths three times in our careers. The first time we were assigned together in the 25th Infantry Division - Vietnam. ...but it was the last time when I had the most interaction with him.
I was assigned to the ACofS Inspector's General Office, when he came on board as the V Corps Commmander. If General Fair believed an officer or enlisted man did not know what they were doing, he had zero tolerance for them. I once saw him dress down and dismiss a Major who was presenting him with a briefing, a briefing that he believed to be grossly incorrect. Another time he stopped a soldier and engaged him for the lack of a proper haircut. He was quick to make his position on such things known.
Personally, I liked General Fair. He began to make things happen that I had been trying to do for some time. The best of these initatives - he consolidated redundant reports. In one case he consolidated four different ammunition reports. He felt as I did that these extra reports only took away valuable time needed for other purposes at the lower command levels. We both believed the extra reports were being required to help justify positions at the Corps level.
He despertly needed funds to train soldiers with. When they were not forth coming, he began to transfer funds designated for other purposes to fund his training needs. Instructed to stop these funds transfers by the USAREUR Commander, LTG Fair ignored that instruction and continued to march with his plans. After having given him a period of time to cease and correct these money transfers, Gen Blanchard, USAREUR Commander finally relieved him from his command.
Granted the two Generals were not the best of friends because of this and other issues, personal feelings were not really the cause of his relief. Gen Blanchard, would have had a lot of explaining to do to Congress, if he had allowed these transfers of funds to continue. Reallocation of funds in this manner were in the top ten Special Subjects of Interest (SSI) in IG Inspections & investigations. This particular violation, if discovered, was required to be reported by FLASH message traffic directly to Congress.
I salute both of these professional military giants. I consider both to be among my mentors. Gen Blanchard stepped up to bat for me in another matter - but that is another story. ~ D. Patrick
"Fair's approach won plaudits. Novelist Josiah Bunting (The Lionheads), an ex-major himself, praised Fair's leathery style in a Playboy article last fall, describing the general as "an admirable soldier" who is "always in bristling motion." But other officers, whose palms sweat when Fair raked them over with abrasive questions, disliked him intensely. To some enlisted men, Fair was a ... General Patton."
Second Korean Winter (1951-52)
From Month/Year
November / 1951
To Month/Year
April / 1952
Description As 1951 drew to a close, a lull had settled over the battlefield. Fighting tapered off to a routine of patrol clashes, raids, and bitter small-unit struggles for key outpost positions. The lull resulted from Ridgway's decision to halt offensive operations in Korea, because the cost of major assaults on the enemy's defenses would be more than the results could justify. Furthermore, the possibility of an armistice agreement emerging from the recently reopened talks ruled out the mounting of any large-scale offensive by either side. On 21 November Ridgway ordered the Eighth Army to cease offensive operations and begin an active defense of its front. Attacks were limited to those necessary to strengthen the main line of resistance and to establish an adequate outpost line.
In the third week of December the U.S. 45th Division, the first National Guard division to fight in Korea, replaced the 1st Cavalry Division in the I Corps sector north of Seoul. The 1st Cavalry Division returned to Japan.
In the air, U.N. bombers and fighter-bombers continued the interdiction campaign (Operation STRANGLE, which the Far East Air Forces had begun on 15 August 1951) against railroad tracks, bridges, and highway traffic. At sea, naval units of nine nations tightened their blockade around the coastline of North Korea. Carrier-based planes blasted railroads, bridges, and boxcars, and destroyers bombarded enemy gun emplacements and supply depots. On the ground, the 155-mile front remained generally quiet in the opening days of 1952. Later in January the Eighth Army opened a month-long artillery-air campaign against enemy positions, which forced the enemy to dig in deeply. During March and April Van Fleet shifted his units along the front to give the ROK Army a greater share in defending the battle line and to concentrate American fire power in the vulnerable western sector.
