On the 31st of March 1966 I made my first flight to Vung Tau where due to a fire fight taking place not far from the aerodrome perimeter we, the crew of RAAF C130A Hercules A97-206, were instructed to hold off until there was less risk of attracting ground fire. This picture that I took depicts five RAAF Caribou and, if you look carefully, a goodly number of Iroquois helicopters positioned along the sides of the main runway, ready to receive reinforcements and lift them into battle.
After the action had died down a little we landed on the PSP runway and were then taken by a couple of the Australian Caribou crews first to their palatial but sparsely equipped villa and thence to the beach. Here we counted close to 30 helicopters in the sky just inland and, in stark contrast to the fighting, Vietnamese traders selling lobster thermidor from their shacks by the shore!
I was reminded of my visit after reading the excellent posts and videos regarding Caribou operations in Viet Nam provided above by Cloudee and lancs, for which many thanks. Our visits in 'A' Model Australian Hercules to Bien Hoa, Tan San Nhut and Vung Tau were necessarily brief, and although back at RAAF Base Richmond I had heard some stories about operating Caribou in Viet Nam from those who had returned, there had never been as much detail as these posts provided. We never remained overnight in the country but after flying within Viet Nam repositioned to Ubon in Thailand where No 79 Squadron had some Sabres ready to defend the Base or flew back to RAF/RAAF Butterworth in Malaya. Butterworth was the initial destination for the Service we provided from Richmond via an overnight stop at Pearce WA and the refuelling post on Cocos Island. 'Confrontation' with Indonesia at that stage prevented us from staging via Darwin (as we were able to do later on).
Whilst flying Hercules with No 36 Squadron RAAF I boarded a Caribou only once, simply with the aim of making a parachute jump from the ramp into warm blue waters 2,000ft below just to the north of Williamtown NSW. I was a little surprised to learn that we wouldn't have a reserve 'chute, for on all the parachute dropping sorties I had flown in suitably-equipped transport aeroplanes our 'passengers' had always enjoyed having the presence of a reserve ... just in case! Once a year the RAAF offered the opportunity for serving personnel to volunteer to make a parachute jump, and there were sufficient numbers that day to require the Caribou to undertake three sorties.
This all goes to prove that flying/operating transport aircraft can at times be challenging and exhausting, but more often than not immensely satisfying at the end of the day when despite all the difficulties that crop up from time to time you know that the task has been completed successfully.
Aerial View of Vung Tau taken on 31 March 1996 depicting RAAF Caribou and Iroquois