Base Sqn RAAF Ubon
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The base support personnel were posted from units in Australia but the Sabres, aircrew and maintenance crews were drawn from No 78 Fighter Wing based at Butterworth in Malaysia. The Wing consisted of No.'s 3 and 77 Fighter Squadrons and No. 478 Maintenance Squadron. Attachments for ground crew were normally of eight weeks duration and they traveled from Butterworth on the fortnightly Hercules supply flight that staged through Butterworth. The Squadron’s primary role was the air defense of the area and to achieve this two Sabres armed with 30mm HE ammunition and AIM-9B Sidewinders were on the ORP during daylight hours with a two minute alert time.
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As the war in Vietnam intensified a large build up of the base was undertaken by the USAF and eventually it became a major F-4 operating facility with many visiting aircraft. By this time the RAAF had established a more permanent camp with accommodation and recreation amenities on one side of the runway and a maintenance hangar and aircraft keyways on the other. To maintain a constant state of readiness the two ORP aircraft were usually scrambled at least once per day and guided to intercept homecoming Phantoms by ground radar, quite a few newby F4 pilots got a big fright when they thought they had been bounced by a MiG.
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Russ Ballinger was a member of the communications section at Ubon. He was a Radio Mechanic Ground and assisted in keeping the HF transmitter shack working. He assesses the
Base Sqn as basically providing all the services not involving aircraft ie. HQ, admin, messing, accommodation, fire services, police, base security, chaplain, medical & dental, cinema, Airmen's, Sergeants & Officers recreational facilities, etc etc. All the mundane stuff that keeps a base running, nothing exciting really. |
During the six years the squadron was at Ubon its personnel participated in many civil aid programs designed to help the local Thai community and were very popular with them. Terry Malligan says "I was attached to RAAF Ubon Ratchathani in November 1967 and was
there until May 1968. I was only out of RAAF School of Radio 15 months this was an eye opener for a boy overseas, single and 21! Only problem at that time at Ubon was 5000
Yanks and 3 squadrons of F4D's flying 24/7 as it was Tet 1968. I counted 32 F4's taking off from where we sat to watch the movies in our open air cinema. (I now have an hearing aid) As you can imaging without going into to much detail a good time was had by all our blokes when they were not working. lots of scrapes and mischief".
Vittorio (Vic) Carbone also served on the base
says "My first impression when I looked at Ubon, my home for the next six months was that it looked like a stalag camp as seen in war time movies and not unlike scenes from the ‘Indiana Jones’ movies. Concrete pathways led everywhere, to the airmen's blocks, the ablutions area, Airmen’s mess area and in between the huts to the camouflaged sand bagged bomb shelters. A ten foot barbed wire fencing surrounded the whole unit and in between the living blocks were the bomb shelters, sandbag bunkers, usually sheltering snakes and spiders. There were corrugated iron clad huts, quite quaint in a tropical environment and greenery, high scream jet noises and a very busy flight strip. The first words spoken to me once we had all alighted from the CI30 was the Base WOD (Warrant Officer Disciplinary) telling me to "get a haircut", nothing like stamping your authority and creating a first impression and all of this in the first 5 days of my married life without my wife and in a strange environment and in a different country. The heat and smells were quite alien to me. In the first ten minutes we, the new arrivals, were subjected to an information overload with the usual do’s and don’ts which was to become part of my job description during my tour at Ubon".
The unit was disbanded in August 1968 with the base support staff returning to Australia and the squadron members to their parent units at Butterworth.
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