You require a bit of bush cleared from an area?..  OK Just ring up and ask.  It all starts with MACV directive 525-1.

525-1 required an enormous amount of paper shuffling between various agencies i.e.. Joint General Staff (VNM), US Chemical Corp advisers, MACV, US Chemical Operations Division in addition to the Govt. of Vietnam approvals the Commander of MACV and the US Ambassador had to sign them off and the Province Chief had to sign as well, at any stage requests could be canned and all this could take a couple of months from the time of the original request for a mission.

I can hear the sounds of bored clerks rubber stamping everything in sight, the signing of unread documents and a paper trail that goes on for ever.

525-1 also laid out policy on the use of herbicide, for example a no spray area of 5k around active rubber plantations.

Next came the survey sortie in a UC-123 (unescorted) manned by the Ranch Hand Chief or Assistant Chief of Targeting, a co-pilot, a navigator from the targeting group and an Army Chemical Corps officer.

After the flight, a coordination meeting was held in the field with the Province Chief, local military commanders, representatives from MACV, ARVN and 7th Airforce (Fighter Command).

The targeting officer prepared charts of the target area and drafted the requests for submission to the US TACC. The day before the mission TACC coordinated the Forward Air Controller (FAC), fighter escort and rescue support through the Direct Air Support Centre (DASC) and issue an approved mission order.

Approved missions that had passed successfully through that lot still had a few more checkpoints to pass......TACC in coordination with DASC required clearance from all friendly forces in the area.  Ground based TACC officers in jeeps were attached to HQ of military units in whose TAOR the target box was and were in radio contact with the FAC.......  The Target box had just become a free fire zone.

The FAC in his little Bird dog or Bronco would arrange the, usually, three aircraft on a run in to the target box and on final confirmation there were no friendly forces in the area, would fire a White Phosphorous rocket into the ulu to mark the start of the spray run.

The Fighters would do a dry run at tree top level and anything suspicious or where ever the ground could be seen through the trees it was cluster bombed as a matter of course.  WP bombs were dropped either side of the spray run to impair sightings of the aircraft.

Ranch Hand aircrew were undoubtedly very brave men, nine aircraft were shot down and twenty eight men died, these boys were the 'Dambusters' without the glory, they came in at 130 Knots 45 metres above the tree tops, in close formation, straight and steady taking fire knowing that one round in the wrong place and they had one second before they hit the tree tops and zero chance of survival.  They didn't bother carrying parachutes.  The fighter jocks had huge respect for them and if they started to take incoming the fighters would be all over the place chucking everything they had at the ground, cluster bombs, napalm, cannons, miniguns, rockets and empty coke bottles..

After July 1968 'heavy suppression' prior to spray runs became the norm.

It must be stressed that not all missions were accompanied by fighters as some areas were considered "cool" but it was still a free fire zone and if fire came from unexpected areas the locstats would be passed on for local artillery/gunships to deal with.  A herbicide free fire zone was not lifted until 48hrs after the mission.

How good were the communications and the system?

There were no reports of blue on blue casualties during the entire herbicide program and no missions were stopped half way through because of screams of outrage from a misplaced infantry platoon.

From 6th March 1967 to Feb 1972 a few UC-123's were adapted for mosquito eradication (OPERATION FLYSWATTER) and over 3.5 million litres of Malathion were sprayed over bases, long term firebases and towns by these aircraft known as "The Silver Bug Birds"...........  I saw one over the Dat in August '68.

The Chief Archivist for the Ranch Hand Ass. is, understandably, a bit concerned and would like some more info on the Kiwi's perspective and if anybody can pass on spray dates or even the month they were sprayed he will be able to tell you the number of sorties, what herbicide, gallonage, pilots name, the allied units that TACC was attached to etc.

"Flyswatter" was the program of spraying for mosquitoes that were causing high manpower losses in allied forces due to malaria. Same thing happened in the Pacific in WWII. We know how often and how much malathion was sprayed by the special RANCH HAND bird.  It looked just like a herbicide plane and appeared the same when spraying.  Worked mostly from just before dawn to three hours after and during the three hours just before dusk.  These are times when the mosquitoes are most active. Sprayed 8 ounces per acre, so the missions could last quite long.  Used these flights to let new co-pilots gain some flying experience while in a much less hazardous environment than the herbi birds.  Fly swatter sprayed friendly troops, camps and cities, while herbi birds sprayed enemy controlled areas. As you can imagine, flying low (150' max) and slow (135 KIAS) in an unarmed and unarmored obsolete transport over bad guys with guns tended to reduce the boredom of flight.

"Trash haulers" was the affectionate term for the in-country C-123s and C-7s who flew daily from base to base (sometimes on real runways, but most often on dirt, laterite, PSP, etc. strips.  Tops of the dikes along canals and semi-straight sections of highways also made good landing places.  They moved anything and everything, including momma-san, the family pigs, etc.  The Vietnamese people instantly went from oxen transport to air service. Anywhere you landed there was always a crowd, authorization slips in hand, hollering "go Saigon" (or wherever they wanted to travel).  Unfortunately the air flow in a C-123 is from the fuselage forward through the cockpit (we always had the windows open), so the extensive odours of the "cargo" was present in all its richness!  There are certain smells even today that still take me back 40 years!  My first tour was with the 19th Air Commando out of Ton Son Nhut.  It was a mixed unit of 2/3rd US and 1/3rd Thai personnel and probably some of the most interesting and different flying then I ever experienced in my career.  The story of these units has yet to be told or appreciated".