U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield

U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield is a military airfield of the Royal Thai Navy approximately southeast of Bangkok in the Ban Chang District of Rayong Province near Sattahip on the Gulf of Thailand. It serves as the home of the RTN First Air Wing.

Etymology

U-Tapao is a compound of อู่ cradle or drydock and ตะเภา trade winds, and derives from the site having once been a shipyard for construction of ruea-tapao, a type of argosy resembling a Qing Dynasty junk.

History

In 1965 the RTN was permitted by the Council of Ministers to build a long airfield near U-Tapao village, Ban Chang District, in Rayong Province. The United States, seeking a Southeast Asian base for its large jet aircraft, reached an agreement with the Thai government to build and operate the base in conjunction with the RTN. The US began construction of the runway and all facilities on 15 October 1965 and completed it on 2 June 1966. The base was administratively handed over to the RTN on 10 August 1966.
The runway became operational on 6 July 1966 and U-Tapao received its first complement of United States Air Force Strategic Air Command KC-135 tankers in August 1966. The USAF had been flying B-52 Stratofortress bombers Operation Arc Light bombing missions over South Vietnam from Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, but Okinawa was judged to be too far from South Vietnam to meet mission requirements. An optimal solution was to base the B-52s in South Vietnam or Thailand, however base security in South Vietnam was problematic. U-Tapao had an existing runway suitable for the bombers and the cost for upgrades to the base was minimal. In January 1967, negotiations between the US and Thai government started to base them at U-Tapao. The agreement, reached on 2 March 1967, allowed 15 B-52s and their support personnel to be based at U-Tapao, with the provision that missions flown from Thailand would not over fly Laos or Cambodia on their way to targets in Vietnam. The first B-52's arrived on 10 April 1967. The next day, B-52 sorties were flown from U-Tapao. By 1972 there were 54 B-52 aircraft stationed in Thailand.

U.S. use of U-Tapao during the Vietnam War

Prior to 1965, the base at U-Tapao was a small RTN airfield. At Don Muang Air Base near Bangkok, the USAF had stationed KC-135 Stratotankers to refuel combat aircraft over the skies of Indochina. Although Thailand was an active participant in the Vietnam War, with a token ground force deployed to the South Vietnam as well as involved in the largely secret civil war in Laos, the presence and the visibility of USAF aircraft near its capital city was causing a degree of political embarrassment for Thailand's military government.
File:Strategic Air Command Boeing KC-135 StratoTanker and Boeing B-52 Stratofortress at U-Tapao Air Force Base.jpg|thumb|222x222px|KC-135 and B-52 at U-Tapao, January 1970
The B-52 Stratofortess was first used in the Vietnam War in June 1965; aircraft from the 7th and 320th Bomb Wings were sent to bomb suspected Viet Cong enclaves in South Vietnam, the operation being supported by KC-135As stationed at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.
In September 1966, two radio-relay KC-135A Combat Lightning aircraft and their personnel were ordered to deploy to U-Tapao to support air operations over North Vietnam.
The expansion of U-Tapao RTN airfield began in October 1965; the runway was built in eight months, and the base was completed slightly more than two years later. The runway was opened on 6 July 1966.
With the completion of U-Tapao, most U.S. forces were transferred from Don Muang, and U-Tapao RTNAF became a front-line facility of the USAF in Thailand from 1966 to 1975.
The USAF forces at U-Tapao were under the command of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces, with the Strategic Air Command units being a tenant unit. The APO for U-Tapao was APO San Francisco, 96330

4258th Strategic Wing

The 4258th Strategic Wing was activated in June 1966 at U-Tapao under the 3rd Air Division, headquartered at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. The wing was charged with the responsibility of supporting refueling requirements of USAF fighter aircraft in Southeast Asia, plus conducting bombing missions on a daily basis.
Steadily progressing and adding to the mission, U-Tapao welcomed its first complement of KC-135 tankers in August 1966. By September, the base was supporting 15 tankers. From 1966 to 1970, 4258th wing tankers flew over 50,000 sorties from U-Tapao.
The Seventh Air Force wanted additional B-52s missions flown in the war zone. B-52 missions from Andersen and Kadena, however, required long mission times and aerial refuelling en route. Having the aircraft based in South Vietnam made them vulnerable to attack. It was decided that, as the base at U-Tapao was being established as a KC-135 tanker base, to move them all out of Don Muang and to also base B-52s at U-Tapao where they could fly without refuelling over both North and South Vietnam.
In March 1967, the Thai Government approved the stationing of B-52s at U-Tapao; on 10 April 1967, three B-52 bombers landed at U-Tapao following a bombing mission over Vietnam. The next day, B-52 operations were initiated at U-Tapao and by 15 July, B-52s were typically operating from U-Tapao. Under Operation Arc Light, wing bombers flew over 35,000 strikes over South Vietnam from 1967 to 1970.
In early-October 1968, a KC-135A tanker lost power in the outside right engine on takeoff at U-Tapao and crashed, killing all four crew members.

Known SAC units at U-Tapao

U-Tapao was initially more of a forward field than it was a main operating base, with responsibility for scheduling missions still remaining at Andersen AFB. Small numbers of aircraft were drawn from each SAC B-52D unit to support the effort in Thailand. Known squadrons which deployed B-52 and KC-135 aircraft and crews to U-Tapao were:

These units deployed usually on 90 days tours.
U-Tapao based B-52s flew in support of US Marines in the Battle of Khe Sanh in early-1968. Under Operation Niagara waves of six B-52s, attacking every three hours, dropped bombs as close as from the perimeter of the outpost. A total of 2,548 B-52 sorties were flown in support of the defense of Khe Sanh, dropping a total of 54,129 tonnes of bombs. U-Tapao based B-52s also bombed the southernmost part of North Vietnam near the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone.

Raids in Cambodia

Beginning in March 1969, B-52s were raiding not only South Vietnam and Laos, but Cambodia as well. The Nixon Administration had approved this expansion of the war not long after entering office in the spring of 1969. Cambodian bombing raids were initially kept secret, and both SAC and Defense Department records were falsified to report that the targets were in South Vietnam.
The Cambodian raids were carried out at night under the direction of ground units using the MSQ-77 radar, which guided the bombers to their release points and indicated the precise moment of bomb release. This made deception easier, as even crew members aboard the bombers did not have to know what country they were bombing. However, the specific flight coordinates of the points of bomb release were noted in the navigator's logs at the end of each mission, and a simple check of the map could tell the crews which country they were bombing.
Following the opening of the Cambodian Campaign in late April 1970 the secret Menu bombings came to an end on 26 May and the USAF began overt operations against North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam and Viet Cong forces in eastern Cambodia.

307th Strategic Wing

On 21 January 1970, the 4258th SW was redesignated as the 307th Strategic Wing. The 307th was the only regular Air Force SAC Wing stationed in Southeast Asia. The 307th was under the command and control of Eighth Air Force, based at Andersen AFB, Guam.
Four provisional squadrons were organized under the 307th:

Bombardment Squadron, 364, 1973–1975
Bombardment Squadron, 365, 1973–1974. Disbanded 7/17/74
Bombardment Squadron,486, 1970–1971
Air Refueling Squadron, 901, 1974–1975

In addition, two four-digit bomb squadrons were assigned, but were not operational.
Detachment 12 of the 38th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron operating 2 HH-43s provided search and rescue at the base.
In May 1970 USAF tactical airlift C-130s that had been based at Don Muang Air Base moved their operations to U-Tapao and the 6th Aerial Port Squadron followed in July. The C-130s were withdrawn in late-1971 but returned in April 1972.

Sapper attack

On 10 January 1972, three communist sappers attempted to destroy B-52s in a sapper attack using grenades and satchel charges. One attacker was apparently killed in the attack, while the other two managed to cause minor damage to three B-52s before fleeing the base.

Operation Linebacker

In late March 1972, the North Vietnamese launched a full-scale offensive across the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone, supported by tanks and heavy artillery. By this time, the US was no longer in the forefront of the ground war, with South Vietnamese units taking the lead. However, the US was still providing air power, and President Nixon ordered a large increase on US airpower in response to the invasion. Although there had been no campaign of strikes into North Vietnam since the end of Rolling Thunder, the Nixon Administration ordered a new air offensive, initially code named Freedom Train, later becoming Operation Linebacker, with relatively few restrictions on targets that could be hit.
At this time 51 B-52s were based at U-Tapao. The B-52s conducted a limited number of strikes against North Vietnam as part of the spring 1972 invasion, though most of their sorties were on Arc Light missions elsewhere. The North Vietnamese offensive was crushed, but the strikes on North Vietnam continued, only winding down in October, ahead of the 1972 United States presidential election, which resulted in Richard Nixon being re-elected and the attacks quickly ramped up again in November.
In late 1972, B-52s were confronted with surface-to-air missile defenses. On 22 November 1972, a B-52D was damaged by an SA-2 SAM in a raid on Vinh, an important rail center in the southern part of North Vietnam. The bomber's pilot managed to get the burning aircraft back to Thailand before the crew bailed out, leaving the aircraft to crash. All the crew were recovered safely.