Posted on 05/24/2016 10:59:57 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
More than four decades after the fall of Saigon, Washington is still holding on to various classified details about its fight in Southeast Asia. Among the Pentagon media arm’s still-secret records are photos and video of updated World War II-era bombers the U.S. Air Force sent to hit Laos.
In May 1966, pilots and crews from the 603rd Air Commando Squadron brought eight B-26K Invaders from their base in Louisiana to Nakhon Phanom Air Base in Thailand. Desperate to stem the flow of troops and supplies flowing down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam, the flying branch had sent the modified planes to help hunt down enemy convoys.
“It was a fantastic improvement over the old aircraft,” Air Force colonel Joseph Kittinger, a veteran of the deployment, said in an official interview in 1974. “[But] the aircraft wasn’t designed for what we were using it for.”
War Is Boring obtained this and other previously secret internal oral histories through the Freedom of Information Act. As of April 2016, the Defense Media Activity said it had at least two classified items relating to these sometimes hair-raising missions in their archive.
Well before the United States became embroiled in its war in Vietnam, the Douglas B-26 Invader had a storied history in the American military.
Originally called the A-26, the planes had attacked German and Japanese forces during World War II, bombed North Korean and Chinese formations during the Korean War and become a sometimes infamous symbol of small wars and covert actions in the early stages of the Cold War.
For its time, the twin-engine Invader boasted an impressive top speed of over 350 miles per hour combined with a range of 1,400 mile
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
C130’s replaced them after they transfer to the
606 SOS
We had the 16th SOS C-130’S..C-123’S (blackspot)
Lots of info about the 8th here
http://www.8tfw.com/pages/index2.htm
Just click on the yellow boarding pass...and your in
So too the WW II P-2.
A-26 had to be one of the coolest designs of all our WWII aircraft. They just looked mean enough to scare you. I was 15-20 miles from the Ho Chi Minh trail up in the central highlands. I had the good fortune to see a few of them, as well as the “Spads”.
Sometimes old tools are still the best tools to get a job done right.
Wrong B-26. There were two.
The first was the Martin B-26 Marauder. Also known as the Baltimore Whore for its temperamental flying qualities and short wings (no visible means of support). This was the one that coined the phrase “one a day in Tampa Bay”, and required Jimmy Doolittle to come in and teach crews how to safely fly it.
The other was the Douglass A-26 Invader, which was reclassified as a medium bomber (thus B-26) following the withdrawal of the B-26 Marauder from service following WWII. This is the one that flew in Korea and Vietnam. Where the political sensitivities of the term “Bomber” led to it being reclassified AGAIN, back to Attack (A-26)
You are confusing the Douglas B-26K Invader (originally known as the A-26 Invader) with the Martin B-26 Marauder.
During one 30 day-period, 15 Maruaders were lost in training accidents.
Cheers...Chris
We had A-1E’s flying escort for the C-123’s....low and slow. We were about 30 miles from Laos...
There seems to be a crack in the windscreen.
Heinz Guderian would have well-recognized the final assault on South Vietnam as using the sort of Blitzkrieg tactics he developed.
The “TA” tail letters indicate the 609th out of NKP most likely “69”
They had no logistics, and were up against an enemy that was being well funded by the USSR.
Our support to South Vietnam in the last year amounted to a couple magazines of ammo and a couple grenades per man in the ARVN. Look it up.
I don’t care how much equipment you have, if you’re short on POL, spare parts, and especially ordnance, you’re screwed.
Unfortunately a lot of that’s not true. The Peace Treaty left an entire NVA field army within the borders of South Vietnam. We did not destroy Hanoi’s ability to wage war. LBJ and McNamara knowingly were engaged in a no-win policy beginning shortly after the election of 1964. Nixon’s policy was to extricate American combat troops from the war, not to defeat Hanoi.
Get yourself a copy of HR McMaster’s ‘Dereliction of Duty’, the whole sad chronology going back to JFKs unwise decisions is spelled out in detail.
You may recall that it was Ted “lion of the Senate” Kennedy that led the opposition to funding the South Vietnamese.
That is almost word-for-word what I said to the CFO back in the 80s before they fired me.
I said “Hurrying Heinz” because I liked that nickname.
CFO was lecturing everyone about guerilla warfare.
He had served on an airbase I believe.
“The south had plenty of hardware. They also had an army that wouldn’t fight to defend its homeland.”
Not true in the slightest. The 1974 Watergate Congress starved South Vietnam of gas, ammunition, and spare parts. Moreover the 1972 Easter Offensive had proven the willingness and ability of ARVN troops and Marines to defend their country.
That was the B-26 Marauder. High wing loading, but once mastered the B-26 had lowest attrition in WWII.
For whatever reason, the Army Air Corp gave the same designation to the Douglas B-26/A-26. The only time it has happened. Some say it was their embarrassment over the Marauder.
My local gunsmith had 2 WWII M-2’s in the shop last week for an “overhaul”.
It was all the Democrats cutting off the money. Check me out. We had it won and done. It was a human disaster to erase a victory caused by a defending of the South. The defunding followed Nixon’s departing office over nothing
There’s a crack in the canopy!
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