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Story from William Wightman Feb 65 to Sep 66 |
| I was one of the original group that traveled from Bangkok to Udorn.
The history mentioned 1966 but it was 1965. I spent 19
months in Thailand and left around September 1966. We spent
several months in Bangkok before we moved north. My memory of
Bangkok is that we ate at the Capital Hotel and stayed in a compound
just around the corner from the hotel which, was located in downtown
Bangkok. A truck would take us to the listening station which I
believe was located near the airport. We spent our time in Bangkok
learning what we needed to know so we could continue when we reached Udorn.
After all the equipment arrived we packed up the trucks and
headed north. the trucks were 2 1/2 ton trucks with a shelter on
the back. The sides expanded and that is where we
worked. When we arrived in Udorn we slept and ate on a US Air Force base and parked the trucks and built an antenna field in a compound several miles up the road on a Thai Army base. A U.S. Army Signal Corps had an area that we shared and after a month or so we moved there completely. We eventually moved from there to an old U.S. Marine base that was used during the 1962 Laotian crisis. The only thing left was a concrete slab. We moved the trucks and put up 8 man tents and called it home. I believe an argument our CO, Captian Pavlin, had with a Signal Corps Colonel, visiting from the Philippines, got us kicked out of their compound. We strung barbed wire, hired some Thai guards and built a mess hall. We had an unauthorized club that was the main hang-out since Udorn was so far away. Lt Hart, and First Sgt Traweek and an Air Force Sgt Morron were the men in charge of this TDY group that was pulled together from Japan, Taiwan, Okinawa and the Philippines. We named it Chang Station and it was called either Detachment D or Detachment 4 of the 5th RRU. My wife has all the letters I wrote her during this time and they probably have more details. I went from here to 372RRU in Ch Chi Vietnam. I wanted to go to Germany, but Lyndon Johnson wanted 5000k men in Vietnam. Note from the Webmaster: The units at Udorn were Detachment D of the 5th RRU and Det 4 of the 6922nd Security Wing |
| Richard W Jaslovsky WebMaster |