more at: http://news.quickfound.net/intl/thailand_news.html CONSTRUCTION EFFORTS OF U. S. NAVY CIVIL ENGINEERS AND CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTORS IN BUILDING THE NEW SEAPORT OF SATTAHIP AND THE U-TAPAO OPERATIONAL AIRBASE ON THE SOUTHERN COAST OF THAILAND. US Navy film MN-10875 Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-Tapao_Royal_Thai_Navy_Airfield U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield is a military airfield of the Royal Thai Navy located approximately 90 miles (140 km) southeast of Bangkok, near Sattahip on the Gulf of Siam. It is serves as the home of the Royal Thai Navy First Air Wing... Current uses For several years, beginning in 1981, U-Tapao has hosted parts of Operation Cobra Gold – the largest U.S. military peacetime exercise in the Pacific – jointly involving U.S., Singaporean, and Thai forces, and designed to build ties between the nations and promote interoperability between their military components. Thailand is an important element in the Pentagon's new strategy of "forward positioning". Despite Thailand's neutrality on the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Thai government allowed U-Tapao to be used by American warplanes flying into combat in Iraq, as it had earlier done during the war in Afghanistan. In addition, U-Tapao may be where Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was interrogated, according to some retired American intelligence officials. A multinational force headquarters was established at U-Tapao to coordinate humanitarian aid for the Sumatran Tsunami of 26 December 2004. On 7 May 2008, in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, Thai C-130 transports were permitted to land at Yangon International Airport in Burma, carrying drinking water and construction material... In 2012, a proposal for the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to use the military capacities to support weather research was canceled. American use of U-Tapao during the Vietnam War Prior to 1965, U-Tapao was a small Royal Thai Navy airfield. At Don Muang Air Base near Bangkok the USAF had stationed KC-135 air refueling tankers from Strategic Air Command (SAC) for refueling tactical combat aircraft over the skies of Indochina. Although Thailand was an active participant in the war, with a token ground force deployed to the Republic of Vietnam and a more substantial involvement in Laos, the visibility of the large US Air Force tankers in its capital was causing political embarrassment to the Thai government. In June 1965, the B-52F was first used in the Vietnam War. B-52F aircraft taken from the 7th and 320th Bomb Wings were sent to bomb suspected Viet Cong enclaves in South Vietnam. The B-52Fs were stationed at Andersen AFB on Guam, the operation being supported by KC-135As stationed at Kadena AB on Okinawa. By November 1965, the B-52s were able to support the 1st Air Cavalry Division in mopping up operations near Pleiku. The Seventh Air Force (PACAF) wanted to have additional B-52s missions flown into the war zone; however, the B-52 missions from Andersen, as well as from Kadena AB, Okinawa, required long mission times and air refueling. Concerns about base security with having the aircraft based in South Vietnam led to the change of mission at Tuy Hoa Air Base from that of basing B-52s there to one of a tactical air base. It was decided that, as the base at U-Tapao was being established as a KC-135 tanker base to move them out of Don Muang, to also base the B-52s there where they could fly unrefuelled throughout both North and South Vietnam. The construction of U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield began in October 1965; the runway was built in eight months and the base was completed slightly more than two years later. The 11,500-foot (3,505 m) runway was opened on 6 July 1966 and the first aircraft to land was a Royal Thai Air Force HH-16 Helicopter, then a USAF C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft. With the completion of U-Tapao, most American forces were transferred from Don Muang, and U-Tapao RTNAF became a front-line facility of the United States Air Force in Thailand during the Vietnam War from 1966 through 1975. The USAF forces at U-Tapao were under the command of the United States Pacific Air Forces(PACAF), with the Strategic Air Command (SAC)units being a tenant unit. The APO for U-Tapao was APO San Francisco, 96330...