HOW IT WAS! KUNSAN AIRBASE 6175th Air Base Group (1966-Jul 1968) 354th Combat Support Group (Jul 1968-Jun 1970) 6175th Air Base Group (Jun 1970-Mar 1971)

Tanks (NR)

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Acknowledgement: Special thanks to John Wilkerson of Osan AB, Korea for his narrative account of the 6175th Air Base Group operations between 1967-1968. Thanks to Nathan Sturman whose in-work novel FIELD DAYS provided the so many clues to unearthing the history of this period and his recollections from 1968. Thanks to Ralph Brown of Bridgeport, WVA for his narratives of the operation of the base from 1968-1969. Special thanks to Gib Foulke, SMSgt, USAF (ret), for his narratives of his tours at Kunsan from 1965-1966.

1966

Gib Foulke, SMSgt, USAF (ret), was a two-stripe A2C at the time and assigned to the 6175th CES between 1965-1966. (See 1965: Gib Foulke for Gib's remarks on his tour.) He remarked upon seeing a photo of the 1963 main gate, "The photo of the main gate you printed, is similar to what I recall, except that the arch over the gate was signage that announced the name of the base in English and Korean with the appropriate US/Korean symbolic Flags and emblems. There was a guard post in the middle of the entry whereas vehicle traffic passed on both sides of it. I believe the office to the South was block and all the "foot' traffic passed thru there." According to Koreans who worked on the base at the time, the Koreans were searched upon exiting the base to ensure they were not carrying stolen items off-base.

The base facilities were still relatively primative with many Korean War Jamesway structures still in existence for transient personnel. Three two story cinder-block barracks had been built for permanent party personnel near Avenue B near the NCO club. The mail room had been upgraded to a cinder-block structure in the same location as it is today. The base hobby shops were what is now the Son-Light Inn and the Service Club was located nearby next to what is now the Dining Hall.

The Base Operations was still in its Korean War location near the current tank farm. The only operational unit was the ROKAF with their F-86s. The nuclear alert was in operation with F-100s from Misawa. The WRM at Kunsan was F-100 equipment to support Misawa's aircraft in case a war should break out again.

Gib wrote, "I guess I left off with some of the airfield landmarks. About the cement pads I mentioned in an earlier message. They were located on the North side of the secondary runway/taxiway, East of the Base Ops/Weather Buildings and covered most ofthe area of what now looks like taxiways/reventments. I seem to recall each one being approx. 25-30 feet wide and 15-20 feet deep in a semi-octagon shape. The cement was only about 6 inches thick because I could bust through it with a single drop of a "headache" ball from 25 feet in the air. I probably broke up 20-25 of them. Another thing I seem to recall around the pads were several cement lined "ditches" about 3 feet wide by 3 feet deep and they ran in a North-South direction across the area. Another thing we spent a lot of time getting rid of was REAL "PSP' along the primary North-South taxiway, especially in the ROK hangar area. Tons of it, and as fast as we could cut it up, a "crew" from the village outside the North gate would hall it away on an a-frame. Speaking of those villagers. virtually all of the airfield "low grassy" areas were allowed to grow to a height of 5-6 feet. When it got to high, we would take a tractor and open trailer to the North village and pick-up about 20 of the villagers to come in and cut it. They would use hand sicles and squat as they mowed through a swath. Each villager would make their own bundles and identify them with different colored pieces of cloth. (all hell would break loose at the gate when they unloaded it and someone tried to take another's bundle.)

Two of us GI's from CE usually watched over one crew, picking them up and then returning them to the gate. I was led to believe that the villagers were either North Korean refugees or related to North Koreans, therefore, each GI carried an M-2 carbine while pulling the duty.

Toward the end of my tour, CE troops were moved into a brand-new dorm immediately South of the then NCO club . The dorm was just Northwest of the current Laundry/Cleaners (that used to be a NCO dining hall). Anyway, my room was on the second floor, East-end/corner, North side. Two man rooms and after the quonset hut, it was "uptown". Walk out the front door, cross the street and into the South door of the NCO club. (not far to crawl to get home).

Off-base night-life consisted of three sleazy bars in the Yah-Hwadong area. Gig wrote, "Anyway, there were no Korean buses/taxis allowed on the base, so all the Korean Nationals had to exit the base and then take what we refered to as a "Kimchi" bus to town. Very few hired cabs. The ride in the bus to Kunsan City was only 10 won. A few of us braved that ride on numerous occassions, sharing space with the local people and the livestock. I might add that the bus was never "too full" regardless of how many passengers were on board."

He continued, "Most generally, us GI's rode to/from town in the "kimchi cabs" I previously mentioned. They were small blue "jeepster, built for four people (including the driver). At times I rode with as many as 6-7, gnerally coming from town and trying to beat curfew. The cost to town was usually 200 won per passenger. The "curfew" ride back to the base was whatever we had between us and the cabbie would take (Imagine if you will 5-6 GI's exiting the cab at the gate, throwing in a few won and running like hell to get through the gate before midnight)."

Infiltration Incident According to the CINCPAC Command History for 1966, there was an increase in infiltration incidents along the DMZ and along the coastline. It would peak in 1967-1968. Jeff Evans wrote in Apr 2007, "My name is Jeff Evans, and I was assigned to the security police squadron on Kunsan Air Base, from 1965-1966, as a Senior Airman. First I was assigned as a security guard and later in 1966 I was transferred to the Law Enforcement on the base. I was wondering if you may remember an incident that took place early in the morning hours sometime in 1966? (cannot remember month or date, over 40 years ago?) I was assigned to a guard post over on the fight line (loaded F104 alert hangers), when I heard weapons fire coming from the beach area right across from the flight line. I took cover behind a blast wall, and aimed my weapon downrange toward the action, in case my post was attacked. I was told over the radio that four North Korean (KN) infiltrator's had come ashore on a rubber raft, and were trying to get to the flight line, and we were on full alert status. Later, that morning, I was told by my flight sergeant that three NK's were shot dead on the beach, and one NK ran into the local village, where South Korean forces shot him dead. " (SITE NOTE: We cannot verify the incident at this time as the 8th Army Chronology History did not start until 1967 -- and the 1966 CINCPAC Command History only addresses the subject of infiltrations in only the most generalized terms. Also the "F-104" note probably refers to "F-105s" out of Kadena at that time.)


Train Guard duty to Kwangju (1969) (Alan Hahn)

Train Guard Duty Gibb Foulke added, "Finally, I would like to close with "Train Guard Duty" ...... a scenic trip from Kunsan to Osan, behind a real live 2-4-4 steam engine. This was a voluntary duty each squadron had to fulfill. Essentially, two guys were armed to ride a "caboose" type rail car, usually connected in front of, behind or bewteen a rail car carrying military equipment. The car was equipped with a bunk bed, table , chairs and a stove. The mission was to protect the equipment while enroute to Osan. We were then flown back to Kunsan."

"Each GI was issued a M-2 with a 20 round clip and enough k-rations to last 5 days (the rations we received were packed in 1956, and received five cases of 10 meals each case. Now you would think a trip to Osan would only take a day or two ...... wrong. We left , guarding a flat car with two truck tractors and manged to reach Kunsan City in two hours, parked all day on a siding and then started again that night. It wen that way for the better part of five days ........ 30-40 miles, pull into a siding and wait , then another 25-30 miles, at about 20 miles per hour."

"We amused ourselves by trying to communicate with some of the local kids who came trackside, outof curiosity and looking for a handout. My partner and I Ray Millet (?) sat on the car steps and would pass out some of the contents of our ration boxes. Most of the stuff went well except for the peanut butter and the "John Wayne" biscuits . Being young 20/21 year olds, we did arrange for some company one evening and were enjoying ourselves when the the train lurched. Ray was thrown from the top bunk and our "company" made a hasty exit. The irony is that the train only moved about 100 feet and then stopped for a couple more hours."

"The best show was near a ROK army camp when our train released a car to roll into the camp rail siding. I guess it was to be braked before it reached the gate, in that the gate was still closed. Anyway, I can recall a brakeman on top the car turning the brake wheel and the car kept rolling at about 5 mph towrad the gate. We then saw 8-10 ROK soldiers grabbing small logs and throwing them under the train wheels .... no luck ... the car did not stop until it was at least halfway through the gate. I don't understand the Korean language, but I don't think the soldiers were thanking the brakeman for delivering the freight car."

1967

View from Kunsan Harbor to the Iron Mill at Changhang
(The smokestack was a Korean War landmark and remains so today, though no longer used.
Photo most likely from Wolmyong Park.)
(Photo by Stephen Cornick) (Click on photo to enlarge)

Aerial View Kunsan City
(Photo by Stephen Cornick) (Click on photo to enlarge)

We asked John of his knowledge of any infiltration activity during the period PRIOR to the Pueblo incident because there was increased activity AFTER the Pueblo incident and the building of the pipeline from Kunsan Harbor to the base. Immediately following the pipeline installation, four infiltrators were killed just outside the fence and one was killed in attempting to blow up the pipeline. He later wrote in 2004, "Relative to my following comments: Prior to the Pueblo Incident, we had a very small commissioned officer staff in the Support Group. I came there as a 1st Lieutenant and so I knew all the company grade officers very well and was close to a couple of the more senior officers too. The highest ranking officer was the Base Commander, a full Colonel whose career was near its end. I had a Secret clearance but no exposure to operation classified data. So officially, if there was NK espionage/sabotage, I may have been effectively kept in the dark (and as I was a Finance officer, I had no need to know). However, I probably would have been given clues or advisories through the grapevine about such activities."

"As to the pipeline: As I recall it was put in by the Army in response to the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing coming to Kunsan AB because of the Pueblo Incident. I recall seeing pipes lying above ground alongside the road into the city. By not burying the line, they installed it very quickly. I think they buried it later. I would hear of incidents from time to time of Korean farmers living near the road tapping into it to use the fuel in their homes. I vaguely recall a story about a house burning down due to this practice. I never heard of a NK attempt to disrupt the operation of the pipeline."

"Before the Pueblo incident, we were getting reports of North Korean fishing boats coming down the coast and passing by Kunsan AB to land infiltrators in South Korea. The infiltrators were reported to penetrate deeply into rural South Korea purportedly to win over the people to support of the NK world view. But despite this information, I detected no exceptional effort to preclude these operatives from coming ashore right on Kunsan AB itself. Not, that is until the Pueblo Incident, when we suddenly got a ROK artillery battery to guard our perimiter."

"On one of my trips to Osan AB to pick up cash for pay day at the Kun, we landed the single engine Beaver on a tiny grass strip in the interior of the peninsula. A US Army Green Beret in field uniform and carrying a weapon and a duffell bag climbed in and we took him out of there. I don't know what he was doing there." (SITE NOTE: The Army was becoming very involved in the ROK Army training in the late 1960s as the Nixon Policy was implemented where the ROK would be responsible for its own defense. At the same time, the ROK Army was being sent to Vietnam in exchange for funds and equipment to improve the ROK military. In 1970, the 7th ID was removed from the DMZ and pulled out of Korea.)

"On another occasion, a US Army officer friend associated with the Hawk missile unit at Kunsan AB and I went quite a ways into the countryside in a jeep. We went into one valley where with the farmers plowing the patties with wood yoked oxen, mudwalled and thatched homes and not even a sign of electricity, I felt as if I had journeyed 2000 years into the past. I recall him as being a counter intelligence officer. He was unable to inform me of the nature of his mission and there was nothing observable to me that gave even a clue. (SITE NOTE: The Hawk unit was the B Battery of the 6 Btn/44th ADA who were stationed on a hill within the three-mile exclusionary zone about 2 miles from the base.)

Mudwattle house near Iri
(NOTE: Iri is now called Iksan)
(Photo by Stephen Cornick) (Click on photo to enlarge)

A-Frame (Chige) use in Kunsan
(Photo by Stephen Cornick) (Click on photo to enlarge)

"We were not allowed to have personal vehicles, public transportation was so inconvenient and almost no Americans spoke Korean and that resulted in very few US servicemen at Kunsan AB having any significant travel or social interaction with the regions populace. However, my official duties, my marriage to a Korean woman and some things like the foregoing, provided me with an above average opportunity to travel and learn what was going on affecting base and its role in the area. (SITE NOTE: The public transportation outside of Kunsan was not very good. The roads were dust bowls in summer and mud holes in winter. During these periods inter-city travel was mostly by bus or train. We saw an example of these old trains back in the late 1980s on a trip to Mokpo with uncomfortable wooden seats and packed conditions -- with hawkers coming down the aisle to sell snacks. Nowadays, the freeways and airconditioned buses with bullet trains from Seoul to Pusan make these conditions hard to imagine.)

"Before I arrived in Kunsan, I heard many fables of the "slicky boy" problem. Reputedly, every night thieves from the community would come onto the base and scour it for items that were not well secured. One chaplain told me that on his first night at the base he placed his bed over his footlocker to preclude it being filched. The slicky boys came in during the night, softly lifted the bed and absconded with the footlocker without disturbing the chaplain's sleep. Then, also, a security policeman who had been there as a gate guard told me of a Korean civilian employee who would walk his bicycle through the gate at the end of the work day and always extend a friendly greeting. At some point, they realized that each night it was a different bike!" (SITE NOTE: We might add that the Koreans have an old tradition of announcing themselves to an empty house when they enter a house or whistling loudly to show that they are returning. In the poverty stricken days of Korea, the slicky boys were simply viewed as simply trying to survive -- and were given a warning that the should leave. On Kunsan AB base there were numerous incidents dating back to the Korean War of people sneaking on base to steal anything that wasn't nailed down.)

"By the time I arrived, this relatively petty theft problem was insignificant. My interpretation was that this was a positive stage in the recovery from the wartime devastation. Our biggest concern was shipments of material by rail getting ripped off. Boxcars that had been locked and sealed would arrive at their destination with locks and seals intact and the goods gone." In regards to this, the rail road cars were guarded by enlisted "volunteers" from Kunsan AB into the 1970s and the ingenuity of the thieves was renowned. The railcars were often shuttled to side rails and had to wait. In these periods, the thieves sometimes bored holes in the bottom of the cars and unloaded the goods unhindered.

"We had an incident at Osan AB, the Air Force division headquarters. A Korean citizen believed to have been trying to leave the base with stolen items, was challenged by a US Air Force perimeter guard. The intruder then assaulted the guard with a club. I was told that nobody could recall an incidence of violence involving a Korean "slicky boy" in the entire history of our post war presence in the ROK."

Kunsan City 1968
Wolmyong Park straight ahead
Note mudwattle houses on hill of the "North Korean village"
(Photo by Nathan Sturman) (Click on photo to enlarge)

A2C Nathan Sturman
Kunsan Air Base 1967
(Photo: Nathan Sturman)
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Field Days is a novel about a USAF A2C (two-striper) named Neil Kervis who is sent to Kunsan AB in 1967. The ex-college kid from Penn State becomes embroiled in the life of Kunsan Air Base -- and some of the seedier aspects of Korean life. However, within the novel (under construction), there are excellent glimpses of life at Kunsan Air Base in 1967 prior to the arrival of the 4th TFW in the Pueblo Incident. It provides some background of how the Koreans viewed the Americans and how the surrounding area was.

When he first arrives, his life is easy as all the work is done by Koreans. GIs do the supervising. A Fuels specialist, he is assigned to the WRM (War Readiness Materiel) "tank farm" -- fuel drop tank buildup -- for the F-100s of the 39th Air Division. The 39th Air Division has four aircraft at Kunsan on nuclear alert and they are supported by their own crews. The ROKAF support their own F-86s belonging to the 111th Fighter Squadron. All in all, it was an easy life.

Suddenly the easy life disappears after the North Koreans seize the U.S.S. Pueblo. It describes how the 4th Fighter Wing arrived at Kunsan and lived in tents -- while he is grateful he's living in a barracks. The tank crews went on 16 hour shifts and started building napalm bombs at the bomb dump from kits.

The novel continues with Neil returning to the states and his old friends in the turbulent days of the 1960s -- with the anti-war movement, free-love, drugs and all the other stereotypes associated with that period.

Later Nathan wrote that the characters in his novel (in-work) was based upon real-life persons, "The real names of PCVs I was friendly with were Suzanne Kuffler, who lived in the Kunsan Harbor Pilot's huge and oppulent mansion, Margo Liss, who was at Iri, Henry Rohrig, of NYC, and Tim O'Brian, a Yale graduate who lived in the Hansong Yo-in-suk. The Lail-gu and Akademy tabangs were real. Ron Shelton was the Philco Ford expat technician."

He added about the novel, "Planes did not taxi on the streets of the base at that time, however. An exageration. Miss Ju Yonja was the name of the young middleschool leaver who went to work on the Base. She worked for the Kwang-u photoshop on the main street near the bus station and tower. They had a base concession. The hushed up gang rape really happened, and it involved troops from the airlift i believe, not the permanent party. Many of the middle aged married men from Seymour Johnson AFB who came over with the 4th tac Fighter Wing struck up friendships with the girls and had terrible marriage problems, ditto on the later 436th (?) Ohio Ang unit that replaced them."

He added a note about the ROKAF. "There was once a very interesting cold war incident at K-8 when ROKAF F-86s were chased back to K-8 by MiGs and at least one was shot down on final approach. Maybe it was early or mid 60s. And in Oct of 67, an F-86 of the 111th landed gear-up and burned, just as i shot my last frame on the roll, photographing sunsets from in front of the aerodrome fire dept. The pilot beat feet and got away OK, ran right down out the wing. When Sergeant Bouler (sp?) from TA raised the hulk with a small recovery crane, the landing gear dropped properly when lowered from the cockpit (what was left of it). The pilot was disciplined severely after a colonel came down from Seoul to conduct the inquest."

The following was excerpted from Chapter VII.

...This was a milk run by comparison, the shuttle between Haneda, Japan and Kimpo, Korea, near Seoul. An attractive stewardess served tea to the US military men aboard; there were no dependents as Korea then was considered an unaccompanied tour. Married men would be seperated for a year of longer. It was and still is part of nearly every military career at once time or another.

Upon arrival at Kimpo they were greeted by Korean civilians cheering and waving in front of the airport terminal, some of them spouses or friends of certain of these men, some of them searching for men they dreamed would someday return for them. It did happen. They went by the ubiquitous US Air Force dark blue schoolbus, made by the Bluebird Schoolbus Company of Fort Valley, Georgia and known to one and all as the "Blue Goose", to the sprawling main US air base at Osan, near the town of Pyongtaek, south of Seoul. It seemed about a thirty mile ride over very rough roads. In the early evening he saw many people dressed all in white, huts with thatched rooves, many children at play by the roadside; men in white dress shirts and black trousers waited on bicycles at a corner, cigarettes between their teeth and briefcases at their handlbars. Neil soon learned of his eventual destination: K-8. Kunsan Air Base, down on the southwest seacoast of the Korean peninsula. The next day bright and early he boarded an Air America DC-3 for Kunsan; it was a brilliant late-September morning as they swept in from over the Yellow Sea. The plane was barely moving foward as it touched dowm on its two chirping main wheels, tail high, headed into the stiff seabreeze down the cross runway. The main runway ran north-south along the seawall at the western edge, facing the Shandong province of China. Neil thought about the chaos in China then as he stepped down onto the ramp in front of operations. It was in the papers every day. Now it's just across the water, as far away as Chicago from Detroit maybe. That's not far. The base was on a point at the end of a strip of land extending from the river port city of Kunsan in North Cholla Province, He had read about it with Dana in Van Pelt library. There was an enormous smokestack across the channel from the base, from a smelter that the Japanese had built many years before. He saw it as the plane swooped around it for its approach to the airfield which had once been a Japanese facility too, before the liberation of Korea from Japanese rule in 1945. It was surrounded by green terraced rice paddies, a few farming villages and barren hills.

A young Airman First, Jim Weimar met him at the quonset hut that served as the base terminal. "Welcome to Kunsan AB" read the sign, "6175th Aerial Port Squadron". It smelled of salt air, the seashore in autumn. They threw his bags in a jeep and drove to the orderly room on a shadey street behind the NCO Club, where a Korean employee was burning fallen leaves that he raked up as they swirled aound in the roadway. A sleepy place, like Brigantine at this time of year. "Any planes here for me to work on?"

"None really. ROKAF..uh, Korean Air Force have there own mechanics for their F-86s. Korean war vintage Sabre jets. Their 111th Fighter Squadron is here, The gate to their ramp is right across from where you'll be working, at the tank farm. Drop tanks, war reserve material. They're for the 39th Air Division's F-100s at Misawa, Japan that are supposed to come over here if war breaks out. They've got a small detachment of four planes here now on alert. You won't be working on them cause they've got their own ground crews with them. You'll be in the yard down the road here supervising a dozen Koreans, tearing down and inspecting and re-crating the droptanks to make sure they're combat ready. I'll take you to the tank farm as soon as we get you settled into the dorm. It's a small group here, Kervis. You'll have a great time. Thirteen months'll pass before you know it." He heard about the clubs in town and felt repulsed by the idea of sex as a commodity. He stopped at his new room and met his roommate, a Jewish New Yorker who worked as a ground power unit mechanic. This had been his friend Glen Walsh's job back at Griffiss. It was the toughest course at Chanute as he remembered. Ground power meant those portable power units one sees hooked up to aircraft to provide electrical power for starting, floodlights, warm air for heating and so forth. They next went to the tank farm where he met the sturdy Korean foreman Mr Song and his men, US base employees, who did most of the work. There was Kang and Lee and "Big Yim" and "Little Yim" The GIs had once called him "S'koshi Yim" but "S'koshi" is Japanese, GI East Asian Pijin English, and Yim hadn't liked it at all so Neil's predecessor, a black Airman Second named Watson who respected the Koreans, began calling him "Little Yim", as the story went. Watson married a girl he'd met in Kunsan and took her home and there had been a lot of trouble because she'd been a regular Korean woman, not an entertainer of the GIs.

(NOTE 1: Nathan wrote, "The Afro-American Airman 2nd I mentioned who ran the tank farm before me was named Watson. He returned for a spell during the Pueblo emergency." He continued, "The Koreans of the tip tank repair shop were led by Mr Song Hui-sop. a very capable man indeed." The WRM storage area remains near the ROKAF area today, but the tank farm has moved to a fenced in area accessible to the Arch area.)

Neil went right to work that afternoon after his first meal in the base dining hall. Korean employees did all the work, he noticed, and ran all the services on the base, even the base library since the American librarian had died of illness on some years before. Until he arrived in Korea in that autumn of 1967 at the age of 19 he had never really succeeded in learning languages, but his being placed in an alien culture seemed to unleash some force in him, some drive for acceptance and assimilation. He went native, as his friends said, noting his intense interest in the local customs and history, his desire to relate it all to his own cultural understanding. But at a certain point he reached a limit of tolerance and drew back, seeking balance, his former self, only to find out that he could not go back.

(SECTION OMITTED...)

Most of those that Neil met who were over twenty or so remembered at least some terrifying private episode of the Korean war. All had family members who were hit by artillery or burnt by napalm as the intense artillery duels and hand-to-hand, house to house battles raged back and forth over the area. Whenever the city and base changed hands there had been a lot of murder and brutality. He learned that the North and South Koreans now had the most violent emnity and couldn't agree on the spelling of words or even names of their country and language. North Korea here was "Puk Han" or the North of Hanguk, while in the Communist North they called the South "Nam Son", meaning South of Choson, Chosun being another word for Korea. In Kunsan he'd seen posters everywhere warning of spies and infiltrators, who arrived in rubber boats with expensive Japanese wristwatches and transister radios and lots of US and Japanese cash, spread rumors and used strange words like inmin meaning "the people, masses" in the Leninist sense. Not all of the Korean people he met were as legendarily anti-communist as he had learned. Many knew a lot of modern history and held an odd mix of chic Marxist ideas and economic views in the backs of their minds and not a few held some form of admiration, if a bit perverse, for the North and its defiance of the USA, whose seemingly overpayed soldiers and airmen seemed themselves so intently. They were "nom", unpersons, at home but all seemed to be living as princes in Korea.

Mail came daily, weather permitting, on the courrier planes from Osan and a blue light shown atop the pole outside the Quonset hut that served as mailroom. Neil would hungrily open the box in the hope of finding a letter from Dana or his family or friends, or slides or prints from the Eastman Kodak lab in Palo Alto, California that he used for his color photography. He took striking sea and skyscapes of sunsets in the Yellow Sea that autumn. Dana wrote of the tremendous upheavals in student life; protests over classes, courses, the dismissal of popular instructors and most of all protest against the War that had not ended in 1966 as promised and now could not, would not be stopped. Their friends Jo Ann, Michelle and Alice had been tear gassed in front of the Pentagon in early November with their boyfriends in an anti-draft demonstration. He often though wistfully of Alice Clayton. Mike Wentzel was arrested along with others of the Philadelphia Underground, now nationally known as the "Jersey Seven", for throwing blood on draft records in New Jersey somewhere. At Penn, College Hall and other buildings had been violently taken over and occupied. Only the tension before finals seemed to put a cap on the seething student anger; the new young Dean of students with his young wife, an undergraduate student of the university, was making daily changes in staid tradition. Where would it end? I'll be part of it myself. I'll go back to take part and live this myself. He knew, though, that he wouldn't.

In a few weeks he had managed to enroll in a course given by the University of Maryland for full semester credit; the instructor was flown in every Wednesday afternoon on the small U-6 single engined courrier plane, and he took a course in the Korean language taught by a long term American resident that he would become very friendly with. He also befriended the local US Peace Corps volunteers who were teaching English in Kunsan and other nearby towns, and volunteered to teach English conversation lessons himself. He had no knowledge of how to go about this but asked around and made a start. It was a nice, sleepy assignment; he worked with the Koreans all day in the shop and exchanged languages with them and was even invited to the headman's wedding far out in the countryside across the river. Off base, Korea smelled like burning charcoal and boiling rice and kimchi and now and then of nightsoil he thought. Perhaps it wasn't that different from the days of the old "Hermit Kingdom" that had so forcefully been ended with onset of the 20th century. Old people wore traditional white clothes and horsehair hats and he saw more than a few grass roofs.

(SECTION OMITTED...)

Neil returned to the room in the barracks at Kunsan Air Base, Korea. A cool autumn breeze blew in from over the Yellow Sea: falling leaves swirled and danced in outside. ... That Christmas he sewed on his new Sergeant's stripes; the rank of Airman First Class was now to be known as "Sergeant" for awhile, "Buck Sergeants" they were called, and Neil was now, at 20 years of age, a non commissioned officer.

It was a cold, grey afternoon in mid-January, 1968 and Neil was alone in the tank farm office listening to Kunsan's Radio Mercury of the Armed Forces Korea Network. A recording of "Whistle Stop", a catchy instrumental tune then popular, was interrupted by a local announcer's voice. A US Navy warship was under North Korean attack in the Sea of Japan and all base personnel were to report to their duty stations immediately. Listeners were advised to stay tune for urgent updates. This was not a drill, the announcer grimly stated. It was in fact the beginning of what we now know as the Pueblo Incident.

(NOTE 2: Nathan wrote, "The Tet offensive and seige of Khe-san on the news were a grim backdrop. The song "Whistle Stop" played constantly on Radio Mercury." The AFKN Radio Station -- up near Gunsmoke Hill (formerly Signal Hill or Water Point) -- has been in the same location since the Korean War...though the building has been changed.)

"I guess you know what's going on," said Tony De Niro as he came back immediately from lunchtime shopping at the exchange. "We're likely as not to be at war by now. . Maybe we'll actually get rid of all these F-100 drop tanks when the 39th Air Division gets here!" The adjoining workshop's clattering pneumatic wrenches and hammers and saws went silent as the Korean civilian employees gathered round the foreman's radio, warming their hands nervously over the space heater. "This maybe war, Noss Korea make a big attack!" said the stocky Mr Song. The phone rang.

"Tank farm, Sergeant Kervis speaking."

"Kervis, is De Niro there? Let me talk to him."

Tony picked up the phone. "Sergeant De Niro."..."Yes, sir"... "Yes, I see."...All right, we'll be right out there."..."Yes sir." He buried his face in his hands and rubbed his eyebrows worriedly."That was Lieutenant Bellinger. He said to take our Koreans out to the road and wait for a bus to the bomb dump."

"What are we doing there?"

"Building napalm bombs from kits." They looked at each other in disbelief. There would be a production line, round the clock shifts, new faces arriving daily from stateside, from Japan, from even Vietnam, their shocked faces all suntanned. Vietnam had exploded in the Tet Lunar New Year offensive. The Viet Cong were battling marines in front of the US Embassy in Downtown Saigon and house-to-house fighting was under way in Hue. In Vietnam Khe San in the north was under a deadly seige. And now it seemed Korea, smoldering tinderbox of the cold war, was about to burst into the flames of war too. At that time in the sea of Japan the USS Pueblo was boarded and towed to Wonsan by North Korean armed forces and almost simultaneously some North Korean guerillas reached within easy distance of the Blue House in Seoul. Maybe they're in on it together. Maybe it's my Fate to be killed here in a war or captured and paraded through Pyongyang in a tall hat. China is so near. They made light of the very real possibility of a million or more Chinese and North Korean troops coming over the hills and climbing over the seawall. It seemed amazing that war hadn't yet broken out. Surely a missile would strike Wonsan or Pyongyang at any moment. Where was the 39th Air Division? That was a question on a lot of people's minds, not least of all those of the Pueblo crew, in those days of late January, 1968. The Fifth Air Force commander had been unavailable during the seizure and no swift retaliation was forthcoming. The frustrated and furious President Johnson was restrained by advisors from over-reacting, but some frantic sabre-rattling followed. The National Guards of several states were called to active duty and the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing was rushed to Kunsan, Korea, commanded by the famed Chuck Yeager of supersonic flight fame. It was composed of 3 squadrons of F4 Phantom II fighters and support units which arrived in a nonstop series of mid-winter airlifts. The sleepy permanent party of the base had their easy lives changed forever; this was what they had been there for all along. Similar changes were happening at other bases in Korea and the thunder of afterburners and sonic booms and the groaning sounds of the Phantoms maneuvering overhead could be heard all over the peninsula. Neil felt lucky at not having been put out in a tent in the snow and cold; Neil Kervis was an NCO. He couldn't believe that others were calling him "Sarge" and taking him seriously. He got a small pay raise with the promotion.


Col Chuck Yeager with Col Jack W. Hayes at 4th TFW Change of Command Ceremony (23 Mar 68) (Bud Anderson) (NOTE 3: Nathan wrote, "Chuck Yeager (Charles E. Yeager) was 4th TFW commander and he came into out office on the tank farm on occasion. he told great war stories as we stood around the space heater in the tiny quonset office, March 1968." He went on, "At that time the 336th squadron went down to Kwangju, the first US presence there for a long time." He later wrote, "During the Pueblo response, an F-106 (!) was seen at K-8 as were several transient EB-57 (Long winged version of English Electric Canberra built by Martin) and U-2 acft.)

In the midst of the confusion and bustle of the great airlift a tragic event would occur, the first to strike Neil that year. Shortly after midnight on the 1st of February, His barracks friends Steve Jones and Brad Benson were speeding along the taxiway parallel to the main runway by the seawall when they took a wrong turn and ran off into a ditch, killing Brad, who was at the wheel, instantly. Steve couldn't believe that his buddy was dead and was still trying to revive him a half hour later when Sergeant Bollens finally located them and called for assistance. In the heightened state of alert a squad of ROK soldiers guarding the seawall thought that an infiltration had taken place and their trigger-happy challenge added to the confusion. Jones was treated for his injuries and shock at the base hospital. Neil found out about it at work the next morning. He was one of the last people to see Brad Benson alive when the pair had stopped in the dining hall for midnight chow before their final trip down to base ops. His body was going out on the courier plane to Yokota that afternoon. Steve had suffered a concussion and didn't remember much of the events just before the crash but he did recall telling Brad to turn off there at taxiway Juliet, and he blamed himself for his best friend's death. By this time they had set up a production line for assembly of the the BLU-1B firebomb kits and Neil was working 16 hours daily; he had hardly gotten over the shock of Brad Benson's untimely end than he heard that his secret tryst with the Korean girl student Yonja was now public knowledge and he would have probably been reprimanded or worse had the young woman not been recruited to work as the assistant camera girl in the NCO club. Already some lifer was keeping her as a mistress. The lecherous exploiter! he thought, without realizing that was exactly what he had been. And he had been unfaithful to Dana. But how could he be sure about her? She hadn't written since the holidays. Her last letter had mentioned her intense involvement in antiwar protests and draft counseling and said she would be living in Powelton Village with some other Underground people.

(NOTE 4: Nathan wrote, "The name of the poor young man killed in the transient alert vehicle accident was Bryce Beveridge, from California. The accident happened pretty much as I described. His friend's name was Salazar." Later he said, "They lost an F4 aircraft and crew in the southern mountains, about the same time that Beveridge died.")

354th TFW "Paper Wing": The conflict in Southeast Asia had drained wing strength of the 354th; one squadron moved to Japan in Nov 1965, another to Spain in Apr 1966, and another to South Vietnam in Aug 1966, leaving the wing with a single flying unit. This last squadron moved to South Vietnam in Apr 1968. The mobilized ANG 113th TFW moved to Myrtle Beach AFB, SC, in Apr 1968, absorbing resources of the 354th. The 354th had no units and became a "paper wing" -- existing primarily on paper.

The following information is from 354th FW, Eielson AFB. "The 354th had no units and existed primarily on paper until it moved to South Korea in early Jul 1968 to replace the 4th TFW. While there, ANG people on active duty under 4th TFW control manned it. When the 4th TFW departed, the 354th assumed active F-100 operations. Its two ANG squadrons returned to the United States in Jun 1969, and for 10 days in South Korea the wing was again without tactical components. Several rotational squadrons provided needed tactical force after this brief lapse. On 14 Jun 70, the 354th passed its resources to the 54th TFW and returned to the United States without personnel or equipment, absorbing resources of the 4554th TFW at Myrtle Beach AFB, SC."

The 354th TFW was officially assigned to Kunsan AB, South Korea betweeb 2 Jul 1968 through14 Jun 1970. It included the 6175th Air Base Group from 25 Jul 68 - 31 Jul 68 and 354th Support Group from 1 Aug 68 - on. Thus in July 1968, the 6175th ABG faded away and was replaced by the 354th Combat Support Group -- and all the other 6175th organizations changed to the 354th designator. Under the 354th Combat Support Group from 1 Aug 68-14 Jun 70 were the 354th Air Police Squadron, 354th Services Squadron, 354th Installations Squadron (later Civil Engineering, Civil Engineer Squadron), 354th Transportation Squadron, 354th Supply Squadron (1 Aug 68-1 Dec 68)).

The aircraft maintenance portion from 1 Aug 68 to 1 Dec 69 included the 354th Field Maintenance Squadron (FMS) from 1 Aug 68-1 Dec 68; and then the 354th Consolidated Aircraft Maintenance Squadron (CAMS), 1 Dec 68-1 Dec 69.

The 354th TFW at Kunsan was headed by Col Donald W. Forney, 5 Jul 1968; Col Henry W. Ritter, 5 Jun 1969; Col Maurice G. Long, 14 Jun 1969; Col Albert R. Neville, Jr., 12 Jul 1969; Col Henry L. Warren, 25 Jan 1970; Col Evan W. Rosencrans, 15 Jun 1970.

Operational Squadrons.

127th TFS: 5 Jul 1968-10 Jun 1969. (Kansas ANG: F-100)
166th TFS: 5 Jul 1968-10 Jun 1969. (Ohio ANG: F-100)
68th TFS: attached 20 Jun-9 Dec 1969. (4531st TFW, Homestead AFB: F-4E)
560th TFS: attached 29 June-15 December 1969. (4531st TFW, Homestead AFB: F-4E)
334th TFS: attached 16 Dec 1969-31 May 1970. (4th TFW, Seymour-Johnson AFB: F-4E)
335th TFS: attached 8 Dec 1969-23 May 1970. (4th TFW, Seymour-Johnson AFB: F-4E)
l6th TFS: attached 29 May-14 Jun 1970. (33rd TFW, Eglin AFB: F-4E)
478th TFS: attached 21 May-14 Jun 1970. (474th TFW (?): F-4E)

In April 1969, an EC-121 was shot down over the Sea of Japan by North Korean MiGs. This resulted in the deployment of F-4Es from the 421st TFS, 366th TFW (Danang AB, RVN). See 421st TFS.

John Holovack wrote in Nov 2004, "I was with the 68 TFS out of Homestead 6-69---12-69. We had F-4 Ds (and) didn't get the E's till we returned to US. PACAF kept our D models..I stayed in the Quonset huts on the lower end, near the flightline...saw the SR71 (or YF12) when it came in on emergency landing that was also mentioned in the book, Skunk Works, (about Lockheed)." The unit deployed to Kunsan AB, Korea, where it maintained tactical readiness from June - December 1969. The F-4Ds retained by PACAF were transferred to the ROKAF under the Military Assistance Program (MAP) following the Pueblo Incident and President Johnson's promised upgrade of the ROK military. In 1968 the first Korea Military Assistance Group (KMAG) Detachment was set up at Taegu for the ROKAF 11th TFW's receipt of 20 F-4Ds in 1969 -- in exchange for sending all their F-5s to Vietnam. The SR-71 would use Kunsan for emergency landings later as well while on secret reconnaissance missions over China and North Korea. (See 1971 photo below) The quonset huts he mentions were moved in 1959 to allow the living quarters to be near to the work areas and some of these relocated quonsets remained until the late 1980s.

SR71 at Kunsan (Summer 1971)
(Courtesy Geary Sims)
Click on photo to enlarge

The 334th TFS and 335th TFS arrived in Dec 1969 to replace the 68th TFS and 560th TFS. It was the second rotation for the Seymour-Johnson squadrons to the 354th TFW.

After it returned to Myrtle Beach without personnel or assets on 15 Jun 70, it converted to the A-7D picked up the 5llth TFS, 560th TFS, and 4430th CCTS.

---

354th Combat Support Group
(1968-1970)

(SEE 354th TFW for tactical aircraft details.)

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Ralph Brown of Bridgeport, WVA for his narratives of the operation of the base from 1968-1969. Special thanks to Gib Foulke, SMSgt, USAF (ret), for his narratives of his tour at Kunsan. Special thanks to Ed Mullin of Warminster, PA for his illuminating narratives and photos of Kunsan in 1968-1970. Thanks to Alan Hahn for his photos of Kunsan in 1960.

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1968

4th TFW Buildup: Stephen Cornick wrote at Classmates.com, "Kunsan AB, population of 850 in July 1967, reminded me of the novel Catch 22." He later continued, "In Jan '68 the Pueblo was taken by the N. Koreans and within 2 weeks about 4,000 airmen and a bunch of F-4's deployed from North Carolina with the 4th TFW. We had no real perimeter defense. The contingency plans called for the US Army to deploy troops to Kunsan AB, but when the time came they did not have the resources." On this point, the 475th TFW initially came to Kunsan to provide immediate support until the 4th TFW arrived from the states. In addition, other "special" aircraft arrived at the same time. The parking space was so crowded that the aircraft were parked along the taxiways and into the old PSP parking areas. To alleviate some of the overcrowding one squadron of the 4th TFW was deployed to Kwangju. (SEE 4th TFW during Pueblo Incident.) Billeting at Kunsan was based on typhoon evacuations and not for a major deployment. A tent city was hastily erected by the arriving personnel on the Golf Course as the population of the base swelled eventually to about 5,000. The 4th

Stephen continued, "A ROK Army artillery battalion showed up to provide base defense for us. Every USAF carbine had been gathered up and loaded on a railcar to be turned in before M-16's were received and issued. It was a cost cutting move that left everyone except the SP's and me without a self defense weapon. I had the worn out .38 and six rounds of ammo."

(SEE 4th TFW during Pueblo Incident.) John Wilkerson continued, "During the interim buildup of the 4th Wing, they moved the entire wing from Misawa to Kunsan until the 4th was ready to take over." He later added that this unit from Misawa was the 475th TFW.

"After the 4th became operational with 4 squadrons they eventually moved one squadron to Kwang-ju and another to K-2 in Taegu the other two remained at Kunsan. Basically the same as today. Later that year the 4th was replaced by squadrons from the Kansas and Ohio National Guard that made the 3rd Wing." (NOTE: The move to Kwangju was later as the 557th CES (HR) Red Horse had to first go in to repair the facilities and set up the base for a "strike base" first. After the runways, revetments and refueling sections were complete, the movement of one squadron of F-4s was made.)

Before the Pueblo Incident, the F-4Cs of the Det 1 475th TFW of Misawa had moved down to the Tree Area. Ralph Brown said, "Ave B used to run all the way to the tree area at the south end of runway. When I say tree area that means we had 8, F4c's loaded with nukes on alert at all times. Highly restricted area."

354th CSG replaces the 6175th ABG: (SEE 354th TFW for details of tactical aircraft.) The 354th TFW was officially assigned to Kunsan AB, South Korea on 2 July 1968. Between 2 Jul 1968 through14 Jun 1970, the 354th TFW was assigned first as a cover group for the two ANG F-100 squadrons, and then later for the various F-4E units that supported the contingency requirement. There were normally two squadrons of aircraft at the base.

At first the 354th TFW incorporated the 6175th Air Base Group into its structure from 25 Jul 68 - 31 Jul 68. Then from 1 Aug 68 on, the 354th Support Group took over until it departed on 14 Jun 1970. Thus in July 1968, the 6175th ABG faded away and was replaced by the 354th Combat Support Group -- and all the other 6175th organizations changed to the 354th designator. Under the 354th Combat Support Group from 1 Aug 68-14 Jun 70 were the 354th Air Police Squadron, 354th Services Squadron, 354th Installations Squadron (later Civil Engineering, Civil Engineer Squadron), 354th Transportation Squadron, 354th Supply Squadron (1 Aug 68-1 Dec 68)).

Ken Campbell wrote, "I was with the Air/Security Police of the 6175th & 354th...July68-Aug 69. Did the same train guard thing down to Kwangju. Same stop and go, C-rats,...haha (we guarded the latrine sections of the modulux). Spent lots of time in the "Tree", and was on the take-off end (N?S?) flt line when the 100's crashed. (I thought they both did) Seemed like they were the last of at least 10 pair to take off that morning. I was pulled from my post and guarded the wreckage. There was ice in the water I remember. Nuke storage (TOFF). Spent lots of time in machine gun bunkers around the fence. Bomb dump, anyway, was so glad to get out of the gs."

POL Line to Kunsan (1968): "During the time I was at Kunsan there was a Fuel Station in the port area operated by the US Army it used to receive fuel from ships and transfer it to Kunsan AB. The fuel "head" was located just a little way on the base side of the plywood factory in the refugee village area. After the Pueblo and build up of Kunsan they actually put a fuel line from Kunsan City to Kunsan AB above ground. It ran alongside the road to the base on the side of the road that they built "A town" on. It was guarded by locally hired security guards stationed about every hundred yards 24 hours a day."

(NOTE: The fuel "head" that he mentions was in the same location from the Korean War days and has continued in operation since that time. The fuel storage tanks at Kunsan Harbor fuel "head" are now maintained by the ROK Army. The fuel line is now buried underground and runs parallel with the road leading from Kunsan City. The POL system off-base was transferred to the ROK military in the 1990s as part of their national defense system.)

Ralph continued, "I was stationed there in the refueling section. I remember driving from the base to the army site down down to get our mo gas (to them)." He later wrote, "We delivered mo gas to an army post just outside Kunsan.The army was in charge of putting in the pipeline to Kunsan Air Base. They needed our mogas for there vehicles." (NOTE: "Mogas" is regular gas for vehicles.)

He wrote, "We had to defuel those lines that ran along the road once in awhile because of breaks. I do remember the RoK security along that road. Became friends with some of them."

The following is extracted from 697th Engineer Company (Pipeline) September 1968. The 3rd Platoon of the 697th Engineer Company (Pipeline) was brought in from Thailand to build pipelines at Kunsan and Osan, Korea in 1968. Below is the rather lengthy After-Action Report from those missions as written by 1LT John A. Stockman, 3rd Platoon Leader. There appears to have been problems with supplies not arriving on time, changing design requirements, over-supervision by staff brought in to "assist" but who instead caused great confusion -- plus problems with the local populace, ground conditions, and weather. We have highlighted a few areas that provide some illuminating details of life and conditions off-base Kunsan. The major problem was digging the trenches in the Haemang-dong area with Wolmyong Mountain to the east and the only access around the mountain and through the houses at the base.

There is some confusion here. Maj Gen John Moench mentions a pipeline in his book, Taking Command about Kunsan in 1959. He claimed that the pipeline had to be guarded when there was refuel operations as the Koreans would attempt to tap into the above ground JP-4 pipeline for fuel for heating purposes -- despite warnings the grave danger in doing this. When not in operation, the pipeline was defueled and disassembled at some points to prevent the pilferage in 1959. However, in the following after-action report, the pipeline is stated as being required because the fuel was being shipped via rail. This was the method that was used to transport the fuel during the Korean War from the dock storage tank area to the base above ground tank near the main gate. What occurred between 1959 and 1968, we do not know.

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
697TH ENGINEER COMPANY (PIPELINE)
(CONSTRUCTION SUPPORT)
APO San Francisco 96233
THCON-D
24 May 1968

SUBJECT: After Action Report to the POL Pipeline Project in Kunsan and Osan in Korea

Commanding 0fficer
44th Engr Gp (Const)
ATTN: THCON-OP
APO 96233

1. On or about 3 February 1968 the 697th Engineer Company (Pipeline) was alerted to prepare a full TO&E platoon to leave the theater of operation. A new platoon of forty-three (43) enlisted men and one (1) officer was formed. The personnel making up the platoon were men of sixty (60) days or more service left in Thailand. To fill a full strength platoon, it was necessary to take men from various slots in the company leaving a critical shortage of manpower in the company.

a. Around the clock operation was initiated to process vehicles, tools, and men. On or about 28 February 1968, a message was received stating that all TO&E equipment minus vehicles would be taken.

b. On 4 March 1968 two (2) Non-commissioned Officers and three (3) Enlisted Men departed from Korat Air Force base, as the advance party. The remaining personnel of thirty-eight (38) Enlisted Men and one (1) Officer departed from Korat Air Force Base on 6 March 1968 and arrived at Kunsan Air Force Base, Korea at 0200 hours 7 March 1968. After approximately thirty (30) minutes of waiting, 44th Engineer Group (Construction), Executive Officer arrived to receive the platoon. The men were then taken to a 'Tent Village."

(1) The Medium GP Tent with Army cots and sleeping bags were utilized for the Enlisted Men's billeting for the duration of the Kunsan Project.
(2) Housing was critical on this base due to the rapid build-up throughout Korea at this period of time.

2. The mission of the Kunsan Project was the installation of approximately seven (7) miles (36,960 feet) of six (6) inch coupled, light-weight victaulic pipe and approximately 4,600 feet of heavy duty buried, welded pipe.

a. Much concern and interest was placed on this project. The immediate build-up of U. S. Forces in Korea because of increased North Korean threats resulted in a critical problem of rapid jet petroleum transportation from the receiving terminal to the U. S. Air Base fuel storage area.
b. The receiving terminal, approximately eight (8) miles from the U. S. Air Base, received the fuel by ship. From the terminal the jet petroleum would be pumped into railroad tankers and shipped to various U.S. Air Bases in the immediate area. The increase in fuel demands could not be filled under their present installation. A six (6) inch pipeline to Kunsan Air Base was constructed to alleviate the time necessary to rail fuel into the U.S. Air Base.

3. The immediate change from a tropical climate to a frigid climate imposed health problems to the troops. The metabolism of the men was adjusted to adverse heat conditions. The men made a rapid relocation where there was a temperature differential as great as seventy (70) degrees at various times. Greater than 70 per cent of the troops at one time or another went on sick call for either sore throats or severe head colds, resulting in a high loss of man power.
a. The winter issue of clothing was made the following day of arrival in Kunsan.
(1) Issue consisted of: One (1) field jacket, without the liner; and two (2) sets of OG shirts and pants.
(2) Numerous troops requested woolen underwear, however, S4 of the 44th Bn, stated that they were not obtainable at the present time. Several men purchased their own woolen underwear through the local base exchange.

b. A request for work gloves and rubber boots was also forwarded to the 44th Bn's S4.
(1) Approximately two (2) weeks, from the date of the request, the men received the work gloves.
(2) The rubber boots were not obtainable.
a. Rubber boots were requested because several of areas of the route of the pipeline were in rice fields that were flooded at times.
b. Troops on various occasions had to work in the icy water resulting in wet feet, which attributed to the high rate of sore throats and head colds.

4. The job directive for the eight (8) mile pipeline, Kunsan, was assigned to Company C of the 44th Engr Const Bn, Headquarters located at Camp Carroll, Waegon, Korea. The third platoon of the 697th Engineer Company (Pipeline), Headquarters located at Camp USARTHAI, Korat, Thailand, was attached to Company C for administrative and operational control. Company C furnished all the vehicles for the project.

a. The vehicles consisted of one (1) jeep (for the use of the 697th platoon leader), three (3) five-ton dump trucks (for each of the squads in the 697th's third platoon), and one (1) lowbed and tractor for the transportation of the pipe to the installation site.
b. Adequate vehicles were available to the 697th for the project.
c. The 44th furnished one (1) platoon for the project. The 44th platoon was utilized in assisting in the installation of culverts for road crossings; the coating of the welded pipe with tar; and the digging of the trench for the buried pipeline.
d. Company C also installed approximately one-and-a-half (1 1/2) miles of tactical coupled pipe, receiving technical assistance from the 697th.

5. The 697th pipeline Company was called upon to send a full strength platoon from Thailand to Korea to assist in what was considered a highly specialized job, however, it is felt that the attached command and higher headquarters did not fully realize that the 697th platoon was quite familiar from past experience with the installation of tactical pipe. At the commencement of the project the 44th Bn caused unnecessary chaos by not working with the pipeline officer and giving him credit that he had experienced knowledge in this type of work. The project officer was a 2LT from Company C who had never seen the installation of tactical pipe prior to this day. The Company C project officer failed to realize what was critical in the installation phase, several misunderstanding between the 697th platoon leader and the pipeline project officer resulted. The project officer and his sergeant would reassign various jobs to the pipeline platoon after the 697th platoon leader would have them assigned to a specific detail, this caused much confusion among the men.

a. Daily operation meeting did not eliminate this problem.
b. Besides the confusion between the 697th platoon leader and the Company C project officer, the Battalion Executive Officer and Company C Commander stayed on the project the majority of the time, resulting in four (4) officers trying to run the job. However, as the job progressed the Battalion Executive began to realize that the 697th platoon leader and platoon was capable of doing the job, in turn, the Executive Officer began to respect any recommendations made by the 697th platoon leader.

(1) However, approximately one (1) week before dead line day the 697th Platoon leader felt that the project was getting too disorganized because of over supervision.
(2) The 697th platoon leader then told the Battalion Executive Officer that the project would run and progress much better if there was not over supervision. The battalion executive officer accepted the 697th platoon leader's complaint and he had the Company C Commander sent back to his headquarters. He also put the 697th platoon leader in charge of the project, also he himself went back to his headquarters.
c. The critical need for this pipeline is the reason for the problems of over supervision. 44th was in continued harassment to get the pipeline completed. Misunderstanding did not result from poor officers. 44th has the highest caliber of officers. The problem was that this was considered one of the "hottest" construction projects going on in Korea at this time, as a result, everybody wanted to help.

6. There were several obstacles incorporated into the installation of the tactical coupled phase that hampered operations.

a. After approximately a thousand feet of pipe had been installed, including two (2) buried road crossing, word was received from Eighth Army's G3 that no curves with radii less than 48 inches would be used. The reason was that they wanted to pump a wiper plug through the eight (8) mile line after it would be completed. As a result, all pipe would have to be heated and bent. A pipebending machine was designed, incorporating a twenty-ton jack and built by the 697th. The apparatus was quite effective, however, it was a slow process because of the numerous road curves, ox cart trails or road crossing in which eighteen (18) inch culverts were installed with the pipe running through the culverts. As a result, the initial thousand feet that was installed, did not incorporate these features therefore, had to be made several modifications.
b. The design of the pipeline called for supports spaced every joint of the pipe. Wooden supports were made, however, after two miles of supports were installed the local Natives found that the wooded supports was the answer to their fuel shortage. This operation was eliminated.
c. Indecisions on the route location caused several wasted man hours.
(1) The first two thousand feet of pipe installed on the Air Base had to be moved from one side of the road to the other because it was not 100 feet away from a Nitrogen Plant.
(2) Approximately one (1) mile of pipe on a levee had to be located on the opposite side of the road because some VIP liked it better on the other side.
(3) A thousand feet of pipe going through a rice field had to be moved because some rice farmer complained to Eighth Army, which stipulated that the easement had not been checked, as shown by the drawings.

7. The 4,600 feet of welded buried pipe, also introduced problems.

a. The digging of the trench was the major obstacle. The trace for the buried pipe was the cutting of a three foot trench on the side of a rock road going through a heavily populated village. The reason for this route is because to the East of the road was mountainous terrain while to the West of the road was the Yellow Sea. The pipe had to be buried because of the hazardous of a tactical line in such a populated area. A 750 Barber Greene Entrenching machine was utilized, however, the encountering of rock caused several mechanical break downs. A ten ton backhoe was then brought to the project, however, the backhoe outcrops (?); such areas had to be done with jack hammers. One area, approximately 300 feet, was of solid granite as a result, pipeline was welded and installed above ground.
b. The welded buried portion of the pipeline had to be coated with tar, wrapped, and then recoated. Such an operation should have the proper equipment, which the pipeline platoon was not equipped. The 697th coated approximately 1000 feet then the remaining pipe was coated by Company C personnel. The results of the coating was of poor quality, but this was expected because of the means available to do the coating.
c. Problems with the local natives were encountered. Large crowds of native spectators would gather around the construction, exposing themselves to construction equipment. The working personnel were in constant fear of hurting someone accidentally, however, there was no incident. Vehicular traffic through the area of entrenching caused several traffic jams. This became such a problem that the digging operations was done only between 2300 hours to 0700 hours, hours in which the least traffic was encountered.
d. Lack of highly experienced welders presented an area of problems. Although, the 697th and 44th's Company C had several Army trained welders, the welders were not sufficiently qualified for pipeline welding. Only two men from the 697th were qualified for pipe welding. Toward the latter part of the welded portion of the pipeline, Company C did receive a qualified pipe welder that was also utilized. The welders were very critical and they were over worked. There were times when they actually put in sixteen (16) hours a day of steady welding, which is too much of a strain on them to maintain quality welds. Time was lost due to break down in welders. The 697th brought only one welding machine, the 44th furnished one also. However, there was mechanical breakdowns that deemed it necessary to borrow welding machines from the Air Force.

8. Another perplexity that originated on the buried welded was the breaking of several water lines. Before any digging started the 697th platoon leader requested information on the probability of buried lines. Check was supposed to have been made with a negative report. After two thousand feet of digging, the ten ton backhoe ruptured a 13 inch cast iron water main serving the town of Kunsan. Eighteen hours was lost repairing this leak. Concern then aroused over this line. Investigation through several of the local natives, revealed that the pipeline was buried four (4) feet and crossed the road five times in attempts to dodge granite outcrops. Instead of waiting on a complete check of the location of the water pipe, Company C had the 697th move a thousand feet of welded pipe to the opposite side of the road, however, after it was learned that the pipeline zigzagged across the road, 44th realized that the opposite side of the road did not offer a solution. The thousand feet was then moved back to other aide. Since the waterline was buried at four (4) feet, 44th had the new line brought up to a depth of two (2) feet. Besides the 13 inch water main, several small one inch lines were damaged and had to be replaced.

9. On 27 March 1968 the complete pipeline was ready for water testing. Water was to be pumped from a 250 BBL water tank at the Army Receiving terminal to the Air Force Base. The Army Receiving terminal had four (4) inch centrifugal pumps. Two pumps were estimated to be needed to pump the eight (8) miles. The capacity of the pipeline was approximately 70,000 gallons of water. The water source to the water tower, at the Army terminal, was connected to the Kunsan waterman in which the water was only turned on for eight (8) hours a day. The pipeline was disconnected at one (1) mile increments where it was flushed and then pressured up to 300 psi. Two (2) miles were tested in this manner, however, time was lost waiting for the tank to fill up, also only one pump was operational and difficulty in building up the pressure was encountered. About half way long the line the Air Force, had their water station. A request to the Air Force to use their pump station was approved. A line to their pump house, 100 feet away was installed. Four (4) miles of line at a time was flushed and tested to 300 psi. Delay in water testing facilities began to throw the project behind schedule by two days. Request to work all night testing the line was made by the 44th En. The 697th platoon leader asked that testing and repair of leaks be done during the hours of light so that adequate light would be available to correct the leaks, also because the repair of leaks was over an eight (8) mile span with various areas in rice fields, thus making the use of generators a problem to use. Higher command insisted to work all night. Flashlights were used. Before the line was completely satisfactory, as to leaks, the order to start pumping fuel was given. No coordination to an inspection while under water test, was made between the POL personnel, that would be operating the facility, and the construction outfit.

10. Upon completion of the project there was confusion on what the 697th was to do. The 697th was under the impression that they were to return to their home unit in Thailand. A request for airlift was sent to the Eighth Army by the platoon leader. A reply that they were to stay in Korea for the full period of sixty (60) days was returned by Eighth Army.

11. On 4 April 1968 the 44th Battalion Commander called the 697th platoon leader and told him to report to the Second Group Commander located at Kimpo. The Second Group Commander briefed the 697th officer on what little he knew of a two (2) mile pipeline that was to be installed at the Osan Air Base. There was still confusion on who was responsible for arranging for the transportation of the 697th to the new job location. Second Group stated that they did not have any orders attaching the 697th to them. Therefore, they felt that the 44th Bn was responsible for arranging for transportation. Upon return to Kunsan 44th was under the impression that arrangements were being made by Second Group. Transportation was then arranged by 44th En. Three days prior to the unit moving to Osan to be attached to the Company B, 802d Bn, an advance party of two Sergeants was sent to make all the necessary arrangements. The 697th platoon arrived at a Korean train station twelve miles from Osan. The 802d met the 697th platoon and transported the men to tents that had been set up for them. The 697th platoon leader then reported to the Company B Commander, however, the Commanding Officer could not see the 697th officer until the following morning because the Commanding Officer stated that he was tied up at the time. A request to the operations officer for the men to have transportation to pick up their bedding and to take them to chow was made. However, the request was denied on the grounds that it was after 1700 hours, 697th was told that the linen issue was only three blocks away and they could walk. However, Company B failed to realize that this was the first time that the unit was on base and was not familiar with the location of the facilities. The 697th platoon leader questioned his two sergeants that was sent as the advance party, as to why this had not been set up prior to the platoon's arrival, the reply was that attempts were made to set it up, but Company B personnel did not have the linen to issue. The following morning, 13 April 1968, the 697th officer discussed the project with Company B Commander. The Commanding Officer obviously had not been informed of the platoon's needs, which had been set up with Second Group's S3, because they were under the impression that the platoon had its own vehicles. The Company B Commanding Officer told the 697th officer to see if he could borrow vehicles from the Air Force, also to check with PRIME BEEF of the Air Force on what the job was about.

12. PRIME BEEF briefed the 697th officer of the project and stated that material left from the Kunsan project would be utilized until their supplies arrived. Eighth Army had passed down to Second Group that they were to arrange for the transportation of the remaining pipe from Kunsan to Osan, however, action did not seem to be taken place, therefore the Air Force sent a lowbed that night to Kunsan to pick up a load of pipe so that the pipeline platoon could get started, while the rest of the pipe would be transported by rail, also the PRIME BEEF Commander assigned two Master Sergeants to assist the 697th in arranging the rail transportation for the pipe because Second Group had not made the arrangements prior for the railcars.

13. Transportation was major problem at the Osan project. Company B was only able to supply one 2 1/2 ton truck. This obstacle hampered construction because three sections were working on various areas in the two mile stretch. Eighth Army's G3 became quite concerned over this problem and told 802d Bn that the pipeline was top priority and that the pipeline would get whatever support necessary. However, poor support still resulted and a complaint was made to G3 by the 697th platoon leader, after that, the 697th had no more problems with transportation.

14. Available material hindered the installation. There were no 90's, 45's, or Tee's available initially and therefore had to be constructed, however, at the latter part of the project, after they had already been fabricated by the 697th welder, the material came in. The supply of couplins became exhausted prior to approximately two thousand feet to completing the project. Several days were lost waiting for an airlift of couplings. The 697th was scheduled to be back in Thailand not later than 4 May 1968. Concern as to how much work would be left unfinished since time was running out developed. Outlet fittings were still lacking therefore, testing of the pipeline was initiated. Water under 150 psi was utilized for testing. The pipeline was inspected by the 802d Bn Commander, PRIME BEEF Project Officer, and the Air Force POL Officers; the water test was approved by all parties.

15. All necessary information for return airlift was submitted approximately two (2) weeks in advance. Two days before the platoon was to be airlifted, the 802d Bn, Second Group, and Eighth Army transportation started calling the 697th platoon leader, they were confused on who was to request the airlift. A complaint was made to G3. An investigation revealed that the paper work had never gone down the line. G3 then had to make a verbal request.

16. On 3 May 1968, one of the two C130's departed at 0900 hours with the third platoon of the 697th and arrived in Korat, Thailand 0700 hours, 3 May 1968. The second C130 with one sergeant and two EM arrived with the platoon's equipment on 5 May 1968.

17. In conclusion, the overall major problem with the Kunsan project was over supervision. The 697th platoon leader should have had more control in the construction operation. The Osan project. showed no support administratively and equipment wise until formal complaints were made to G3 of Eighth Army.

John A. Stockman
1LT, CE
Platoon Leader

47th ARRS (Pedro): From 1968-1969, Kunsan was supported by the HH-43B Huskies of the 41st ARRS, Det 11. (See 41st ARRS Det 11: 1968.) After the 3rd TFW arrived, the unit designation changed. The 3rd TFW was supported by the 47th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron (ARRS), Detachment 11 which was part of the Military Airlift Command (MAC) 441st ARRW. The 47th ARRS was activated at Fuchu AB, Japan. The unit flew the HH-43B Huskie which was dubbed "Pedro."

According to HH-43 Huskie, the HH-43B in PACAF outside S.Vietnam and Thailand became assigned to 47 ARRS as of 01 June 1970. From 1970-1971 two HH-43Bs were assigned: 58-1848 & 60-0260. On 30 Mar 71, HH-43B 59-1593 was delivered from 47 ARRS/KwangJu and 60-0260 was sent to KwangJu AB on 30 Mar for disassembly and then flown to CONUS (Eglin AFB, FL) on 05 Apr 71. The 47 ARRS was deactivated on 01 Jul 1971. (See 354th TFW for eye-witness account of F-100 accidents.)

Security Police Ken Campbell wrote, "I was with the Air/Security Police of the 6175th & 354th...July68-Aug 69. Did the same train guard thing down to Kwangju. Same stop and go, C-rats,...haha (we guarded the latrine sections of the modulux). Spent lots of time in the "Tree", and was on the take-off end (N?S?) flt line when the 100's crashed. (I thought they both did) Seemed like they were the last of at least 10 pair to take off that morning. I was pulled from my post and guarded the wreckage. There was ice in the water I remember. Nuke storage(TOFF). Spent lots of time in machine gun bunkers around the fence. Bomb dump, anyway, was so glad to get out of the tents."

Support for ROKAF Helicopters: Ralph added, "Were you aware that the old east-west runway that was still there in 68. Old (psp) pierced steel planking that was used long ago.We would travel that runway over to the ROK CHOPPER PAD to refuel their helo's." (NOTE: This was NOT the runway, but the old taxiway. The original runway was the next parallel strip to the south. It appears to have been demolished in building up the South Loop leaving only a small section as an entry/exit taxiway to the north-south taxiway . However, this is no loss as the runway location was on unstable ground and unsuitable as an emergency landing strip.)

Ralph clarified the reason why the USAF supported the ROKAF, "Yes, the ROK's chopper pad was located in that '''y" along with a small Sq. of F-86's. Off to the left before you reached the old terminal. The ROK's had their own POL section for the F-86"s but did not have AV-gas for choppers." (This meant the chopper pad was on the ROKAF Ramp.)

Base Operations (1959)
Click on photo to enlarge
(Courtesy Larry Doyle)

Flightline: Ralph added that the old PSP taxiway was also used as a shortcut to the North POL storage area. "We used that route many times to go over to north storage." He stated, "That also was the route Air America would taxi to the terminal. The day the air guard moved in they parked all their F-100's along that runway until all the F-4's and there crews, got organized an cut a chogie. After c-pad was cleared, I think 2 days, the guard moved all aircraft up there. F-4's (475th TFW nuclear alert) still remained in tree area." (NOTE: Ralph confirmed that this terminal was the old Base Ops Terminal that was left over from the 3rd Bomb Wing in the Korean War. The new terminal on the south side of base had not been built yet.)

Ralph continued, "When I was there the sign outside the terminal said,Welcome to the 6175 air base group.There was no terminal on C-pad. When I left to go stateside (May 69), you got on a bus at the old terminal an they drove you up to c-pad to get on the new jet service to Kimpo."

He later commented on an accident at Kunsan, "It was in the fall of 68, Oct or Nov that 2 F-100's were taking off side-by-side and clipped each other. I'll never forget it. We were pulling maintence checks on our trucks which we always did before going out on flight line. It was early shift, and the 2 F-100's were weather birds. We watched from our lot as they started down the runway. Everything seemed normal untill they lifted off. All of a sudden a boom, and you could see one of them veering off to the left toward the sea in flames. The other couldn't gain altitude and went down at the end or runway. Another boom, and then fire, which was followed by ammo going off. Rescue could not get in for a good while because of the live rounds going off. It was a very sad day. Both pilots gone. That was the only accident I witnessed while in the Air Force."

Ralph, now of Bridgeport, WVa, added, "He wrote, "I was a young buck sergeant at that time. I had already spent over 2 years at Perrin AFB in Texas before going to the Kun. I would have probably spent my 4 year hitch in Texas if it wasn't for the Pueblo crisis. I know for a fact, that I definitely grew up at Kunsan. ... Kunsan was a time in my life, that I will never forget. Lot's of good times with the bad."

Things have changed considerably since Ralph's time. He stated that Avenue "B" -- the street that runs past the back of the Gym and Golf course across from the BX -- actually was a straight shot all the way through the RoKAF area, across the taxiway and down to the tree area. In other words, the BX and barracks were constructed later and the street was blocked off.

Ralph summed up his time at Kunsan. "The summer and fall of 68 saw a big change in that place. Late 68 an early 69 was a long, cold-ass winter. After the release of the Pueblo crew things were a little more relaxed. More free time. Spring of 69 I was getting short. New replacements were coming in. I knew I would be leaving some people I would never see again."

Ralph's impressions of the Korean people were very positive. "The people I did come in contact with treated me nice and I showed them respect as well. My house boy was a super person. The rok's that walked there K-9s around our work area were friends. The people I met working on the pipe line coming out of Kunsan made me feel like royality."

Facilities and Housing: Ralph Brown arrived in the midst of the Pueblo Incident buildup. There wasn't enough space on base. Ralph stated, "I arrived in the spring (Apr) of 1968. Was assigned to the 6175th Supply Sq. The first 2 months I lived in a tent, located across the street from a taxi cab service. There were rows of tents set up by Red Horse until they got barracks built. I later moved into barracks located across the street from chow hall and nco club." His two-story cinder block barracks were on the old Ave "B" on main base in the same area as the present Airmen barracks. The barracks was heated by a central boiler and it was two men to a room. The three-story barracks on the east side of the base near base supply also existed at the time. In addition, the 557th CES (HR) erected prefab two-story barracks on the main base.

The TDY troops of the 4th TFW, ANG and other troops -- such as the Army who built the pipeline to Kunsan in 1968 -- were housed in the tent city erected on the Golf Course. The tent city was comprised of 12-man tents in two rows with a large dirt road between. In the wet season, it became a muddy mess. According to William Rogers on Classmates.com, "We came to Korea from Vietnam to build up bomb dump. Flew on a C141 to Korea. When the tail gate of the plane was lower we saw that it was snowing outside. We had no cold weather gear. The sleeves on our jungle fatigues were still rolled up. It was cold, lived in 12 men tents on the golf course." Frank Tacey wrote, "Cold, cold, coldest place on earth. After just having spent a month at Cam Rahn Bay getting off of that C-141 in jungle fatgues was a shocker. I am sure we had much better conditions than the crew of the USS Pueblo, whom we were sent from Nam to help get back. Everyone wanted to go back to Vietman so that must tell you something." (SEE Frank Tacey: Deployment from Danang for photos at Kunsan.)

The following are photos by Frank Tacey, formerly of the 558th TFS from Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam. He wrote, "Our first morning at Kunsan. We had to sleep in the movie theater." Quite sure everyone was jumping through the loops as troops were arriving in droves. He continued, "By the way my name was Frank Tocydlowski (Tski) back then." The photos are of the tent city erected to accomodate the overflow of personnel.

558th Bulletin Board in Tent City

Tent City (1968)
Frank is the one inside the darkened tent
and was known as "Frank Tocydlowski" (Tski) back then.
Note the kerosene space heater used in the tent for heat.
(Courtesy Frank Tacey)

Kunsan AB (1968) (Courtesy Frank Tacey)

The picture on the left is taken along Avenue C near to the intersection of the Base Hospital. Though it appears to be only a one-lane road, it is an optical illusion as on the other photo, the ox-cart is off to the other side. Note the use of carts to transport items from point to point. A-frames (chige) were still used to carry heavy loads on the backs of the Koreans. Notice the ox-drawn cart which is most likely is a "honey pot" wagon from the two large cauldrons on the cart. These "honey" wagons were used to transport the human waste (under contract) off-base to be used as fertilizer on the rice fields. Also note the Jamesway huts left from the Korean War. But what is most revealing is what appears to be drainage ditches along BOTH sides of the sidewalk.

Kunsan Winter (1968) (Courtesy Frank Tacey)

Notice in the upper left picture below, the "new" barracks built for permanent party personnel of the 6175th ABG starting in about 1961. Also note the new prefab buildings that were being erected at the time everywhere on the base through the combined efforts of CES Prime Beef and the 557th CES Red Horse personnel.

The NCO club (Bldg 1100) later became the AAFES Manager's office and Shoppette -- a long, low flat building typical of the 1950s style construction. Ralph stated, "It was located on the corner. ... NCO club was old building with restaurant, slot machines, bar, pool tables, barber shop, shoe shine. Nice people worked there. Occasional shows, live entertainment." This building was demolished in 2002.

Avenue "B" at the time ran through what is now the front of the BX and across the Library Parking lot along the side of the building. It then continued down past the taxi stand which was located down the street near the Chow Hall on Avenue "B". This would have been the present day Linen Exchange which is across the street and near the corner. The base fire station was located across the street from the Chow Hall. (NOTE: At that time Avenue "B" ran straight through from the gym to the south side of the base. Since that time, the new BX and barracks closed off Avenue "B" to the south.)

There were three chow halls at the time. One was down on Charlie Pad. He stated, "On the other corner headed south was a chow hall, and down street headed west was another chow hall." The chow hall "on the street headed west" was reported to have still been in use into the mid-1970s. The building was extended through the use of materials shipped up from Utapao and converted into the base Commissary.

He commented about the base facilities. "Facilites on base weren't too bad considering. Bowling alley had the best food, movie theater, gym. I spent most of my time in the NCO club. Kunsan really started taking shape when the air guard from Wichata Kansas and Lockbourne Ohio took over. It semed to start looking more like a little city. More modernised."

Ralph had previously said, "The golf course kept me from going insane over there." He continued later, "The golf course when I was there was only 9 holes.Yes, we had lady caddies. They would laugh and giggle all the time but it was fun. No 19th hole (bar) and no driving range. When we got done playing golf we would head for the bowling alley for beers." Note that in 1959, there only was the driving range and no golf course.

The post office was probably located in the same location as it is today. Ralph stated, "We had a pretty nice post office. ... I remember it being close to the infamous turkish bath."

Stephen Cornick wrote at Classmates.com, "In July 1968 I married a Korean girl (best move of my life). Air Force extended my 1 yr "hardship tour" to 2 yrs because I was now "accompanied" even though they provided almost no accomodations for married personnel. At one point I was assigned TDY to Osan AB where I was the Accounting and Finance Officer for all the USAF bases in Korea. During that time we had an unannounced change in the military payment certificate series. It went very smoothly." Kunsan has continued to be a "remote non-Command sponsored tour." As Osan developed into a "command-sponsored" base, the cast-offs or left-overs from the Osan BX/Commissary were shuttled to Kunsan. Meanwhile, married personnel at Kunsan were forced to live on the economy. At that time, there was no commissary at either Kunsan or Osan and the only commissary was up at Yongsan. For married personnel at Osan, it was feasible to make the trip to Yongsan, but for people at Kunsan it was not as most of the roads were still unpaved.

Infrastructure Problems When Ralph Brown was asked about any infrastructure problems, he stated, "In the summer of 68 we had a water problem. Lack of (water) caused the water to be turned on only twice daily. We got our water from a reservoir located off base." The water is still pumped from the Okku Reservoir off the base via a pipeline that has followed the same path since the Korean War days.

C-Pad Area and Christmas Tree Area: John Wilkerson was a permanent party assigned to the 6175th Air Base Group assigned as a weather forecaster. He worked down in the C-pad area. He wrote, "The flying mission in the years 1966-1968 was handled by a monthly rotation of one squadron from Misawa AB Japan. Planes were bedded down at "C pad alert facility" So there were always fighters available but they were equipped with "nukes" and that is why they couldn't respond when the Pueblo was attacked."

Ralph Brown was a young buck sergeant in the 6175th Supply Squadron POL Section who was at Kunsan from 1968-1969. He arrived four months after the Pueblo Incident when all the Air National Guard folks showed up. He wrote, "I also remember the "Tree area" because we had to refuel aircraft up there. It was highly restricted and only a few of us in refueling had access to get in."

Ralph Brown with a R-2 Tanker at Kunsan
(Courtesy Ralph Brown)

On-base POL Operations: Ralph Brown wrote, "My job was driving refueling trucks out on pad-c and refueling aircraft at the tree area which was located at the south end of the runway. There was two storage areas with above ground tanks. The one you mentioned over by the hospital (north storage) and the other at the south end, up by the munitions storage area."

In July 1968, the POL section was relocated to the south side of the base. The South POL storage area was across the street from the C-Pad -- in the same area it is today. Ralph stated, "It was an arched shaped building with a parking lot. That is where we dispatched all or trucks from." Originally, the POL fuel dispatch area was on the main base, but after July 1968, a new area was built for them across from C-pad. Ralph stated, "Our POL section was located down behind NCO club when I first got there, but new parking area an building was built in July of 68 when the Air Guard arrived. This new building and parking area was a real treat considering what we had before. It was located up above Pad-c."

When Ralph was asked about the above-ground fuel bladder storage system, he stated, "Yes, we had bladder system off of pad-c. We were the first to introduce the bladder system. That was the first thing I worked on when I got to Kunsan. Five of us, all buck sergeants, set those up. They were used only for emergency. While I was there we never used them to service aircraft." These type of units are still in use today in the South POL area.

The North POL storage area is still in the same location with its large above-ground POL tanks. This is the area that fuel is pumped to via the underground pipeline.

By the 1968, the nuclear alert commitment had been moved down to the "Christmas Tree Area". It was named this because of the shape of the pattern of aircraft shelters laid out in the shape of a tree. The bunkers were built by the Army Corps of Engineers and were low and straight sides with a rounded roof. Lighting was from the ceiling and side lights, but the illumination was very poor. The interior was very cramped for the F-4Ds of the Det 1 475th TFW whose aircraft rotated in from Misawa.

U.S. Army at Kunsan: From 1964-1980, the primary AAA defense for Kunsan AB was the hawk missile detachment stationed a 1/2 mile south of the base above Oeeu-dong village. These folks belonged to the B Battery, 1st Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery. (See Hawk Battery for expanded coverage of their operations.)

The U.S. Army enlisted men of the HAWK battery lived in Nissen quonset huts near the ROKAF flightline area -- closest to the newer two story USAF barracks. Besides the Hawk battery folks, the U.S. Army Southcom Longline (microwave) personnel were also billeted here.

To the south at Kimje, the E Battery 4th Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery provided Nike-Hercules coverage and were situated on Echo Hill just outside Kimje City. (See Echo Hill for expanded coverage of their operations.) The folks at Echo Hill relied on Kunsan AB for their food and mail. Daily mail runs and weekly food runs were made to the Kunsan.

Road to Kunsan -- Okku Reservoir (1969)
Taken from top of levee
(Courtesy Michael A. McFarland )

Road to Kunsan (1968-1969): Bill Lambing wrote about 1960, "I remember building the "new highway" from the base to Kunsan City...only to have most of it ripped up for fuel...embarrassing to the brass that came down to "open the highway"..!" This problem was Korea-wide in that the desperately poor farmers would rip up the macadam road and use it for fuel during the winters. Reports said that the two lane road to Kunsan became a one-lane road within days.

Ralph Brown wrote about the road to Kunsan, "That was a terrible road to travel. It was not paved at the time and the people wouldn't get out of your way."

During the 1960s, there was extreme poverty in Korea. At Osan AB the macadam was torn up and used for fuel on the back road to the base. Dan Decker, TDY with the 4th TFW during the Pueblo Incident in 1968 remarked, "An interesting incident occurred while we were there. The previous summer/fall the U.S. had paid for the construction of a blacktop paved road from Kunsan AB to Kunsan City. That winter the local indigenous peoples chopped up and burned the road to keep warm! They thought it was absolutely great, no ash to throw out and the resulting gravel was spread around their homes as landscaping!" Others stationed at Kunsan dating as far back as 1960 have mentioned this propensity of the Koreans to rip up the road.

When asked if this condition of ripping up the macadam existed at Kunsan in 1969, John Wilkerson replied, "The only section of road that was paved, when I got there, was about two hundred yards long at the turn just before the refugee village I think there is a glove factory and a college near this site now."

(NOTE: The section John describes as being paved in 1966 is near the Fisheries College which is part of Kunsan National University. The refugee camps date back to the Korean War days when North Korean refugees flooded Kunsan. The population of Kunsan swelled from 40,000 to 100,000 overnight. There were two main refugee "camps." The "camps" were nothing more than old Japanese warehouses that were used to house the refugees in cramped quarters. One major area for refugees was near the Kunsan train station and this area continues to be the poor "red light" district of Kunsan. There were old warehouses all along the waterfront. An area that became known as the "North Korean village" was near the entrance of Wolmyong Park tunnel (Taebong Tunnel) consisting of shanties and mudwattle houses thrown together with scraps.)

This other respondents agree with, but there is disagreement with his statement that "by 1969 that road was completely paved." John said, "The road was eventually built piece by piece during the farmers off time between planting and harvest. Each village along the road was responsible for constructing a certain area. Some finished fast some slow but by 1969 that road was completely paved. I can't remember people stealing sections while I was there (hell they would just have to rebuild it themselves) also they had those security guards all along the road." (NOTE: The stripping of the macadam was not new. Bill Lambing of Greenwood, IN was with the Air Force Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) at Kunsan in 1960. He stated, "I remember building the "new highway" from the base to Kunsan City...only to have most of it ripped up for fuel...embarrassing to the brass that came down to "open the highway"..!")

When the same question was asked of Ed Mullin about the road conditions, he replied, "As far as the road from base to Kun city, as I remember, was dirt. I still remember taking the base taxi (Old Grey Ford Falcons) downtown and being bounced all over the place. There was only one section of paved road in Kunsan. I took a lot of truck convoys up to Osan , Tague & Kwanju, and I only remember that one paved section around Kun."

Muddy roads Kunsan-Osan trip (1969) (Courtesy Ed Mullin)

Ed Mullin wrote about the pictures above, "The pictures of the muddy roads was typical in 69. Not many paved roads. And they turned into a sea of mud when it rained. This was on a trip from Kun to Osan with a deuce and a half." Later he wrote, "I once had to Bob Tail an M-52 from Osan to Kunsan. An M-52 is a military series tractor for hauling trailers. It has a fifth wheel, and is much like its civilian counter part, except for a lack of suspension and good seats. Bob Tailing is uncomfortable on paved roads. So by the time we got to Kun both rear view mirrors had vibrated out and my lower back was completely swolen. There was no happy mediu