February 8th, A Few Color Samples

I am still slogging through the editing and sorting process. On my last count I found over 1000 images in my files. So, please check back from time to time. Meanwhile here are a few of my color photos:

Fragmentation Bombs.

Camouflaged C-47.

C-47s and C-130 under early morning sunrise, Da Nang Air Base.

Unloading a C-133.

Bunker and watch tower on the Han River.

Railroad tracks that formerly crossed the Han River.

River transportation.

C-47 silhouette.

F-5 Freedom Fighter.

A-4 Skyhawk.

January 14th, Random unedited samples

While I am still busy editing and organizing the hundreds of photos I took while at Da Nang AB, I thought I would just post a few as a show of "good faith", so to speak.

Here is something I suspect is probably quite rare, if it even exists anywhere else on the Internet:

 "Welcome to Da Nang Air Base" orientation booklet, 1965 edition - PDF format. No additional software required to read: Click here to view.

Here we have a shot of the "massive" base library. All kidding aside, compared to what the troops out in the jungles and rice paddies had, this was like the Library of Congress! I found several good reads in this little refuge.

Whimsical direction post. Although I never checked out its accuracy, I can confirm that the distance to Da Nang AB is 100% correct.

We had several visiting dignitaries during the 1965-66 time frame. Here is a horrible quality shot (Minolta 16II camera) of Senator Ted Kennedy just stepping out of the C-123 "White Whale" for a visit.

Da Nang Cyclos (taxis) lined up, waiting for customers in downtown Da Nang, not unlike what one might encounter at the terminal of a major airport. 

Street scene, downtown Da Nang.

Trimming sugar cane stalks, downtown Da Nang.

Here we have the gate to the main USAF HQ and living areas on Da Nang AB - "The Cantonment Area". I resided on the ground floor of Building 4222B, closest to the gate.  

Church in Da Nang city. Probably constructed in the 19th Century during the years of France's Catholic missionary presence in Da Nang, then called, "Tourane".

USAF Grumman HU-16 Albatross assigned to Da Nang AB for search and rescue missions. 

C-124 "Globemaster II"

Clip from Stars and Stripes newspaper.

Thanksgiving 1965 chow hall menu. Although there were hot meals prepared for Thanksgiving and Christmas, our normal fare consisted of C-Rations, for each meal. We usually heated the cans over Sterno.

Chow hall menu for Christmas, 1965.

In 1965 things hadn't really become extremely hostile in the Da Nang vicinity, as depicted by the smiles of these young Vietnamese girls. 1966, however, proved to be somewhat different. After VC orchestrated grenade incidents in downtown Da Nang, the Base Commander restricted all USAF personnel to the base.    

F-104 "Starfighter"

January 4th, Introduction & Overview

Da Nang Air Base  - 1965 & 1966

This will be my first shot at posting photos I took while assigned to Da Nang AB, South Viet Nam during the 1965-1966 time frame.

I hope that there are other Vietnam veterans, perhaps even from Da Nang, who might still be interested in reading a few of my anecdotes and/or viewing some of the multitude of photographs that I took while there.

I was not a photographer, but rather an aircraft electrician in the USAF who just happened to have caught the photography "bug" during the time I was in Vietnam.

If you are interested, these photos were all taken with 3 cameras that I owned during that period. I went to Vietnam with only a little Minolta 16mm "Spy" camera. The poorest quality photos in this blog were all taken on that camera. Then, courtesy of the Navy Exchange just outside the base's main gate, I upgraded to a Mamiya C3 twin-lens reflex camera. All of the photos from that camera can be identified by their square format. Finally, after many months of saving up my meager script money (Military Pay Certificates), I was able to order a Nikon F Photomic T 35mm single lens reflex camera. All of the best rectangular format photos came out of that camera.

These photos have endured the past 50+ years, but not without some noticeable suffering. Most of them were stored in either Asian lacquered hard wood cover albums, photos of which will be included in this blog, or in Kodak Carousel slide trays. A few years ago, I digitized (scanned) everything on a CanoScan 9000F.

Other than normal, natural fading, some of the photos exhibit bad scratches, fingerprints and other blemishes. In most cases, these are not the result of 50+ years in storage, but instead are evidence of rough handling and processing by the inexperienced film developers in downtown Da Nang city. Where possible, if I still had the negatives, I replaced the poorer print scans with re-scans of those negatives. I also edited many of the worst cases with free photo editing software, primarily MS Photo Gallery and Retouch Pilot Lite.

I plan to organize the photos by category, I.E. aircraft type, off-base scenes, fellow airmen, etc. I will start posting these images as soon as I have completed this process.
  
I hope that you will find this blog to be interesting. Possibly for some, it will also refresh your memories of that time, hopefully, not all bad!

Is this a worthwhile project?  Please let me know your thoughts about whether or not I should continue, and/or how I might improve it. 

A nice aerial view of Da Nang AB as it appeared during the time I was there. Permanently assigned Air Force personnel were housed in the formerly French cantonment area in the 4 long, 2 story buildings seen in the background above the rear of the closest hangar. Many different types of aircraft are visible on the flight line. How many can you identify? (Credit for this photo: Thang - Nguyen Xuan - Arch Collection)  

Here are the 3 Japanese made, lacquered, photo albums in which I stored the majority of the prints that I took at Da Nang Air Base, Da Nang city, the surrounding villages and China Beach.

This is a clip from the Pacific Stars & Stripe newspaper, circa 1965.