6/2/69 – A Bad Day For The 20th TASS

I lost two friends on the same day, June 2nd, 1969. Both were O-2A Forward Air Controllers (FACs), both in the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron.

Jim Gilmore and I were classmates at the Air Force Academy, and went through FAC training at Hurlburt Air Force Base and Holly Field in late 1968. We celebrated New Year’s Eve together at a party in the nearby town of Mary Esther, and deployed together to Vietnam. We both ended up in the 20th TASS at DaNang, in sister units. My AO (Area of Operations) was the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos, Jim’s was I Corps in Vietnam, supporting American troops. Our unit Operations buildings were next door to each other, and the pilots of both units usually gathered at the DOOM Club (DaNang Officers’ Open Mess) to decompress after the day’s flying. Jim and I were friends.

Jim Gilmore

Ken Svanoe was also my classmate at the Academy. I didn’t know him very well there, becuase we were in different squadrons, and hadn’t shared any classes together. But we knew each other by sight, and I bumped into him at the DOOM Club the night of June 1st. He had ferried an O-2A into DaNang for maintenance that couldn’t be performed at his base at Phu Bai, one of the 20th TASS units north of DaNang. We got together over dinner and I learned that Ken didn’t have a room at the VOQ (Visiting Oficers’ Quarters). I told him my room-mate was on R&R, and he could bunk in my 2-man room. After dinner, we went back to my hootch, and stayed up well into the night, talking and getting to know each other better. The next morning, he cranked up his airplane to fly back to Phu Bai, with both of us looking forward to meeting again.

Ken Svanoe

 

Jim and Ken were killed on combat missions within an hour of each other. It happened on June 2nd, 1969.