dfeatherngill

Thats a photo of an "old friend". Another nice photo Billy, I remember those trips to Phnom Penn, all the crew except me got temple rubbings, I was all about being a good loadmaster...LOL

Nice photos Billy! Believe me I learned my lesson about following railroad tracks! So many memories about the roof at the Merlin and times downtown Saigon. Times were sure different than now. Glad you and most of my friends survived. By the way, I still have some "love beads" like those but haven't worn them for a long time.

This is part of the Air Force film shot at CCK named "The way we were" narrated by John Wayne. I knew many of the air crew members and I was actually shown getting off a crew bus on the original film. My then wife and I lived downtown Tiachung and they showed us getting off a crew bus at our apartment, that never really happened, I always had to catch a taxi to go to CCK for flights.

I know I never carried any type of milk stool, but used chocks many times. Saw a bird setting on its' tail at Taipei one time, not a pretty sight. I flew with another loadmaster one time that coiled up a bunch of chains and sat on them when doing drops and An Loc, I never thought about doing that, but of course when we were young nothing could happen to us. I spent most of might time in flight wedge in the left troop door.

@ gizzard - I had that happen once at CCK too. They were looking for drugs. Quite a bit got smuggled back.

Good work Muff! I found out one of my old co-pilots is a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Use to keep touch with a couple of old fellow loads but have lost touch. It take a good "detective of the internet" to find old friends.

That's what I remember too Alan. I flew with the 345th from CCK from May 1970-August 1971 then went back TDY with the 61st from LRAFB for 5 months in 1972. Had to help carry the big box.

That's just wrong!

I hope someone has pictures of that!!

The only thing I remember about Song Be besides taking bladder birds in there was having the engineer trade bottles of whiskey with the supply guys there for almost anything they had. Got lots of combat boots and camo parkas and other cool stuff there.

Unbelievable!! A lot of good flying and LUCK. Our country is blessed with good men and women that are willing to take a stand for peace and freedom, just like we did years ago.

How neat is that! I'd like to go back someday myself. BTW I went with the 61 TAS in May 1972 also as a loadmaster from the 2nd Aerial Port, and made some of the drops, I bet we flew together at some point.

We were mostly in-country, US involvement was winding down but things were very hot. We made high level air drops over An Loc and etc. Made a trip to Clark AFB and ended up staying a couple of week because of flooding and hauling people and supplies because of it. Stayed in CCK long enough to get the stereo gear I didn't get first time around.

Mike, I was at CCK in the 345th from May 1970 throught August 1971 as a loadmaster. I then went to Little Rock with the 2nd Aerial Port. While there I went back TDY to CCK with the 61st from May through Sept 1972.

We always had a slip stick, even in country, I didn't always file a Form F but when I did it was under a rock or somewhere on the external power unit. I often checked how high the crew door was off the ground before and after loading just as a double check - one of my engineers taught me that trick.

Good stuff!! Thanks for sharing and bring back memories.

Wow...great picture, that sure brings back the memories!!

Thanks for this Skip....its a classic, remembered it from when I was flying out of CCK, it made the rounds then.

Very good...thanks for posting this.

I went through the jungle survival school in the Philippines in May 1970 with a group of other loadmasters that came from Forbes AFB. We were on our way to CCK but made the stop at Clark for jungle survival school first. I remember making a shelter/hiding place that final night in the jungle and were told to evade the natives that were out to find us, I believe they were called nigretos (sp). They were given chits for bags of rice whenever they found any of us that was out there "hiding" that night. All I remember was chasing off rats with my flashlight all night and hearing the nigretos out looking for us. They were singing the old Buck Owens song "Together Again" as they were getting closer to us, off course they always found everyone but I thought is was funny hearing them singing that song because they were truly jungle natives that couldn't even speak English! The really cool part the next day was ride up the cable to a jolly green that we calling in to pick us up.

Jim, So that\'s that woke me up in the middle of the night at the Merlin!!! I wouldn\'t mess with you either Jim....good to hear from you! Dennis

Good story!! That reminded me of an incident that happened to me while TDY to TSN during the 70\'s. I was a loadmaster with 345th from CCK. At some point we began training some Korean loadmasters on our C-130s. The one and only time I had one with me we were hauling all the miscellaneous stuff we did everyday including passengers. On one stop back to TSN we dropped off whatever we had and then picked up a group of Vietnamese passengers. My Korean counter-part was checking the manifest listing the passengers while I was occupied with loading and tying down other things. I heard a commotion and went back to the troop doors and discovered that the Korean loadmaster had found one Vietnamese passenger that was not on the manifest. He had thrown him out the door and had him spread-eagled on the tarmac and had his pistol cocked and against this guys head. We finally got the paper-work problem resolved but I gained a new respect for the ROK, those guys were not to be messed with!!

Yes give us more. I was at CCK from May 1970 through August 1971 with the 345th TAS then came back with the 61st from Little Rock from May through Sept 1972. Also lived just a couple blocks from the Buddha that is shown in the article.

Bar-b-ques on the roof of the Merlin Tawainese guard manning the machine gun going into the Merlin Trying to find the fastest cyc-a-lo(sp) at the USO to get a good ride through Saigon Going to the movies at TSN and trying to hear over the choppers coming in and out Koolade to cover up the bleach taste of ice and water we had to drink Great tasting subs the nav would go get before we back out of our parking place at TSN Nice cold beer with a slight rusty taste at the end of the day!