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Post by Dave Homewood on Jan 5, 2012 19:24:42 GMT 12
I have the following list of names of RNZAF personnel who served in Vietnam during the war there. Pilots Attached to No. 9 Squadron RAAF (Iroquois)
Rank | Name | Service No. | Dates With No. 9 Squadron | Date of Death | F/O
| Ian George Brunton
| 82418
| 21 April 1970 - 24 Jul 1970 |
| F/O
| Trevor Keith Butler | 82012 | 15 Oct 1968 - 9 Oct 1969 | | F/Lt
| Ian McGregor Clark | 81389
| 07 Oct 1970 - 10 Sep 1971 |
| F/Lt
| John Barry Clements | 79293 | 10 Nov 1967 - 11 May 1968 | | F/Lt | Edward Yates Creelman | 81406 | 12 Sep 1968 - 15 Oct 1969 |
| S/Ldr
| Graham Colin Derby | 594353 | 30 Jul 1969 - 26 Jan 1970 | 9 Dec 2013 | S/Ldr
| Robin John Klitscher | 926072 | 02 Sep 1970 - 03 Sep 1971 | | F/Lt
| Alistair Richard 'Bud' Mills | 80863 | 29 Jul 1967 - 17 Feb 1968 | 1 Sep 1990
| F/Lt
| George Arthur Oldfield | 338247 | 15 Oct 1968 - 30 May 1969 | 17 Mar 2000
| F/Lt
| Douglas Ian 'Punchie' Paterson | 76055 | 01 Sep 1969 - 03 Apr 1970 | 12 Jun 2007
| S/Ldr
| John Lambert Alexander Pendreigh | 624159 | 06 Oct 1969 - 08 Oct 70 |
| F/Lt
| Christopher Robert James Peters | 81391 | 30 Sep 1970 - 01 Oct 1971 |
| F/O
| John Douglas Peterson | 82472 | 20 Mar 1969 - 24 Apr 1970 |
| F/O
| Brian Henry Senn | 83335 | 29 Mar 1971 - 23 Dec 1971 | 28 Sep 2014
| F/O
| Kenneth James Wells | 81898 | 15 Jan 1968 - 16 Dec 1968 |
| F/O
| Gordon Lennox Wood | 81495 | 20 Apr 1970 - 01 Apr 1971 | |
The above list came from a sheet I found at the Air Force Museum of New Zealand some time back with full names, where known, added by me.Pilots Attached to USAF as Foreward Air ControllersFlt Lt Murray Jackson Abel - flew OV-10 Broncho aircraft Flt Lt Ross Ewing - Cessna 0-2 aircraft Other RNZAF pilots performed the FAC roles too but I don't seem to have more names, can anyone here please fill in gaps? Other RNZAF PersonnelAlso, the RNZAF operated No. 40 Squadron and No. 41 Squadron in and out of Vietnam during the war, supporting the troops with supplies and transport duties. But were any RNZAF personnel based there on a permanent basis, perhaps to co-ordinate these transport flights, act as Air Movements for the RNZAF, or Admin or that sort of thing? Also, the RNZAF FAC pilots must have trained in the FAC role with ground troops and air elements before they got over the front lines. Was this taining done in NZ, in the USA, or in an Asian country with US troops?
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Post by baronbeeza on Jan 5, 2012 22:30:20 GMT 12
We had a medical team at Quy Nhon also Dave. I found a really interesting website on that recently. I will see if I can dig it out. S/L Thompson was a long time Doctor at the hospital there. (I must have dreamt that part up...... I cannot find any mention of him now.)
I think Quy Nhon would be my favourite place in Vietnam, during the war the airfield was smack in the middle of the town. I was under the impression RNZAF staff were there for the duration but again I may be a little off target. Most of the action was done near Saigon at Bien Hoa and Vung Tau... both places being just a few hours from the capital.
The team at Quy Nhon would have seemed isolated at times.
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Post by baronbeeza on Jan 5, 2012 22:38:03 GMT 12
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Post by baronbeeza on Jan 5, 2012 22:51:59 GMT 12
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Post by mumbles on Jan 5, 2012 23:14:33 GMT 12
2nd from right appears to be a Skyhawk pilot judging by the shoulder patch.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jan 6, 2012 0:39:16 GMT 12
Well spotted Sam, sure does. The FAC pilots were mostly or all strike pilots from the Canberra/Skyhawk squadron.
Did the RNZAF medical team have a doctor killed in Vietnam? I was selling poppies one Poppy Day and a woman approached me and said scathingly she'd never give money to the RSA. I asked her why and she told me her husband had been a doctor in Vietnam and he was shot and killed. She was left with five children to raise on their farm and after a few years she was really struggling, and someone told her to go to see the RSA Welfare Officer here in Cambridge. She reluctantly did so. She said the guy (I don't know who he was) asked what she wanted, and she explained her husband had been a doctor in Vietnam and was killed there, she had five young kids and was broke and needed assistance. Apparently the prig at the RSA scoffed "Vietnam? That wasn't a real war, not like I was in. We can't help you." She swore at him and never went back, she said. After she'd got that off her chest she was much nicer to me. I felt terrible listening to that story, I know the guys at our RSA office would never act like that nowadays. Poor woman. I wonder if the doctor was RNZAF or if he was Army. She was clearly a kiwi and I assume he was too.
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Post by baronbeeza on Jan 6, 2012 0:39:29 GMT 12
The patch looks similar alright. I had to check but it does not appear to be an A4 one. Did 41 have one similar ?
Well I have learnt something. We had two medical teams in Binh Dinh province. A civilian one at Quy Nhon and the military one up the road at Bong Son.
There would have definitely been an RNZAF presence in the district the entire war but it appears any RNZAF staff would have been attached to the hospital. The Freighters flew into Quy Nhon almost weekly, I guess the airmovement element must have been the responsibility of the Yanks based there. It is interesting that the RNZAF C-130 were not interested in flying into there.
So the answer to Dave's question may well have been that we had a few RNZAF personnel based in Bong Son attached to the Tri Service Medical Unit there.
My first few weeks in the RNZAF were working alongside two RNZAF staff that had served in Vietnam. Neither was in the RNZAF during the war though. One had been with 161 Battery and the other was with the Aussie Infantry.
About a half of Dave's list were still in the service 10 years later. Graeme Goldsmith was a FAC pilot and should have been on the list. I think he was one of those decorated while up there.
I saw mention that Ross Ewing was in theatre about 3 months after the announcement that we were going to provide FAC pilots. Any training seems likely to have been done up there in that case.
The helicopter pilots were training within Aussie before deployment.
You can only imagine the numbers of guys that would have been in and out on the Freighters and Hercules though.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jan 6, 2012 0:45:04 GMT 12
Ah of cource, Graeme Goldsmith - I knew there was another in the back of my mind that I knew of. It was he who arranged to get the Cessna O-2 for the RNZAF Museum. It makes a great exhibit too representing NZ's Vietnam effort alongside the Freighter.
Now that you mention there were civilian medical staff there maybe the doctor who was killed was a ciivvie?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jan 6, 2012 0:49:52 GMT 12
Maybe the Skyhawk pilot is US Navy? It looks like the Douglas A-4 patch to me.
The bloke with the handbag and the ice cream man hat doesn't look to be kiwi, we never had hats like that did we?
Note how long the hair is on that surgeon - he must be a civvie surely! And the bloke on the right with the flares.
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Post by baronbeeza on Jan 6, 2012 0:53:12 GMT 12
Re: Kiwi FACs in Vietnam Post by corsair67 on May 2, 2006, 11:05am
Peter, according to the excellent book "Portrait of an Air Force - the Royal New Zealand Air Force 1937-87" by Geoffrey Bentley and Maurice Conly (Published by Grantham House - ISBN # 1 86934010 8) the following Kiwis flew as FACs in Vietnam:
Squadron Leaders J A Scrimshaw & G Wallingford, Flight Lieutenants M J Abel, J M Denton, B W Donnelly, R L Ewing, G J W Goldsmith, R F Lawry, B A Lockie, D J McEvedy, R J Metcalf, G R Thomson, P T Waller and Pilot Officer M R Callanan.
Sqd Ldr Scrimshaw and Flt Lt Ewing were the first two RNZAF pilots to serve as FACs; they were sent to Vietnam in 1968.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jan 6, 2012 1:06:06 GMT 12
Onthat link you posted to Ian McGibbons book, he writes: "In August 1965 a Hercules flew into South Vietnam to pick up helicopter parts for the RNZAF."
Was this part of the Iroquois purchase package? Why not get parts directly from the Bell factory? Were they from the US military as a gift?
Thanks for the FAC list, I thought I'd seen one somewhere but couldn't recall where.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jan 6, 2012 1:14:40 GMT 12
That book is interesting in that No. 14 Squadron Canberras went to Vietnam in the earlier days of the war, and that a few of that squadron's pilots got posted there to observe US B-57's.
Also very interesting was that the NZ Army's 161 Battery had pilot Major Roger Pearce flying light aircraft and Iroquois helicopters with the Americans and ARVN before the RNZAF got involved over there!
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Post by Luther Moore on Jan 6, 2012 3:13:07 GMT 12
72309 Bradbury M R 1978 41 Sqn,RNZAF 71189 Densem D R 1990 41 Sqn,RNZAF 74191 Keatley E B 1993 41 Sqn,RNZAF 81625 Abel M J RNZAF 71577 Charlton J R 1993 RNZAF Cancer 75086 Karauria J W 1970 RNZAF Plane Accident 80863 Mills A R 1990 RNZAF K338247 Oldfield G A 2000 RAAF; RNZAF Heart Attack 76055 Paterson D I 1970 RNZAF 78322 Turner R J P 2001 RNZAF 921456Williams R 2004 41 Sqn, RNZAF 76826 Ramsay W J 2004 RNZAF E81608 Davies T 2005 RNZAF G78022 Hill A E, BEM 2006 RNZAF 73889 Gourley R K 2007 41 Sqn, RNZAF 81360 Denniston R J 2007 41 Sqn, RNZAF 82450 Harford K D 2007 41 Sqn, RNZAF 81903 Pascoe A B 2007 40 Sqn, RNZAF Cancer of pancreas Testicle cancer 77793 Thurston B R 2009 71 41 Sqn, RNZAF 33180 Young L G 2010 41 Sqn, RNZAF 75756 Miller A P 2010 RNZAF
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Post by skyhawkdon on Jan 6, 2012 6:50:33 GMT 12
There were also two Skyhawk ground crew detachments from 75 Sqn attached to a USMC unit at Chu Lai in 1970. Details are in the book. It certainly looks like a Skyhawk patch to my eye in that photo. The Trekkas were flown all the way from NZ to Vietnam in Bristol Freighters. That must have been a slow trip!
My uncle (Dave Geddes) was a Nav on 41 Sqn based in Singapore in the late 60s and flew the weekly shuttle service to South Vietnam and Thailand, plus some longer detachments in country.
He can tell some stories about those trips! My favourite is the Yanks required all aircraft flying in country to be fitted with TACAN but B-170s didn't have it! So they had to pretend they had it when talking to ATC. "Tune into TACAN channel 27X, fly radial 170 until 35NM and then turn onto radial bla bla bla". Dave said they had special hand drawn maps with all the TACAN radials and distances from the TACAN stations (which fortunately weren't moved around!) and all he had to do was plot their position on it using the more traditional navigator methods! He said the yanks never cottoned on! They also came home with a few bullet holes occasionally. They operated with the RAAF Caribou's in country quite a bit. The amount of heavy metal fast jet activity in Vietnam was a sight to behold he said.
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Post by shorty on Jan 6, 2012 6:52:48 GMT 12
The hat is a tropical F/S hat, pale blue and lighter material than the standard ones. I have my one from Canberra days still.
Possible the "handbags" have video cameras in them? Sort of thing that would have been bought in those days. Having blown up the image I don't think it is a A4 patch, almost looks like something superimposed over a boomerang?
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Post by baronbeeza on Jan 6, 2012 9:55:23 GMT 12
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Post by shorty on Jan 6, 2012 9:58:22 GMT 12
Notice the patch has at least one word at the top which the bog standard A4 patch doesn't have.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jan 6, 2012 10:20:20 GMT 12
The word seen is surely "Douglas" exactly as seen above, between the bombs and the bird's starboard wing. The patch is on a slight angle to the right as he has his arms crossed.
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Post by mumbles on Jan 6, 2012 10:59:11 GMT 12
The word seen is surely "Douglas" exactly as seen above, between the bombs and the bird's starboard wing. The patch is on a slight angle to the right as he has his arms crossed. Agreed. I have one of those patches, and checked it before I made the call. The tones, positions and proportions match, so if it isn't an A-4 patch, it is something that looks uncannily like it.
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Post by shorty on Jan 6, 2012 12:21:58 GMT 12
OK , you win , tilted my head and it looks right.
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