'Da Nang Airbase: 1968'

Fun to see the old air base after all these years. The Hi Van Pass, north of Da Nang, as usual, is cloud covered in these shots. The shot of the Sandys brings back memories of a mission to rescue a downed Cobra crew. The Sandys from Da Nang flew support on that one. We also got the Phantoms out of there from time to time for CAS too. In fact, the F-4 part of the base was often called Gunfighter Village after the "Gunfighters" stationed there.

I was never assigned there; as a soldier, I spent most of my time north of there with the 101st Airborne, but I flew out of there a couple of times. The best flight out was for my week of R&R.
 
I was there a year earlier (1967) with OASU/VX-8 as a air crewman on
our C-121J Super Connie 'radio plane'.

We flew north every night over the South China Sea to broadcast tapes,
supplied to us by the South Vietnamese, to the North Vietnamese as
soon as their radio station went off the air.

I recall there was the tail of a B-52 off the end of one of the runways
that had over-run the runway and went into a mine field. Nasty sight that
was. Going aroun the other end of the runway you passed the morgue
with all those aluminum coffins stacked outside.

Da Nang was a dismal place compared to Tan Son Nhut where I flew
in '66 in our TV Connies.

Sometime after I left our barracks suffered a direct hit from a rocket.
Luckily only one of our guys was injured.

Paul
 
Thanks for posting those photos, Panther. I spent some time at DaNang beginning in September, 1965. I did my last Blind Bat rotation out of DaNang in February, 1966. The mission moved to Ubon, Thailand, in March, 1966.

RD
 
PS

RD,
I took your pic and 'enhanced' it a bit. You look 'marvelous' now (hehe). Hope you like. (Do a 'print screen' and paste into editor to save). You're welcome.
Chuck B
Napamule
 
Some great shots there P. Thanks for sharing.

I flew in/out of DaNang a couple times in '67 enroute to other places. Too far north for me. :)
 
I really enjoyed the pictures . Just one thing wrong . No Marine birds around .(just kidding) Was there in 67 . I too saw the Sandy's , Puff's and everything else in and out of Danang . Unfortunately
saw five or six crashes while there . No. 2 pic . oops ! I would have hated to be him standing in front of the CO's desk trying to explain what happened . In my particular job(Aviation Ordnance) I got an up close view of all the planes taxing and taking off when I worked at the end of the runway in the arming and de-arming area . Usually near 35L .

Rich
 
I must say that's it's quite refreshing seeing you fellow veterans with your shots from "back in the day"
Cheers to ya'! :icon29::guinness::ernae::medals:
 
That was really something, truly a slice of life from over there. It's great that these got digitized and saved. Kind of renews my desire to do the same with dads pics from farther back. Thanks for the link:medals::icon29:
 
aeromed202 said:
That was really something, truly a slice of life from over there. It's great that these got digitized and saved. Kind of renews my desire to do the same with dads pics from farther back. Thanks for the link:medals::icon29:
Click to expand...

May I offer you some encouragement to do that with your father's pictures and do it NOW.

RD
 
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