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Troop Carrier Units


SamMcGowan
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I noticed there was some stuff missing or in the wrong place on the Herkepedia. I mentioned it to Joey on the Facebook C-130 Group but at the time didn't remember what I had noticed. Here is a rundown of the original C-130 units:

463rd Troop Carrier Wing - 772nd, 773rd, 774th (joined by 29th TCS at Clark) Was originally at Ardmore, OK, then moved to Sewart around 1958. Transferred to Langley in 1963. Went to the Philippines in December 1965 - Wing Hq and 772nd and 774th at Mactan, 773rd and 29th at Clark.

314th TCW - 50th, 61st and 62nd. Based at Sewart AFB, TN. Second to get C-130s. Wing and 50th transferred to PACAF in December 1965.

317th TCW - 39th, 40th and 41st. Equipped with Herks at Evreux, France. Transferred to Lockbourne 1964. 41st went to Naha.

483rd TCW - 815th and 817th - equipped with Herks at Ashiya. Deactivated in 1960. 815th transferred to Tachikawa directly under 315th AD and 817th to Naha to join 21st TCS.

64th TCW - 17th, 18th and 35th. A sort of bastard unit. Activated at Dyess with A-models from Sewart. Replaced by 516th TCW with 345th, 346th and 347th. 17th went to Alaska, 18th to Sewart. 35th wasn't used but activated at Naha in 1963. 64th Wing reactivated at Sewart in 1966 with 61st and 62nd. Moved to Little Rock. Replaced by 314th in 1971.

516th TCW - 345th, 346th and 347th- Activated at Dyess in 1963 with C-130Es.

464th TCW - 776th, 777th, 778th and 779th. Transitioned from C-123s to C-130Es 1963. 776th went to PACAF in December 1965 (was already TDY) Inactivated in 1971 and replaced (paper only) by 317th.

6315th Operations Group - 21st, 817th, 35th - joined by 41st December 1966. Activated at Naha in 1964 under 315th Air Division as the headquarters for the three C-130 squadrons based there after the 35th activated. (The squadron that went to Naha was actually the 345th, but mid-way across the Pacific they became the 35th.)

313th TCW - 29th, 47th and 48th. Activated at Forbes AFB, Kansas in 1964 with B-models from Sewart. 29th transferred to 315th AD in December 1965.

374th TCW - 21st, 35th, 41st, 817th. Activated at Naha August 1966 to replace the 6315th Ops Group.

316th TCW - 36th, 37th and 38th. Activated at Langley in January 1966 after the 463rd transferred to Clark.

There was some shuffing around with some units. For instance, the 345th was a C-123 outfit at Sewart but transitioned into C-130As and moved to Naha and became the 35th. The 345th then moved to Dyess. In December 1966 the 50th from Sewart, 345th from Dyess and the 776th from Pope all PCSed to PACAF to join the 315th Air Division. The 29th left Forbes and went to Clark and the 41st left Lockbourne and went to Naha.

All of the troop carrier units were redesignated as "tactical airlift" in August 1967.

Edited by SamMcGowan
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  • 2 months later...
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  • 8 months later...

Sam, Some of us left Langely in November 65. First to Clark and then to Mactan.

Our crew was shuttteling between Tuy Hoa South and Phang Rang and Nha Trang Hauling in army artillery and some troops that night. There were only 3 bonfires marking one side of the dirt runway. Well past the end of our 12 hour crew duty day we hit way short of the runway and tore out the Korean marines perimiter wire. No damage to the aircraft but a lot of wire was wrapped around the gear and doors. Tuy Hoa South became Tuy Hoa.

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Very interesting, Sam.

The 775th was also at Ardmore AFB in the fifties. It was reactivated there with C-119s I think in early 1956. I was in the 773rd at that time. I thought the 775th transferred to Stewart the last of 1958. I was sent to Ardmore in November of 1955 and worked on C-119s until we received the first of the C-130s in 1956. I was released the last of January 1959.

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  • 1 year later...

Very interesting, Sam.

 

The 775th was also at Ardmore AFB in the fifties. It was reactivated there with C-119s I think in early 1956. I was in the 773rd at that time. I thought the 775th transferred to Stewart the last of 1958. I was sent to Ardmore in November of 1955 and worked on C-119s until we received the first of the C-130s in 1956. I was released the last of January 1959.

I'm not sure what happened to the 775th. It may have gone to Sewart with C-123s.

Sam, Some of us left Langely in November 65. First to Clark and then to Mactan.

 

Our crew was shuttteling between Tuy Hoa South and Phang Rang and Nha Trang Hauling in army artillery and some troops that night. There were only 3 bonfires marking one side of the dirt runway. Well past the end of our 12 hour crew duty day we hit way short of the runway and tore out the Korean marines perimiter wire. No damage to the aircraft but a lot of wire was wrapped around the gear and doors. Tuy Hoa South became Tuy Hoa.

There was only airfield at Tuy Hoa in 1965, an old French field. The Air Force built a new base there in 1966 and called it Tuy Hoa. When I got to Naha in early 1966, Tuy Hoa was the old field. My first trip in-country from Naha was in February 1966 to shuttle between Cam Ranh, Tuy Hoa and Ban Me Thout. John Butterfield had a prop reversal problem at Tuy Hoa a few weeks later and went off the runway. The Army Class 26ed the airplane when they tried to move with a tank. It seems to me the new field opened later that year. I know that they had a C-130D from Elmendorf working for the company in charge of construction. The building of Tuy Hoa was Project TURNKEY,

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Sam, It's getting too late in the day for me to dig out my old paper work, but I'm inclined to think that the 50th, 345th, and 776th PCS'd to PACAF in December of 1965 rather than '66 as mentioned in your original post. Again, without the orders in front of me it seemed that we were transferred to PACAF as we left Pope. We, of course being the 776th. There was no room in the inn for us at CCK in Dec. 65 and Jan. '66 so we TDY'd Tachi till (I think) April '66. As I recall, until we finally moved to CCK we still had the TAC emblem on the tail section even as we rotated in and out of South Vietnam, but as we rotated from SVN to CCK they removed the big TAC emblem from the tail upon arrival at CCK. For as long as I was assigned  to CCK the aircraft were still in silver with all, or most, emblems, numbers, etc. being removed. I left CCK in Jan. '67 and still had not seen a 314th bird in camo.  If I had it to do over I'd take notes.....

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Sam, It's getting too late in the day for me to dig out my old paper work, but I'm inclined to think that the 50th, 345th, and 776th PCS'd to PACAF in December of 1965 rather than '66 as mentioned in your original post. Again, without the orders in front of me it seemed that we were transferred to PACAF as we left Pope. We, of course being the 776th. There was no room in the inn for us at CCK in Dec. 65 and Jan. '66 so we TDY'd Tachi till (I think) April '66. As I recall, until we finally moved to CCK we still had the TAC emblem on the tail section even as we rotated in and out of South Vietnam, but as we rotated from SVN to CCK they removed the big TAC emblem from the tail upon arrival at CCK. For as long as I was assigned  to CCK the aircraft were still in silver with all, or most, emblems, numbers, etc. being removed. I left CCK in Jan. '67 and still had not seen a 314th bird in camo.  If I had it to do over I'd take notes.....

Chris, if I said '66, it was a typo. All of the TAC C-130 squadrons went too PACAF in late '65 except, perhaps, for the 29th, which may have left Forbes after the first of the year. The 50th went to Clark, the 345th to Naha and the 776th to Tachikawa until sometime in early '66 when the 314th transferred to CCK and the three squadrons joined it. I hope you'll come join us in Little Rock in May. We've got a lot of Pope vets in the TCTAA and are getting more from CCK.

Sam

Sam, It's getting too late in the day for me to dig out my old paper work, but I'm inclined to think that the 50th, 345th, and 776th PCS'd to PACAF in December of 1965 rather than '66 as mentioned in your original post. Again, without the orders in front of me it seemed that we were transferred to PACAF as we left Pope. We, of course being the 776th. There was no room in the inn for us at CCK in Dec. 65 and Jan. '66 so we TDY'd Tachi till (I think) April '66. As I recall, until we finally moved to CCK we still had the TAC emblem on the tail section even as we rotated in and out of South Vietnam, but as we rotated from SVN to CCK they removed the big TAC emblem from the tail upon arrival at CCK. For as long as I was assigned  to CCK the aircraft were still in silver with all, or most, emblems, numbers, etc. being removed. I left CCK in Jan. '67 and still had not seen a 314th bird in camo.  If I had it to do over I'd take notes.....

Are you 100% certain about the camouflage? There were camouflaged airplanes on the ramp at Pope when I left for Naha in January '66. Most of the airplanes at Naha were still silver when I got there but we were taking airplanes to Gifu, Japan for paint. The E-models had moved to Cam Ranh by the time I left Naha in July 1967 and they were all painted by that time. If I can attach  it, I'll attach one I took in May '67. I've got a bound volume of all of the 315th AD newspapers from May '66 to August '68 and it has E-models in the '66 issues that had been painted.

CRB Ramp.jpg

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Sam, Some of us left Langely in November 65. First to Clark and then to Mactan.

 

Our crew was shuttteling between Tuy Hoa South and Phang Rang and Nha Trang Hauling in army artillery and some troops that night. There were only 3 bonfires marking one side of the dirt runway. Well past the end of our 12 hour crew duty day we hit way short of the runway and tore out the Korean marines perimiter wire. No damage to the aircraft but a lot of wire was wrapped around the gear and doors. Tuy Hoa South became Tuy Hoa.

I was TDY to Mactan when the 463rd came in. The 464th from Pope had a squadron at Mactan and the 463rd had a squadron at Clark. There was one 463rd crew we used to see a lot. The loadmaster had flown with my AC, Capt. Marve (Gene) Shoupe in C-123s at Tan Son Nhut. One day they were telling us that we were going to stay at Mactan PCS. Well, before we went to Mactan, the entire squadron (779th) was briefed that we were going to transition into special operations and we already had brand new C-130E(Is) on the ramp at Pope but we couldn't tell them that. A few weeks later the Langley crews started moving into tents at Mactan. That same crew was one of them. The 779th went back to Pope and started what is now the famous COMBAT TALON mission right after the first of the year. (I missed the PCS to PACAF when the 776th left but got special orders to Naha when I got back from leave in early January.)

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Could be that Sgt. Middleton kept Norm and I away from camo birds!! Clear as day remember Norm and I commenting on the occasional camo paint Herk we saw: "ugly"!!!!!!! I'll have to move a couple pictures I have from the other computer over to this one (at a later time), all 130's in silver Oct 1966.

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Could be that Sgt. Middleton kept Norm and I away from camo birds!! Clear as day remember Norm and I commenting on the occasional camo paint Herk we saw: "ugly"!!!!!!! I'll have to move a couple pictures I have from the other computer over to this one (at a later time), all 130's in silver Oct 1966.

tinwhistle,

I would love to see those pictures.

Sonny

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I pulled out my volume of AIRLIFTERS. In the July 6, 1966 issue there is a picture of Lt. Charles E. Mays, a black officer, talking to A2C Charles H. Johnson, a 314th OMS mechanic, next to a camouflaged C-130E. At the time, Lt. Mays was TDY to Tachikawa to the CALSU so I assume it was taken at Tachi. The photo was taken sometime prior to July. I don't know the exact date when the 776th transferred from Tachi to CCK but it may have been while the squadron was still at Tachi. I remember RONing at Tachi while the 776th was still there and going over to the barracks and talking to some of my buddies from Pope. That was around March or April. There's one thing for certain, the 314th had camouflaged E-models as early as June 1966.

Could be that Sgt. Middleton kept Norm and I away from camo birds!! Clear as day remember Norm and I commenting on the occasional camo paint Herk we saw: "ugly"!!!!!!! I'll have to move a couple pictures I have from the other computer over to this one (at a later time), all 130's in silver Oct 1966.

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The earliest pictures of camouflaged airplanes in the AIRLIFTER collection I have are in the May 16, 1966 issue. There's a picture of a camouflaged B-model in an article on Operation BIRMINGHAM. There's also one of the nose of A-model 476 in camo. If you look at my Flareships page, it shows all (or most) of the C-130As at Ubon at the time and they are all camouflaged. I was at Ubon May-July 1966 and took the picture during that time. I think it was in early June when all of the kickers were called out to the flight line for a demonstration by the AMS people on the dangers presented by flares and advising us to leave them the hell alone and not be trying to take out parachutes to make bombs. (That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of anyway. You already had an incendiary bomb that burned at several thousand degrees and wanted to put in hydraulic fluid that burned at around 800. On the other hand, we had people who weren't exactly rocket scientists.)

My recollection is that USAF put out an order to camouflage all tactical aircraft in late 1965. Some were painted in the States but most of the PACAF airplanes were painted "locally," meaning in the Pacific. I know for a fact the A-models were painted at the Kawasaki plant in Gifu, Japan. If I'm not mistaken, the B's were painted in Manila and the Es in Taipei. I was told by a 29th TCS vet that their airplanes were already painted when they left Forbes for Clark. I don't know how long it took to paint them all but after the summer of '66, you don't see many silver airplanes in THE AIRLIFTER.

(I know, I know, the E Flight airplanes at Naha were left unpainted but up until around September or October 1966 we still had unpainted airplanes at Naha that were not assigned  to E Flight.)

Edited by SamMcGowan
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My first flight in an Air Force airplane was at Dyess in Feb 1966 when we took 63-7880 from Dyess to Stewart(?) to be camouflaged.  We picked up another (already camo) airplane and took it back to Dyess.  I remember two things about the flight: 1) I got sick on the first one and tossed my cookies all over the flight deck ladder and radio rack (I was sitting on the bottom bunk) - got to stay late and help the crew chief clean up! and 2) on the return flight I looked at the Chart C and discovered the camouflage paint weighed ~1800 lbs...

When I got to CCK in Jan '68, all of the airplanes were camouflaged...

 

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  • 5 months later...

Hello, 

I am new to this forum.  I was stationed at Forbes AFB in in 1961 as a Flight Controls and Landing Gear guy on SAC B-47 bombers.  I think we started receiving the C-130B models in mid to late 1964.   We did a 90 day TDY in France at Evreux-Fauville AFB in 1965 not sure of the date.  We left Forbes for Clarke AFB in late 1965 early 1966 in the Philippines where I became a Crew Chief one of our C-130B models.  We rotated out of Ton Son Nhut until I left in 1967.  All of these Acft. were Silver at the time.  We later ferried them back to McGuire AFB in new jersey one by one in to get camouflaged.

Anyway nice to be here.

Harlan Wayne Selway

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  • 1 month later...

776 at CCK in 1971 was with 314 TAW and the paperwork shuffle put the wing at CCK the 374th TAW. The 776 remained at CCK and was still the 776th. Some time after I left in 1973 the 776 was moved from CCK to Clark. It was deactivated  around October of 1975.

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