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Herky Hill Question


Mt.crewchief
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Okay you Crew Chiefs/Maint. personnel here is a question that I need to have an answer for!! I might forget it by tomorrow!!!

Do any of you old CRB input or TDY guys remember when Herky Hill was built and put into use??

The reason I am asking is that my first trip/input to Viet Nam--Cam Rahn Bay, was in December 1967. While I was there, I stayed in a quanset on the main base!!

Not Herky Hill. Like I said, it was my first trip but I was with my crew chief (Willard) and assistant crew chief (Lafferty) so it wasn't their first! Every time I went to CRB for the next 3 years, I lived at Herky Hill.

I know some of you guys here on the forum were on inputs to CRB before me so where did you stay???

I do remember that in 67 all of the planes were A's and B's . And no revetments that I can remember. At least where we were parked.

Did any of you guys remember it as remember it or did we just stay in the wrong place?

Thanks for looking,

Ken

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Herky Hill opened sometime in 1968. I rotated to Cam Ranh from Naha from August 1966 until I left in August the following year after first spending two weeks there in February before the Naha/Tachi rotation started. The West Ramp opened sometime in early 1967 but flight crews continued living in the air conditioned qounsets on the East Side. I think the maintenance troops lived in hooches. I've got pictures of the West Ramp that I took in the summer of 1967 and there were no revetments.

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Okay you Crew Chiefs/Maint. personnel here is a question that I need to have an answer for!! I might forget it by tomorrow!!!

Do any of you old CRB input or TDY guys remember when Herky Hill was built and put into use??

The reason I am asking is that my first trip/input to Viet Nam--Cam Rahn Bay, was in December 1967. While I was there, I stayed in a quanset on the main base!!

Not Herky Hill. Like I said, it was my first trip but I was with my crew chief (Willard) and assistant crew chief (Lafferty) so it wasn't their first! Every time I went to CRB for the next 3 years, I lived at Herky Hill.

I know some of you guys here on the forum were on inputs to CRB before me so where did you stay???

I do remember that in 67 all of the planes were A's and B's . And no revetments that I can remember. At least where we were parked.

Did any of you guys remember it as remember it or did we just stay in the wrong place?

Thanks for looking,

Ken

Up until the spring of 1969, all of the airplanes at Cam Ranh were As and Es. The Es moved there from Nha Trang in the spring/summer of 1967. The 463rd operated out of Tan Son Nhut from early 1966 to the spring of 1969 when the As and Bs swapped. There was another swap sometime in 1970 that brought the As back to Cam Ranh and the Es went to Tan Son Nhut. The reason given for the original swap was that the Bs and Es were parts compatible, but it was also because the 463rd was starting COMMANDO VAULT and would be loading at Cam Ranh. The move would cut down on ferry time. I am surprised that maintenance would have been in a qounset because as far as I know, 315th Air Division only had two and one was used for enlisted aircrews and the other for officers. Maintenance guys lived in open hooches not far away.

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Ken, good question. Seems that a lot of the conversation here and other places starts with C-130s in SEA from 1967 or '68. I was in and out of South Vietnam for a good part of 1965 and 1966, rotating back to the States in Jan. 1967. I never heard of "Herky Hill" 'til a couple of years ago. Attached is a little history of the build up of C-130 forces in SEA begining in April 1965. The first set of orders is "Operation Two Buck", TDY from Pope to Okinawa. I remember flying from both Naha and Kadena. I believe we were billeted at Naha. The next document is my travel voucher for Pope to Mac Tan, Aug. through Oct. 1965. Next page is the paper transfer from OMS (Pope) to 776 TCS in preperation for transfer to Tachi. Also you will find the "blanket orders" sending the 776th to Tachi, and my travel voucher. Next is a set of TDY orders to CRB, 1 April 1966. I do not seem to have the orders moving the 776th from Tachi to CCK. The next documents I have show me TDY from CCK to Nha Trang. The strangest thing about all of this is that I was not the kind to save things. I have no idea of why I saved all thes documents. I did not know I had them until I stumbled upon them a few years ago. These documents have proved to be priceless!!! I don't mean to bore you guys I hope you find this interesting......Chris

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Ken, good question. Seems that a lot of the conversation here and other places starts with C-130s in SEA from 1967 or '68. I was in and out of South Vietnam for a good part of 1965 and 1966, rotating back to the States in Jan. 1967. I never heard of "Herky Hill" 'til a couple of years ago. Attached is a little history of the build up of C-130 forces in SEA begining in April 1965. The first set of orders is "Operation Two Buck", TDY from Pope to Okinawa. I remember flying from both Naha and Kadena. I believe we were billeted at Naha. The next document is my travel voucher for Pope to Mac Tan, Aug. through Oct. 1965. Next page is the paper transfer from OMS (Pope) to 776 TCS in preperation for transfer to Tachi. Also you will find the "blanket orders" sending the 776th to Tachi, and my travel voucher. Next is a set of TDY orders to CRB, 1 April 1966. I do not seem to have the orders moving the 776th from Tachi to CCK. The next documents I have show me TDY from CCK to Nha Trang. The strangest thing about all of this is that I was not the kind to save things. I have no idea of why I saved all thes documents. I did not know I had them until I stumbled upon them a few years ago. These documents have proved to be priceless!!! I don't mean to bore you guys I hope you find this interesting......Chris

ATTACHED???

Chris, if i can't see em here, bring them to Montana!!!!

Ken

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Well......I definately had problems getting the pages to upload. I've made them smaller, so I'll try again. I don't know if you will be able to read them, though. Some body out there help an old guy figure out how to up load an eight and a half by eleven document??

Chris.................I suppose you could be right, I never thought about it. I've taken them down, thanks. Although, since I've taken them down, it has occured to me that these documents are public record and can be obtained with a request via the Freedom of Information Act.

Edited by tinwhistle
private information deleted
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Gary,

That's good advice, but back in the days Chris is referring to, the SSN wasn't used for identification. We all had 8-digit USAF serial numbers. I don't remember when the military switched to the SSN.

Don R.

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I am not sure exactly when SSN's were replaced with the AF numbers but it wasn't in 67 or 68. Those are some of the dates Chris is referring too and I know the numbers changed sometime after I got to Naha in May 1968. My first trip to CRB was in August 68 and the SSN was still in use then. Because of the HIPPA act and other federal laws you can sure get into trouble with the SSN's regardless of whether it is unintentional or not.

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Well, actually, the numbers that are on the documents I took down are AF serial numbers. I was discharged in July of 1967 and we still had the AF serial numbers at that time. It was at some point after my discharge that the AF (all military??) went to the Social Security number for identification. I'm not here to cause any discomfort so I simply took down those documents. However, as I said, these orders are available. I am going to attach five photographs that will illustrate (to a certain extent) the living conditions we had early on. These pictures were taken at Nha Trang. The "Nha Trang Shuttle". I sure hope some one out there can tell me what kind of aircraft those little prop jobs are......Chris

The first picture is at Mac Tan. Upon arrival, the A.F., in its infinate wisdom, decided that we should have some shelter. Then they issued us tents and said "welcome home"! We put 'em up ourselves.

The next pictures are at Nha Trang. We had one tent, a pickup and nothing else. We begged a couple of buckets from the army and got cold water to shave and clean up with. After several days it got pretty ripe around our area. Chris

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After Mactan I came back to Dyess. As well as I can remember, I went to Mildenhall almost immediately and after that rot, the crews did a 3 day turnaround at Dyess and went TDY to Clarke and staged out of CRB (sometime in 68). My first trip in I had to catch up to my crew and came in on a ANG flight late in the afternoon. Night shift OPS had no idea where to put me up so I spent the first night in a 2 man pup tent about 100 yards from the outdoor theatre and about 10 feet from the road. I didn't get much sleep with the traffic and drunks. When the adults came in during the day shift, I got moved to Herky Hill, though I don't remember it being called that at the time. the quonsets at CRB were much better than the ones we had at Mactan. There, all four sides were screen and 1/2 way or less up with wood. Could not close them off in the rain so you stayed in the middle of the hut. Of course we did have the Mactan Hotel:-).

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It's been many years, i still know my AF serial number. Now if i just remember those 10 security questions from basic training. You need to know all 10 before you can leave basic.............on a 2x3 card.........anyone have the card...

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well, actually, the numbers that are on the documents I took down are AF serial numbers. I was discharged in July of 1967 and we still had the AF serial numbers at that time. It was at some point after my discharge that the AF (all military??) went to the Social Security number for identification. I'm not here to cause any discomfort so I simply took down those documents. However, as I said, these orders are available. I am going to attach five photographs that will illustrate (to a certain extent) the living conditions we had early on. These pictures were taken at Nha Trang. The "Nha Trang Shuttle". I sure hope some one out there can tell me what kind of aircraft those little prop jobs are......Chris

The first picture is at Mac Tan. Upon arrival, the A.F., in its infinate wisdom, decided that we should have some shelter. Then they issued us tents and said "welcome home"! We put 'em up ourselves.

The next pictures are at Nha Trang. We had one tent, a pickup and nothing else. We begged a couple of buckets from the army and got cold water to shave and clean up with. After several days it got pretty ripe around our area. Chris

That's Silvey in that one picture. He was a character. He was a Red Rope in the squadron at Amarillo and we became buddies because we were both from Tennessee. We were in the same open bay barracks in OMS at Pope. I sort of lost touch with him after I went to the 779th. Were these at Mactan or where? We didn't have any mountains at Pope and don't remember any on Mactan either.

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Well, actually, the numbers that are on the documents I took down are AF serial numbers. I was discharged in July of 1967 and we still had the AF serial numbers at that time. It was at some point after my discharge that the AF (all military??) went to the Social Security number for identification. I'm not here to cause any discomfort so I simply took down those documents. However, as I said, these orders are available. I am going to attach five photographs that will illustrate (to a certain extent) the living conditions we had early on. These pictures were taken at Nha Trang. The "Nha Trang Shuttle". I sure hope some one out there can tell me what kind of aircraft those little prop jobs are......Chris

The first picture is at Mac Tan. Upon arrival, the A.F., in its infinate wisdom, decided that we should have some shelter. Then they issued us tents and said "welcome home"! We put 'em up ourselves.

The next pictures are at Nha Trang. We had one tent, a pickup and nothing else. We begged a couple of buckets from the army and got cold water to shave and clean up with. After several days it got pretty ripe around our area. Chris

Chris, I believe these photos, at least the ones at the bottom, were taken at an exercise somewhere in the US. The terrain looks like somewhere in the Southwest. Pope was involved in a couple after we got there. I know there were a couple called SWIFT STRIKE and another called GOLDFIRE. The trucks have 464th TCW on them and the guys are wearing the old fabric name tags we got from the Fabric Shop along wieth a TAC Patch.

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  • 1 month later...

Mike, first of all, welcome to the forum. You will like it here.

Quite a few of us guys were at Naha and/or CRB during the time you referred to so expect us guys to start picking your mind and memory!

I will start first!! What were the dates of your tour at Naha or were you just TDY there from somewhere else? Did you work on the flightline and if so, what squadron were you with? Just to jog your memory, at the time you mentioned above, there were the 35th, 21st. 41st, and the 817th tactical airlift squadrons (TAS)

I was in the 35th, I know Sonny was in the 21st. and there are more, but my memory might get me in trouble so I wont say here!! Actually, the 35th TAS was the only real squadron, the rest were just imposters!!! (that ought to get a few replies)!!!

By the way, us older farts would like you to do a complete profile on your "about me" part in your profile!! Who knows, there is a good chance you will find somebody you knew when you were there! I haven't yet, but I have made a lot of new friends since joining this forum.

I hope I didn't scare you away with all of my questions,

Ken Carlson

PS---How did I do guys???

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Mike, first of all, welcome to the forum. You will like it here.

Quite a few of us guys were at Naha and/or CRB during the time you referred to so expect us guys to start picking your mind and memory!

I will start first!! What were the dates of your tour at Naha or were you just TDY there from somewhere else? Did you work on the flightline and if so, what squadron were you with? Just to jog your memory, at the time you mentioned above, there were the 35th, 21st. 41st, and the 817th tactical airlift squadrons (TAS)

I was in the 35th, I know Sonny was in the 21st. and there are more, but my memory might get me in trouble so I wont say here!! Actually, the 35th TAS was the only real squadron, the rest were just imposters!!! (that ought to get a few replies)!!!

By the way, us older farts would like you to do a complete profile on your "about me" part in your profile!! Who knows, there is a good chance you will find somebody you knew when you were there! I haven't yet, but I have made a lot of new friends since joining this forum.

I hope I didn't scare you away with all of my questions,

Ken Carlson

PS---How did I do guys???

Ken,

You did us proud. Your only mistake was that the 35th was the only real squadron when it was actually the 21st!!!

Sonny

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See Mike, I told you there were some good guys on this forum!! One thing we had in common was we all worked on the same flight line on the 4x4 of the skies--the C-130. Also even more memorable was that we all share the memories of the open Benjo Ditches in Naminoue!!!

By the way, are any of you guys on the forum from the 817th TAS? I don't seem to be able to recall anybody mentioning that they were in the 817th. I do think that there is a member named Rapelje that said he was 1st. Sgt. of the 817th. I guess I could look it up!!!!

Ken

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