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(****Disclaimer**** I’m a collector of patches. My facination started when I was a kid walking around the Army Post. I liked the colors, I liked that it meant you belonged somewhere and I liked that everyone was proud to display it. I started collecting Police Department patches, because, well…lets just say in my past life I “belonged” to one. I then began collecting military patches, and then I began focusing on Vietnam War era patches .)

Today I’m going to post a little about my favorite US Military Patch the 1st Cav patch. Ofcourse it’s my favorite, because it was the patch I saw on my dad’s shoulder for more years than I can remember.

The patches of the US Cavalry preserve the traditional yellow which first appeared in bandanas and piping on uniforms. The 1st Cavalry — the “First Team” or “Hell for Leather”– saw action in the Philippines and was the first division to enter Tokyo. It served in Korea and was the first unit to enter Pyongyang in 1950. In The Vietnam War,
it became an Airmobile division and was creditied with 2,056 days overseas and participated in many of the major operations.

It was reorganized into an armored division in 1975 and is currently an Active Army and Army National Guard Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas. The 2nd Cavalry Division, like the 3rd, 21st, 24th, 56th, 61st, 62nd, 63rd, 64th, 65th and 66th, did not see action in World War II. The 2nd and 3rd Cav., like 1st Cav, have yellow shield patches measuring 14×10 cm. The patches were said to have been designed by an officer’s wife at Fort Bliss to be big enough to be visible through the dust kicked up by horse-mounted cavalry.

The 1st Cavalry’s yellow shield has an oblique black bar and outline of a horse’s head. The 2nd Cav.’s patch has a blue chevron and two stars, while 3rd Cav. have one with the figure “3″ in blue. The 21st and 24th Cav. have the outline of a stirrup, while the 56th have a star. The 61st has a horse’s head within a spur on a yellow shield, the 62nd a shield with crossed yellow bars and the 63rd a yellow square with crossed red bars. The 64th Cav.’s patch shows a saber on a yellow field, and the 65th’s an arrowhead on a blue and yellow shield. The 66th has a six point yellow star with a blue boarder.

My dad? Well he was 1st Cav Air Mobile, The 2nd Bn 20th Arty (ARA), and they were pioneers.

(PS pictures of the patches I blog about will be coming. I have to update my adobe flash first give me a day or two.)

The Douglas A1 Skyraider (”Spad”) is a highly maneuverable, propeller driven aircraft designed as a multipurpose attack bomber or utility aircraft. The E model generally carried two crewmen. The A1 was first used by the Air Force in its Tactical Air Command to equip the first Air Commando Group engaged in counterinsurgency operations in South Vietnam, and later used in a variety of roles, ranging from multi-seat electronic intelligence gathering to Navy antisubmarine warfare and rescue missions. The venerable fighter aircraft was retired in the spring of 1968 and had flown in more than twenty model variations, probably more than any other U.S. combat aircraft.

LTCOL Lewis M. Robinson was the pilot of a Spad sent on a mission which took him over Saravane Province, Laos on June 4, 1967. When the aircraft was about 25 miles south of the South Vietnamese city of Khe Sanh, it was struck by enemy fire and crashed.

LTCOL Robinson was declared Killed/Body Not Recovered. The fate of the second crewman, if there was one, is unknown.

(Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 July 1990 from one or more of
the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence
with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W.
NETWORK 1998. )

On June 4th, 1965, Maj. Gen. Lewis Walt took command of the 3rd Marine Division from Maj. Gen. William Collins. Walt was concurrently named Commander of the III Amphibious Force (III MAF), the first corps-level Marine Corps headquarters in history. As such, Walt was in command of two Marine divisions and responsible for I Corps Tactical Zone, the northernmost region of South Vietnam, which bordered the Demilitarized Zone. His command also included serving as Chief of Naval Forces Vietnam, as well as being Senior Adviser to the commander of South Vietnam’s I Corps, who was responsible for the security of the northern portion of South Vietnam. After supervising the U.S. and South Vietnamese build up in that region from 1965 to 1967, General Walt returned to the United States and later served as Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.

On this day in 1966, Theodore Eugene Kryszak, Russell D. Martin; Harold E. Mullins; Luther L.
Rose; Harding E. Smith; Ervin Warren, all crew members on an AC47 gunship assigned to the 4th Air Commando Squadron at Ubon Airfield, Thailand, went missing.

Capt. Theodore E. Kryszak was the pilot of an AC47 gunship assigned to the 4th Air Commando Squadron at Ubon Airfield, Thailand. The aircraft, dubbed “Puff the Magic Dragon” had evolved from earlier versions of the Douglas C47.

Puff introduced a new principle to air attack in Vietnam. Troubled by difficulties in conducting nighttime defense, Capt. Ronald Terry of the U.S. Air Force Aeronautical Systems Division remembered reading about flying missionaries in Latin America who lowered baskets of supplies on a rope from a tightly circling airplane. Throughout the series of pylon turns, the basket remained suspended over a selected point on the ground. Could this principle be applied to fire from automatic weapons? Tests proved it could, and could be extremely successful.

Puff’s “flare kicker” illuminated the target, then the pilot used a mark on the window to his left as a gun sight and circled slowly as three multibarrel 7-62mm machine guns fired 18,000 rounds per minute from the door and two windows in the port side of the passenger compartment. The aircraft
was called “Puff” after a popular song of the day, and because it resembled a dragon overhead with flames billowing from its guns. Men on the ground welcomed the presence of Puff and the later Spooky version, which was essentially the same as the Puff, because of its ability to concentrate a
heavy dose of defensive fire in a surgically determined area.

Capt. Kryszak’s Puff was assigned a mission which took it over Khammouane Province, Laos on June 3, 1966. His crew that day included 1Lt. Russell D. Martin; Col. Harding E. Smith; TSgt. Harold E. Mullins; TSgt. Luther L. Rose; and SSgt. Ervin Warren. On such a crew, it was common for the officers to be the flight crew, while the sergeants acted as aerial gunners. On this crew, Mullins was the flight engineer.

At a point about 10 miles east of Ban Pha Philang near the borders of Savannakhet and Khammouane Provinces, Capt. Kryszak’s aircraft was shot down. The Puff was seen to crash by another aircraft in the area. No parachutes were seen and no emergency radio beeper signals were heard, yet
at least one of the men onboard the aircraft was known to have survived. (Col. Harding E. Smith, according to a list compiled by the National League of Families of POW/MIA in Southeast Asia survived this incident.)

According to the Air Force, subsequent searches for the aircraft revealed the wreckage of the aircraft, but the crew could not be located. All personnel aboard were declared Missing in Action.

The crew of the Puff lost on June 3, 1966 are among nearly 600 Americans lost in Laos during the Vietnam War. Even though the Pathet Lao stated publicly that they held “tens of tens” of American prisoners, not one American held in Laos was ever released — or negotiated for.

(Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 April 1990 with the assistance
of one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency
sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources,
interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK 1998. )

On this day back in 1970, President Nixon gave a telivised speach and claimed that that Allied drive into Cambodia, “Is the most successful operation of this long and difficult war,” and that he is now able to resume the withdrawl of U.S. Troops from South Vietnam.

U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had launched a limited “incursion” into Cambodia on April 29. The campaign included 13 major ground operations to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside Cambodia. Aprox. 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967. The announcement of the Cambodian operation gave the antiwar movement in the United States a new rallying point. News of the incursion set off a wave of antiwar demonstrations, including one at Kent State University that resulted in the killing of four students by Army National Guard troops and another at Jackson State in Mississippi, resulting in the shooting of two students when police opened fire on a women’s dormitory.

In his speech, Nixon reaffirmed earlier pledges to bring the Cambodian operation to an end by June 30, with “all our major military objectives” achieved and reported that 17,000 of the 31,000 U.S. troops in Cambodia had already returned to South Vietnam. After June 30, said Nixon, “all American air support” for Allied troops in fighting in Cambodia would end, with the only remaining American activity being attacks on enemy troop movements and supplies threatening U.S. forces in South Vietnam. Nixon promised that 50,000 of the 150,000 troops, whose withdrawal from Vietnam he had announced April 20, would “be out by October 15.”

Hi to all! Welcome to my Vietnam War blog. In this blog I plan to post historical information on the War, information about MIA/POW’s and information about the US Military during Vietnam. I don’t think this topic has been explored enough, and I hope this blog will one day attract people who actually served and who would like to tell their stories of the Vietnam War and help all of us to learn more. So, sit back, read, reflect and enjoy…..