T. Harry Williams Center for Oral
History Collection
ABSTRACT
INTERVIEWEE NAME: Colonel John I. Daniel, III
# 4700.0946
IDENTIFICATION: Vietnam veteran
INTERVIEWER: John Davis
PROJECT: Americans in Vietnam
DATES: 5/23/74
FOCUS DATES: Aug 1943-Aug 1946; Aug
1948-present; Nov 1965-Nov 1966; June 1971-Apr 1972
ABSTRACT:
Tape 1383
Early family life and education in Zachary, LA; traveling as a
child; Depression; raising vegetables and livestock;
extracurricular activities; Boy Scouts; small town life;
attending LSU during WWII; went on active duty in summer, 1943;
boot camp and flight prep school; flight training in Chapel Hill;
Navy decided they had too many pilots, so Daniel went to control
tower school; worked as control tower operator in Marshall
Islands as war was ending; felt guilty that he didn't get to war
sooner; serving on a merchant ship from Hawaii down to the
Marshalls; sleeping on deck of merchant ship; war was over, but
Japanese still shot at planes if they flew over; daily routine in
Marshall Islands; swimming and playing on beach during leisure
time; allotted two soft drinks or two beers per day; loitering in
Hawaii, not in a hurry to go home; returned to mainland, enrolled
in University of Mississippi; transferred to LSU; ROTC at LSU;
veterans taking ROTC for commission; attended flight school at
Randolph Air Force base, Texas; bombers; learning to fly;
transferred to Germany, brought wife and daughter; transferred to
France as budget accounting officer; volunteered to go to Korea
but wasn't sent; transferred to Amarillo, Texas; flying different
types of planes; enjoyed his career more than his wife did; photo
reconnaissance missions in Germany and France, 1956-1961;
family's adjustment to Europe; went to school in Oklahoma, got BS
and masters in industrial engineering; exercise in Turkey in
1965; transferred to Philippines, 1965; big welcome when they
landed in Philippines; tours in Vietnam; fast build up of troops
in Vietnam; housing shortage for troops; flying supplies into
South Vietnam; moving Army troops short distances by air; didn't
have much time to talk to soldiers; flew mission to Saigon in
1953 or 1954, delivering planes to French; French losses in and
before battle at Dien Bien Phu; wide roads the French build in
Vietnam to avoid ambush; Vietnamese were content to let Americans
do their fighting; primitive air fields; traffic and delays while
waiting for plane to be allowed to take off; Saigon air strip
busier than Chicago's O'Hare airport; Chennault's Louisiana
Tigers.
Tape 1384
Served in Vietnam from 1965-1966, and from 1971-1972; flying
small airplane; lengths of Vietnamese runways; flying conditions;
refueling; improvements in runways between his two Vietnam
duties; attacks on runways; improvements in radio communication
and water between 1966 and 1971; flying the C-7 plane, which was
too small for his duties; moving Americans and Vietnamese from
place to place; Americans visiting Vietnamese orphanage at Cam
Ranh; not much contact with locals; as a colonel, avoided getting
out into community because he was an attractive target; shutting
down Cam Ranh Bay; breaking down valuable aluminum runway,
sending it home; auctioning off salvage materials; black market
activity; Scotch whiskey welded shut so people unloading it can't
steal it; airplanes hit by small arms fire; ranks of pilots;
training pilots in Vietnam; flights between Thailand and Vietnam;
Coast Guard operated Loran navigational system out of Chiang Rai,
Thailand; didn't get credit for his missions to Vietnam; didn't
get to eat in nice restaurants or stay in good hotels; trying to
find a hotel to stay at; got a house trailer when he went to Cam
Ranh Bay; as colonel; hutches the enlisted men stayed in; lounge
entertainment in Vietnam; officers' club; people who worked on
closed bases; boredom and loneliness far from home; military gave
up on punishing soldiers for seeing prostitutes; tried to keep
black and white soldiers integrated; racial tension at Cam Ranh
Bay; American attitudes toward ARVNs; getting attacked at Cam
Ranh Bay; high motivation of NVA; rocket attacks; opinions about
the Vietnamese as pilots; training Vietnamese commanders;
negative attitudes of some American soldiers toward Vietnamese
pilots; planes designed to protect fuel lines; using airplanes to
fire mortars to disable machine guns rather than risking lives of
ground troops; using censors and infrared tracking; disposing of
military possessions after war; US shouldn't have gotten involved
in Vietnam if it wasn't going to fight to win;
governmental/military decision-making process; flying airlift
missions; liked seeing Vietnam from the air; landing planes in
the swampy delta.
TAPES: 2
TOTAL PLAYING TIME:
# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 76
RESTRICTIONS: none