This must be nostalgia week for me.  This morning I woke thinking about my time with the 355th TFW at Takhli Thailand.

One of the popular slang phrases at the time was , "There ain't no way."  Our wing commander, Col Bob Scott (any relation Bob?), got tired of hearing that and had a sign put over the door of his headquarters building, "The is a way."

That gave birth to the following 20+ minute film where you can follow the 'Red River Rats' in their Thuds to North Vietnam.  While it was filmed at our sister base, Korat, they were still my airplanes, my bombs, my pilots, and my guys.  Not a whole lot of us left. 

The bottom photo was a loading crew.  I was the crew chief in charge of all the bomb loading crews on our shift.  Those are 750 pound bombs.  6 to a customer.  The yellow box holds the fuses.

Noel

 

 

Edited August 14, 20223 yr by birdguy
Added photo

Cool. In my biz, we used to say, "You can't make this stuff up." I'm still not sure that's true, but if you did, it would be wrong. Couple of questions. Are military pilots superstitious? i have read that, like baseball players, many are. The other question is whether any pilots flying out of Thailand ever suspected they were facing Soviet pilots, or even Warsaw Pact? I believe some Soviets were in theater for training, but officially never flew in combat. A lot of things weren't official, though.

I was told by an F4 pilot they could see a SAM coming at them "like a telephone pole." They would have to wait until just the right moment for their break so the thing couldn't quite follow them. That would have been nerve-wracking to say the least. I have a lot of admiration for any pilot, and especially the mud movers of that war. It was the dawn of the missile era and there was a lot to figure out and no safe way to do it. You would know better, but I've heard most of our losses were due to AAA, not missiles, because pilots would head for the weeds when painted by missile radar, only to be shot down by guns. 

Those stories by those guys are harrowing, especially that kid who was hit and got 40 miles before having to eject. That colonel's story about taking out the antiaircraft sites was amazing, too. Good post, buddy.

 

Real planes, real bombs, and real men.

Thank you for posting and I thank you for your service.

I wasn't a pilot over there Tim nor did I hang out with any.  They were a group unto themselves.  I just got a lot of second hand stuff like that video.  But I can imagine doing that day after day for 100 missions.

I heard of a major who grounded himself after his first mission.  He said he wasn't going back there.

But I was at the OPS Office late one afternoon picking the frag...the bomb requirements for the following day's missions.  A Jolly Green landed and dropped off one of our pilots who got shot down and rescued on his first mission.  He pulled off his 'got to hell' hat and made his first mark on the crown.  He said, "Thank God I've only got 99 more to go."

In the book 'The Aviation Art of Keith Ferris" he has a painting of an F-105F Wild Weasel.  It's titled 'Big Brass Ones."  I can't think a better one and I am blessed to have served with such men even if it was only for support.

Noel