CIA Secret Airline

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hello I'm Arthur Kent welcome to history undercover it was an airline shrouded in secrecy for a quarter century air America flew on the front lines of the Cold War owned and operated by the CIA our program uncovers the history of air america as revealed by the pilots and crew members who were sworn to secrecy for decades they were assigned a dangerous missions in China Laos and Vietnam missions from which many never returned the program's producer a narrator is Monte Markham a man with a very personal connection to this little-known story join us as history undercover presents air America the CIA secret airline in April of 1975 millions of Americans watched in shock and dismay as images of the fall of Saigon flashed across their television screens I'm Mari Markham I was at home in California watching all of this on TV when the phone rang it was my brother Jess calling from Saigon the call was very brief but long enough to learn that mortar shells were landing nearby what he was doing there is a story that few even in my own family understood much less the American public jess hadn't been among the ranks of the US military or humanitarian aid personnel stationed of Southeast Asia he was a civilian airline captain flying for what had been one of the largest commercial airline operations in the world Air America for all Jess had told us he'd spent the last nine years in a job that paid very well and provided many opportunities for what he calls some incredibly intense and demanding flying in very exotic locations and that's really all we knew and it was pretty much the same with Air America itself until decades after closing its doors in 1975 and until enough time had passed for its pilots and personnel to feel free to break the silence surrounding their extraordinary missions and to finally be able to claim their rightful place in aviation history the pilots who flew for Air America were a breed apart a unique fraternity of professional aviators who were routinely called upon to perform the kind of flying that was beyond the capabilities of most pilots very professional people on there but they were wild too I mean you know I mean you don't find a normal citizen that is willing to go out and fly a slow airplane let somebody shoot at him to make a living the guts the brains ratio must reach the Infinity for somebody did this kind of crap for a living they were a long way from being at a modulus group yet they usually had several things in common dentally present was admit one a natural love for flying a love of adventure coupled with a very strong degree of Pride and being able to do what very few others in their profession could do and it certainly was some old-fashioned patriotism these same qualities had been displayed throughout Air America's history it's a story that stretches back all the way to World War two the activities of the man who founded Air America's predecessor civil air transportable cat he was a charismatic firebrand affectionately known by his pilots as old leather face Claire Chennault his appearance belied his personality he looked rough and tough as hell but he was not at all and he's very quiet I've never heard him raise his voice in anger I guess to a certain extent he was an average and so were we never in the sense that he with a lot of the military brass as far as tactics were concerned in those days and he had his own theory of how pursuit aviation should be used channels disagreements with his superiors caused him to leave the US Army Air Corps in the 1930s and travel to China where he took a position as a military advisor to Chinese leader Chiang kai-shek the Chinese were in the midst of a war with the invading Japanese and should all quickly organize an unofficial unit of US combat pilots to aid the war effort they recall the American volunteer AVG but would become best known by the popular nickname the Flying Tigers the AVG people were individuals who were a little more adventurous than others later would go on and join companies like CAT and air America not your traditional airline pilot someone who is looking for adventure in a exotic corner of the world to make a little money and occasionally to hazard their lives there America to me it was a dream job I wanted to fly for cat I wanted to be a flying tiger I wanted to be part of the AVG I grew up with that I bought every book they ever wrote about tional he was always my hero and I always thought you know you were born too late head you should have been one of the Flying Tigers after world war ii should all decided to stay in china to start a private company called civil air transport staffed with some of the pilots would flown with Chenal during the war cat began operation in 1847 but by year's end civil war had broken out between the communist rebels of mount satan and the nationalist government of chiang kai-shek CAD quickly became heavily involved in the war moving nationalist troops and supplies throughout the country when the Communists won in 1949 Kath moved to a new home on Taiwan along with the Nationalists and by 1950 although Chennault was still chairman of the board Kath had a new owner as well the CIA the transition had been a quiet one known to only a few top executives Chennault had needed more money to keep the airline afloat and the CIA needed control of a civilian company with aircraft that could be used to perform covert missions there's a gray area policy between doing nothing and sending in the military and this is where the CIA and organizations like c80 and Air America fit in it's called in the intelligent lexicon plausible deniability and the idea was that these are ostensibly commercial companies that not under the control of the United States government and if they perform actions that might embarrass the United States government they can be denied the CIA's new secret Air Arm saw its first action just a few years later during the war in Korea we would make flights that were over the mainland of China hauling supplies and so forth two agents who had been dropped or were being dropped into the mainland of China wearing one of these operations at the c-47 involved in this was shut down the two pilots involved were killed in the crash Bob snotty and norm shorts it wouldn't be the last time that cat or Air America pilots were lost in action spring 1954 Communist Viet Minh guerrillas have a french army garrison surrounded @dn bien phu in northwestern vietnam Denman Phu was in a valley why the French chose such an indefensible position I don't understand they were wrong by any aircraft and ground forces the French needed help I can our would-be Buckton commit US forces CIA was given the job and cat with the vehicle the c-119 spawned by civil air transport crews was their lifeline from the outside it was a extremely dangerous difficult purely military type of flying that if it had been done by military and most of the pilots were to receive decorations for what they did we would die down right to the ground practically and depending what morale was dropping at maybe 100 feet or 200 feet at the most and then immediately go to take off power and circle back up until we were safe altitude it was doing that period of time as we continued to circle we were always as the C's ground on many cat transports were seriously damaged by enemy fire one plane piloted by the legendary earthquake mcgoon was lost with its entire crew yet cat pilots kept flying day after day as the Viet Minh News continued to tighten around the beleaguered French garrison finally on May 7th 1954 the French surrendered the fall of DnB and Phu brought an end to a century of French colonial presence in Indochina essentially it became the end of the French era and the beginning of an American era and it began very small 1955 with a few CIA agents and economic aid mission but it began to grow and grow and grow over the next two decades pilots from the CIA civilian airline would carry on and the courageous traditions established in the skies over Manchuria DnB and who these would only be harbingers the many harrowing missions yet to come in 1959 the CIA secret airline began operating under a new name Air America even though it had developed a thriving public business giving all the appearances of a very successful commercial operation the CIA was still its best customer from the beginning pilots particularly those who were involved in the covert operation side of the flying that were aware that they were at least working for the Central Intelligence Agency there was no attempt ever to disguise this the secret was the ownership of the company and there was only a handful a dozen people perhaps out of several hundred that would know that the company was in fact owned by the Central Intelligence Agency the largest operation undertaken by air America was the secret war in Laos which was largely a byproduct of the war in neighboring Vietnam a particular interest to American strategists was North Vietnam's principal supply route into South Vietnam the Ho Chi Minh Trail an ever-changing network of roads and mountain trails which cross many times and allows in northern Laos the North Vietnamese met fierce resistance from an army of guerrilla fighters whose ranks were predominantly from a hill tribe called the Mayo but who call themselves the Hmong under their leader vang Pao the Hmong were fighting a valiant but unsuccessful battle to protect their homeland the United States saw the Hmong as being able to act as surrogates in terms of not having to introduce American troops into the area so the Central Intelligence Agency gave them on training and modern arms thus guerrilla army of monoprice men was going to be supported in their mountaintop bases by an aerial network of air america helicopters and short takeoff and landing airplanes before the war the technologically undeveloped Monde hunted with beautifully handcrafted flintlock rifles and few of them had ever even seen an airplane let alone written in one in just a few years however there were Mon pilots flying ground attack aircraft and troops fighting the Communists with modern weapons which US military advisors and CIA case officers carried by Air America aircraft at trained them to use at the height of the project there were near forty thousand Hmong and other tribal irregular troops and it's safe to say that the bulk of their logistical support in every respect was handled by air America the landscape in Laos was as unique as the war itself the North was extremely rugged and spiked with towering limestone Peaks called karsts broken only by a verdant rolling plateau in the center called the Plain of Jars so named for the huge ceramic burial urns left there by an ancient culture the weather was as difficult as the terrain combining to create some of the most difficult flying conditions in the world it was a very hazardous environment a lot of our airplanes were shot down but a lot of the airplanes were lost operationally due to the weather and the terrain we were flying in some of the rugged history on the plant louses mountains and rivers and valleys heavily jungle and it had what we call a rainy season a dry season and a smoky seas and all three presented their own set of problems the Hmong were slash-and-burn farmers which means that they would cut the vegetation down then light it fire to clear it and it would be smoke everywhere so you can we see straight down we didn't have any flight navigation system there was no beacons to fly to it so the only thing you could do is memorize the landscape and fly by looking straight down and seeing where you work I used to fly with a stopwatch around my neck and I would set my power so I'd fly exactly two miles a minute and I would know if I had to go sixteen miles east I'd hit my watch and eight minutes later I'd make my turn to my next course I might be flying at 7,000 feet with a eight or nine thousand foot peak on both sides of a solid instrument she finally you'd let down through the clouds and hopefully rather than pale yourself in the side of a hill you come out over the DZ the lack of electronic aids on the ground and the Spartan equipment in their planes meant that the pilots had to use this same basic method of navigation even when the weather was clear we navigated the old-fashioned way dead reckoning navigation and pilots dead reckoning being you would work out your true course in your magnetic course on a map rarely could we maintain a having any great deal of time because our fic which is our flight information center what advises we're bad areas were with anti-aircraft missiles certainly and so quite often we would have to make many detours in order to build one so we're dr2 a given point and we are to another point and then we'd D are to another point to get what we're going then you circle around and hopefully find a hole down there and you could find your favorite rock or your favorite tree that you remembered from the last time and spiral on down and get underneath the clouds and find the strip that you were going to once at their landing site the problems didn't end the enemy could be anywhere and everywhere with the situation changing on almost a daily basis the unarmed air America cargo planes and helicopters often had to run a gauntlet of enemy fire just to land it was crucial to keep the turnaround times at drop zones to an absolute minimum pilots were always prepared for hasty departures all of the arms and ammunition food supplies medical supplies anything else that had to be moved their American carrying the wall for us how we haul everything from live animals that were strapped down kicking the the cows and the steers and live chickens the worst I think were the loads of chickens and because they stunk so bad they would carry virtually anything and everything as the motto was anything anywhere anytime some cargos could be parachuted onto landing sites others like banks of rice could simply be dropped out of an airplane flying relatively low and slow both these jobs required split-second timing and perfect coordination between the pilot and kicker the crewmen in charge of pushing the cargo out of the airplane many of these individuals recruited from the local population one day one of my friend told me that air may guard they need the key curve and the loop master replaced tire and flipping people so they did Laos employee put in the company so that's the first time we get a job with air America it was a job that often exposed the kicker's to unique hazards the danger falling out of course is great but more than that the danger of being shot is great because when people are shooting at the airplane generally they hit way back in the back of the airplane when they're aiming so the kicker I believe took more ground fire than the other crew member missions requiring vertical lift capability were carried out by helicopter but the bulk of the flying in Laos was handled by stole aircraft stalled as an acronym for short takeoff and landing an air America single-engine Helio couriers and Pilatus porters could operate from rugged mountain strips that were no more than 400 feet long these remarkable airplanes quickly became indispensable pilots their aircraft literally became the extensions of the case officers they served as often the only link other than air drops between the CIA case officers murder regulars they were trying to support they carried small amounts of supplies they carried people back and forth and of great importance they carry communications larger planes like the de Havilland caribou in the c-123 were used on longer landing strips but even these were short by normal standards we would land on 123 loaded offloaded and take off empty out of 69 feet that's the 60,000 of their points that I was very very sure the pilots who flew these planes came from all across America William and receive ik who arrived at Laos in 1961 personally directed the opening of a hundred and forty stole strips and some of the most rugged terrain airplanes have ever operated we'd always try to arrange him this way and so that when we landed you'd be landing uphill and you slowed down quite fast and the idea was that when you come in and land it when you're able to get to the top of the strip you turn around because sometimes were under fire sometimes you had to get out of there quickly however one of the problems that occur in that type of construction was the fact that you couldn't go around in other words the side of the hill was here the strip was this way and so if you had a problem when you were coming in with really bad winds he couldn't take away voucher go around so much you were committed to the land we had the land the 1964 edy Dearborn took over the helio program and continue the job address epic had begun I did a lot of site projects where I would go in by helicopter the customer pick on say look there's a village down there looks like it's got a nice piece of ground on it if the billy just friendly towards us we'll go ahead and get them to hack out a Helio Courier strip so I go in there and I tell them through an interpreter just exactly how long we wanted this trip how wide how it had to be compacted and you couldn't have a strip with tree stumps sticking out of the middle of it which happened a couple of times they say well we did everything you said yeah it's got tree stumps out that won't work airplane can't land on tree stone so we do all this and then when a radio back say well we think we're all set we come in we take a look at it and if it was good I'd bring it here and give it a try and that's how they'd set them up these air strips were called lima sites the company's term for Laotian sacs each one was assigned a number the largest was longcheng also known as 20 alternate the headquarters of vang Pao and his army and a huge air American CIA complex this dirt strip quickly became one of the world's busiest airports the runway at Long Cheng was challenging but other Lima sites are even more hazardous and Air America pilots had to perform some of those difficult flying ever accomplished simply to land and take off to 1/3 is the steepest strip I'll better see the strip anybody's ever landed on but it was a steepest steepest incline stripping Laos it's 13 degrees uphill it bends in the middle and there's a hump in the middle and that was the first strip I landed at so you actually you have to come in below the strip and fly up and land going up now a baptism of fire my first landing in Laos and the captain flight operations in and out of these remote and hazardous Lima sites would take their toll more than one air America plane crashed trying to make a low-level drop or an impossible landing or takeoff off and under enemy fire many of these pilots and crews did not survive perhaps to compensate for the everyday dangers they faced many Air America pilots tried to make their life on the ground as normal as possible it was very common for the pilots to have their families there particularly the pilots who flew at a dorm in Thailand and there was a thriving Air America community there with their own school and the transportation almost of a small American town to the wilds of northern Thailand he went to war in the morning you fought your war during the day and you got home in time for supper frequently it was a strange way of life everybody was there for each other I remember it that way I don't remember ever feeling as the dependent that I couldn't go to any one of the air America family when I got married in 1972 in Laos my first set of furniture came from chess Markham in December of 1965 my brother Jes a former Navy pilot living in Gainesville Florida signed up with Air America and was sent to Saigon he first flew a twin-engine stole craft called the Dornier plane wasn't too popular but the other pilots but just like they called it a noble steed he was soon transferred to the NGN Laos where he lived for the next nine years and mostly fly a plane he truly loved called the porter when Jess first arrived in vientiane he and his roommate went to the local catholic mission and hired a young Vietnamese girl Debbie to be their housekeeper he soon introduced Debbie to joy Pomona a Laotian who had been an Air America kicker and was now one of their top traffic managers and joy and Debbie were later married and they'd remained close friends with Jess living there with him in the house and being Jen we had the best time with Jess this Jess loves me like daughter cuz I was 16 so he sent me back school and everything but when he left he makes sure we okay because he doesn't want us to be a myth again like Bangkok Saigon and other Asian cities where Air America pilots were stationed vientiane was also famed for its nightlife and air america pilots did their fair share of fast living yet no matter what they did while off-duty they displayed high standards of professionalism and strict discipline while in the air they pretty well went along with the old saying twelve hours from bottle to throttle the regulation was very clear it was 12 hours between the time that you took a last took of alcoholic beverage until you flew the airplane they had an operations manual and it stated very clearly what he was supposed to do and not do and people were terminated if they did not comply with that and contrary to rumors that persist to this day the people who worked for Air America firmly deny that the company ever condoned any involvement with drugs I must have interviewed over the last 20 years upwards to 300 people pilot's kickers CIA agents mechanics the people who clean the airplanes I have tracked down every story of drugs that I have ever heard about and I have not found any instance of Air America being centrally involved in the drug trade and Laos the Central Intelligence Agency was not involved in the drug trade in Laos Air America was not involved in the drug trade allows either this is the greatest conspiracy of the 20th century far more closely held in the ultra secret of the atomic bomb or there simply is no factual basis for it the average workday of an Air America pilot was long strenuous and full of surprises you never know if an airstrip had fallen into enemy hands the night before on one trip you might be holding rice on the next hard rice the common term for military supplies we would all get our missions for the day from longchamp Air America fly up there in the morning like somebody broke a wasp's nest you'd see all these weird kinds of airplanes helio couriers and porters and twin otters and field copters is just as sending a cluster on longevity we might start out with air drops starting relatively early in the morning late in the afternoon we might be making landings that stole strips flying end troops or evacuating one bringing in heavy equipment every day is a challenge you had to figure out how to get that job done so I'm gonna give you a request to move this pick that up blue these people over there you'd have to figured out how to do it yourself I can be proud of yourself at night when you come back you had done a good job it'd be a different challenge was faced by the pilots who were involved in the type of top secret flights known in the intelligence community as black ops almost everybody at one time another had flown special project missions of some type or another where they were briefed and told maintain secrecy and a lot of times you really didn't even know what the project was you to go to a certain place and accomplish a certain thing if you didn't have a need to know you didn't ask any questions air america actually was responsible for getting 24-hour day monitoring of the phone lines out of hanoi during the entire peace talks in paris and every night this information was coded and sent down to just mag in bangkok back to Washington and to Kissinger one of the most dangerous and heroic missions flown by air America pilots was that of search and rescue or SAR the job wasn't made any easier by the fact that the aircraft they flew were completely unarmed even the pilots were discouraged from carrying weapons until later in the war the major initial involvement for American search and rescue came in 1964 in 1965 the United States Air Force simply didn't have the search-and-rescue assets capability at that particular time so Air America was called upon to fly very very long-range very hazardous searching rescue operations into the northwestern part of North Vietnam we do search and rescue for our own aircraft too and everybody went out on a search and rescue I mean when somebody was missing or somebody was down or somebody didn't make it home that night then you've mounted a full-blown effort to find the pilot or the crew despite the best efforts of the pilots given the difficult nature of the terrain and the ferocity of enemy fire losses were inevitable we think what happened was along with the hostile fire on the ground the weather conditions that the vortex or the wake of the Twin Otter ahead of him caused enough turbulence during the turn and at a high pitch and high rate of speed that he also had to have been in a stall position left wing touched cars plane toppled and he was killed for the families of Air America pilots and crewmen who were killed during black ops even the small comfort of knowing how or even where their loved ones had died was denied them they simply disappeared never to be heard from again secret casualties in a secret war that was even now moving into the harsh glare of another more visible conflict Vietnam air America started flying in South Vietnam in 1965 when US combat troops were first introduced into the country but the air America operation in South Vietnam remained very small compared to Laos and its assignments were primarily administrative at least at first it's on our day for extremely long longest day I ever flew into Saigon for 12 hours straight 12 hours on and I was delivering pest trips the real war was up in Laos real rush for air America was concerned everybody wanted to go to Laos work somehow all that changed with the Tet Offensive of 1968 the combined total of 50,000 enemy troops launched multi-pronged attacks deep into South Vietnam with US air assets stretched to the breaking point Air America rush to fill the gap that was pretty pretty hairy down we were evacuating Americans all over the Delta that had been overrun if we went into a place and he was wounded anybody I mean whether it is American military one of our customers or Vietnamese now even some it at the same time North Vietnam also began pouring reinforcements it allows eventually raising their total strength to sixty-seven thousand troops by mid march of 1968 the Communists were poised to push the Hmong out of their mountaintop bases surrounding the Plain of Jars after a period of retrenchment bang pow launched a major offensive against the Communists in 1971 but it was repulsed with heavy losses drained by years of constant warfare the Hmong were now near the breaking point towards the end there were very few young men we did our best to keep the 13 and 14 year olds out of the out of the line but they did show up and there was just a terrible and tragic loss of young man in the Hmong nation for all practical purposes most of the generation of Hmong was destroyed the Paris peace agreements of 1973 called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Vietnam and the establishment of a coalition government in Laos On June 3rd 1974 the last of Air America's planes and Laos quietly crossed the border into Thailand but not before they had evacuated over a hundred and fifty thousand Hmong to refugee camps the airline's last days in South Vietnam would be considerably more dramatic April 1975 chaos spread across the city as the North Vietnamese army began to close in on Saigon fortunately as the u.s. 7th fleet arrived off the coast for the final evacuation of South Vietnam a team of veteran Air America pilots were still in the country we're working our Saigon we still ran our operations for whatever the customer the customer required of us it wasn't until I would say maybe a week or two before the evacuation began that we realized that we're getting near the end of the operation when air america closed down its operations and laos just went to work for the defense attache office in saigon during the chaos and confusion of those final days orphans of all ages were busted at the saigon airport and loaded onto large transports for evacuation as just assisted in the loading of one of these planes his leg was broken in the crush South Vietnamese civilians and soldiers fighting to get on board tragically the huge plane crashed on takeoff killing most of the orphans and escort crewmen just continued working in evacuation operations in Saigon as the situation rapidly deteriorated the shock to all of us in the States was that after the peace settlement and the withdrawal of US troops we thought there simply be an orderly transfer of power at the North Vietnamese changed all that they were coming in his conference with bombs and Porter's it was all being carried on American television that's when I received my first call from Jes it was surreal I'm watching the end of the Vietnam War on television and talking to Jes and evacuation headquarters in Saigon on April 29th all hell broke loose when the North Vietnamese army rolled into the outskirts of Saigon as far as helicopter concern our ignition was to pick up personnel in Saigon at designated locations and transfer them either to the dao or take him out to the shifts that were anchored out in the South China Sea onboard the carriers the decks became quickly crowded with South Vietnamese Army and Air Force helicopters carrying refugees that were not part of the official evacuation soon ships became so jammed that with nowhere to land choppers began ditching into the sea this led to the decision to begin pushing the excess South Vietnamese choppers overboard to make more room on deck one of the ditch chocolates belong to Air America some of our pilots putting flying I said I was going to continue to fly the rest of the day so we did for another pilot to come in I took his aircraft during that period of time they've Kendall ditched his helicopter into the sea and they first they brought him into the ship and he decided heck Larry said if you're going back into Vietnam I'm going with you so the tool was piled in the next helicopter kept on flying later on in the afternoon April the 29th I would say four or five o'clock that's when it seemed like all control was lost as far as the evacuation was concerned those are the times the party helicopter would get the crowded and people who tried forced their way in these people just wanted to get out of Vietnam during one of the last flights of the evacuation a photographer snapped a picture that communicated the bitter final moment of the Vietnam war with searing clarity indeed the most dramatic photo that come out of the end of the war in Vietnam is an Air America helicopter atop the Pittman apartments that with CIA agent Obie carnage reaching his hand down to help people onto the helicopter but like most things having to do with the war I think the overwhelming number of American people think that this was an Air Force helicopter on top of the US embassy it wasn't and thus ended one of the most tragic and controversial chapters in US history and Air America had been there every step of the way although the role of Air America officially ended with the fall of Saigon CIA sponsored Air America activity didn't barely two weeks later the CIA coordinated an aerial evacuation of general vang Pao's headquarters at Long Cheng after nearly 15 years of defending their homeland the Hmong feared brutal reprisals by the communists as Laos would certainly be the next default in the wake of Saigon of the thousands that managed to escape an air america refugee air lives tens of thousands more fled into the harsh jungles of northern laos hoping to make it to the safety of thailand today some 200-thousand mom live in the united states and bang pow was still one of their most respected leaders at a recent gathering in sacramento california he was honored by some of the surviving members of his Laotian army and their families many other Southeast Asians who were involved with air America also left Laos to start a new life in the United States the time I left Omega I thought I was safe I never thought the company could have come took over like that but when they come so quick and so fast and we talk about self hey the kids still young so that we think about our family safety so that's why we left the country we got to Gainesville Florida it's a Labor Day weekend 1975 the first one we contact by what Jessie Markham and Jessie bought us black and white TV be so happy that first TV we got ever I think that was the best decision ever that we made it became here and cut education for the kid has start a new life Joe and Debbie have maintained a very close relationship with our family and 25 years later they founded four very successful businesses in Gainesville Florida the two daughters who college and have recently built a second home in Thailand just across the border from their former homes in Laos the pilots of era merica had their own paths to tread after the war in Southeast Asia some gave up flying altogether and some were called upon again by the CIA for a number of special operations former Air America pilots were involved in the ill-fated project to supply arms to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua in the 1980's Air America pilots flew interesting projects all over the world they flew in Africa the Middle East we had a lot of helicopter pilots around up in Iran right up and pull the Shah left in the ayatollah showed up some of much sand for the oil industry a number of them went for the pipeline project in alaska which was a challenging blind job they're getting long in the tooth but they're safe eighteen hours after the fall of Saigon we received word that jeff's had made it out to a US carrier over the next few years he'd leave his home in Florida and be gone for periods of time for what he would call some interesting flying we didn't ask where he got her but he'd been doing because we knew that he couldn't then wouldn't say we never did it was part of the job in July of 1982 he flew out of Florida in a small plane and never returned several months later after many calls and contacts dead ends we finally received word from the old friend of Jesse's that he'd heard unofficially that he gotten where he was supposed to go and done what he was supposed to do I just didn't make it back just often said that his years with Air America were the best flying the most exciting rewarding times of his life they never found anything else that even came close and that's about the same thing I've heard from every pilot who ever flew for Air America because they were civilians the names of the pilots and crews who lost their lives while working for cat or Air America are not listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC but a memorial with the names of all 242 cat Air America personnel killed in Asia was erected and dedicated in 1987 at the University of Texas in Dallas which is also the home of the cat air America archives a speech made at the ceremony by then CIA director William Colby constituted the first official public recognition of the people who worked for these extraordinary organizations they are a unique group they did things that the Marine pilots wouldn't do the Navy pilots wouldn't do Air Force pilots wouldn't do they flew in conditions that nobody else would fly in and did it successfully and saved uncounted lives their contribution could from that point on in their minds be part of the public record and that must have been for them a tremendous sense of relief I'm pleased with my work there I'm pleased with what we did there yes I have a question in my mind whether the work that we did there as far as the policy was concerned was the right thing to do I think everybody does but for what we were charged to do we did it very professionally err America was the high point of my life I think we all call it the air America experience and it wasn't any one thing it's hard to put your finger on it was our families living over there our children being raised in these exotic countries the comradery or the comradeship that we had the professionalism and the flying the fact that you were doing an extraordinary job under very difficult circumstances but you were living a real adventure which remembers adventure it was an adventure that we wouldn't trade for anything I wouldn't trade it for money I wouldn't trade it for power I wouldn't trade it for anything that you have it was something that I wanted to do and I had to do and I enjoyed doing and I look back at it now and I think it was a job well done accomplishment the Cold War is ended and many of the conflicts it sparked seem more inscrutable and nebulous with every passing year but the everyday dangers faced by the man who flew for cat and air America were very real indeed evaluations of the political climates in which they serve may evolve with the changing winds of history the achievements of this unique group of Flyers undeniably reached the highest levels of dedication skill and courage it's a legacy that fully lives up to their motto anything anytime anywhere professionally former employees of Air America are now engaged in another campaign they're petitioning the post office to issue a new stamp dedicated to the men and women who worked for the airline they even know precisely which picture should adorn the stamp the helicopter evacuating desperate refugees in the final days of the Vietnam War it's an image laced with heroism against all odds as symbol for Air America itself you Oh

Info

Channel: Dune Buggy

Views: 926,655

Rating: 4.6592331 out of 5

Keywords: spies, spy, espionage, Cold War, communist, infiltration, KGB, CIA, documentary, history, Air America, Vietnam War, airplanes, airline

Id: 5qzCJrfTgms

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 45min 43sec (2743 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 15 2016

Reddit Comments

I really like this documentary about the role Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr played in the CIAs Air America operations during Vietnam.

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/Roadrowed 📅︎︎ Dec 28 2016 🗫︎ replies

Unbelievable fluff piece about the handling of logistics in illegal secret warfare. Truly remarkable in it's denial. Patriotic shit show.

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/cineradar 📅︎︎ Dec 28 2016 🗫︎ replies

No history channel no

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/abzze 📅︎︎ Dec 28 2016 🗫︎ replies

Is this the one where they drop the elephant into Colombia to take down the cartel or something?

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/keyboardbuddhist 📅︎︎ Dec 28 2016 🗫︎ replies

Name: Air America - The CIA's Secret Airline

Duration: 45 minutes

Release Date: 12 Jun 2000

Description: Examining Air America, the civilian airline secretly owned by the Central Intelligence Agency. Included: the CIA's clandestine war in Southeast Asia. Host: Arthur Kent.

TV Guide

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/peskypotato 📅︎︎ Dec 28 2016 🗫︎ replies

Wow. Truth about the Saigon image. Wow again.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/Everetarln 📅︎︎ Dec 28 2016 🗫︎ replies

I knew one of the guys that helped launch the Flying Tigers/AA. He went on to become Station Chief in Asia.

Curious how close our government is with big Pharmaceutical? He was the President of Sterling/Bayer Asia. It was a title only. He really was an on the ground agent. Raised children in Asia and married a lady who was undercover in Asia for the FBI.

His story's are interesting. He signed up to join the Marines and was recruited by Chennault. Together they helped set up Twain as a major manufacturing hub. .

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/dogmadisk 📅︎︎ Dec 28 2016 🗫︎ replies