Embedded Files
Preparing to fly an air-to-air photo assignment in a F-100 Super Sabre with the 35th Tactical Fighter Wing at Phan Rang Air Base in Vietnam in 1970. I was using a Graflex medium format camera for this mission and I'm wearing "g-suit" chaps that would automatically inflate when pulling out of a steep dive to prevent blacking out.
The images on this page were taken when I was a U.S. Air Force combat photographer in Southeast Asia between April 1970 and December 1971. As official USAF photographs they are in the public domain and as such are also in the Creative Commons. High-resolution original photos (without watermarks) are available from the National Archives in Washington, DC. If the resized images on this page are used in other locations, please credit as watermarked. To see images from a return visit to Vietnam in 2006 click here.
An RF-4C Phantom of the 460th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing prepares to take off at sunset from Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon in 1970.
A 460th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing RF-4C Phantom is preflighted for a night mission in 1970. The glass ports for the aircraft's cameras are visible on the nose. This was a 5-second time exposure with a remote flash from the side so as to not affect the pilot's night vision.
An aircraft mechanic takes a smoke break outside the revetments at Tan Son Nhut Air base in 1970. These airmen worked very long hours to keep the planes repaired and in the air.
A formation of F-100s of the 35th Tactical Fighter Wing fly over the ancient Cham temple south of their base at Phan Rang. The temple is a key tourist attraction in the area today.
Army grunts load into a C-7 Caribou transport at Tan Son Nhut Air Base for an airlift to fighting in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
An army tank driver near the Cambodian border. Note the message above the gun and the helicopter reflected in his sunglasses.
A motion picture (mopic) crew from the 600th Photo Squadron prepares to shoot some footage in Pleiku in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. At left is motion picture photographer Sgt. Steve Lachance, motion picture officer Capt. Rick Vaughnes is in the center, and at right in back is motion picture photographer Sgt. Jeff Mitton. Note the radio at center for ground-to-air communication. Their film cameras were 16 mm. Arriflexes.
An F4-E Phantom of the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing in DaNang heads for a bombing mission on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in northwest Vietnam. The "LA" on the tail indicates that this aircrew is part of the 4th Tactical Fighter Squadron. These photos were taken from the back seat of another F-4. I recently heard from USAF veteran Pete Fontanilla who was the crew chief for this aircraft (tail number 346) while serving in Vietnam at that time. The Internet is a wonderful thing for us Vietnam vets.
The same aircraft in the photo above releases two bombs on an NVA truck park on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the jungle below.
An F4 high above the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam. We were flying inverted to take this photo.
Just after midnight on July 5, 1971, I was literally knocked out of my bunk in DaNang by a huge explosion. The barracks next door had taken a direct hit from a V.C. 140 mm rocket. I grabbed my camera and ran outside to document the attack. Tragically, five airmen died in the attack that night and 38 were wounded. We recently heard from David Tomblin of Wilkinson, West Virginia -- then an aircraft maintenance specialist with the 366th TFW -- who was injured when the rocket landed right next to his bunk area. DaNang Air Base was known as "rocket city" for the number of attacks that occurred there between 1965 and 1973. A summary of these attacks can be found on the Web site of the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing.
The barracks burned to the ground after the rocket attack.
An F4-E turns to land ahead of an approaching storm at DaNang Air Base in northern Vietnam.
It was a dirty, wet, miserable job repairing the aluminum-plated runway under fire at the Khe Sanh marine base in northwestern Vietnam. We lived underground in bunkers with rats for two days while photographing Air Force ground crews who unloaded the C-130 transports and maintained the runways. We gained a new appreciation for these airmen who spent months working under fire at Khe Sanh.
I took this photo of an army paratrooper while documenting the invasion of Cambodia by the Vietnamese army --with the assistance of U.S. troops. President Nixon denied the next day that there were U.S. troops on the ground in Cambodia, so these photos were never released.
As the number of U.S. combat troops in Vietnam was reduced in 1971, efforts were made to shift more of the fighting to the Vietnamese army. This photo was taken during an airborne assault by Vietnamese troops into a hot LZ northwest of Saigon.
This photo was taken of a Vietnamese Air Force pilot flying an A-37 on a ground support mission.
A Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) A-37 drops a bomb on a position near Bien Hoa in 1971.
This fisheye photo was taken at the end of the runway at U-Tapao Air Base in Thailand as we filmed a B-52 returning from a mission landing right over our heads. Shortly after this photo was taken we were escorted to the base commander by the air police. It seems that someone had failed to tell the B-52 pilots that we would be filming at this location and some were a bit upset seeing us in the approach area. "SNAFU" is a key military term that describes this lapse in communication -- this is one level below "FUBAR."
Another fisheye photo I took that day of a B-52 landing over our heads. My hearing was permanently impaired by excessive noise exposure to loud jet engines during the war (without adequate ear protection).
B-52 ground crew members stand near their aircraft under dramatic skies near the Gulf of Thailand. We spent two days at U-Tapao photographing operations there, but did not have the opportunity to fly in one of these enormous planes.
Portrait of the photographer as a young man in a Huey in 1970. I was new to the Combat Documentation (ComDoc) team and my uniform shows it. The camera was a new Nikon F2 and I was as green in combat photography as the camera.
600th Photo Squadron photographer Bill Diebold took this image in 1971 of a young Vietnamese girl intrigued by what I was photographing in a temple in Saigon. Bill was the primary photographer for the 7th Air Force News in 1970-71. Personal photo of Bill Diebold -- I found this image by chance online in 2006 and re-connected with Bill.
In front of the 600th Photo Squadron compound at Tan Son Nhut Air Base with good friend U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard Life. He attended high school with my brother Skip, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, and made a career in naval intelligence. He now lives in Fort Collins and is active in state and local veterans affairs. See a recent photo of Richard here.
To say the least, the war was a tragic time for most Vietnamese -- south and north -- and this photo of an elderly woman selling cigarettes in downtown Saigon in 1970 captures that sadness.
At the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington in 2007, my son P.J. marks the name of Airman First Class Frederick R. Neef, 600th Photo Squadron photographer killed in Vietnam. Fred was one week away from his 19th birthday when his plane went down on November 27, 1970. May he and the other 58,194 veterans named here rest in peace...
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Click here to see images taken on a visit to Vietnam in 2006.
Please email if you can provide additional information about these photos and the people in them.
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