The CIA Compound in an Undisclosed Country…

Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy,

Wednesday November 18th, 1970

…exactly 50 years ago today.

It was November 18th at about 3am when we stepped off the C-141 directly into a large hangar.  They loaded us into what I thought were bread trucks.  The air in this dark land had a sweet tropical smell, warm and humid.  The old warriors thought we were in Southeast Asia but were not certain.  We never knew it until many years later, but this was the CIA Compound at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base.

When our trucks arrived at some barracks, most of us went straight to bed.  Our trip had taken 28 hours.  

I woke up around mid-morning and went outside to see what our new home looked like.  My first thought was that we were in a prison.  There was a 10- to 12-foot fence around the compound with razor barbs on the top.  I didn’t know which country we were in, but the scenery was beautiful.  There were lush green mountains that surrounded us and the air was filled with the smell of flowers.

It didn’t take long to find the chow hall.  I had a good breakfast with a couple of other raiders.  There was a bar with some pool tables and one big snooker table. 

[I had not played snooker since leaving Missouri.  There was a pool hall near our farm in the small town of Clark where the farmers played when it rained and was too wet to do their work in the fields.]

I shot a couple of games of snooker and eight ball.  I sat around and listened to some of the seasoned warriors guessing the country.  I knew one thing for sure: we weren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.  We were told to relax and get some rest. 

There wasn’t much to do for the next couple of days, but we all knew that we were getting closer to what we had been training to do for the past three months.  I was thinking about my family and friends back home.  I thought about Mom and Dad, where they would be right now.  We were all excited about what our mission might be.  For the past three months we had rehearsed, rehearsed, and rehearsed, and we were ready to go do our job.         

Takhli RTAFB had been used by the US Air Force, but all Air Force units had moved out before 1970. BGen Manor and Colonel Simons knew of the fact that the CIA had a secret compound there in 1970 and decided it would be the perfect secret staging area for the Raid. The MC-130s Cherry 1 and Cherry 2 would launch from Takhli. All the other aircrews and the Green Berets would all be taken from Takhli to their launch bases in a couple of C-130s when the final “Go” is given by the President and General Manor.

Read the Raiders’ stories, in their own words, in Who Will Go.

Click Here:  The book.