SamMcGowan

I'm working on getting them in book stores in areas where there are a lot of C-130/airlift folks. You can always have your local book store order them but the fastest way to get them is to order online or direct from me. Sorry, I have not set up to take credit cards - it's a lot of hassle and involves fees. I will take checks or money orders.

Both books are now in print and are available from online book sellers such as Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. If you want signed copies, order direct from me at Sam McGowan, 3727 Hill Family Lane, Missouri City, TX 77459. I'm trying to keep copies on hand but allow a couple of weeks in case I have to restock. TRASH HAULERS is $28.95 and ANYTHING, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE is $31.95, including shipping. Or, I am offering both books for $56.00. Make it $75.00 and get a copy of my Vietnam C-130 flare mission novel THE CAVE. Full details of each book and links to their pages on Amazon and the publisher's pages are off of my home page - www.sammcgowan.com. They will eventually be available electronically, but will have to be ordered direct from the publisher as I understand it. However, they will work on Kindle, etc.

The answer is No. By the time the AC-130s were deployed to Ubon, LBJ had ceased offensive actions against North Vietnam and they did not resume until 1972. We operated over North Vietnam in LAMPLIGHTER missions in C-130A flareships but that ceased in late 1966 or early 1967 due to the proliferation of antiaircraft in the Route Package One and Two areas where we had been flying. C-130s can't survive in a high threat environment. Get a copy of my new C-130 book. It has a list of all C-130s lost in Southeast Asia, including gunships and rescue (there were two lost on the ground at Tuy Hoa). As it was, the gunships took heavy losses over Laos.Six gunships were lost - which is 50% casualties considering there are 12 airplanes in a squadron. FYI, 62 C-130s were lost in Southeast Asia. 52 of those were airlift, six were gunships, two were rescue and two were USMC. Two of the airlift airplanes were C-130E-(1)s, one on the ground and one flew into a mountain on the Lao/North Vietnam border.

The answer is No. By the time the AC-130s were deployed to Ubon, LBJ had ceased offensive actions against North Vietnam and they did not resume until 1972. We operated over North Vietnam in LAMPLIGHTER missions in C-130A flareships but that ceased in late 1966 or early 1967 due to the proliferation of antiaircraft in the Route Package One and Two areas where we had been flying. C-130s can't survive in a high threat environment. Get a copy of my new C-130 book. It has a list of all C-130s lost in Southeast Asia, including gunships and rescue (there were two lost on the ground at Tuy Hoa). As it was, the gunships took heavy losses over Laos.Six gunships were lost - which is 50% casualties considering there are 12 airplanes in a squadron. FYI, 62 C-130s were lost in Southeast Asia. 52 of those were airlift, six were gunships, two were rescue and two were USMC. Two of the airlift airplanes were C-130E-(1)s, one on the ground and one flew into a mountain on the Lao/North Vietnam border.

They started snaring satellites with C-119s way back in the early 1960s. The mission then passed to JC-130s.

Trash Haulers is now in print and available from various book sellers. Anything, Anywhere, Anytime will be available within the next few weeks. If anyone wants an autographed copy, I am offering them for $28.95 for Trash Haulers and $31.95 for Anything, Anywhere, Anytime. If you want both, send me a check or money order for $56.00. Make it for $75.00 and I'll throw in a copy of The Cave, my C-130 flare mission novel. My address is Sam McGowan, 3727 Hill Family Lane, Missouri City, TX 77459.

Trash Haulers is a revision of my previous C-130 book, with quite a bit of new material. Anything, Anywhere, Anytime is a history of the troop carrier mission and the tactical airlift mission that followed it from World War II through the end of the Vietnam War - it's a must read for anyone interested in airlift history. There has never been a book published that covers the airlift mission in its entirety. The Cave is a novel I wrote several years ago based on my experiences exploring caves in Kentucky and flying the flare mission over Laos in 1966. Details are on the net - go to www.sammcgowan.com/author.html for links to descriptions of all three books. I am expecting a shipment of the C-130 books any day now and will have some left over after I fill the orders I already have.

Sam,

I don't know if this is related to whatever ails this site, but when I click the links above, McAfee warns me that it's a dangerous site. I figured you might want to know.

Sam,

I don't know if this is related to whatever ails this site, but when I click the links above, McAfee warns me that it's a dangerous site. I figured you might want to know.

In another thread, US Herk wrote this about Credible Sport's historical value. I agree with him,

Don R.

"The Credible Sport aircraft is historically significant regardless of whether or not that aircraft ever actually flew, or if any of them ever actually accomplished their intended goal. Why do they keep all sorts of one-off aircraft like the XB-70 Valkyrie or some of those goofy helicopter experiments? Because they furthered the USAF mission one way or another. Credible Sport was a daring answer to an incredible challenge, one we didn't have the political backbone for. The crash was tragic, but from the ashes of Eagle Claw/Desert One, and everything that went into it, to include the Credible Sport program, rose the phoenix of SOCOM and AFSOC. Had that not happened, where would we be today in The War Against Terror? How could we quickly respond? Where would we have been in Haiti when STS controllers worked more aircraft into Port Au Prince than Miami International all on a card table and walkie talkie? Where would we have been in any of our recent conflicts? Who would have led the Apaches in on night one of Desert Storm? Who would've taken out Bin Laden?

No, Credible Sport is more historically significant for what it did not accomplish than a "dime a dozen" aircraft any day..."

Yes, the Army, Marine Corps and Navy all had khaki uniforms in World War II. They were long sleeve and were worn with ties. Watch some of the military films from the period and you'll see them. There was an olive drab fatigue uniform and olive drab coveralls. The Class A Army uniform was brown. Officers wore tan slacks called "pinks."

It wouldn't surprise me at all. The US had civilians from a number of different agencies in Laos.

Golly, I feel like a kid, just shy of 63!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, re uniforms, what was the designation for the self-purchase blue long sleeve shirt, that you wore with a tie, and matched up with your blues trousers????????? Is that still in use????? Like Larry, I hardly ever wore my blue stuff, probably 80% of the time i wore a zoom bag, whether flyin' or not.

Giz

I'm not sure that shirt had a designation since it wasn't issued. If I remember correctly, you could get them at clothing sales or in the BX. Never heard a name for it. They were still authorized when I got out in 1975.

If you are looking for a reference, Col Jerry Thigpen mentions it in the The \"Praetorian STARShip\" book he wrote. He mentions initial tail numbers (62-1843, 63-7785, 64-0564, and 64-0565), Thin Slice and Heavy Chain.

Not being a Special Ops guy, I have no idea if it is a valid book on the Talon community and missions. The folks I know who are still there are tight lipped and right fully so. I wonder if Thigpen got into trouble for writing it?

Herkeng (Retired)

I've got a lot of problems with this book. For one thing, he claims the C-130E-Is were "taken off of TAC flight lines." No, they weren't; they were brand new airplanes, all 64 serials. I was in the 779th at Pope when we got them and saw the first one up close after attending a classified briefing on the mission and what we would be doing. He also claims they were moved to Sewart due to a "lack of room" at Pope. Heck, we had two squadrons TDY at that time! One squadron was at Kadena - which never did go back to Pope but went PCS to 315th Air Division as the 776th TCS. If I remember correctly, he really doesn't say much about Heavy Chain at all and nothing about E Flight, which was a troop carrier mission and never was special operations.

Look guys, E Flight and Heavy Chain were two entirely different and unrelated projects. E Flight was set up at Naha in 1961 because JFK wanted to maintain a covert presence in Laos. There was already a similar role at Naha for support of operations in Tibet, but it wasn't named. Heavy Chain was a project at Norton that was set up in 1965 with two airplanes right off of the assembly line and personnel from Sewart. Its role was to test new equipment installed at Ontario. E Flight was actually an extra flight within the 21st TCS that was responsible for maintaining four airplanes that were designated for CIA activities. Heavy Chain was broken up sometime in the seventies and the airplanes went to Hurlburt. There was another mission performed by the same unit that involved transporting classified documents and CIA personnel that is related to Heavy Chain. The term "E Flight" goes back to the 1950s according to 315th Air Division veterans, and was used as a code for CIA missions. Kennedy made it official.

Trash Haulers, the C-130 book, is in print. I'm posting ordering information on my site at www.sammcgowan.com/author.html. The troop carrier book will be out in a couple of weeks. I ordered some copies of Trash Haulers yesterday and they tell me I should receive them by the end of the month. If you want to order a signed copy, I'll be happy to sell you one! Its also available on amazon.com and barnes and noble as well as from the publisher, Author House. My understanding is that electronic copies have to be ordered from Author House but they can be read on Kindle and Nook. By the way, my good buddy Tom Stalvey, who was a loadmaster at Sewart and Clark, is working on his memoir and it'll be out soon as well. Tom was at Clark in the 29th at the height of the Vietnam War (68-69.) He was flying with Col. Coleman when they got shot up over A Loi and flew about 25 drop missions over Khe Sanh. I'll be putting a link to Tom's book on my page as soon as it goes lives. Tom is the current treasurer of the TCTAA.

Somewhere I've got the account Reed sent me back in the 80s when I was working on my book.

Seems to have been in several liveries over time but reg number is same...

As Bob's CIC

AIR LAOS

AIGLE AZUR

AIRNAUTIC

TRANS WORLD AIRWAYS <Though here as N1940

Some worthless trivia...

As per AIR AND SPACE dot com F-BELU was built for TWA and was originally registered as N1940, and was sold in '51 to Aigle Azur. Registered as XW-TFP it crashed in '75 near the Mekong River operated by Royal Air Lao

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/us/politics/for-rick-perry-air-force-service-broadened-and-narrowed-life.html

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/perry-colleagues-remember-solid-pilot-and-airman-1863224.html?viewAsSinglePage=true

Gov. Perry is very personable. I flew him around one day a few years ago. He's very friendly and easy to talk too. The NY Times article is recent; the Austin-Statesman article is from September.

He must have went into politics as soon as he got out. Arent most poiticons retired???

I heard a story from an active duty Loadmaster that managed (along with the rest of the crew) to talk a suicidal aircraft commander into a safe landing. That could've been the perfect case if things had gone even slightly different.

I visited Greybull a few years ago and took several pictures. At one time I had a web page but accidentally deleted it while trying to use Front Page. I don't think I have any of the scanned photos on any disks, but I do have the slides. One of these days I'll rescan them and post them. Hawkins and Powers has an interesting collection of airplanes. When I was there in 1999-2000 they still had several Herks. They also have a C-119 with a jet engine on top that was used in the remake of Flight of the Phoenix - they airbrushed the jet engine out. They also had at least one C-97.

Seems to me that they just might have exceeded max bank angle a few times. Sure could have used a FE onboard to make a "note" on that.

Actually, if I remember right, it was verboten to load through the paratroop doors (pax that is) since there weren't any of the troop door ladders available.

The only Herks I remember ever seeing the paratroop door ladders still existing on were the ABCCC since the butt enders surely couldn't be required to climb into the plane - how uncouth LOL

I don't recall ever loading PAX through the troop doors. Typically it was the crew door if we had a few, the ramp of there were a lot or they had large loads.

Actually, on the scheduled passenger runs passengers were loaded through the troop doors, the left one as I recall. Pax service had special steps that matched with the door. We couldn't load through the ramp because it had a baggage pallet on it.

Book Review: “The Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules: A Complete History”, by Peter C. Smith (Crecy Publishing, latest printing 2010).

My first recommendation is DO NOT PURCHASE THIS BOOK—IT IS A WASTE OF MONEY (list price $49.95).

Being a C-130 fan, I am a sucker for C-130 books. I regret that a got suckered into buying this one. Even though I have not read the text to discover what inaccuracies exist there, I found that many of the photo captions in this book are inaccurate or totally incorrect. The captions appear as though the author simply fabricated them instead of performing research to ensure they are accurate. Here are a few examples of the fabricated captions:

1. Page 82: The caption reads: “Human Retrieval experiments underway with a volunteer seen leaving the after bay of 64-14859 (c/n 4082), equipped with the Surface-to-Air recovery system.” The real story: If the aircraft is experimenting with the “Human Retrieval System”, then the “volunteer” is being retrieved into the cargo hold of the aircraft—he is not leaving the after bay. The term the Air Force uses for the “Human Retrieval System” is the Fulton Recovery System.

2. Page 88: The caption reads: “Human Retrieval System testing being conducted by C-130E 64-0572 (c/n 64-4090).” The real story: This is a MC-130E conducting personnel airdrops; the aircraft is dropping paratroopers, not testing the “Human Retrieval System”.

3. Page 161: The caption reads: “A C-130 of the 50th Airlift Squadron lands at Little Rock AFB during Operation “Millennium Challenge” in 2002.” The real story: This aircraft is not landing at Little Rock AFB. I am currently at Little Rock AFB, and this photo was not taken at Little Rock AFB.

4. Page 202: The caption reads: “C-130E 64-0504 (c/n 3988) of 62 Marine Airlift Wing is seen at McChord MAS on 19 October 1978….” The real story: This aircraft is assigned to the 62nd Military Airlift Wing, which is located at McChord Air Force Base.

I am truly annoyed that an author would attempt to pass off writing of this quality as authoritative. That is in addition to my being insulted that the author and his publisher would expect consumers to pay for this quality of work.

The poor and inaccurate quality of this book follows a trend I have observed for at least the last fifteen years—the declining quality of published works. My observation is that authors make no effort to ensure the quality and technical accuracy of their writing. First is the quality of the writing itself. Yes, all the words are correctly spelled, as they should be with the aid of spell check, but the wrong words are routinely used (“then” instead of “than”—the C-130 is faster then the C-119…). The second issue is the technical accuracy of the subject matter. Authors seem to fabricate material based on having half-knowledge of it and pass it off as authoritative. How many young minds are being fed bad information because some author thinks he/she knows what they are writing about and are too lazy to confirm the accuracy of their work? I have seen this poor quality in a variety of publications—from magazines and journals to “quality” published books by such publishers as Schiffer (who publishes many military and aviation titles, many which contain inaccurate information).

In terms of the C-130, I think I know what I’m talking about. I am a U.S. Air Force C-130 navigator with over 25 years and 6,000 flying hours of experience in C-130 operations. Maybe I should write a book….

Lt Col Mark Naumann

Little Rock AFB, Arkansas

Peter Smith is British if I'm not mistaken. "MAS" could be a typo. We writers do make mistakes!