12 th TFW Association Log Entry, September 2009

Transcription

1 12 th TFW Association Log Entry, September 2009 Nam - 40 years later by Claude Skip Blanchard Today Vietnam is about 86 million folks. Forty years ago just South Vietnam was 2 million folks. Where did all these people come from? I can only guess that only the cities were counted back then and maybe the minority hill tribes, like the Hmong or Montenards, were not considered citizens. Diane and I traveled to Viet Nam in April 2009, 40 years since I was a Sharkbait GIB in the 557 th TFS of the 12 th TFW. Our flights were from New Orleans to Detroit to Tokyo to Saigon and then to Nha Trang airport, which is the Cam Ranh Bay runway. The flights were all uneventful. The flight route out from Detroit was over vast Canadian wetlands, Hudson s Bay, along the North Slope of Alaska, and down the Japanese islands (probably including Siberia). The folks wanted to sleep and did not want the window shades open so I could not look out at the snow and ice. CAM RANH - NHA TRANG: The air base buildings are history. The entire base must have been bulldozed. Google Earth does show building foundations, but only one building has a shadow. Today the west ramp has a tower and passenger terminal as Nha Trang s airport. The east side looks like scrub vegetation and sand dunes. The beach at the north end of the runway is just sand and surf. The old masonry mission buildings are still there on the peninsula. I always thought these buildings were across the bay. I never saw the south end of the peninsula since Viet Nam Airways always landed to the south and took off to the north. We spent a few days SCUBA diving out of Nha Trang, but the water and coral was not as pristine as in 1969 off of CRB. This is a resort area with several more big resorts planned along the beaches north of the CRB Air Base. These are all accessed by a new four lane highway between the city and the airport. This new road was probably built as a result of the Miss Universe Pageant that was held in Nha Trang in We did visit with Bill Harris one evening at Nha Trang. He was a Sgt. Air Policeman in 1969 and is a 12 th TFW member. We had dinner at a restaurant along the beach that he remembered. He enjoys both the USA and SEA as his son-in-law and his Vietnamese daughter live near there and drove him to Nha Trang. His daughter is beautiful. While walking around Nha Trang shops I found a string of (about 100) GI Dog Tags for sale at $5 apiece. This was most disheartening. But, it seems that others have investigated these dog tags from around VN and found several of the names to be veterans which are still alive living in the USA. I did see one with the first name of Claude. I decided that buying these and trying to look up the families would just cause more pain. Our web master Ron Doughty did find a web site explaining these dog tags as bogus. We did enjoy a side trip by car and were practically treated as locals on a trip to the Yang Bay Water Fall and a crocodile farm. The guide had a nice sit down lunch for us in an open air restaurant pavilion with many VN locals. The crocodile was tasty. The local Minority People Tribe had a music and song show for us tourists. It was the day before May Day and was their Revolution Celebration of the fall of Saigon in The government may be Communist but I believe it has figured out that it is best to allow the folks to all work hard for themselves and to make it as Capitalists. Of course I don t know how much control the government has over their trade. HANOI: This city is a show place for Uncle Ho, who died in We visited his mausoleum, along with a thousand other folks. They have him on display in a glass case inside a big granite box. Since it was May Day the streets were decorated with red banners alternating with the hammer and sickle and yellow star. A flood of motor bikes whine down the streets with a few cars and busses. Page 1 of 6

2 We were within walking distance of the VN History and the Revolutionary Museums. Since it was a holiday weekend we could not visit the Geology Museum. So I bought a rough ruby crystal, which is a common gem from VN. The center of the old town area is a medium size lake with a pagoda reached by a picturesque bridge. As Diane and I walked around the lakes shady park an old VN gentleman sitting on a bench wished us a Happy Holiday in English. I wish I had stopped and tried to converse with him. I regret not meeting some of the former enemy. In our travels we did cross the river on a new bridge parallel to the Paul Doumer Bridge. Even today the Doumer Bridge has only been repaired enough to allow motor bike traffic. This trip was to Ha Long Bay for an overnight cruise on a junk to see the famous limestone pinnacles. The Hanoi Hilton, or Hoa Lo Prison, was not on our tour s itinerary and I was just as happy to never have had to visit there. The Military Museum, which we did visit, has plenty of hardware and NVA propaganda to last a lifetime. I probably would have appreciated visiting the Ho Chi Minh Trail Museum, but it was too far from our hotel for the time we had. We traveled overnight on the Reunification Express to Hue. I saw one big VC cemetery near the DMZ. HUE: The Citadel is huge and is the major feature of the city. A huge red flag flies over the flag tower. This historic portion of the Citadel is where the last VN Kings lived, and is not the location of the Marine Corps battle with the NVA during Tet 68. We did cruise the Perfume River from a tour boat which launched at the base of the bridge that I believe was where the Marines had their first obstacle in clearing out the NVA and VC from Hue. Along the Perfume River is a high fortified pagoda with Hindu influence. One of the enjoyable side trips was when seven of us took an Easy Rider trip on motor bikes out into the country side. We saw rice harvesting up close. It reminded me of early rice harvests with mules and wagons and a threshing machine in Louisiana. A special stop was at Uncle Ho s father s house where Ho grew up. My bike driver said many VC live around where we toured. He wanted to take me to Khe San, but we were limited on time, and I was not sure I would be treated so well after they learned I had killed some of their VC friends and relatives. DA NANG: This was the only place I saw 37mm AAA emplacements at a military base along the China Beach. A museum in the city is very strong Hindu or Indian statuary from a thousand or so years ago. All the folks throughout Asia, the Chinese, Japanese and Indians had their hooks into VN at one time or another. Marble Mountain is aptly named since marble is a resource from there used for statuary. China Beach is quite long and rather empty. I only diverted there once. DA LAT: This is the truck farm of the country. Everywhere else the crop is rice, but here they grow the vegetables and flowers. It is an old French resort with some substantial French houses. Some houses are fixed up but others are derelicts. Our hotel was built in 1932 and kept art deco. The elevator was in an ornate wrought iron enclosure. A French meal at the Novotel Hotel was our most expensive, and closest to US cooking. Our most strenuous side trip was a 10 mile hike in the Central Highlands. Our trek was along piney woods trails that went up and down 1000 feet at least twice, according to my GPS. We even crossed a muddy river on a rickety suspension bridge. The crop on these hillsides was mainly coffee. Diane and I were really beat after this hike. SAIGON HO CHI MINH CITY: The pictures of Uncle Ho are not as common here. The Presidential Palace, which was the final place captured during the final overthrow in 1975, is the main feature in the city. We did visit the restaurant in Saigon where President Clinton and daughter Chelsea ate noodles. One side trip was to the Chu Chi Tunnels. This is where we got closest to the War. They had a rifle range with AK-47 s; I shot 20 rounds with 4 jams. The tunnels are small, hot and dark. I only made it 25 meters, while Diane made it 60 meters with her flashlight. The tunnel system is vast. Old bomb craters attributed to B-52 s were spaced around the site. Page 2 of 6

3 We did have lunch in the Rex Hotel, which is where the CIA was supposed to have had their headquarters during the war. There is still a row or two of hard-stand hangers along the edge of the Tan San Nhut ramp. ME KONG DELTA: On our side trip to the delta we traveled two hours by bus out of Saigon and had a guided boat tour of the river system. The bus driver was the only ARVN I met. Our lunch was a feast at a Colonial house on a canal across a large island. A small quartet played for the group along with a skit by some local actors. Oh yes, I thought that Colonial house would be French, but no, it was an ornate Chinese Colonial house. The delta is a lot like South Louisiana, with a bunch of vegetation lending to good ambush sites. But, kids were swimming in the river, women were washing their stuff and quite a few boats were laden with goods. We toured a coconut candy operation, drank snake wine, and visited a large brick factory located along the river. LAOS: As a GIB in 69 I did occasionally have time to take photos, when I let the A/C Captain Larry Taylor of Georgia have some stick time. I recently reviewed my photos and can find the exact spot on Google Earth where we struck a storage cave near a river ford in Mu Gia or Banh Pha Nop Pass in Laos on the Ho Chi Minh Trail as it exits VN. The closest we came to Laos was the train ride on the Reunification Express from Hanoi to Hue. THE TOUR GROUP: Our tour group was made up of Australians and New Zealanders. One girl was from Ireland. Since it is winter down under these folks were happy to visit Vietnam as a getaway. They were all friendly and we all spoke the language. Our Vietnamese tour guide was Din Le, a guy about 27 years old with a degree in tourism. His English was okay. He was easy going and found us meals that totaled between $4 to $8 for both Diane and I, which included drinks. He knew a bunch about the VC living in the tunnels. He also allowed that his uncle had been killed as a truck driver along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I didn t apologize. Vietnam Observations 2009: 1. Great French bread and French Coffee; 2. Good SCUBA diving with Rainbow Divers at Nha Trang; 3. Friendly folks throughout the country with no signs of animosity towards the US; 4. Good tour with a knowledgeable guide and great folks from Down Under; 5. Inexpensive dining and goods, the food was okay; 6. Some prices marked in US dollars and the merchants are enjoying Capitalism; 7. Hot and humid, but enjoyable; 8. Good supply of limestone, marble, and granite; 9. Half the folks must own a motor bike, and just in the past 15 years; 10. They owe the French a debt of gratitude for grooming Ho Chi Minh; 11. The Indians, Japanese, Chinese, and French all tried to own Vietnam; 12. The USAF didn t bomb their treasured cities into rubble, when we could have; 13. Uneventful in-country airline flights on Air Vietnam; 14. Cam Ranh Bay Air Base is just a memory, with all the buildings gone; 15. I d like to travel down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and see the supply depot locations and caves in the karsts. 16. Uncle Ho looked stiff. Page 3 of 6

4 My Recollections of Cam Ranh as a Sheet Metal Man by Dan Taylor I arrived at CRAB in October 1966 and left a year later in I was an aircraft sheet metal specialist and our shop sat next to several hangars. Most of our work was performed outside in the revetments. It was very hot during daylight hours working in the sun; therefore, I tried to accomplish most of my assignments during late evening or at night. Most of the work involved battle damage. We also performed all types of hull and stress-crack repairs. I was the only person skinny enough to crawl into an F-4 air intake and patch holes made by bullets or shrapnel. The metal shop assigned me to wingtip repairs quite often. Thus, I became quite adept at this task and it became my primary duty. The main reason so many required immediate repair is the pilots were flying down low through the jungle tops and clipping trees. The wingtips were not shot off -- they were torn off from close calls catching tree branches. One major repair required replacing both wingtips of a particular F-4. I worked around the clock on this assignment performing most of the repair at night when it was cooler. Fortunately, there were sufficient light stands available to illuminate the work area. They wanted the aircraft ready the following day so I worked without sleep to complete this repair. The next morning a colonel arrived and asked if the plane was ready, and I said, "Yes Sir, it is." He offered to take me up with him for the test flight. I would love to have gone, but enlisted men were not allowed flights in the jets. The colonel took off and test flew the aircraft to ensure it was combat ready. Another of my assignments required me to work in a hangar near our shop. They had an F-4 parked inside with both canopies open. I stood on top of the front windshield repairing cracks on the canopy mirror itself. The inside hangar was the best place to work on these. The aircraft skin could easily burn you because of the bright sun and intense heat. I remember well an occasion when an airman from the egress shop arrived to work on the ejection seat in the rear cockpit. While working on the front mirrors, I heard a hissing sound followed by a large explosion. Apparently, the airman failed to insert all the safety pins in the seat system. I do not know exactly what happened, but somehow he activated the seat. He was either standing or kneeling in front of it when the ejection system became activated. The seat ejected with a horrendous bang and took him with it to the hangar roof and killed him. When the seat ejected, the loud explosion instantly startled me and I fell or jumped from top of the windshield to the floor. By this time the egress fellow had already hit the inside roof and fell back down. I took one look at him laying there on the floor, and I couldn't imagine how he could possibly have survived. Of course, the shock affected me emotionally. I immediately left the hangar and ran crying into our metal shop. The senior staff wanted to know what went wrong. I told them what little I could recall while I was still able to talk. They immediately left to investigate the accident scene. I did not remain around to find out the final details. It wasn't long after this incident that it almost occurred again. I was working inside the hangar on the front mirrors. An egress man came out, but fortunately did not climb into the rear F-4 cockpit. He started to step inside when I again heard a "hissing" sound. I hollered and the kid jumped away, just as the seat ejected. From that time on, I told the shop chief that I refused to work in the hangar -- keep me outside despite the sun and heat. I do not wish to point any blame, but we were all young and basically scared when we were over there. No doubt, the egress man performed this same procedure time and again, except on this one occasion, he missed a step and made a fatal mistake. And that is easy for us all to do. Page 4 of 6

5 Besides the F-4s, I also worked on C-130s and other aircraft. For some reason, when ground fire struck the Hercules, once the shell ripped the skin, it made a fairly large hole. These were easy to repair. Fighters are a little bit more complicated because you have to keep repair pretty tight. F-4s have to withstand all the Gs pilots pull during their combat maneuvers. The C-130s do not require that critical detail. Of course, anytime we performed repairs, we did it correctly. There is a standing joke amongst sheet metal men: When working on a prop aircraft to repair a bullet hole, etc, the patch up could be accomplished using a beer can! After unfolding the container, the aluminum sheet was riveted to cover the hole on the damaged airframe. It was not legal. The trick is to rivet it on and NOT paint over it. Somewhere along the way, it would eventually be permanently repaired. The beer can served only as temporary patch to get the aircraft off base to return to its home for a permanent repair.. The First Traffic Accident at Cam Ranh Air Base by Charlie Rice The civilian contracting firm that helped to build Cam Ranh Air Base was RMKBRJ. They have had major construction projects all over the world. RMK as we called them, had their own support aircraft, all types of vehicles, and an assigned a guy whose only job was to come down to the flight line to greet all their arriving aircraft. Since they transported people as well as cargo, someone had to hold the hands of the arriving and departing passengers. Pretty early in the growth of the cargo ramp which was completed before the F-4 ramp, the routine was slow. There was not a lot of air or ground traffic, nor a lot of aircraft parked on the cargo ramp. At most there was an occasional C-130, a helicopter, or something smaller. There were no fences around the runway or ramp let alone enough people to patrol the area. In this phase I was meeting all aircraft and watching the area to assist crews and keep the gawkers out of the way. There was no ramp control system or transient alert. The only ramp traffic control was provided by the mobile tower out near the runway and the center taxiway. On this particular day, a large fuel trailer was parked on the outside ramp nearest the runway. The small tankers we had were used to fuel transient and support aircraft requiring AV gas ( grade fuel). Other aircraft such as C-130s would be serviced by JP-4 tankers (a grade of jet fuel). The fighter ramp and the fuel bladders for the F-4s were still under construction at the West end of the cargo ramp. It was a steamy day with occasional rain falling. The ramp was practically empty at this time of day and I was driving a Ford Econoline van that was used for Base Operations transportation. I was alone and looking for bent up metal on the PSP ramp which if not flattened could cut aircraft tires. I could see the fuel tanker for AV gas just ahead and the shade tarp that was set up for the airman on duty. I pulled up to talk to him and see if he needed water or other refreshments. I was about five feet from him at an angle with the vehicle as we began to chat. As I looked at him, as his mouth fell open and he started to say something. Page 5 of 6

6 Then Bam! My vehicle was suddenly hit and was rolling over and to the left towards the tanker. It continues to roll past 90 degrees settling on its left side. When I calmed down, all I could see was the PSP since I was driving the now turned on its side Base Ops van. What the #&$# has happened? I can only think of that gas truck and me being next to it. As I rapidly exit the van through the right side door, straight up and out, I try to figure out what had hit me. There he stood, the RMK guy, their greeter. The RMK driver had come across the wet steel ramp so fast in his weapons carrier that he could not stop and collided with my van. After checking to see if the tanker operator was okay, I used my radio to call Base Operations to get an Air Police vehicle and a fire truck. I then proceeded to ask this guy what he was doing over here, what was wrong with him, using a few expletives. I included instructions on how to drive on wet PSP. The numbskull learned he was to drive perpendicular to the valleys. I told him he was banned from the ramp until further notice and had the APs take him off the ramp. After this, we issued flight line passes made out of aluminum and painted numbers on them. The RMK boss came down a day or so later and negotiated a deal where his people would always be escorted on the ramp. This incident enabled me to get the APs interested in patrolling to enforce speed and safety. Fortunately, there were no more problems. Page 6 of 6