01/09/2005: "US NAVY SEAPLANE .....Guam 1969 and today."

It took hours for the aircraft to be packed at the airbase in Guam. While waiting I went wandering around the tarmac and got 200 meters or more from our aircraft with a 16mm movie camera in hand.

It was a mistake. I came very close to being possibly arrested and perhaps then charged as a potential 'spy'. It was no joke. I had under-estimated the seriousness of wandering on military property without supervision.

The Vietnam war was then happening. Guam was a base for B-52 bombers which were bombing North Vietnam daily. It was serious stuff.

I was questioned seriously by a huge, high-ranking, cigar-chewing officer, with a grim expression on his face. My Australian accent was no novelty to this dude - he was very serious indeed and not happy with me being where I was, walking around in the open, alone.

If the film in the movie camera (and elsewhere in my luggage) had been processed I'd be in as much sh*t as a Guantanamo Bay prisioner today, I've often thought.

Potentially the most foolish mistake I've ever made.

Days before I'd passed through the airport at Saigon en route to Guam via Manila and had ignored inflight instructions not to film or photograph anything at the airport when we landed.

The VC had lobbed mortars in recently and blew up some Phantom jet fighters parked wing tip to wing tip. Now there were cement hangars protecting the aircraft.

The sky above buzzed with aircraft and helicopters. Everything was at work, even some DC-3's.

Explaining why I had 'sensitive subjects' on unprocessed rolls of film would have been difficult, (no reason, just working-holiday home movies)!

I was simply naive and seeking some adventure. Plenty was ahead anyway.

Flying with the US Navy was the most exciting and memorable event of all. Five take-off and five landings, most of them on water. One with JATO. (Jet Assisted Take Off).

One of the flight crew, a navigator J. 'Mac' Halliday, perhaps from Memphis, who also has a birthday in November, suggested I take his turn in the cockpit and 'fly' the Hu-16 during the return trip. What a thrill. One of the best experiences I've ever had.

(I'd like to thank 'Mac" again if contact could be made via this site).

UPDATE on GUAM (USA) November 2005

By Robert Marquand (Staff writer - The C.S.M).

ANDERSEN AIR BASE, GUAM – This 30-mile-long volcanic island appears on a map like stray bit of tropical spackling flung out in the Pacific. Honolulu is eight hours east, Tokyo four hours north, Hong Kong and Jakarta four hours west and south. The rest is ocean.

Guam has been a sleepy supply depot for decades. But it is now becoming known as the "tip of the spear" of US Pacific forces. This US territorial outpost no longer means just "fuel and ammo" but "subs and bombers" as well.

US more cautious than wary as China's reach grows
Some officers say Guam's new priority is a result of diverse missions in the Pacific, like tsunami relief.

But most agree it has its source in the "unknowns" in East Asia - code language for Pentagon concerns about the rise of China - with its claims on Taiwan and rivalry with Japan - and a region with friction over oil rights, plus North Korea.

"Guam hasn't had a continuous bomber presence since Vietnam," says Lt. Col. xx a flight operations officer here. "But things changed two years ago."

At that time, about 12,000 military aircraft were landing on the longest runway in the Pacific. Last year, that figure was 26,000.

Bulldozers are flattening earth for a second parallel runway. Parked wing to wing on Andersen's tarmac are seven B-1B Lancer bombers with names like "Night Hawk and "Live Free or Die."

Their gray swept-back forms now carry JDAMs, or guided munitions. Each plane carries the payload of three B-52 bombers, the military's cargo workhorse.

01/09/2005: "US NAVY SEAPLANE .....Guam 1969 and today."

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