How I Got To Laos in the First Place
The story behind getting to Laos is not too complicated. After tech school, I was sent to Sheppard AFB, Wichita Falls, Texas, as a 27230 trainee. This was in January of 1961. I got my 5 level sometime in the late spring of that year. After coming in from a mid-shift at the GCA unit, I was approached by a Captain in the flight facilities building who requested some time to talk to me. I found out later that he had cleared this with my immediate commanding officer. He introduced himself and stated that he had been looking at my files and thought he might have a perfect job for me in the air force. He explained that there was this special unit in the air force called a Combat Control. He said that there were very few people doing this job and he could guarantee that I would be overseas before long. He went out of his way to not inform me much about what this was all about but said that there would be a lot specialized training.
He had me fill out some forms and sign them and said he would get back with me later. I had almost forgot about the thing as a month passed and I had heard nothing about this "combat control" thing. It is interesting that the term "Combat Control" was never used during any of our training or ever mentioned again. As I went through flight facilities one morning, I was told I need to talk to my commanding officer. He told me I had been accepted for a special project and warned me that it was a mistake to volunteer for this unit as it might not be as advertised. He asked me if I wanted to cancel the whole thing. I was kind of bored at Sheppard as traffic was sparse except during alerts so I decided to go ahead with the training.
About a week later the captain I had originally been contacted by had me meet him in a private room at the flight facilities building where he briefed me on what was coming up. He told me I needed to get in good physical condition on my own as most of my training would be done on my off days from the radar unit. He said I need to build up my endurance and told me I need to get a rucksack and put about 25 pounds of rocks in it and start running. Let me tell you that the first couple of weeks of that like to have did me in. On my off days I was sent to Webb AFB TDY for special training in the ways of what I believed to be combat control. After two or three days at Webb, I would be flown back to Sheppard to do my regular shift rotation in the radar unit. This went on for about 8 months. The interesting thing about Webb AFB is the fact that they had T-28's stationed there. I worked with pilots flying these aircraft not knowing that my future would be filled with T-28's flying overhead.
I was then sent to Ft. Bragg for two intense weeks of jump training with the Special Forces guys who were on their way to Vietnam. Little did I know this was done for a particular reason.....that being that the people I would work with most in Laos would be SF guys.
Other training continued until I received orders that I was being shipped out to Incirlik AB, Turkey. I had no idea as to how this related to my new profession, but in world of "Black Ops" you are not supposed to know. I was assigned to Incirlik tower although I had never had been in a tower since Keesler Tech School. Again, the posting was designed for a particular reason. It was far from Laos and it was involved in covert operations. Stationed at Incirlik in those days were U-2's and several types of ECM aircraft including C-130's and a couple of B-47's. Just east of the tower was the famous "Black Ops" hanger that contained the U-2's and other covert aircraft. I would pull regular shifts in the tower and then I would be summoned and sent to Laos on a flight that took most of a day to get to Udorn RTAFB in Thailand. After a while, because of the frequent trips to S.E. Asia, I wasn't even regularly scheduled in the tower any longer. I would just work for someone who wanted off for the day or night.
Eventually, a RAPCON unit was flown in and installed and I was assigned to it. However, no other RAPCON or radar qualified controllers were ever sent to Incirlik AB until after I went back to the states. That meant that I was the only one in the building at any time except for the occasional technician that was flown in when we had equipment trouble. One of the advantages of not having anyone else assigned to the radar unit was the fact that there were no witnesses. I could come and go as needed without a lot of questions.
Sometime later, maybe three weeks or so after the RAPCON became operational, the real piece of equipment I was waiting for showed up. We had used this at Webb during some of my training. It was a portable radar unit. It was small, compact and consisted of three pieces. The CRT with a hood for use in the daylight, a small camo radar dome, and a diesel powered power supply with super quiet exhaust system. It was designed to be packed in or air dropped. It had a maximum range of 47 miles. I have tried to find this unit online over the last few years and can find no reference to it at all. There were just two of these built and I had one at Incirlik. The plan was that this unit was to be used during the monsoon season in Laos to direct air strikes against the Ho Chi Minh trail, although that was never mentioned to me.
It was highly reliable in perfect conditions. It never saw perfect conditions. We actually parachuted it out of a C-130 for test purposes and on landing it knocked every tube in the unit loose and broke at least two of them. It was determined that the tubes should have been strapped in with small metal straps. We tried it again and again it failed the test. After that, it was determined that the only way the unit could survive a trip to a combat zone was that it had to be helicoptered in and moved by man-power to where ever it was needed. It was a good idea that just didn't pan out like it should have. When the age of transistors and ROM memory modules showed up, I believe a unit could have been produced that would have survived air drop. Not this one though.
However, we did prove the worth of trying it when it was used at Phou Phi Ti in 1963 in support of General Vang Pao's troops where we successfully were able to provide some air support during the daily rain storms. More about General Vang Pao later. What actually happened is the portable small radar unit was phased out as impractical in S.E. Asia and a mobile/portable TACAN unit became the replacement. It was much more robust and could handle being dropped out of the back of an airplane. It was relatively easy to set up and maintain. On a mountain top it had pretty good range.
Once I was assigned to the RAPCON unit, going and coming from Incirlik was a lot easier than when I was in the tower. I no longer had any responsibility to the tower and therefore really had no one in ATC directly over me at Incirlik after that.
Now, a side note. I used the term "we" when I talked about what we did at Webb. The word "we" meant myself and one other controller named James Bailey affectionately known as "Beatle Bailey" after the comic strip character. His call sign became "Beetle" in Laos. He so reminded me of Beatle Bailey that you couldn't help yourself when talking about him or to him. He was my counterpart. He went through all the training with me and then was shipped to Okinawa or Japan. I am not sure which because I never saw him again. He would be in country when I wasn't or I would be in country when he wasn't. They only wanted one of us there at a time. I heard that Bailey died of brain cancer back in the 1980's. As far as I know, Bailey and myself were the only ones to have trained on or used the portable radar unit and the only personnel targeted strictly for Laos.
It wasn't until later that both of us found out several reasons why we were selected for this duty. First, we both were ham radio operators. We could use CW (Morse code) without having to be trained for it. All HF transmissions to Vientiane were carried out in coded CW. The main radio in Laos was the AN/GRC 109 CW HF radio which wasn't much different than the old Hallicrafters radios we used in ham radio. We also carried a GRA71 (believe that is the unit) 300 WPM encoder. Being ham radio operators, we also kind of knew how to troubleshoot a radio and do minor repairs. That was a big deal a couple of times.
We also had used VHF and UHF radios which would be used to contact aircraft and helicopters used in support of the Laotian Army. No extra training would be required in either case. The only real thing we needed to know was the protocols. Secondly, we both were former boy scouts and had done survival training at summer camps. However, we did do survival and jungle training for two weeks in Panama with a SF team which was very interesting
And that is how I ended up Incirlick AB, Turkey, and northern Laos.
He had me fill out some forms and sign them and said he would get back with me later. I had almost forgot about the thing as a month passed and I had heard nothing about this "combat control" thing. It is interesting that the term "Combat Control" was never used during any of our training or ever mentioned again. As I went through flight facilities one morning, I was told I need to talk to my commanding officer. He told me I had been accepted for a special project and warned me that it was a mistake to volunteer for this unit as it might not be as advertised. He asked me if I wanted to cancel the whole thing. I was kind of bored at Sheppard as traffic was sparse except during alerts so I decided to go ahead with the training.
About a week later the captain I had originally been contacted by had me meet him in a private room at the flight facilities building where he briefed me on what was coming up. He told me I needed to get in good physical condition on my own as most of my training would be done on my off days from the radar unit. He said I need to build up my endurance and told me I need to get a rucksack and put about 25 pounds of rocks in it and start running. Let me tell you that the first couple of weeks of that like to have did me in. On my off days I was sent to Webb AFB TDY for special training in the ways of what I believed to be combat control. After two or three days at Webb, I would be flown back to Sheppard to do my regular shift rotation in the radar unit. This went on for about 8 months. The interesting thing about Webb AFB is the fact that they had T-28's stationed there. I worked with pilots flying these aircraft not knowing that my future would be filled with T-28's flying overhead.
T-28's stationed at Long Tieng (LS20A) Laos 1963,
I was then sent to Ft. Bragg for two intense weeks of jump training with the Special Forces guys who were on their way to Vietnam. Little did I know this was done for a particular reason.....that being that the people I would work with most in Laos would be SF guys.
Other training continued until I received orders that I was being shipped out to Incirlik AB, Turkey. I had no idea as to how this related to my new profession, but in world of "Black Ops" you are not supposed to know. I was assigned to Incirlik tower although I had never had been in a tower since Keesler Tech School. Again, the posting was designed for a particular reason. It was far from Laos and it was involved in covert operations. Stationed at Incirlik in those days were U-2's and several types of ECM aircraft including C-130's and a couple of B-47's. Just east of the tower was the famous "Black Ops" hanger that contained the U-2's and other covert aircraft. I would pull regular shifts in the tower and then I would be summoned and sent to Laos on a flight that took most of a day to get to Udorn RTAFB in Thailand. After a while, because of the frequent trips to S.E. Asia, I wasn't even regularly scheduled in the tower any longer. I would just work for someone who wanted off for the day or night.
Eventually, a RAPCON unit was flown in and installed and I was assigned to it. However, no other RAPCON or radar qualified controllers were ever sent to Incirlik AB until after I went back to the states. That meant that I was the only one in the building at any time except for the occasional technician that was flown in when we had equipment trouble. One of the advantages of not having anyone else assigned to the radar unit was the fact that there were no witnesses. I could come and go as needed without a lot of questions.
Sometime later, maybe three weeks or so after the RAPCON became operational, the real piece of equipment I was waiting for showed up. We had used this at Webb during some of my training. It was a portable radar unit. It was small, compact and consisted of three pieces. The CRT with a hood for use in the daylight, a small camo radar dome, and a diesel powered power supply with super quiet exhaust system. It was designed to be packed in or air dropped. It had a maximum range of 47 miles. I have tried to find this unit online over the last few years and can find no reference to it at all. There were just two of these built and I had one at Incirlik. The plan was that this unit was to be used during the monsoon season in Laos to direct air strikes against the Ho Chi Minh trail, although that was never mentioned to me.
It was highly reliable in perfect conditions. It never saw perfect conditions. We actually parachuted it out of a C-130 for test purposes and on landing it knocked every tube in the unit loose and broke at least two of them. It was determined that the tubes should have been strapped in with small metal straps. We tried it again and again it failed the test. After that, it was determined that the only way the unit could survive a trip to a combat zone was that it had to be helicoptered in and moved by man-power to where ever it was needed. It was a good idea that just didn't pan out like it should have. When the age of transistors and ROM memory modules showed up, I believe a unit could have been produced that would have survived air drop. Not this one though.
However, we did prove the worth of trying it when it was used at Phou Phi Ti in 1963 in support of General Vang Pao's troops where we successfully were able to provide some air support during the daily rain storms. More about General Vang Pao later. What actually happened is the portable small radar unit was phased out as impractical in S.E. Asia and a mobile/portable TACAN unit became the replacement. It was much more robust and could handle being dropped out of the back of an airplane. It was relatively easy to set up and maintain. On a mountain top it had pretty good range.
Laotian General Vang Pao in the
early 1960's.
Once I was assigned to the RAPCON unit, going and coming from Incirlik was a lot easier than when I was in the tower. I no longer had any responsibility to the tower and therefore really had no one in ATC directly over me at Incirlik after that.
Now, a side note. I used the term "we" when I talked about what we did at Webb. The word "we" meant myself and one other controller named James Bailey affectionately known as "Beatle Bailey" after the comic strip character. His call sign became "Beetle" in Laos. He so reminded me of Beatle Bailey that you couldn't help yourself when talking about him or to him. He was my counterpart. He went through all the training with me and then was shipped to Okinawa or Japan. I am not sure which because I never saw him again. He would be in country when I wasn't or I would be in country when he wasn't. They only wanted one of us there at a time. I heard that Bailey died of brain cancer back in the 1980's. As far as I know, Bailey and myself were the only ones to have trained on or used the portable radar unit and the only personnel targeted strictly for Laos.
It wasn't until later that both of us found out several reasons why we were selected for this duty. First, we both were ham radio operators. We could use CW (Morse code) without having to be trained for it. All HF transmissions to Vientiane were carried out in coded CW. The main radio in Laos was the AN/GRC 109 CW HF radio which wasn't much different than the old Hallicrafters radios we used in ham radio. We also carried a GRA71 (believe that is the unit) 300 WPM encoder. Being ham radio operators, we also kind of knew how to troubleshoot a radio and do minor repairs. That was a big deal a couple of times.
We also had used VHF and UHF radios which would be used to contact aircraft and helicopters used in support of the Laotian Army. No extra training would be required in either case. The only real thing we needed to know was the protocols. Secondly, we both were former boy scouts and had done survival training at summer camps. However, we did do survival and jungle training for two weeks in Panama with a SF team which was very interesting
And that is how I ended up Incirlick AB, Turkey, and northern Laos.
