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Vietnam - Airfields

Eight airfields designed to accommodate large jet aircraft were constructed at Da Nang, Chu Lai, Phu Cat, Tuy Hoa, Cam Ranh Bay, Phan Rang, Bien Hoa, and Tan Son Nhut. These are huge installations with 10,000-foot runways and the whole range of appurtenant facilities, including administrative buildings, hospitals, hangars, repair shops, warehouses, barracks, and mess halls. In November 1967, of ninety other airfields using expedient surfacing materials, eleven were operational for jets and sixty-two for C-180 medium cargo aircraft.

Major airfield runways were first constructed at an expeditionary standard and then replaced by concrete runways. Although expedient matting was not durable enough for continuous fighter or heavy transport aircraft operations, it was sufficient for use on the smaller airfields.

At Cam Ranh Bay the first expeditionary airfield was under construction by Raymond, Morrison-Knudsen, and the first jet fighter aircraft were scheduled to arrive on 1 November 1965. However, the fuel supply available was inadequate, so in early October work started on a 400-foot timber fuel jetty extending out to the five and a half fathom line. The floating pile-driving equipment of the port construction company was used to construct the jetty, and on 1 November fuel was being pumped from a tanker to the Cam Ranh Bay Air Base ten miles away.

The differences in high-performance aircraft used by the French and Vietnamese, as opposed to the American military machine, forecasted the development of jet air bases in Vietnam that would be an engineering undertaking of enormous magnitude. At Chu Lai, Navy Mobile Construction Battalion Ten was able to provide a continuously operational jet airfield while conducting extensive experimental work for the future use of AM-2 aluminum matting (the successor to World War II pierced steel planking) runway designs. The original operational strip, 3,500 feet long, was laid on a laterite base 10 inches thick. Confined to a small beachhead area, the Seabees and marines had little choice of material, and the available laterite proved to be of a very poor quality.

The second major aluminum mat airfield in Vietnam, constructed by RMK-BRJ, was at the Air Force base at Cam Ranh Bay. A runway 10,000 feet long by 102 feet wide was constructed on an all-sand subgrade. Because of the experience at Chu Lai, particular attention was paid to the base under the matting. Extensive soil stabilization work, beginning on 22 August 1965, included flooding the sand with sea water and rolling to stabilize it so that the sand could support earthmoving and compaction equipment. Following compaction and grading, the base was sealed with bituminous material. Laying of matting began late in September, and the runway was completed on 16 October.

In all, five major jet air bases were constructed in Vietnam to supplement the three already in existence, and over 100 widely dispersed fields were built for intratheater transport aircraft. The major air bases afforded the necessary facilities for tactical aircraft and aircraft arriving from outside Vietnam, while the smaller fields allowed dispersal of logistics in support of forces operating in the field. The newly developed aluminum matting and older steel planking allowed construction at the most remote sites and permitted air delivery by heavier fixed-wing aircraft.

By mid-1966 the plan was to have every point in South Vietnam within twenty-five kilometers of an airfield. (See Map 8.) The few existing outlying airfields had been constructed mainly by the French. These strips were paved with a surface treatment from one half to one inch thick and could not withstand the heavy volume of traffic required during tactical operations. In some of these operations up to 100 tons of supplies and 200 aircraft sorties were required daily.

The very nature of the war scattered small troop detachments to outlying locations. These detachments were supplied by air, primarily by CV-2 Caribou aircraft which were capable of landing on 1,000-foot hastily constructed airfields. Most of the early forward airfields were constructed with expedient surfacing materials.

The wide disparity of construction standards between the services in Vietnam was particularly evident in cantonment construction. Air Force planners contended that a $100 million base was not a transient facility and wanted more for their money in durable construction. They felt that pilots and electronics technicians lost efficiency when forced to live like combat troops. This caused dissatisfaction between the troops of different services living in the same general area.