Puzzle of the Day

Vĩnh Khanh Street, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

I looked up Vinh Khanh Street, Cafe Mad Dog and the Havy Hotel on Google Maps, but none delivered a street scene quite like this.

Merry Christmas

USO Christmas Show-Long Binh, Vietnam 1970
borntowander

55 years ago. Hard to imagine. Things were rapidly going downhill.

Via Bravo Blue

Big Long-tail Boats

Thailand Long-tail boat VS Vietnam Long-tail boat เครื่องV8 ถือหางอย่างโหด ใบพัดใหญ่จัด!!
Bike Boat Car

Here I was thinking these long-tail boats were just for hot rodding.

Igloo White

DARPA's Little Secrets That Changed The World
Curious Droid

Methinks the American defense industry has been going wild for two long. I dunno but I suspect much of that $35 trillion debt we are carrying was incurred to pay for all the wars we've been involved in since WW2.

Infiltration Surveillance Center (ISC) at NKP RTAFB

Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base

Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star

Lockheed OP-2E Neptune of VO-67

Lots of stories about Igloo White out there.

Tuol Sleng

Tuol Sleng Sign - Tom Clifford

Stolen entire from The Geopolitics.

Year Zero’s Legacy: Confronting the Horrors of Tuol Sleng by Tom Clifford

It was a bad sign. Not in the sense of omens of misfortune. Just a bad sign. It gave the name of the place I was looking for, but it was not at the correct location. Beside the sign, at a crossroads, was a shop and restaurant. The proprietor, used to giving directions before being asked, pointed 200 yards down the road to my destination … the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum. 

At the entrance kiosk you pay the entrance fee of $10 and get an audio guide to explain, no wrong word*, to present what took place in a former high school in Phnom Penh. On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia. Of the up to 20,000 detained here, there were 7, 12 or 14 confirmed survivors (depending on the sources). In 1979 the Vietnamese kicked out the Khmer Rouge from power though shamefully this murderous organisation was recognised by the US and the UK as the legitimate representatives of the Cambodian people (they controlled a tiny slither of land) until well in the first term of the Clinton presidency. Real politik trumped decency long before the Donald. 

Under the Khmer Rouge about 2 million people from a population of just over 8 million died. They were slaughtered, starved or succumbed to disease as the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot told Cambodians it was Year Zero. Modernity was banned by decree. Reading glasses confirmed the wearer, even if a child, was an intellectual and therefore an enemy of the state. The ability to read or write, meaning the person was educated, was a life-threatening faculty. 

Upon entering the complex 14 white painted slabs come into view. When the Khmer  Rogue abandoned what is also known as S-21 there were 14 prisoners still alive. They were then killed and their bodies cremated. Their remains were found by the Vietnamese and they lie now underneath the white slabs. 

A sign next to the slabs chillingly instructed prisoners how to behave. 

• You must answer accordingly to my question. Don’t turn them away. 
• Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me. 
• Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution. 
• You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect. 
• Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution. 
• While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all. 
• Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting. 
• Don’t make pretext about politics in order to hide your secret or traitor. 
• If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire. 

If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge. 

The jacaranda trees in the central garden offer a respite from this place of tears, as do the coconut palms. They were here when the Khmer Rouge took over and were maintained by them. They were willing and enthusiastic gardeners.  

The former cells, about 1,500 were held here at any one time, have pictures of some of those detained. This was not a death camp though they were condemned as soon as they arrived. Some died, but the priority was to torture prisoners, get “information”, and then transport them to the killing fields around the country. 

The photos on display haunt the viewer as scared, pleading or resigned eyes look out. You want to turn away but bearing witness, especially to those who committed abuses, is crucial.  

About 80 per cent of those held here were Khmer Rouge cadres who had fallen foul of the leadership and had themselves committed atrocities. This was where the revolution, as all revolutions do, devoured itself. 

US bombs were the recruiting officer for the Khmer Rouge. Up to August 1973, the US illegally dropped  2,756,941 bombs on an agrarian society to disrupt the supply route from Cambodia to the North Vietnamese. In the anger and mayhem, Khmer Rouge numbers swelled. Fifty years after the Khmer Rouge came to power, a shopkeeper, selling groceries and canned drinks, gives directions to a former school that is now a symbol of inhumanity.

Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist in Beijing. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

© 2025 The Geopolitics. All rights reserved.

* Grammer note. I suspect the phrase 'no wrong word' in the second paragraph needs an extra comma, like so: 'no, wrong word'.

Little Dieter Needs To Fly

Little Dieter Needs to Fly - Werner Herzog (1997) [Documentary] Watch Free Full Length Online
Josep Svęnnan

This is an amazing film. It's just over an hour long. It chronicles the life and times of one Dieter Dengler, German immigrant, US Navy pilot and Vietnamese prisoner of war. He escapes, which is obvious from the opening scene.

I originally watched the copy posted by YouTube Movies & TV only to find it age-restricted, so you can't embed it. Well, you can, but it won't play anywhere but on YouTube. Then I found this copy and it is not age-restricted, though who knows, YouTube may catch on and slap a restriction on it. Anyway, going by the title and the run time, it's probably the same video I watched. I haven't watched this one yet so I can't say for sure.

There isn't anything visually offensive in the video, but his verbal descriptions of his experiences are horrific.

Dieter flew a Skyraider, which has appeared here before.

Jane Fonda versus LBJ

Mr Garibaldi posts about Los Angeles County declaring Jane Fonda Day to be April 30th, the same day Saigon fell back in 1975. Seems 'members of the Vietnamese community' there are not happy about it.

I was opposed to the war, mostly because I didn't want to get drafted. There wasn't a whole lot patriotic blather around my house. Mostly what I heard was that the South Vietnamese government was corrupt and the bureaucrats in Washington were micromanaging the war effort which was hamstringing our efforts to get the job done. LBJ was the president at the time and I haven't heard anything good about him since, so mostly I blame him for the disaster. Jane Fonda is an actress, so her actions should be regarded as a publicity stunt. Her visit to Vietnam earned her a boatload of vitriol. Well, live by celebrity, die by celebrity. But I got to wondering who is worse, so I asked ChapGPT: 

Is Jane Fonda worse than LBJ?

ChatGPT responds:

It's not particularly productive or fair to compare individuals in terms of being "worse" or "better" without specifying a context or criteria for comparison. Jane Fonda and Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) are two very different figures, each with their own complexities and contributions.

LBJ was the 36th President of the United States, serving during a tumultuous time in American history, particularly with regard to the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. His presidency is often evaluated based on his domestic policies, including the passage of significant civil rights legislation, as well as his handling of the Vietnam War, which remains a subject of intense debate and criticism.

Jane Fonda, on the other hand, is an actress and activist who became known for her opposition to the Vietnam War. She famously visited North Vietnam during the war, leading to controversy and criticism, especially among those who viewed her actions as unpatriotic or disrespectful to American soldiers.

Comparing the actions or impact of these two individuals requires careful consideration of the specific contexts in which they operated and the consequences of their actions. It's also worth noting that perspectives on historical figures can vary widely depending on individual beliefs, values, and interpretations of history.

'intense debate and criticism'. Hmm, imagine that. 

MiG-17

MIKOYAN MiG-17 - Carson Zabel

Shot over Camarillo, California, home of the Southern California Wing of the Confederate, er, Commemorative, Air Force. First flown in 1952, the Soviet Union built 10,000 of them. North Korea still uses them. Wikipedia article here.

 

Bronco Gets New Life

North American Rockwell OV-10 Bronco

Bronco repurposed as a CalFire spotter plane. The Bronco was originally developed as a ground attack aircraft during the Vietnam war.

The Joker and the Thief

The Joker and the Thief
Via The Feral Irishman (NSFW)

Now, where have I heard that line before? Oh yeah, now I remember:

Jimi Hendrix ~ All Along The Watchtower ~ US Navy & Marine Fleet Air ~ Vietnam War
Aurora Borealis

Gulf of Tonkin Incident

Gulf of Tonkin Incident - August 2, 1964 - E. J. Fitzgerald

Who in tarnation is running this show? Did you know that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the one on August 4th, the one that was used as an excuse to get us into war with Vietnam, was bullshit? There had always been rumors that there was something funny about it, but there are always those kinds of rumors about anything. I mean, no matter what happens, like the sun coming up this morning, there are going to be people who are going cast doubt on that event. 

But now I'm reading The Media is the Number One Cause of War Since 1898 by Simon Black on Sovereign Man and I find this:

The United States joined the Vietnam War based on a Gulf of Tonkin skirmish with the North Vietnamese which never actually occurred. But the Johnson administration and intelligence sources said it happened, so the media reported it as fact.

Well, no doubt in his mind, which kind of surprised me. So I go check and according to Wikipedia and History, Simon is correct, the incident was totally made up. There was an incident on August 2 (subject of the painting at top), but it wasn't a war starting event. The incident used as an excuse to start the war supposedly happened on August 4th, except it didn't happen at all.

All of which makes me wonder who is actually calling the shots? Could it be the heads of the big media corporations, people like Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates and George Soros? That makes as much sense as anything.

Via ZeroHedge

Charles Graham Boyd R.I.P.

General Charles G. Boyd

Charles Boyd passed away yesterday at the age of 83. I posting this because he was from my wife's home town of Rockwell City, Iowa. She never met the man, but her brother did. Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training has a 104 page biography. I've read the first dozen pages so far and it's pretty great. He was an F-105 pilot during the Vietnam war, got shot down and was imprisoned for seven years. He survived, returned and eventually became a four star general.

F-105 Thunderchief

Hand Made Bugatti Chiron Replica

It took these Vietnamese youth 1 year to build a Bugatti out of clay mud.
Have_fun

Crazy kids spending all that time building an imitation Bugatti. Gotta admire their devotion and energy. I do wonder if they left the clay inside the body after they finished fiberglassing it. Seems like that would weigh it down.

Via a story on Make: that also has videos of a full size Bugatti made of Legos and wooden car model with a working transmission and brakes.

Update November 2024 replaced missing video with one that seems to be a short summary of the entire project.

Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh (standing, third from left) and Vo Nguyen Giap (in a white suit) are shown with an OSS team in 1945 - United States Army

Comment from Bruce got me started:

"It was later I learned Ho had approached the US and asked for help establishing an independent country based on the US constitution."

Whoa, what? Never heard this before, which triggers my Google reflex and off I go. Several sites have the story, the version I found on the TheWorld seems fairly even handed.

Ho Chi Minh did admire the United States, but he had been an ardent communist since 1920. His collaboration with the OSS during WW2 was aimed at defeating the Japanese (the enemy of my enemy is my friend), but after WW2 the French came back in and that was the beginning of the war.

The State Historical Society of Iowa also has a page which includes an image of Ho's telegram to Truman that comes from the US National Archives.

Dad Burn Hippies

Magnificent Storyteller Soldier Reveals What He Saw In Vietnam
David Hoffman

I don't know if I heard this guy back in the day, but I heard enough similar stuff to convince me that the US government didn't know what the ef they were doing in Viet Nam and I didn't want have anything to do with it. Guess I wasn't a red-blooded patriot, or maybe I was just too smart for my own good. Pack mentality rules and if you aren't going to follow the pack you best keep your head down cause they'll just as soon cut it off as look at you. Frigging morons.

A-4C Skyhawk

A-4C Skyhawk

Photographer Don Fitzgerald provides some context:

A VA-144 A-4C Skyhawk operating as War Paint 312 (BuNo 149532) armed with Mark 82 Snakeye bombs receives a catapult ready thumbs up for a strike mission launch into North Vietnam from USS Kitty Hawk CVA 63 operating from Yankee Station, Tonkin Gulf, South China Sea in January 1967. 50mm with 2X extender from the 06 observation deck(Vultures Row).

Yankee Station

Back in the day, there was all this noise about Vietnam, but nobody ever mentioned the giant Chinese island of Hainan right there, 70 miles away off the starboard bow. There were two locations for Yankee Station depending on the year. The one shown on the map is the later one and is correct for the photograph.

Previous mention of Skyhawk here.

Vulture's Row above the flight deck of USS Ronald Reagan 2007

USS Kitty Hawk hangar bay Persian Gulf 22 March 2003

Mark 82 Snakeye bomb

Bird is the Word

Birds Aren't Real

Poe's Law writ large. Via Dennis. The title just popped into my head, which leads to the song. This version takes us back to Viet Nam.

Full Metal Jacket - Bird is the Word
CTU51115
Who's crazy now?

F-105 Thunderchief

Republic F-105 Thunderchief

Where are the air intakes? This is a jet powered aircraft, it's not rocket powered, so how does it breath?

Republic F-105 Thunderchief

Oh, there they are. Just couldn't see them in the first photo because of the angle.

Another jet fighter I am not familiar with. This one made a name for itself by flying at over Mach 2 way back in 1957. Until the advent of the F-35 it was the largest and heaviest single seat fighter in the world.

Republic made a little over 800 of these airplanes and almost half were lost in combat in the Vietnam war. Funny, but no one mentions how many of those pilots survived. I suspect it wasn't many. Over 5,000 helicopter pilots were killed in Vietnam, and those guys were Army, not Air Force.

Like the B-52s, the Thunderchief was used to bomb North Vietnam, and like the B-52s they operated out of Thailand, though at different air bases.

Vietnam Air War
including Thud Ridge

Links to more F-105 stuff:

• Wikipedia
• History.Net
• Flying Heritage
• Flight Journal

A Pinprick in the Scheme of Things

B-52 Busters - Vietnam War Communist Commando Raids
Mark Felton Productions

I've kind of been avoiding the Vietnam War. Emotions are still pretty raw from that disaster, so it's a little difficult to get any perspective on the subject. It's been fifty years, so maybe we can start to get a clearer view, if only because we aren't constantly having to wipe the mud off the windscreen.

World War Two is great. It almost qualifies as ancient history and I have heard enough about it to  satisfy my curiosity, so let's move on to more recent history.

I knew we were using B-52's to bomb Vietnam, but I wasn't quite sure whether we were bombing North Vietnam or just portions of South Vietnam where we suspected the Viet Cong were hiding. I didn't know they were based in Guam or in Thailand. And why was that? Didn't we have multiple, big fat, air bases in South Vietnam? Something doesn't add up here. I smell bean counter economics, or bullshit political wrangling.

I suspect Genghis Khan is the root cause of Asia being the way it is. We've been fighting the Communists all around the border of Asia. First there was Taiwan (I'm not sure just what happened there, but it must have been a pretty big deal). Then there was Korea, Vietnam and now there is Afghanistan. It's like the Forever War. And all we've got to show for it are South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. I suspect there might be something in Asian DNA that makes them more susceptible to authoritarian rule. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just the luck of the draw. Some Jackass manages to become the leader, boosts his security service and clamps down on the opposition. Or maybe that's the only way to keep a lid on things so it doesn't just boil over into perpetual civil war. Whatever.

B-52's are almost 70 years old. That's crazy. I wonder how much fuel the combined fleet has burned over their lifetime. A couple of zillion gallons at least. All this reminds me of the stories in Command and Control about the mishaps that occurred with B-52's carrying atomic bombs.

You need to be real careful when you ask the military to do something because they will find the most effective way to get the job done. It might not be efficient and it might result in a great deal of collateral damage, but that's not really a concern when your objective is to kill the other guys and not get kilt yourself.

B-52's in the Vietnam War
Hanoi is the top placemark, Guam is at the far right.

Pardo's Push

Pardo's Push: McDonnell F4 Phantom
AVweb

Pretty good trick, and pretty nuts, but it worked. But then you've got to bail out, and things got a little rough then.

Ejection seats are nasty. They get you out of the airplane, but acceleration from the rockets that get you out is ferocious and pilots often suffer back injuries. I guess that's better than being dead, but geez, you'd think all our science and technology we could do a better job.

Via Knuckledraggin My Life Away