Qualla: Sóc Trăng Airfield https://qualla.com/soc-trang-airfield en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:39:17 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/q/soc-trang-airfield-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Sóc Trăng Airfield https://qualla.com/soc-trang-airfield Sóc Trăng Airfield: Introduction https://qualla.com/soc-trang-airfield/ Photo credit Star D Fish Decoys, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 15 April 1962 the helicopters of HMM-362 lifted off the deck of the USS Princeton, crossed into the Mekong Delta, and set down on an old airstrip the Japanese army had used two decades earlier, some 85 miles southwest of Saigon. They were the first Marine Corps aviation unit to serve in Vietnam. Their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Archie Clapp, gave his Sikorsky UH-34 squadron a nickname that outlasted the deployment - Archie's Angels - while the operation itself went by the flatter codename Shufly. Sóc Trăng had been selected for an entirely unromantic reason. In 1962 it had one of the very few hard-surfaced runways anywhere in South Vietnam.

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Image: Star D Fish Decoys | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/q/soc-trang-airfield-wp/w3eq-s-c-tr-ng-airfield-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Sóc Trăng Airfield: Thirty-Two Hundred Feet of Asphalt https://qualla.com/soc-trang-airfield/ Photo credit USMC Archives from Quantico, USA, CC BY 2.0. The strip is not much: 3,200 feet of asphalt on a 03/21 heading, ten feet above sea level, laid across ground that floods for half the year. The French built it in the colonial era. Japanese forces used it from 1940 to 1945. In a delta where almost everything moved by boat and al...

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Image: USMC Archives from Quantico, USA | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/q/soc-trang-airfield-wp/w3eq-s-c-tr-ng-airfield-thirty-two-hundred-feet-of-asphalt.mp3 0:06 2 full Sóc Trăng Airfield: The Marines Move North https://qualla.com/soc-trang-airfield/ Photo credit USMC Archives from Quantico, USA, CC BY 2.0. The Marine presence lasted five months. On 1 August 1962, HMM-163 under Robert L. Rathbun relieved HMM-362, and in early September the squadron began shifting north with its support elements from MAG-16, completing the move to Da Nang Air Base by 20 September. Da Nang would becom...

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Image: USMC Archives from Quantico, USA | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/q/soc-trang-airfield-wp/w3eq-s-c-tr-ng-airfield-the-marines-move-north.mp3 0:06 3 full Sóc Trăng Airfield: Hueys and Dust Off https://qualla.com/soc-trang-airfield/ Photo credit USMC Archives from Quantico, USA, CC BY 2.0. The 93d Transportation Company arrived in June 1962 and worked out of Sóc Trăng until 23 June 1963, when it was inactivated and its people and aircraft were used to stand up the 121st Aviation Company (Airmobile Light) the same day - the unit simply changed its name around the me...

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Image: USMC Archives from Quantico, USA | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/q/soc-trang-airfield-wp/w3eq-s-c-tr-ng-airfield-hueys-and-dust-off.mp3 0:06 4 full Sóc Trăng Airfield: Two Bad Days https://qualla.com/soc-trang-airfield/ Photo credit USMC Archives from Quantico, USA, CC BY 2.0. On 19 May 1967, two UH-1Ds of the 336th were returning from a combat support mission when Gold 2 struck Gold 3 on the approach to Sóc Trăng. Gold 2 broke up in the air, killing all four men aboard: Warrant Officer Gediminas J. Eidukaitis of Cleveland, Ohio, at the controls; Warra...

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Image: USMC Archives from Quantico, USA | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/q/soc-trang-airfield-wp/w3eq-s-c-tr-ng-airfield-two-bad-days.mp3 0:06 5 full Sóc Trăng Airfield: The Flag Change https://qualla.com/soc-trang-airfield/ Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. On 4 November 1970 the United States handed Sóc Trăng over to the Republic of Vietnam Air Force. A photographer from the U.S. military recorded the moment - Vietnamese air crewmen lined up before one of the aircraft, waiting for the American flag to come down and theirs to go up....

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Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/3/e/q/soc-trang-airfield-wp/w3eq-s-c-tr-ng-airfield-the-flag-change.mp3 0:06 6 full