Hi Lee
Re. loss of accreditation in Saigon, no, quite definitely '63 followed by a period of hiatus before we were accredited (and took the aircraft to Rangoon for a month) in December '63. AA at the period of change was G/C J W E Holmes, returned to UK as Wg Cdr Admin at Benson. His successor was G/C 'Dickie' Squires - super bloke!
My predecessor AND successor were one and the same!! slightly unusual!
Saigon's new AA was G/C Helmore who spent some time with us in BKK en route to posting and insisted on sending his reports in 'French' since "that was the language of his new post"
Dear old Chas G.., our secretary, who had to type them, was fairly underwhelmed!
While I've been typing this I decided to check rather than relying on memory and ...of course. quite wrong - it was '62 NOT '63. Last trip to Tan Son Nhut was 4/3/62 so some time after that.
Rangoon AA was G/C Chater (another gent). We flew to Mingaladon on the 30/11/63 and came back to BKK on 27/12.
Not very long after G/C Helmore took up post in Saigon there was a considerable 'local difficulty' with the Presidential Palace being bombed by his own people. AA "impressed" his crew by calling them out into the action to "see what was going on"!
This last was 2nd hand info from the guys themselves so may be slightly coloured!!
What was my connection? Sig/Nav/Pilot Assistant and general dogsbody - Lots of truly marvellous bits, some seriously bad bits but, overall, unmissable
