Tsukamoto, Bob

Filed under: Members • Unknown • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


Fox, Joe (Smokin Joe)

Filed under: Members • Unknown • (0) Comments • Permalink


Kendrick, Steve

Filed under: Members • Known • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


Mega, William (Bill/Wild Bill)

Filed under: Members • Known • (0) Comments • Permalink


Do You Know Any Of These Crew Dogs? - 1967 Flight Orders

Edwin Petrea sent us a set of special orders from Danang in 1967…
Click Here for the Gallery

Filed under: Blog • (2) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


Winebarger, Drake D.

Filed under: Members • Known • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


Wrapped up the 60s with ABCCC


Click for larger image...

After nearly a year with Batcat down in Korat I was transferred up to Udorn and joined ABCCC-Alleycat. Loved getting off those EC-121s (3 turning and 1 burning), but it always got me home.

Wasn’t long in Alleycat when Cecil Saul got me working in the orbit as the clerk. He was leaving and I got his job and still flying 7 or 8 times a month. Loved everything about it except typing flight orders - 4 copies, no smudges, all in line.

Lots of good fellows in Alleycat, enjoyed the orbit and the flying duties.

As an RTTY guy I hated those damn modems and KW-7 blocks. Too finicky. Lots of times getting in Blue Chip was hard. I remember the night Ho Chi Minh died - flash traffic after flash traffic warning everyone to be on their guard. The camaraderie was great and the pride everyone had in their work - especially the rivalry between the orbits.

Gosh I drank a lot when I was there. Amazing now to think that if you set aside 30 bucks or so - you could always go to the pool and have ten beers a night for a month and not break the bank. It was good times for a skinny little dude from Detroit.

In all I did 44 missions in seven months over 1969 and 1970. With Batcat included I got my hundred missions. I’m proud of that. On my ego wall sits a picture of me at the console and above that an ABCCC bird in flight.

After ABCCC I did tours with SAC ABNCP, CINCLANT ABNCP and NEACP. They tried to fix my bum ears a couple of times ultimately grounding me for good. So I left the USAF and went on to be a contract (ESI) for ten more years working on Airborne C3 systems. Even came down to Keesler one time to brief everyone on the KG-84 replacing the KW-7 - it was nice to see the old birds again.

Now I’m living in Ireland (home of my parents) running a corner shop and doing some writing. All in all, ABCCC is one of the touchstones of my life. It made a real impact on me and I’m proud to have served. Best wishes to all
----- John Flood, Alleycat 69-70

Filed under: Memories • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


Bridges, Jeff A. “Julie”

Filed under: Members • Known • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


ABCCC Book Nearing Completion - By Ray Roddy

For all of you that already contributed to the book project, thanks very much. I’m winding it down now and for all of you that would still like to contribute, please do so.

The manuscript is over 500 pages at this point in time and it will probably come in at around 550 to 575 pages.

I still need somebody with Cambodia experience in 1973 to contact me.

The stories and photos that many of you sent are excellent. I also made contact with several forward air guides living in Thailand and they are very interested in the project also. Some of them have sent charts, maps and probably the only list with names and call signs in existence. I sent several of them some of the mission reports with their call signs and they were thrilled to get them. It’s something they can pass on to their children and grandchildren - just like this book.

So… If you have any questions or information that I might need to finish up this historical record of ABCCC in Southeast Asia - please give me a shout.

Filed under: Blog • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


Yoshee Preflight

This Entry Was Transfered from our Legacy Site’s “War Stories Forum�

There I was, a young Sra R/O in Moonbeam in 79. I was warned by Msgt Huskey to remember everything I was ever taught or I’d never get past my initial chk ride.. I was doing the best I could until at about 1045L that day.

I was told to get the crew van and pick up “Beamers” on the flt line side of the bld. as we were going to pre-flight Yoshee.

I get the van and while waiting for everyone I am looking all through my chk lists for the word Yoshee.

Panicking that I have no clue as to what a Yoshee is and can’t even find that word anywhere in my aircrew aids or chk lists the Beamers show up.

“Lets go”, I was told.

So I start driving out on to the Flt line when old Huskey starts in on me “ Airman do you know where the &*#~ you are going”? I had to humbly admit that I didn’t. We need to stop up at the club he told me. So there we went and there I learned that Yoshee was the bartenders name.

I also learned that day much to my dismay, the combat rules of running a dollar!

John Taggart

Filed under: Memories • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


I was robbed! Three times!

This Entry Was Transfered from our Legacy Site’s “War Stories Forum”

Remember how they briefed you upon arrival about not taking your restricted area badge, ID card or credit cards with you when you wandered into the night in Udorn Thani?

Well, one night, after flight and a typically long 15 or 16 hour work day, I decided to go deep into the heart of Udorn to the hotel I liked to frequent, for some monkey balls, raw cabbage (outside at monkey ball stand) and creamed corn soup and a large bottled coca-cola (inside at the hotel restaurant). All was well in mudville.

After I left the hotel by 5 Baht Samlar, I took a short tour of the various fun spots that Udorn Thani was famous and renown for...at least outside of Air America’s circle of dens of sin.

At one small hotel (the name eludes me, but it was all marble inside and the entrance was curved around the corner of a dirt street) I stopped to practice my Thai on a young lady that I must have confused with a language specialist, and proceeded to consume a few libations, some offered by my table guest.

The next waking moment I had was finding myself sans my clothes, except my shorts, in a dark room of the aforementioned hotel.

My socks, where I had usually, cleverly hidden my considerable valuables, (read restricted area badge, ID and Shell credit card) were mysteriously empty, my shoes (another genius hiding place) were also empty. In a vain attempt to regain my composure and therefore my identity and to determine the day and time, I quickly glanced to my left wrist...where I was sure I had left my Seiko Bell-matic and lo and behold..it too was missing.

Well, what the hell was a young Hillsboro weapons controller to do....Of course, I naturally proceeded into the long carpeted hall of the hotel, clad only in my boxers, and commenced to yell that I had been robbed. To whom I was yelling it wasn’t quite clear then, but in retrospect it did help to clear my foggy, mickied brain enough for it to dawn on me that being robbed was just the beginning of my problem.

For some reason the missing forbidden contents of my wallet became my greatest fear. What if some communist slug was to show up somewhere trying to get access to an AF restricted area and be caught with my badge? What if some yard boy was to get caught at the BX buying a refrigerator or air conditioner with my ID card? And God forbid...what if some Thai yahoo was to run up a fortune on my Shell credit card?

I was definitely in a world of sh--, and all because I was just trying to practice my Thai.

My next sortie into the underworld of the SEA conflict was a daytime raid into Udorn Thani armed with my super 8 camera and a Minolta reflex still camera.

There I was, a typical nondescript American GI, almost undetectable in my blue jeans, tee shirt and sneakers. I set about recording all the sights and sounds of the Udorn streets, hotels, Monkey House, race track, train station, klongs and of course the market and theater.

Late that evening, having documented for my children all the wonders of Udorn and its environs, I was just stepping onto a Baht bus back to the base and had removed my wallet to pay the driver for my ride home. While standing in the door well, wallet in hand, out of the corner of my right eye, I saw this blur of a figure as he leaped onto the bottom step of the open doorway. Quite to my surprise..he filtched my wallet clean out of my hand and in a second blur of speed departed the same bottom step of the open doorway.

For a millisecond, I inventoried my wallet in my mind’s eye. 2000 Baht, 20 US dollars, pictures, and damn it to hell...my new restricted area badge, and new ID card, but, thank God...no shell credit card..(I never replaced the last one).

Well, I quickly assessed the situation and jumped off the departing Baht bus in full chase after this dastardly, communist, restricted area badge filtching, ID card thief! About 500 meters into the chase with camera bags and cameras flopping around, crushing my hip and smashing my ribs, I witnessed a man actually run on top of water as my thieving dirtbag traversed a huge klong like he had webbed feet.

Since I was neither equipped nor trained in over or under water pursuit I decided to yell at the top of my lungs.. “Come back here you communist bastard!” Somehow this verbal order from an American Airman, who was there to save them from the nighmare all around them, was disregarded.

For the second time, I was in a world of sh-- and all because I was just trying to pay my way home.

My third incident of being relieved of my valuables occurred at 23,000 ft. There I was, soaring above the surly bonds of earth, headset on, listening to the sounds of war...when comm comes up on private intercom. “Slow Ops you got a call from Sergeant Webb back at Udorn”. Well, what the heck would Jack be calling about...an emergency back home, promotion, maybe they found my ID card?

I came up on the radio patch to the squadron and the first words I heard were “Hey Dave, we’ve been robbed!” Within the blink of an eye, I retrieved my wallet from my flight suit and confirmed my ID card was still there, I also had my badge and I no longer had any credit cards, so for some reason, I was calm.

“Who, what, where, how did it happen?” I asked. To this day, I have never heard anything as funny as what SSgt Walter E. (Jack) Webb then said to me. “I was gassed” he replied. I started to laugh, not too sure of what he had said, but it sounded so funny...I said “Gassed? What do you mean..gassed?”

He replied “I was asleep in the hootch, (in this case he was talking about a bungalow we shared downtown) and they got into my bedroom and gassed me before I could react. All I saw was faint shadows as they went about the room and robbed me of everything I had”.

“But you said “WE’VE been robbed"”, I said. “What do you mean WE” He said “Well, evidently after they left me semi-conscious in my room they went about the house and burglarized your room and the kitchen, living room and even the clothes the house girl had drying on the clothes line. They even got my motorcycle that I had chained to a post in the living room” he said.

By this time, I had stopped laughing. “Did they get my cameras?” I said. “Yup.” Was the reply. “My film canisters, albums?” “Yup.” “My clothes?” I said weakly. “Roger that. They even got my Chevas!” he said, dejectedly.

“But, wait a second, what happened to the shotgun carrying Thai guard we employed in the compound?” I asked. “Can’t be found.” He replied. “And the german shepherd dog the owner had in the compound?” I asked. “Poisoned!” he said, flatly.

At least I wasn’t there, I thought as I registered robbery number three and I won’t have to give some lame excuse to the commander about the loss of another restricted area badge and ID.

Moral of this story? Pay attention to FNG briefings and don’t leave a guy with a Dragnet name in charge of your sh--. Gassed… my a--.

Dave Butson
Hillsboro ‘72-’73

Filed under: Memories • (0) Comments • Permalink


‘Me, Ken Bortz, the burn barrel… and the gasoline.

So there we were… headed to the burn barrel again, for the umpteenth time toting those 8 or 10 big long brown bags of classified waste that needed to be destroyed.

Some of them were from flights that had been stuffed into the bottom drawer of the orbit safe, some of them newly generated that day by the Moonbeam crew on duty today prepping for another crew’s mission that night.

Wed done this a thousand times before and it wasn’t the chore that we’d have picked to do, had it been solely up to us. Bortz was the TTY guy and I was the lowly Intel Tech on duty that day.

We were on the same Moonbeam flight so burning always seemed to fall to us… or so it seemed…

But this day was different.

As we trudged through the compound toward the burn barrel down by the fence we noticed that Papasan was cutting grass that day… and what did we see sitting there at the door of the maintenance shed? You bet… we spotted a can of gasoline.

One of us scrambled for an empty Coke bottle and poured it about half-full… maybe 4 ounces, of gasoline.

Off to the burn barrel we went, with a new plan. We were excited with the possibilities… we were pumped.

Now the mechanics of the burn barrel should be explained for those of you who were not TTY or Intel (No… I’m not bitter...) It was a large wire mesh cylinder about 4 or 5 feet long and a good 4 or five feet diameter. It had a hinged hatch that was maybe 14 or 18 inches square that was unlatched and opened in order to put your waste to be burned inside the barrel.

The whole barrel then rested on a frame and had a handle on one end that was used to rotate the barrel as stuff burned inside. The faster you rotated the handle, the more white smoke was generated from the burn… but that’s an altogether different war story. I’ll post that one sooner or later.

So back to the story…

Sure enough… Ken and I stuffed all of the bags into the barrel all at once, which was normally not the case. On normal burns we’d rip two or three bags open and loosely stuff their contents into the barrel and then periodically, after that portion had burned sufficiently, we’d add more bags as time went on and after an hour or so, all the classified waste would be gone.

But this time, it was all or nothing!

All 8 or 10 of those bags went into the barrel, onto which we sprinkled the gasoline.

We stepped back and threw a lit piece of wadded paper into the open hatch and Voila! all that waste was toast in less than 10 minutes. It was gone… It was history… and a new procedure had been born.

We spent maybe 10 days giggling at the other Orbit crews at the burn barr… laboring over what could have been such an easy task… If they knew what Ken and I knew.

Eventually it was our turn to burn again. We didn’t hesitate. We didn’t whine. We gladly accepted the task and headed out of the Orbit, burn bags in tow. We also had Captain Abbot in tow. For some reason, that day he wanted to hang with us. We were happy with that. He was OK. He’d soon see how damn smart a couple of NCOs can be…

As Ken and the Captain toted the goods through the ABCCC compound toward the burn barrel, I headed off to see if I could snag the key to the maintenance shed, large Coke bottle in hand.

Sure enough, I got the key from the First Sgt Office offering some bogus excuse about needing to look for something or putting something away.

In the shed I found the gasoline… and Intel Wienies being Intel Wienies, I’m thinking “If a little gas was good last time, then a lot more would be better this time.”

I filled that Coke bottle all the way to the top.

We all met at the burn barrel and Ken was stuffing everything he could into that damn thing.

The Captain probably had reservations, but he didn’t voice them. He knew the routine… If we stuffed all that waste into the barrel at once, we’d be there all day. He’d been on burn detail many times before and he knew how it went.

“Stand back and behold our powers Captain.”

Burn barrel stuffed to the gills, one of us emptied the contents of that tall Coke bottle onto the contents as the other one turned the barrel. We just kept turning that barrel slowly to allow the gasoline to permeate every cranny and fold of that classified waste.

After 30 or 40 seconds of slowly turning the barr… maybe as long as a minute, the time of truth had arrived.

“Watch this Captain and behold the knowledge and skills of the Enlisted Man.”

Bortz flicked the Bic to life and I held the one piece of balled up waste over the flame to get it going.

Once lit, I tossed the burning ball of paper into the open hatch of the burn barrel, expecting to get a fire going quickly so we could then quickly close and lock the hatch like last time and be done with things in no time…

Instead - you guessed it. KA-WHHHOOOSSSHHH!!!!

It looked like a Hollywood napalm hit…

The burn barrel belched out a rather large fireball as it exploded, throwing itself 2 or 3 feet into the air. Screen wire from its sides flying lose and classified waste flying hi… Scores… no hundreds of pieces of classified waste, some wadded up, most not, flew skyward, into the wind.

Some papers were stuck up against the 10 or 12 ft flightline fence but you know it… more that a few blew over the fence and were lazily headed toward the runway… far from us being able to retrieve…

The three of us scrambled around, collecting all that we could… all the time watching several valuable secrets slowly drifting across the run-up area of the Udorn runway toward who know where…

We ended up burning the remaining waste in a pile, there beside the destroyed burn barrel until it was all gone. We lost a few, we got our asses chewed… Capt Abbott getting most of the grief and he was just along for the ride…

I always felt bad for old Capt Abbott… Tom was always getting blind-sided by some 0-5 or 0-6… and deserved most of them I’m sure… But not this one. This one was our fault.

Well… as it turned out, everyone in the squadron had to start using the Base burn barrel way down on the base, adjacent to the runway. CEs wouldn’t repair or replace the ABCCC burn barrel. Burn detail was transformed from 45 to 60 minutes of irritation to a 2 hour ordeal of pain… and that was if you could find a spare truck to borrow to go do it.

Sorry all you guys who ended up having to use the base burn barrel after Bortz and I destroyed the squadron barrel… But you know what? I think I actually remember telling Ken Bortz way back then “Don’t sweat it. This’ll make a good war story someday...”

And it did.

Gene Hilsheimer

Filed under: Memories • (1) Comments • Permalink


Tee-Lock

This Entry Was Transfered from our Legacy Site’s “War Stories Forum”

Origial Post:
Mbuffo1 - Posted: 09-Apr-03 15:29
Told to me as the truth:
Early 1969, a full colonel rotated back to the States. He was so loved by the men in his orbit that they took up a collection, went to his live-in (Tee-Lock)(sp?), gave her traveling money, money for a passport, a one-way PanAm ticket, and his address in the States. Said that he had sent for her.
It pays to take care of the troops!

Replies:
cobra935o - Posted: 11-Apr-03 11:48
Hopefully he didnt have a wife already in the states, wonder if she ever made it to the states and how they worked out?

Vaughn Drinkwater - Posted: 22-Apr-03 17:29
As I recall, There was a certain Col. that rotated back to the states, divorced his wife and lived happily"ever after” with his tee-lock. He had made arangements for her to follow him, money, pasport, visa, ect, ect. I also recall that there was a great age difference. I wonder how long it lasted??

Jim Stanitz - Posted: 17-Jan-05 20:08
I was at Udorn in 1968 when I first heard this story. That version:
A colonel at one of the bases in the middle of Thailand (Takhli, Korat, Ubon - I no longer remember which) was true-lovin’ his Thai secretary, promising to marry her. Come DEROS, he bugged out, leaving her behind, pregnant. Since he was so beloved (NOT) by his troops, and since she was genuinely liked by everyone, they took up a collection and bought her a ticket to the States, and gave her his address. Yes, he was already married back in CONUS. So endeth the story from 1968.
A year or two later, Playboy had a one panel black and white cartoon in the back of the magazine, with an obviously American woman answering the front door, and a very pregnant obviously Oriental woman outside. The caption read: “I don’t understand. What do you mean, ‘If Papa-san no come Mama-san, Mama-san come Papa-san’?”
I guess this is one of those stories that’s like the Ever-ready bunny: it just keeps going and going and going and . . . . . I’ll bet a version of this story went the rounds of the Army Air Corps in France in World War I.
And, yes, it definitely does pay to take care of the troops! 

Filed under: Memories • (0) Comments • Permalink


Example Self Entry - By Gene Hilsheimer


Click for larger image...
This entry is an example of what a self-submitted entry would look like.  Photos are optional.  If you include a photo, there would be a 150px wide image like me and Ken Bortz here… positioned where you see it here.  The image would be clickable and open up a new window to display the full sized graphic (set to 475px wide)

To make an entry to this section - all you have to do is Click Here for the form that will allow you to add your own memories to this section of the site. 

Please put “- by Your Name” after the title of your submission on the form, so we know who submitted it… That’s the only way the webmaster will know who it came from, even though the form has a field for name and email address.

Initially, all submissions will be live right away.  It is hoped that we can manage this section with little or no intervention but if need be, we can always set the submissions to come in “closed” and not go public until they are reviewed by a site manager.

Filed under: Memories • (0) Comments • Permalink


Desert One - the loss of 62-1809

Then Schaefer heard and felt a loud, strong, metallic whack! It sounded like someone had hit the side of his aircraft with a large aluminum bat. Others heard a cracking sound as loud as an explosion, but somehow sharper-edged, more piercing and particular, like the shearing impact of giant industrial tools…
Read More - http://iran.theatlantic.com/interactive_article_page_9.html

Filed under: History • (1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


Zoller, W.S. (Steve)

Filed under: Members • Known • (0) Comments • Permalink


Military Aviation: Issues and Options for Combating Terrorism and Counterinsurgency

Air Force officers experienced a certain “comfort� in knowing that an EC-130E was pushed forward, and its sole mission was supporting CAS and combat search and rescue (CSAR) communications. While these officers say they were unsure whether AWACS could satisfy the ABCCC’ s role in combat, they did not express grave concern. Regardless, if anti-guerrilla scenarios are to be increasingly encountered, exploring the efficacy of resurrecting the ABCCC’ s capabilities may be warranted.
(Note:  Efficacy is the ability to produce a desired amount of a desired effect.)
Read More: http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/RL32737_01272006.pdf

Filed under: History • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


Dramamine

OK… This war story was generated from reading a post from another section of this forum… Somebody mentioned puking… so here it is… And I swear “This Ain’t No Shiat”

Being the Intel Wienie, it was my responsibility to carry the first aid kit along with all the other junk we carried for the rest of the battlestaff.

Inside this little olive drab canvas bag was an assortment of this and that… band aids, gauze, tape, aspirin, etc. that a battlestaff might need. Also in there was a bottle of Dramamine… in case anyone got nauseous from the sometimes bumpy rides. I don’t recall anyone ever using it up to that point… but it was there.

Well, I’d been flying for about a year or so… This had to have happened sometime in late 1970. I was maybe 22 and an E-4… One night, soon after our aircraft had been outfitted with Igloo White relay equipment, the bumpy ride was a lot more serious than earlier in my ABCCC career. This was because prior to our aircraft hauling Igloo White relay equipment, we could pretty much buzz wherever we wanted to in the night skies over Laos.

It used to be “If it’s rough over here… let’s fly over there… but those rules no longer applied. Because we were now carrying Igloo White relay equipment which relayed commands to and responses from acoustic and seismic sensors seeded all over the trails in Laos, it was necessary for the ABCCC aircraft to pretty much fly in prescribed locations so the relay equipment would work properly.

Well, this one night is was like flying through a washing machine. It was hour after hour after hour of turbulent toil as we went about the business of ABCCC. The longer it went, the more everyone was getting worn out in one way or another.

I recall about 6 or 7 hours into this roller coaster ride of a mission, I slowly came to the conclusion that I was starting to become nauseated. I fought it for quite a while but as my mouth started watering much more than normal, I just knew that the conclusion of this condition was fast approaching and I’d better do something about it.

I reached down and picked up the first aid kit and poked through it until I found the Dramamine. I took one and then made one of the most stupid decisions of my ABCCC career… I offered others in the battlestaff the opportunity to join me.

I forgot that I had been crewing with Fighter Pilots, old grizzled NCOs, macho-men from all walks of life and all of much higher rank. The laughing, pointing, jeering and calls of “#####! Wimp! F@%!ing Intel Wienie seemed to last for some 15 minutes. It was brutal and I’m sure deservedly so…

I was so embarrassed that I just sunk back into my Station 7 chair and tried to disappear… “Why did I do such a stupid thing? “I could have just popped the Dramamine quietly and not shown myself for the ##### that I apparently am… “I am such a dork… This’ll get around the entire squadron… “I’ll never live this down…

Well… we continued to bump, and grind, and shudder, and shake. Up and down… Down and up… it just kept on and on and on… But you know what? About an hour or so past my public flogging, I was nauseous no more… I was doing OK, despite the terribly bumpy ride. I was doing OK and the sting of the public ridicule was subsiding.

So things are going quite well, when all of a sudden Capt Jim “Buddah White EXPLODED out of the High Controller seat - Station 4. When I say EXPLODED - I mean EXPLODED. He leapt up and was in an immediate dead run toward the back of the capsule. He didn’t even have time to rip his headset off of his head. That happened for him as he reached Station 5 when he ran out of headset cord.

Well… I guess old Jim made it to about mid-Station 6, headset still in mid-air, when a veritable eruption of barf propelled itself from his mouth toward the back of the capsule… Jim, still in a dead run, mind you…

And that did it… Jim White’s unsuccessful sprint to the capsule head was the trigger that EVERYONE in the Battlestaff was waiting for to induce their own voluminous eruptions of air sickness. Everyone but me that is… From Radio Operator to DABS to BSOO to TTY to AIO to all positions… barf was flying everywhere!!!

And there I sat… the #####, the Wimp, the Intel Wienie… right as rain and even better once I pulled the Emergency Oxygen bottle from beside my seat and masked up…

I went through my bottle and the bottles from two other stations before we got home that morning…

Sitting there… sucking emergency oxygen… watching the entire rest of the battlestaff continue to run operations while gagging, mopping, blotting, soaking, and otherwise living a miserable, wet, stinky existence for the rest of the time we were airborne.

It was all pretty gross and I feel worst for the capsule maint crews that were tasked to get things back to normal in that box after we came home… but ya’ know what? Nobody called me a wimp or a ##### after that flight. It was sooooo cool…

Gene Hilsheimer

Filed under: Memories • (0) Comments • Permalink


A memorable trip to the Holiday Inn Bath House

This Entry Was Transfered from our Legacy Site’s “War Stories Forum”

Actually - they all were memorable…

After a big Squadron Sawadee Party late one evening, a bunch of us ended up down at the Holiday Inn bath house in Udorn…

Probably 5 or 6 of us…

Capt Doug Hawley, Moonbeam Intel, was there… as was Maj Gov Karki, Squadron Intel…

Major Karki was of Indian or Pakastani decent and out of uniform, he could pass for just about any businessman in downtown Udorn.

So into the bath house we went…

Of course, I opted for good old Number 19… and Doug and Guv and the rest went their own separate ways…

An hour or so later… I’m bailing and I see Doug Hawley settling up as well.

Doug is all dressed but he’s carrying another set of clothes with him.

I asked him what the deal was and he told me he had figured out that Major Karki was in the cubicle next to him…

Knowing that, Doug stood up on the “massage table” on his side of the cubicle and peeked over.

He saw Karki’s clothes hanging on a hook within easy reach so he quietly lifted Guv’s pants and shirt over the cubicle wall and left with them… (Guv’s wallet was still in the trousers)

Doug and I went our separate ways after leaving the Holiday Inn and I watched as Doug got into a taxi with Major Karki’s clothes and off he went…

I heard that Major Karki ended up at the main gate of Udorn several hours later… waaayyy after midnight, in black lowquarter shoes, black socks and a pooying’s sarong wrapped around him… trying to convince the gate guard that he was a fighting American military man… not some local Pakistani trying to sneak on the base…

I guess Guv had to sign his life away to get out of that bath house without paying up front and kudos to him for talking them out of a sarong and cab fare…

Doug hung Guv’s clothes on the doorknob of his room in the BOQ so he did eventually get them back.

I don’t know if Guv ever found out that it was Doug that did that to him… so here it is… in the open now…

Gene Hilsheimer

Filed under: Memories • (0) Comments • Permalink


Near Mid-Air - 1972

This Entry Was Transfered from our Legacy Site’s “War Stories Forum”

It was in April 1972 as I recall when Moonbeam was diverted to fly an orbit over Vietnam instead of our normal orbit near Savannakhet.

It was unusual but something had broken somewhere and TFA at NKP needed us there because of the sensor relay equipment we carried and the fact the the North Vietnamese Army had just crossed the DMZ a while back.

Well… because we were in a different orbit than usual, there was “more to see” out of the cockpit windows.

Ken Bortz (TTY) and I were up in the cockpit early on during that mission. I was on headset, he was not. He was standing behind the pilot, looking out the port cockpit window and I was to Ken’s right… He had the better view that I did.

We had been there about 15 or 20 minutes, watching actual fighting going on on the ground… we could see explosions from Air Support as well as ground to ground tracers… it was something different and something interesting…

About that time Bortz spotted flashing aircraft lights off at about 9:00 o’clock headed toward us. He pointed them out to me and because he wasn’t on headset and I was - I advised the pilot.

The lights were maybe 30 seconds away and headed toward us… and because we had our lights on, the pilot didn’t see a need to make a radio call as the lights appeared to be below our flight level… but not by much.

We watched and watched as the flashing lights came closer and closer and the aircraft, some sort of fighter, passed right below us by maybe 100 feet or so. We could all see his cockpit instruments glowing as he went underneath.

Just as the jet was out from under us, a call from the back end came through the headsets asking Bortz to return to the capsule, as a TTY message was coming in.

I relayed that info to Ken and back to the capsule he went.

A few seconds after Ken left the cockpit, there ensured a conversation that went somethin like this -

“Peacock, Gunsmoke. (Not the actual fighter callsign)

“Go ahead Gunsmoke”

“Who do you have out here at 210 for 90 at angels 24?”

“Gunsmoke, Peacock - that’s Moonbeam”

“Well Peacock, can you tell him to turn his f-ing lights on, I almost ran into him” (Our light were on all the time)

Our pilot stepped in with something like - “Gunsmoke - Moonbeam… we had you all the way… you passed right under us… no sweat”

“Moonbeam Gunsmoke, I didn’t pass under you. I had to pull up hard to avoid you”

So the conversation on the intercom went something like this:

“Stupid fighter jocks… they just don’t have a clue… they don’t know up from down… hahaha… blah, blah, blah...”

We all laughed about how wrong the guy was and how fighter pilots were dorks and all that… and we bid the Gunsmoke guy adeau and left it at that.

Some 15 or 20 minutes later, Ken Bortz returned to the flight deck and this time he was on headset…

After a while on headset, he said something like “Man, did you see those two aircraft that came so close to us a while back?”

We all looked at Ken and someone said “Two????”

Ken replied “Yeah… two. One went right under us and the other went right over our back...”

Man, you should have seen the blood drain from the faces of that ABCCC aircrew…

Of course, Bortz had his normal face on… that look of bewilderment that we all loved…

Gene Hilsheimer

Filed under: Memories • (0) Comments • Permalink


Dennis Plymale and the steering lock caper…

This Entry Was Transfered from our Legacy Site’s “War Stories Forum”

Posted: 14-Feb-03 17:05

The 7ACCS moved lock, stock, and barrel from Udorn RTAFB to Korat RTAFB in April, 1972.

When we got to Korat, the squadron compound was way down near the back gate. The street that it was on was long and straight down at that end of the base…

Normal Ops for us guys driving the Bread Trucks or the Orbit’s Chevy Pickup was to get up to around 45-50 mph when headed back to the squadron.

About 200 yards before the squadron entrance, we’d put the truck into neutral, turn off the ignition and put the keys into a flight suit pocket and coast the rest of the way to the compound…

Once coasting, when we’d get to the left turn into the squadron area (through the gate in the chain link fence around the compound) we’d gently brake, make the left turn, roll into the parking area, wheel the vehicle into its slot and there we were… ready to bail right away.

This worked great until the AF, in its infinite wisdom decided to replace our Chevy Pickup with a Datsun Pickup…

Well… way back then, nobody had ever heard about or even seen a steering lock… That included Dennis Plymale… Moonbeam Radio Operator.

So one day, up on the base Dennis headed with this wonderfully bright and shiny, not to mention SMALL pickup truck… I think he went up to the message center.

True to form, on the way back to the squadron, Dennis had that little truck up to about 50 mph when he put it in neutral, turned the ignition off and stuffed the key into his flightsuit pocket.

Everything went just fine while he was going straight and level… then came that turn into the compound…

Yep… you got it. Halfway through the lefthander the steering lock kicked in and off the pavement and into and through the chain link he went… (more like into and under...)

Dennis spent days afterwards working that truck… trying to get out of the dog house… but no matter how much he buffed, waxed, polished, kneaded, and worked that baby… you could still see the fence marks on the hood and top of the cab of that pretty little vehicle…

Steering Locks… what’s up with that??? All of us other ABCCC drivers were just glad that Dennis was the one to “teach” the rest of us about those pesky little things.

Gene Hilsheimer

Filed under: Memories • (0) Comments • Permalink


Bat-21 SAR

Lt. Col. HambletonIn one of the most bizarre rescues of the Vietnam War, Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton was recovered from enemy territory in northern South Vietnam after 11 1/2 days on the ground. This was the largest rescue operation in USAF history.

On Easter Sunday, April 2, 1972, Lt. Col. Hambleton was flying as navigator in an EB-66 electronic counter-measures aircraft (call sign Bat-21). When the aircraft was struck by a surface-to-air missile, he was the only man to eject safely, landing near a busy highway junction on a Communist supply route. Intelligence sources reported the area contained 30,000 enemy troops. (While initially awaiting rescue, Lt. Col. Hambleton directed USAF aircraft that destroyed many enemy vehicles on the highways.)

Intense ground fire prevented the first attempts to rescue him. A plan was devised to direct him by radio contact with a forward air controller aircraft to a safer pick-up point. USAF reconnaissance aircraft photographed the area, and photo analysts laid out a course for him to follow to a river two miles away. Lt. Col. Hambleton, an avid golfer, remembered in great detail various golf courses where he had played. To guide him safely past enemy camps, gun emplacements and unfriendly villages and then downstream to a rescue point, specific holes at certain courses were used to establish distance and direction of travel for each segment of his journey.

Traveling only at night, he reached the 10th day, exhausted and with nothing to eat or drink since bailout except several ears of corn and rainwater. Floating downstream, at the last “hole” he was met by Navy SEAL Lt. Thomas R. Norris and a Vietnamese Ranger who had stolen a boat. Despite several enemy ambushes, they delivered Lt. Col. Hambleton to a waiting USAF helicopter that took off under enemy fire. Lt. Col. Hambleton’s experience was the basis for a book and a movie, but neither portrayed the complexity of the operation, the exotic technology or number of people involved in the rescue. 234 medals were awarded to individuals for this rescue, and Lt. Norris received the Medal of Honor for his role in this and a related rescue.

Displayed on the mannequin (at the museum) are the baseball cap, monocular and glasses that Lt. Col. Hambleton had with him when rescued. His original flight suit was taken from him in the hospital for laundering, and he was transferred before it was returned. The URC-64 survival radio was his most important survival item. He was enthusiastic about how well it worked despite submersion in water and other hardships. The framed photomontage was composed of reconnaissance photos and was used to plan the escape route since there were no usable maps of the area. The plaque was given to him by the commander, 42nd Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron, in memory of the EB-66 crew members who died.

Items on display at the museum were donated by Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton (USAF Ret.), Tucson, Ariz.

Source: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1236

Additional Bat21 Links:

http://www.homeofheroes.com/brotherhood/seals.html
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tho0int-9
Must Reading - http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976873360

Filed under: History • (1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


The war against trucks: aerial interdiction in southern Laos, 1968-1972

By directing operations through his own command and control mechanism, Momyer believed he could ensure that “All necessary air, and not just a dedicated force, can then be quickly switched via ABCCC [airborne battlefield command and control center] to exploit lucrative targets developed by the Infiltration Center, FACs [forward air controllers] or any other collection source.� His concern for centralized control, however, reflected the possibility that dividing the recently unified aerial resources between Seventh Air Force and Task Force Alpha might well encourage the Marine Corps to revive its campaign to regain operational control of its own aircraft.
Read More: https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/fulltext/WarAgainstTrucks.pdf

Filed under: History • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


The Clash About CAS (AFA.org)

Without ABCCC to sort through the CAS requests and prioritize the missions of strike aircraft, the job was even tougher.
Read More: http://www.afa.org/magazine/jan2003/0103cas.asp

Filed under: History • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


Misty FACs (Flying the F-100)

Misty FAC site: http://www.mistyvietnam.com/
This has a very good recap of how a typical Misty FAC mission went: http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/saas_Theses/Haun/Haun.pdf

Filed under: Links • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink


Page 1 of 1 pages

Navigation

Search



Circles in the Sky

Ray Roddy has completed his masterpiece.

Circles in the Sky - The Secret War in Southeast Asia - A Command and Control Perspective

Click Here to order from the publisher - or if you'd like a signed copy, contact me at ray.roddy@gmail.com. I will have to order 20 books at a time from Infinity to avoid double shipping charges. I will sign them as per request and mail them ASAP in a padded mailer with tracking information.

Thanks,
Ray Roddy

ABCCC Reunion 2010


7-10 October 2010
Holiday Inn North
Dayton, Ohio
For More Info - Click Here

Categories

Recent Comments

Recent Entries

Monthly Archives

Join Mailing List

Statistics