This
site is dedicated to those airmen who participated in
Aerial Port Mobility Operations
throughout Vietnam, during time of conflict,
and salutes those who carry on the tradition of
the original 8th Aerialport MOB in the Mobility Airlift Command units
of today's Air
Force.
There is no doubt about it. Since our mission included tactical airlift
support in areas which could not be easily - or safely - reached by
road, since many of our missions were classified as "Combat Emergency"
and each takeoff and landing was counted as a "Combat Assault", and
since many of our men were wounded - and some died - by enemy fire, and
we were often
targeted specifically as we worked our aircraft, and since we were
armed and equipped and actively contributed to camp defense and often
spent days and nights - and sometimes
weeks - with the Army in their little jungle firebases and with The Special Forces
in their jungle camps, Mobility Operations was
quite close to combat, and by no means the typical 'safe' rear-echelon
sort of Air Force assignment.
For that matter, many of the Detachments experienced just as many
attacks as we did in the field.
That's why they call this "Combat Airlift".
And we were all volunteers, proud to be part of - and accepted by - our
Mob Teams.
According to documents published by Maxwell
AFB, official doctrine was as defined below:
"Air transport in
major warfare should be used when practical for the supply of
combat units, for evacuation, and for emergency troop movements...
That's what we did.
Our equipment
included just about everything required to create an 'instant cargo
center'
in the jungle - 10-thousand-pound-capacity Adverse Terrain Forklifts -
the famous "10k AT", designed specifically for missions such as ours,
the
smaller "6k RT" Rough Terrain forklift, the PRC-25 "portable" radios
and
our personal gear - M16's for the team members, plus revolvers for the
team chiefs, as well as other weapons collected in our travels... and,
of course, the ubiquitous military clip board - although maintaining
paper
records was always a challenge under our working conditions...
In both cases, the planes
handled by these
8th APS teams typically included C-7 Caribous of the USAF, US Army
Special
Forces, and the Australian AAF, USAF C-123s based within Vietnam and
many
C-130's manned by crews based outside of Vietnam, but on 30-day
rotating
tours "in country". We also occasionally handled - and traveled in -
CH-46
Cargo helicopters of the US Army. Sometimes, our teams had to be
transported
- or evacuated - by UH-1b "Huey" choppers as well.
These locations were
typically
at remote
Special Forces camps or 1st Cav artillery bases, although the 8th Mob
also
supported the Vietnamese & U.S. Marine Corps at times, and some Mob
team members received commendations from the U.S. and Vietnamese Marine
Corps.
The Special Forces camps at Bu
Dop, Tonle
Cham, Katum, Rang Rang and others along the Cambodian border were
frequently
visited by the MOB teams for 1-3 day stays. U.S. Army Fire Support
Bases
such as Bu Gia Map (FSB Snuffy, aka Djampa on Air Force maps) and
others were also familar to these
traveling
freight handlers.
While much of the time, things
were quiet
and the only dangers were accidents, sunburn, heat exhaustion,
homesickness
and malaria, there were also many times when the Viet Cong added to the
danger and attacked these teams at work.
- Khe Sanh -
During the
siege of Khe Sanh in 1968, volunteers from the 8th APS were sent
TDY to augment 15th APS' airlift support of Khe Sanh. At least one of
these 8th Aerialporters wound up at Khe Sanh with the 15th APS mobility
team and lived with the
US
Marines in the trenches and bunkers of the besieged camp. Their purpose
was to load and unload the C-7's, C-123's & C-130's that made it
through
the
NVA fire to land at what was quite likely the most dangerous
airfield
in the world at that time. Not all of the planes that took off from or
tried to land at Khe Sanh made it. (We are currently getting
information about their time at Khe Sanh from 8th APS' Neil
"Brownie"
Brown, 15th APS' Ted Winkelman & Bob Byers and LT.Col (army) Ron
Parsons, all of whom were there during the seige.
In June of 1970, 8th APS Mobility and Combat Control teams assisted the
US and Vietnamese Marines in their efforts at Kham Duc, a Special
Forces camp near Khe Sanh. CCT Sgt Dave Gfeller was wounded during that
mission.
In 1972, a large 8th APS MOB team supported Lam Son 719 from Khe Sanh
during the last major offensive of
the war - the
drive into Laos. Their story and photos will be added to this site in
the future. For now, we have the Vietnam Airlifter report as an Adobe
Acrobat .pdf file. Vietnam
Airlifter
- Bu
Dop - Special
Forces Camp A341
Correction: Through
the fog of long-past memories (and, since I was not
there myself), three "incidents at Bu Dop" (circa Nov-Dec, 1969) had
been
erroneously merged into one. There were many bad times at Budop, both
before and after Nov-Dec 69. But few match these two particular
incidents, which have been clarified through the help of former Mob
Team members Sgts Neil Brown, Lou Cox & Paul Appel, the SF
Medic who treated our wounded - four who were there and Sgt Jim Wade
who was at HQ that day.
Here's the update as we have reconstructed events
as of 2006.0208, with further updates after the reunion 2006.0929:
- November, 1969 - Special
Forces Camp
A341 Bu Dop. Sgt Neil Brown, operator
of the 10K Adverse Terrain Forklift designed specifically to be used in
such environments, became trapped between exploding munitions and
burning fuel as he was trying to separate them during a rocket attack.
Sgt Brown was forced to abandon his rig, which was burned to a crisp. A
dramatic photo of this incident (which many of us may have already seen
hanging on the wall outside the Squadron Commander's office at 8th APS
HQ in Saigon over thirty years ago), is now in our posession and
will be posted on this site in the future.
- December 1969 - Bu
Dop. (updated 10/06) In two seperate incidents, an entire
MOB team was effectively disabled, with 5-6 WIA during
during one of the increasingly frequent rocket attacks directed at the
dirt airstrip near the SF camp at Budop.
- According to
recently-re-connected Team Members Paul Appel, & Lou
Cox (and soon to be corraborated by Ssgt Jim Greene who were all among
the WIA list of that morning), the team was leaving BuDop Special
Forces
compund
on their AT Forklift when a round landed in front of them.
The blast sprayed the forklift and all mounted members with shrapnel,
wounding Paul Appel, Doug Cave,
Scott McCoy, Jim Greene & Lou Cox. A Vietnamese Irregular soldier
who was with them apparently bore even more of the blast, since,
according one of the survivors, "he simply disappeared".
- On a seperate mission on
December 7. 1969, Ssgt Webb
Layton was killed by a single mortar round. Jim Wade recalls returning to
the MOB HQ that afternoon and being told by TSgt. Allen that we'd "lost
a team member"...
- At Tonle Cham in May, a 5th
SF C-7 Caribou
came under motar attack during offload, and in their haste to escape,
dropped
their cargo load on the ground as they taxied away and took off "like a
bat out of hell." At this time, the Tonle Cham camp already had a few
planes
laying in wreckage on the side of the runway. Their quick takeoff kept
this crew alive and their plane intact and flying..
- In the spring of 1970, an 8th
APS team member
at Song Be jumped into a foxhole during a particularly devasting VC
attack
and manned an M-60 machine gun for hours, warping the barrel by
the
heat of continued long bursts at the attacking VC. Not at all a typical
Air Force experience... and one not easily
forgotten.
- During a May, 1970
communications mission
at the infamous northern base at Kham Duc (see http://members.aol.com/BlndBat/khamduc.html
(search on "Kham Duc" at Google for more), CCT Ssgt Dave Gfeller was
wounded
by shrapnel from a VC RPG rocket. Although wounded and medevaced to an
Army hospital, Dave made it back to Saigon - on his own - by late that
evening and was warmly welcomed by his friends who had simply heard a
radio
transmission earlier that day requesting "We need a replacement
controller
at Kham Duc". Since the transmission was by SSgt Charlie Brown, we all
knew it had been his regular teammate, Dave Gfeller who had been
wounded.
We were all happy and relieved to see him in bloodied hospital garb,
but
alive and home with his teammates. A photo of Charlie making this radio
transmission is in the official USAF history of tactical airlift in
Vietnam...
- During the 12 months
beginning in the summer of
1969, we lost one man KIA, with 14 Purple Heart medals and at least a
half-dozen Bronze Stars awarded
to the 21 members of the 8th APS Mob and dozen or so Combat Control
team
members who worked with us for their wounds and brave action under the
combat conditions
of the 8th APS MOB missions. This
was not a typical "safe job" for USAF personnel...
- The above commentary
chronicles only those events during this webmaster's tour (and shortly
before I arrived). But now, with the input of MOB team members who
served after 1970, the story is being expanded. Prior to 1969,
the MOB unit was more loosely organized and after 1970, as the US Army
stood down and left Vietnam, combat support at remote airstrips
dwindled, leaving MOB teams quite literally alone on the air strips
where they worked. As the war wound down, many detachments were closed
and became operating locations with no permanent staff. See Cary
Louderback's letter.
- During Operation Lam Son 719
in 1972, the MOB team went back to Khe Sanh - oddly enough,
where the MOB team story began in 1968 with a "TDY" to Danang which
sent 8th APS mobility volunteers into hell for the three month Seige of
Khe Sanh.
In 1972, a formally organized and well-trained and well-equipped
Mobility Operation served at the same location in support of the US and
Vietnamese forces which attempted to stop the NVA. See the Adobe
Acrobat .pdf file copy of the Vietnam Airlifter with
their complete story of the 8th MOB at Khe Sanh in 1972.
- Kontum
There were many other
incidents
such as described
above. The hope of this site's webmaster is to provide a chronicle of
the
history and personal stories of these men and the others who, although
enlisted in the USAF, lived and worked with the US Army & US Army
Special
Forces organizations thoughout some of the most dangerous territory in
the war zone.
- Alan Runfeldt, USAF
1968-72,
Vietnam
1970, Thailand, 1971.
Note:
The
above accounts
are personal recollections (after 30 years) of one Mob Team member. We
welcome your comments, additions and corrections.
See our "Personal Pages" links below for member's
own stories.
Photos
- we
need photos
- of any of the places mentioned within these pages. Photos of the
places
we worked at provide a verifiable link between our often-fogged
memories
and the reality of our lives 30 years ago. Thank you for any photos you
can provide us with.
We'll
be installing
an automated image upload system to make the job go faster - and
automate this process so that it gets done quickly.
Please
contact the webmaster via the
guestbook or by using this secure
message form.
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