Tainan Base Fire Department, circa 1974.
Practice and more practice on the bunkers.
This has to be the cleanest bunker on the island!C
Children on their way to school.
Beautiful smile!
To be young and carefree!
I heard that story already...I received a nice note from Richard MacDowell who served at Tainan AB 1973-1974. These are his personal photographs.
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Rich was assigned to the Civil Engineering Squadron, working as a firefighter. He spoke of the Magumbos Club, many of you Tainan folks remember the club.
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Rich is interested in contacting old Tainan hands.
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Why not have a look at Tainan AB from Google Earth.
When you are looking down on Taiwan from Google Earth, type these coordinates into the "Fly to" block:
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22.950335 120.205646
You're now right on top of Tainan Air Base.
10 comments:
Great photos, Kent. Those little girls are just adorable!
Stationed at Tainan AB Jan 74 thru May 75 in the Base Fire Dept. Married in Dec 74 to a beautiful Taiwanese. Just visited Taiwan with her in Nov 07. Would like to find other Fire Fighters from Tainan. Maybe another trip in SEP 09 is possible! L. Sleigh
I noticed the mark on the backpack of the C picture. I have been in this elementary school in 1971-1977.
This school is on the cross street of American news service (somebody said there being CIA office inside)
When fighter jet launched and from south to north, they passed our head, and we must stop the class 2 minutes for jet noise.
40 years later, it is an beautiful area (school campus with garden) now.
Isaac
isaac-tainan.spaces.live.com
Having taken those images, I am glad to see the comments, and I occasionally after seeing them, where those subjects in the photos are.
I'm just curious if anyone has any information on or images of Magumbos or any of its staff, circa 1973-1974. Any info. would be appreciated.
I was stationed at Tainan 70-72. Married a girl from there, still married. Went back in Apr for a visit, will be going back next year. Things have sure changed. Yes, I fondly remember the Magumbo Club, the Rezendouv on base, and all the watering holes downtown.
Stationed at Tainan AB Jan 73 to Jan 75 in Transportation Sq. Excellent duty.
Hi! I was a "newbie" AP at Tainan
from 09 Oct. '66 through 12 Jan. '68. I remember the horsemeat burgers at The Rendezvous, fried rice at the NCO Club with a pool
across the pkg. lot and a snack shop down & left of that. Got the
worst sunburn of my life at the beach, but saw Red China on the horizon! Went through my first 4
typhoons there, one so bad the MMD
was under 200 yds. of 10" of flowing water with a black baby snake swimming through every sq. foot--the only time we were allowed to "blouse" our fatigue uniforms. We killed a 9.5 ft. Cobra just outside the MMD and hung
the body in front of our CSC on the
fence. 2.5 ft. of tail over the far side, all the body down the front with the head(big as my fist)
lying flat with slack. Imagine walking a 300 M. Post in the fog with that "intruder" standing about
4 ft. tall in the fog next to you!
I recall having no fresh air to breathe thanks to an unfiltered crematory about a mile from MMD.
In the morning, we'd blow our noses
into hankies & it would come out black like soot. We kidded ea. other about what organ we'd inhaled
all night. Anyone remember when the MMD drainage ditches were "improved?" Local farmers doing the work dropped their tools
& ran away when they dug into a Jap. Officer's coffin from WWII.
It was sent to Taipei National Museum(last I heard), exc. for one
piece of the ceramic broken handles
that I still have. Snakes? There
were 37 toxic kinds @ Tainan & we
had NO edged weapons & were not allowed to shoot them, so had to club them with the butt of the M-16
which either cracked the stock or chambered a round when you didn't want to !! Had to get within 3-ft.
of Kraits/Cobras. One specie of Krait was docile in daytime, but more vicious than a rattler at night and would "hunt people" on our MMD Posts(saw that one time).
The heat(113F. as I recall); cold(to the 40's F.)rain, sun, snakes,
invasion from Red China, fog, were
all bad enough. The talc-like dust
of the volcanic soil turned our boots pinkish when it combined with
the kerosene in the polish. Speaking of kerosene, that's how the Chow Hall recombined milk tasted!! Tainan still had binjo
ditches & someone with the job of
dipping out the residue into the
"honey wagons!" Bill
Regarding Picture C, I also attend the same elementary school (Chung-Yi) from 1976 to 1982. I immediately recognized the school logo when I saw their hats! Though I did not recognize the girls in the photo, they were indeed my schoolmates!
I was also stationed at Tainan from July 67 through Oct 68 as an enlisted Air Policeman. I was assigned to B flight and remember many of the things mentioned in this blog especially the stories about the large snakes we often encountered at night within the MSA. I even recall the snake that was thrown over the chain link fence outside CSC. The Renzendouv was the place to go as soon as we got off duty to have a cold beer for a dime. Ah those were the days. I'll post some photos within the next few days.
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