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Early Caribou Days 483rd CAM Squadron In January 1967 when the Air Force took over operation of the deHavilland C-7A aircraft from the army, myself, as well as a lot of others were pulled from various bases in South Vietnam to form squadrons for this aircraft. My squadron was the 483rd at Cam Ranh Bay. On arrival at Cam Ranh we were taken to the barracks area (platforms in the sand) with piles of plywood and two by fours. We had to build the hooches before we could live in them, as well as work on the aircraft. In the first arrival days we lacked organization which was quickly rectified and we started working on the aircraft. Their were no crew chiefs assigned to specific planes so you may be working in the docks one day on the line another, but we got the job done. We fixed many problems as well as the new ones that came up and with guidance from the deHavilland rep. We learned a lot about this plane in a short time. Later that year along about mid July myself and several others were sent to Phu Cat. I was told that they needed maintenance help so I packed up and went to Phu Cat. While at Phu Cat I was asked to go to a crash site ( which turned out to be 62-4161 shot down by friendly fire near Duc Pho). Myself and one other person (name I forgot) made several trips to this site to tear down the crash so it could be removed from the army's fire base. Later, I believe in the month of August I was asked to go to another site where a C-7 had blown both left main tires on landing (site name unknown), so myself and another person volunteered to go fix the plane. I knew this trip was going to be more dangerous, as we had to draw weapons before leaving. With replacement wheels, jack, and my tool box in one hand M16 in the other we boarded the plane and took off. Fix the broken C-7 in order to get out or else. We got the wheels changed after some minor trenching to place the jack under the wing. Night time was coming quick and I felt that if we did not get out of there before dark we were going to get hit as the plane was next to the perimeter fence. We got done and every thing loaded up just as it was getting dark. As we were taking off the army was shooting tracers and flares and I could see the North Vietnamese running on the other side of the fence in the area we just left. I believe to this day that 10 or 15 more minutes we would not have gotten out. I was later sent back to Cam Ranh worked on the line for a few more weeks than went into flight crew debriefing to route maintenance write ups to the correct departments to speed up repairs. I am sending pictures of the early days and of the crash site which I believe have not been seen before. If anyone that may read this has some additional information feel free to make any corrections or add to this story. Also if the person that went with me on the blown tire trip I would like to know the name of that location and his name as well as the person that I went to Duc Pho with. I was asked why I volunteered to go on these missions and my answer was we had a plane down and a crew possibly in trouble and if I could help get them out that was my job and what I was there for. Also if anyone would like to contact me my phone is 970-667-0506 e-mail gregplumb@comcast.net Gregory E Plumb |
