UC-123 Ranch Hand
By 1961 the Vietcong demonstrated how well they had learned ambush tactics from their Viet Minh predecessors. American soldiers conducting “search and destroy” missions in their armored personnel carriers and on foot would traverse into forests so dense that large numbers of heavily armed enemy could lie undetected in ambush only scant yards from the unsuspecting Americans. That is, of course, unless the Americans could find some way to see through the dense forest and jungle, to strip away the foliage that so effectively blinded the French army.
The Americans turned to action in November 1961, when six C-123 Provider transports, specially modified for aerial-spraying operations, left Pope AFB, North Carolina, en route to South Vietnam. Although earlier small-scale defoliation experiments had been conducted in Vietnam with both C-47 transports and H-34 helicopters, this decision to go to the more modern C-123 as the primary defoliant aircraft proved an excellent choice. The C-123 had a rugged airframe, low-speed maneuverability, and good visibility that were near ideal for the spray mission. And the decision to add armor plating to the cockpit area would prove equally wise (and would be enjoyed on a repetitive basis by the aircrews). The most visible modification to the aircraft was the MC-1 Hourglass spray system, combining external spray booms on wings and fuselage and an internal 1,000-gallon herbicide tank and pumps in the cargo hold.
The all-volunteer aircrews flying these first Providers were solicited from the top of the list of nonselected volunteers for the original 4400th CCTS (Jungle Jim), which had been activated the previous April. Only after their arrival in the Philippines were the aircraft separated from Farm Gate and given the code name that would later become synonymous with their mission: “Ranch Hand.” At the same time, the group was designated Tactical Air Force Transport Squadron. The first three of the six defoliant airplanes flew into Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut airport on 7 January 1962, on what was forecast as only a 120-day-long field test of the aerial spray concept.
For their first three years, Ranch Hand flights primarily dispensed herbicide “Purple.” Nicknamed from the purple band painted around each 55-gallon drum containing the liquid, it was a commercially proven weed-control agent then in wide use throughout the world.5 Predictably, this fact was overlooked by the North Vietnamese government, which soon saw the propaganda potential for “gas warfare” in the admittedly ominous-looking flights.
Because of the vulnerability of this high-visibility operation to Communist propaganda, a number of senior Defense and State Department officials had already voiced opposition to the program from its inception. But if the controversy in Hanoi and Washington surrounding Ranch Hand was growing, so were demands for more spray missions from Army commanders quick to pick up on the tactical implications for their units.
The Special Aerial Spray Flight (as Ranch Hand had subsequently been designated) was attached to the 309th Air Commando Squadron (also flying C-123s) in March 1965. This move brought for the first time the formal inclusion of defoliant operations to the Air Commandos’ already unusual repertoire of weapons. Included in this repertoire was a new herbicide Ranch Hand tested that same month, for the first time in the war. Like Purple, this herbicide got its nickname from the painted band around the 55-gallon drums it arrived in. It was known as “Orange.”
In addition to the organizational expansion, 11 more UC-123s were authorized in May 1966, scheduled to arrive in Vietnam before the year’s end. During this period, the defoliant aircraft had been redesignated with the prefix “U” (UC-123) to differentiate them from standard cargo-hauling Providers.
As the war’s pace picked up, so did Ranch Hand operations. By 1967, the squadron was flying over 20 missions a day, with as many as three or four Providers flying spray runs in multiship formations for each mission. Each ship could defoliate a swath 80 yards wide on a track up to 10 miles long. Vietnamese observers were frequently carried aboard as “mission commanders,” a development stemming from a rules-of-engagement requirement imposed on the squadron.
In May 1968 some much-appreciated help came to the squadron with the arrival of the new K-model Providers, featuring two J-85 jet auxiliary engines mounted under the wings outboard of the two main piston engines. By April 1969, all Ranch Hand UC-123s had received the K-model conversion. The problem of enemy ground fire had continued to worsen.
Another event of note was the decision in 1970 to discontinue use of Orange amidst growing concern that contrary to earlier government claims one of its components, dioxin, could prove harmful to humans. From 1965 to 1970, Orange had become the primary herbicide in use, having affected an estimated “41 per cent of South Vietnam’s mangrove forests, 19 per cent of the uplands forests and 8 per cent of all cultivated land.”
The 12th Special Operations Squadron (redesignated with all other Air Commando units in 1968) was deactivated on 31 July 1970, with the remaining UC-123Ks becoming A Flight, 310th Tactical Airlift Squadron. Ranch Hand flew its last mission on 7 January 1971, exactly 10 years to the day from its arrival at Tan Son Nhut airport. In nine years of defoliant operations, Ranch Hand aircraft and crews dispensed between 17.7 and 19.4 million gallons of herbicides in Southeast Asia. Approximately 11 million gallons of it were the controversial Orange herbicide.
In the years following the war in Vietnam, an increasing number of veterans came to Veterans Administration (VA) offices with complaints of numerous health problems, including birth defects in their children. The VA was slow to respond to these complaints, many of which were suspected by the veterans themselves to be associated with their past presence in herbicide-sprayed areas. Worse yet, the government’s initial response denied that US troops were in areas undergoing spray operations at the time, a response subsequently shown to be false. The media picked up on the story, and CBS television broadcast a particularly powerful show: “Agent Orange: Vietnam’s Deadly Fog.”
On 8 April 1975, President Gerald R. Ford issued Executive Order 11850, renouncing first use of herbicides in war by the United States except for control of vegetation on and around the defensive perimeters of US bases. With this order, President Ford ensured that an operation like Project Ranch Hand could never happen again.
The number of diseases that VA has recognized as associated with (but not necessarily caused by) Agent Orange exposure has expanded considerably during the 1990’s. Under Section 102, Public Law 104-262, the Veterans’ Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1996, VA shall furnish hospital care, medical services and may furnish nursing home care to veterans exposed to herbicides in Vietnam. These veterans will be furnished health care and without the requirement of a copayment. There are some restrictions. VA cannot provide such care for a (1) disability which VA determines did not result from exposure to Agent Orange, or (2) disease which the NAS has determined that there is “limited/suggestive” evidence of no association between occurrence of the disease and exposure to a herbicide agent.
