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Naha AB Maps 1967 or thereabouts.


Sonny
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Sonny, It's neat to see the maps posted. Naha Air Base looks a lot different than I remember but some of the things are starting to come back to me the longer I look! I don't see the 35th and the 41st. areas though. Do you suppose this map was made before those squadrons were there. The reason I ask that, because the the 21st. and the 817th were labeled TCS instead of TAS. I know when I got to Naha in Sept 67 it was called the 35th TAS as were the other squadrons were also called TAS. I do think it changed just before I got there in Sept. If I remember right, the 35th. was just inside the gate that was manned by Ryukyan guards. A cinder block building that opened out to a parking lot on one side and the flightline on the other. Also, I think it was next to a large hangar used by a civilian contractor named Dyna Electron. Please correct me if I am wrong which is entirely possible.

I remember the walk down the hill to work in the morning and seeing those big ass snails making their way down off the grassy hill and crossing the sidewalk and the street. Remember them? The left slimy trails. I don't know why I never took a picture of one of them. Never have seen one since!!

I also liked the ones you took of Ubon. Some of that stuff I never saw as I was on a flight crew flying Blindbat missions and we rode crew vehicles to and from the barracks from the airplane. Never got to dick around like a Crew Chief would have!!!!!

Keep the pics coming. I have some of Ubon and also some from Naha but I think I will have to re-copy them. I think my last computer ate them.

Ken

Sonny, after another look I discovered the 35th TCS on the side of the map. Still don't see the 41st.

Another edit---just found the 41st. right in the same place I found the 35th. Honest, I'm not blind--it just appears that way!!

Edited by Mt.crewchief
Vision just improved--And some more
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On the South side of the base there were caves where the Ryukins had the bones of their dead ancestors. Once a year or maybe more often they would go in and clean and polish the bones.

Somewhere around those caves the AF I guess put in a Motocross. First one I had ever heard of. They also found an old Jap concrete hanger underground.It was rumered that there was an airplane in it.

I don't remember hearing if there was a runway there before we took the Island in WWII.

I do remember hearing on the radio on the bus the day I arrived at Kadina that under one of the big guns, a hospital had been found and there were some skeletons in some of the beds. I think they said about 8 beds in all.

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Sonny, ........I also liked the ones you took of Ubon. Some of that stuff I never saw as I was on a flight crew flying Blindbat missions and we rode crew vehicles to and from the barracks from the airplane. Never got to dick around like a Crew Chief would have!!!!!.........

Ken,

I flew with the plane every other night at Ubon. The way we worked it was the CC or ACC flew the mission and worked until the plane was OR. The the other would come in time to meet the crew and fly that night and work the plane until she was OR for the next mission. Made for a long day but that left us with a little time to look around the base and/or take a trip downtown to take in a little culture.

Sonny

PS I rode the maintenance vehicle to and from the barracks. If I missed my ride I walked!!

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Like Sonny commented , they were fairly common all over the Island wherever I went --at least in the Naha area. I have some pics somewhere that show them in the golf courses. I think they are called "Turtleback tombs" The story I heard was that the bones were cleaned etc. by virgins.

Now remember some of my vast knowledge of Okinawa is from stories heard over a table in Naminouie!!

Ken

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That is all misinformation. The bones are not taken out and cleaned. That practice is common in some countries like Borneo and maybe Indonesia but not Okinawa. I have been married to one for 40 years and we have never participated in a ceremony like that. They do pray to the deceased at the turtleback tombs on certain dates.

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Thai's have that custom...been there, done that with my ex and her family.

There are some half moon/semi circle shelter type structures on Kadena (going past the shoppette toward the backside of the base toward the par 3 golf course and base housing that is off base) that were reported to have been used as aircraft/drone shelters. There are placards in front of these structures stating the same. Rumor has it that in the thick jungle behind these structures is a huge deep ditch that supposably houses a crashed and burned B-17 or B-52...just a rumor as I could never find anything to confirm such information.

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Sonny, I was just kidding about the dicking around!! I kind of figured if I would have gone down there as a crewchief I would have been more in my element and had a good time as you say taking in a little local culture!! As it was, us guys on the flight crews had all kinds of time to mingle with the citizens so to speak. If I remember right, we flew early, late, then off. Then after awhile, we got a week's R&R. I guess I must have known that before I volunteered for the loadmaster/flare-kicker job!

I do remember though, we never had anybody ever fly with us except for the occasional "big-wig" from PACAF and a combat photographer sometimes. The combat photographer took our crew picture that I have posted in my "user gallery"

It sounds like the crew-chiefs got less time off than we did at Cam Rahn Bay which was almost none!!

Keep digging up the good pics,

Ken

Edited by Mt.crewchief
correcting stuff
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  • 6 years later...

Joe, welcome to the forum. Your name sounds familiar. When were you at Naha and Ubon? We're you a flight crew member at Ubon? If you have some names and dates, it would be great. I am always trying to fill in the gaps in my memory.:)

I am sure that most of us older guys would like to see a complete "about me" on your membership name etc.

Ken

 

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  • 5 months later...
  • 2 years later...

Oh gosh, the snails!!  BIG snails that came out during the rains and flattened tires.

I was there 61-63.  Two weeks after we arrived, the island was hit by Typhoon Tilda.

 Our housekeeper, Hiroko, was the oldest unmarried daughter in her family, and said she couldn’t wait to get married so she didn’t have to clean bones with saki during the Oban festival.  So, for what that’s worth.   Maybe it was a rural thing.  Turtleback tombs built into the volcanic hillsides were secure, could hold urns of the whole family and freed up arable land for terrace farming.  

Used to go fishing with my dad (623rd AC&W) at Oona, Itomen, Ishikawa and Bolo Point.  I was eight, (Tyler Elementary) so not sure how accurate the memories are-but do remember a goat mascot at Yozidake radar station, listening to Sugar Shack on VOA, and hacking our way to the beach through habu grass and sharp pineapple.  Sometimes, the area was perfumed by thousands of wild white Easter lilies.  
Highlights of being a kid getting out of school for summers was being shown shark attack photos and a board with WWII-era blasting caps (as there was still a lot of unexploded ordinance around the island) and the smell of diesel smoke mixed with DDT, from the trucks that fogged the neighborhoods at sunset.  Our Girl Scout troop took a landing craft to Iwo Shima on a field trip with Lady Baden-Powell, founder of the GS, so that tells you how old I feel.🙀

BTW, we lived at 5B Washington Court, in the new base housing section.  
When I saw the map showing the Officers Club, I suddenly thought of the smell of Sterno, which was used to keep the Sunday dinner buffet chafing dishes hot.  

 

 

 

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  • 4 months later...

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