Qualla: Ban Me Thuot East Airfield

Ban Me Thuot East Airfield: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Huyme, Public domain. Ban Me Thuot East Airfield. Ban Me Thuot Fire Support Base. Camp Torres. FSB Aquarius. Hoa Binh Airfield. LZ Ban Me Thuot. Phung Duc Airfield. Seven names, one strip of asphalt about eight kilometres southeast of Buôn Ma Thuột, and each name marks a different set of people deciding this ground was worth holding. Today it has an eighth: Buon Ma Thuot Airport, where passengers roll their bags across a 3,000-metre runway that was fought over for a week in March 1975 by men who had already been told the city behind them was lost.

Image: Huyme | Public domain

Ban Me Thuot East Airfield: Buon Enao, 1961

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Huyme, Public domain. The story starts with a village rather than a runway. In early 1961 the CIA devised the Civilian Irregular Defense Group programme to counter growing Viet Cong influence in the Central Highlands, and the first unit was raised in Darlac province among the Rhade - the Ê Đê - with t...

Image: Huyme | Public domain

Ban Me Thuot East Airfield: Camp Torres and the Green Hornets

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Huyme, Public domain. The base kept changing hands within the American structure. 5th Special Forces Group Detachment 32 gave way to MACV-SOG's Command and Control South, which named its compound Camp Torres and ran reconnaissance teams across the Cambodian border from it. Flying those teams in and ou...

Image: Huyme | Public domain

Ban Me Thuot East Airfield: Ten Days Behind an Earthen Wall

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Huyme, Public domain. By 1975 the field was Phung Duc, home to the ARVN 44th and 53rd Regiments. Two PAVN sapper battalions came through the wire before dawn on 10 March, opening the Battle of Ban Me Thuot. The 44th's area, held mostly by rear-echelon troops, fell almost at once. The 53rd did not. Its...

Image: Huyme | Public domain

Ban Me Thuot East Airfield: Hill 581

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Huyme, Public domain. There had been a plan to reverse all this. Buôn Ma Thuột itself fell on 12 March, and over the 12th and 13th the ARVN 45th Regiment was helicoptered onto Hill 581, a mile east of Phung Duc, to mount a counterattack and retake the city. The PAVN 24th Regiment reached them first, c...

Image: Huyme | Public domain

Ban Me Thuot East Airfield: Arrivals

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Huyme, Public domain. The runway is still there, working under the name Buon Ma Thuot Airport - BMV to passengers, VVBM to controllers, 3,000 metres of asphalt at 529 metres elevation, still called Phung Duc in some older documents. Vietnam Airlines, VietJet Air, Pacific Airlines and Bamboo Airways ru...

Image: Huyme | Public domain