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James J. Stanford
Senior Master Sergeant James J. "Jim" Stanford (died 25 August 2012) instituted forward air control techniques for directing air strikes during the Vietnam War and the Laotian Civil War. Despite his Combat Controller activities being restricted by his lack of a pilot's license, no access to military aircraft, and a ban on using rocketry to mark targets for strikes, Stanford flew 218 combat missions in Laos. Although his duties were abruptly ended by a decision by General William W. Momyer, Stanford had demonstrated the necessity for forward air control in Laos; his successors were the Raven Forward Air Controllers. The resulting air campaigns would drop about the same tonnage of bombs on Laos as were dropped during the entirety of World War II. After serving 24 years in the U.S. Air Force, Stanford transitioned to an allied civilian job in airfield management for a further 20-year career. He died on 25 August 2012 as a result of surgery. Biography James J. Stanford began his mili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Senior Master Sergeant
Senior master sergeant is the military rank for a senior non-commissioned officer in the armed forces of some countries. Philippines Armed forces Senior master sergeant is the second-highest attainable rank for enlisted personnel of the Philippine Army, the Philippine Air Force and the Philippine Marine Corps (a component of the Philippine Navy). The rank stands above that of master sergeant and below that of chief master sergeant. File:PHIL ARMY SMSG WOODLAND.svg, File:PAF SMSG SL.svg, File:PMC SMSG Slv.svg, Philippine National Police As of February 8, 2019, a new ranking classification for the Philippine National Police was adopted, eliminating confusion of old ranks. The Police Senior master sergeant is third highest non-commissioned officer rank on the service. It stands above the rank of Police Master sergeant and below the Police Chief master sergeant. File:PNP SPO2.png, United States U.S. Space Forcesenior master sergeantinsignia U.S. Air Forcese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Larimore Jones
Charles Larimore Jones (14 May 1932 – 23 November 2006),. also known as Charlie Jones, was an architect of the U.S. Air Force's forward air control doctrine, as well as one of its early practitioners during the Laotian Civil War. He was trained in forward air control techniques as a Combat Controller in 1954. In 1962, he was one of the Operation Jungle Jim volunteers who reestablished the Air Commandos. He was the first Combat Controller committed solely to support the U.S. Army Special Forces. Based on his experience, in 1963 he was assigned to Hurlburt Field to write the field manual on forward air control while expanding the Combat Controller curriculum. Jones deployed frequently in the next few years. On one of these deployments, he was one of the first pair of Combat Controllers clandestinely infiltrated into the Laotian Civil War, under the call sign Butterfly. He and James J. Stanford supplied the first rudiments of forward air control to Operation Steel Tiger and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Lao Army
The Royal Lao Army (french: Armée royale du Laos – ARL), also designated by its anglicized title RLA, was the Land Component of the Royal Lao Armed Forces (FAR), the official military of the Kingdom of Laos during the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos and the Laotian Civil War between 1960 and 1975. History The ARL traced back its origins to World War II, when the first entirely Laotian military unit, the 1st Laotian Rifle Battalion ( – BCL), was raised early in 1941 by the Vichy France, Vichy French colonial authorities. Intended to be used on internal security operations to bolster the local colonial constabulary force, the "Indigenous Guard" (), the 1er BCL did not see much action until after March 9, 1945, when the Japanese Imperial Army forcibly seized control of French Indochina from France, including Laos. The battalion then retreated into the mountains, where they linked with the Laotian irregular guerrilla fighters () operating there. These guerrillas were supp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hand Grenade
A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade generally consists of an explosive charge ("filler"), a detonator mechanism, an internal striker to trigger the detonator, and a safety lever secured by a cotter pin. The user removes the safety pin before throwing, and once the grenade leaves the hand the safety lever gets released, allowing the striker to trigger a primer that ignites a fuze (sometimes called the delay element), which burns down to the detonator and explodes the main charge. Grenades work by dispersing fragments (fragmentation grenades), shockwaves (high-explosive, anti-tank and stun grenades), chemical aerosols (smoke and gas grenades) or fire ( incendiary grenades). Fragmentation grenades ("frags") are probably the most common in modern armies, and when the word ''gre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Continental Air Services
Continental Airlines, simply known as Continental, was a major United States airline founded in 1934 and eventually headquartered in Houston, Texas. It had ownership interests and brand partnerships with several carriers. Continental started out as one of the smaller carriers in the United States, known for its limited operations under the regulated era that provided very fine, almost fancy, service against the larger majors in important point-to-point markets, the largest of which was Chicago/Los Angeles. However, deregulation in 1978 changed the competitive landscape and realities, as noted by Smithsonian Airline Historian R. E. G. Davies, "Unfortunately, the policies that had been successful for more than forty years under (Robert) Six's cavalier style of management were suddenly laid bare as the cold winds of airline deregulation changed all the rules—specifically, the balance between revenues and expenditures." In 1981, Texas International Airlines acquired a controlli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air America (airline)
Air America was an American passenger and cargo airline established in 1946 and covertly owned and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1950 to 1976. It supplied and supported covert operations in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, including providing support for drug smuggling in Laos.'' The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade'', by McCoy, with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard P. Adams II, 2003, p. 385 Early history: Civil Air Transport (CAT) CAT was created by Claire Chennault and Whiting Willauer in 1946 as Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (CNRRA) Air Transport to airlift supplies and food into war-ravaged China. It was soon pressed into service to support Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang forces in the civil war between them and the communists under Mao Zedong. Many of its first pilots were veterans of Chennault's World War II combat groups, popularly known as Flying Tigers. By 1950, following the defeat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Covert Sites Of The Laotian Civil War
Covert sites of the Laotian Civil War were clandestine U.S. military installations for conducting covert paramilitary and combat operations in the Kingdom of Laos. Airstrips within the Kingdom of Laos were originally designated by Air America as "Site XX" (with XX being a number). In September 1961, the designation changed to "VS XX", meaning "Victor Site XX". On 16 May 1964, the airstrips received their final designation; the site names then used the abbreviation "LS"—Lima Site—for unimproved strips, or "L"—Lima—for paved runways. The terms "Victor" and "Lima" were taken from the existing military phonetic code. These sites typically were centered on a dirt landing strip for STOL aircraft such as the Air America Helio Courier or Pilatus Porter. These strips were often carved out along ridge lines, and were seldom flat, straight, or of sufficient length. However, they were crucial for resupply and personnel transport, including medical evacuations. To quote one source: "Som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and performing covert actions. As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the President and Cabinet of the United States. President Harry S. Truman had created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a Director of Central Intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and this group was transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency by implementation of the National Security Act of 1947. Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed from 1945 to 1976 and was recognized in 1954. Both the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese states ceased to exist when they unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. During the August Revolution following World War II, Vietnamese communist revolutionary Hồ Chí Minh, leader of the Việt Minh Front, declared independence on 2 September 1945, announcing the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The Việt Minh ("League for the Independence of Vietnam"), led by communists, was created in 1941 and designed to appeal to a wider population than the Indochinese Communist Party could command. From the very beginning, the DRV regime sought to consolidate power by purging other nationalist movements. Meanwhile, France moved in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base
The Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Navy Base (NKP), formerly ''Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base'', is a Royal Thai Navy facility used for riverine patrols along the Mekong River. It is approximately 587 km (365 miles) northeast of Bangkok, 14.5 km (9 miles) west of Nakhon Phanom city in Nakhon Phanom Province in the northeastern region of Thailand, and 411 km (256 miles) from Hanoi in Vietnam. The Mekong River is NKP's border with Laos. The airfield at NKP is jointly used as a civilian airport. History Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Navy Base was established in the 1950s as a RTAF base. The civil war inside Laos and fears of it spreading into Thailand led the Thai government to allow the United States to covertly use five Thai bases beginning in 1961 for the air defence of Thailand and to fly reconnaissance flights over Laos. Under Thailand's "gentleman's agreement" with the United States, Royal Thai Air Force Bases used by the USAF were considered Royal Thai Air ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Steel Tiger
Operation Steel Tiger was a covert U.S. 2nd Air Division, later Seventh Air Force and U.S. Navy Task Force 77 aerial interdiction effort targeted against the infiltration of People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) men and material moving south from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV or North Vietnam) through southeastern Laos to support their military effort in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) during the Vietnam War. The operation was initiated by the 2nd Air Division on 3 April 1965, continued under the direction of the Seventh Air Force when that headquarters was created on 1 April 1966, and had a subsidiary operation code-named Operation Tiger Hound. The purpose of ''Steel Tiger'' was to impede the flow of men and materiel on the enemy logistical routes collectively known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail (the Truong Son Strategic Supply Route to the North Vietnamese). Bombing of the trail system had begun on 14 December 1964 with the advent of Operation Barrel Roll. Due to in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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