C-130 ground crew

Young Vietnamese woman who was part of ground crew at Tan Son Nhut Airbase in Saigon – 1972. She is standing between the paratroop door and the small round observation window on left side of the C-130 cargo bay … probably staying out of hot sun waiting on a load of cargo. These workers generally wore camo jumpsuits and hats loaded with patches of many of the  flying squadrons.

C-130 Flight Engineer

C-130 flight engineer on our crew in cockpit checking his eyelids out for holes as we wait on ground for departure - 1972. The flight engineer sat in an elevated seat aft and between the two pilots … the job included managing and monitoring major aircraft systems like electrical, fuel, hydraulics, etc … also closely watched pilots so they didn’t screw up, and was another set of eyes to watch out for other aircraft traffic in the friendly skies over Vietnam. Notice the old gray headsets we all wore … relatively crude in today’s world and part of the reason why my hearing is so bad today.

Aberdeen Harbor Hong Kong

Aberdeen Harbor, Hong Kong 1972. Spent several days here with C-130 crew on a rare and special good deal assignment. Pictured is a mass of entangled junks on which many families spent most of their lives on the water. Watercraft of all shapes and sized clogged the harbor … I couldn’t discern any obvious traffic patterns beyond chaos … but than why should it be any different than the streets and roads there. The kids in right side of photo didn’t mind the camera while older women on left clearly did not like being photographed … family dog in lower left indifferent.