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CONSTRUCTION EFFORTS OF
U. S. NAVY CIVIL ENGINEERS AND CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTORS IN BUILDING THE
NEW SEAPORT OF SATTAHIP AND THE U-TAPAO OPERATIONAL AIRBASE ON THE SOUTHERN
COAST OF
THAILAND.
US Navy film MN-10875
Public domain film from the
US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/
3.0/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-Tapao_Royal_Thai_Navy_Airfield
U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield is a military airfield of the
Royal Thai Navy located approximately 90 miles (
140 km) southeast of
Bangkok, near
Sattahip on the
Gulf of Siam. It is serves as the home of the Royal Thai Navy
First Air
Wing...
Current uses
For several years, beginning in
1981, U-Tapao has hosted parts of
Operation Cobra Gold – the largest
U.S. military peacetime exercise in the
Pacific – jointly involving
U.S.,
Singaporean, and
Thai forces, and designed to build ties between the nations and promote interoperability between their military components.
Thailand is an important element in the
Pentagon's new strategy of "forward positioning".
Despite Thailand's neutrality on the
2003 invasion of Iraq, the
Thai government allowed U-Tapao to be used by
American warplanes flying into combat in
Iraq, as it had earlier done during the war in
Afghanistan. In addition, U-Tapao may be where Al Qaeda operative
Abu Zubaydah was interrogated, according to some retired
American intelligence officials.
A multinational force headquarters was established at U-Tapao to coordinate humanitarian aid for the Sumatran
Tsunami of
26 December 2004.
On 7 May 2008, in the aftermath of
Cyclone Nargis, Thai
C-130 transports were permitted to land at
Yangon International Airport in
Burma, carrying drinking water and construction material...
In
2012, a proposal for the
United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (
NASA) to use the military capacities to support weather research was canceled.
American use of U-Tapao during the
Vietnam War
Prior to
1965, U-Tapao was a small Royal Thai Navy airfield. At
Don Muang Air Base near Bangkok the
USAF had stationed
KC-135 air refueling tankers from
Strategic Air Command (
SAC) for refueling tactical combat aircraft over the skies of Indochina. Although Thailand was an active participant in the war, with a token ground force deployed to the
Republic of Vietnam and a more substantial involvement in
Laos, the visibility of the large
US Air Force tankers in its capital was causing political embarrassment to the Thai government.
In June 1965, the B-52F was first used in the Vietnam War. B-52F aircraft taken from the 7th and 320th
Bomb Wings were sent to bomb suspected
Viet Cong enclaves in
South Vietnam. The B-52Fs were stationed at
Andersen AFB on
Guam, the operation being supported by KC-135As stationed at
Kadena AB on
Okinawa. By
November 1965, the
B-52s were able to support the
1st Air Cavalry Division in mopping up operations near
Pleiku.
The Seventh Air Force (
PACAF) wanted to have additional B-52s missions flown into the war zone; however, the
B-52 missions from Andersen, as well as from Kadena AB, Okinawa, required long mission times and air refueling. Concerns about base security with having the aircraft based in South Vietnam led to the change of mission at
Tuy Hoa Air Base from that of basing B-52s there to one of a tactical air base. It was decided that, as the base at U-Tapao was being established as a KC-135 tanker base to move them out of Don Muang, to also base the B-52s there where they could fly unrefuelled throughout both
North and South Vietnam.
The construction of U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield began in
October 1965; the runway was built in eight months and the base was completed slightly more than two years later. The 11,500-foot (3,
505 m) runway was opened on 6 July 1966 and the first aircraft to land was a
Royal Thai Air Force HH-16
Helicopter, then a USAF
C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft.
With the completion of U-Tapao, most
American forces were transferred from Don Muang, and
U-Tapao RTNAF became a front-line facility of the
United States Air Force in Thailand during the Vietnam War from 1966 through
1975.
The
USAF forces at U-Tapao were under the command of the
United States Pacific Air Forces(PACAF), with the Strategic Air Command (SAC)units being a tenant unit. The
APO for U-Tapao was APO
San Francisco, 96330...
- published: 20 Dec 2014
- views: 775