Radschool

Newsletter

Vol 9

Page 6

35 Sqn, Vung Tau.

Late 1971.

Click the pic for a bigger view and names.

Vietnam.

This concludes the stories we’ve been running on Vung Tau, we’re waiting now for someone to tell us about the life and times in Phan Rang, Saigon and/or the “Dat”. We’ve talked only about the better times in country as there has been libraries written about the bad times, but life isn’t all bad, no matter where you are, so we’ll leave the bad stuff to someone else.

35Sqn had 7 aircraft, and they flew from sun up to sun down, consequently one was nearly always on an D. But, as all radio equipment was serviced by the Yanks, (the Caribou isn’t renowned for being an electronics platform anyway) being a radio bloke there wasn’t a lot to do. Under Nick Carter, NCO/IC, who had the wonderful philosophy of “if it works, leave the damn thing alone” if you weren’t on duty crew, you filled in your day either doing “foreigners” or out on the line giving the other blokes a hand. Duty crew though was a different call. You started early to get the serviceable aircraft ready for the day’s work, saw them off, then nicked back to the barracks for a bit. Then it was back to the tarmac about 3.30 to see them home again—hoping like hell that there were no major U/S’s as the whole duty crew stayed until the last. It was nearly always the sumpies who held things up (g’day Springy), wanting to do prop changes and the like well into the dark knowing full well that the boozer was open.

9Sqn blokes did much the same, though they had only toy aeroplanes to work on, and after they’d put theirs to bed in the revetments, well before dark, they’d be off for the day while the blokes that looked after the real aeroplanes toiled on.

After your tour of Duty Crew (7 days) the ritual was to load up the barge (an old Dodge from memory) with 1 carton of beer of choice for each bloke, plus 1 for the hat, then it was off to Back Beach for the duty crew bar-b-q. These were nearly always momentous events. Back Beach had the RAN hospital, and was the R&C centre.

If you weren’t on Duty Crew, time was practically yours, and even though there were constant pep talks from the “sirs”, most blokes bought a couple of packs of Salem and went “down town”. There was a curfew of course, (we think 10.00pm) but that still left plenty of time to get into trouble if you wanted to. Usual method of transport in and out of town was the Lambro, a 3 wheeled motor scooter with a little covered area at back. Normally they’d take 4 passengers, but for some reason for the trip home it just seemed the right thing to do to try and get as many people in the back as possible. A favourite trick was to leap onto the back while the Lambro was parked and try and fling the driver into the air, which for some reason always seemed to nark them.

Favourite place of amusement down town was definitely the bars, and most had their favourites. There were some that only the Kiwi’s went to, some only the Yanks, some us, but all had bar girls, and all had Saigon Tea. This male ego boosting ritual was a ripper, and should be introduced into Australia without any further ado. When ever a bunch of blokes would go into one of these bars they would be joined immediately by a bunch of delightful young girls whose job was to talk and flirt with the blokes and sell them as many drinks in as short a time as possible. They got paid by getting you to buy them a Saigon Tea (coloured water). Most Australians were a bit lousy with the Saigon Tea trick, and consequently we were called “Cheap Charlies”. The local beer was a brew called 33, and some times you could drink 50 bottles of the stuff, while at other times half a bottle would send you off your head, quality control – what’s that????   Wonder what it’s like there today.