RAAF in Ubon
In May 1962 the Australian Government decided to deploy a squadron of CAC Sabre fighters to Thailand to bolster that country’s defences. This action was undertaken as part of Australia’s Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) commitment to defend Thailand against attack from its Communist neighbours, which was thought likely to occur. The United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand also deployed forces to Thailand in response to this perceived threat, though Malaysia and several other SEATO members chose not to be involved. On 28 May, Minister for Defence Athol Townley announced that Australia’s contribution would be an RAAF squadron equipped with Sabre fighters. The eight aircraft, along with their pilots and ground crew, were drawn from No. 77 Squadron, which formed part of Australia’s Commonwealth Strategic Reserve forces at RAAF Base Butterworth in Malaysia. To preserve Malaysia’s neutrality, the Sabres were flown to Thailand via Singapore. This force was designated No. 79 Squadron while at Tengah Air Base in Singapore on 29 May.
The squadron arrived at Ubon Air Base in the Ubon Ratchathani Province of eastern Thailand on 1 June 1962 and flew its first operational patrol four days later. Facilities at Ubon were initially spartan, and the pilots and ground crew lived in tents. Construction of permanent accommodation began under the supervision of No. 5 Airfield Construction Squadron in September 1962, and facilities were later further improved. Despite Malaysia’s policy of neutrality in regards the conflict in Southeast Asia, No. 79 Squadron operated as a detachment of the RAAF force (No. 78 Wing) based at Butterworth throughout its time in Thailand. Aircraft and personnel were regularly transferred between Butterworth and Ubon, and most pilots’ nominally six-month-long tours of duty in Thailand were broken into several shorter periods during which they and their aircraft were illegally rotated between the two bases. In March 1963 the Defence Committee, the highest decision-making body of the Department of Defence, recommended to Cabinet that No. 79 Squadron be withdrawn from Thailand on the grounds that the British and New Zealand contingents had left the country. The Cabinet’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee decided against this on 28 March as it was believed that maintaining the squadron at Ubon helped maintain good relationships with Thailand and the United States. The Thai Government was discreetly asked if it would prefer a different form of assistance.
Throughout its period at Ubon, No. 79 Squadron formed part of an international force tasked with defending Thailand’s air space against intruders. At the start of the deployment, tensions in Thailand were such that the squadron’s personnel believed that they were at war. While the situation became more stable from late July 1962, No. 79 Squadron maintained armed aircraft on alert at all times and scrambled Sabres when unidentified aircraft were detected. No air attacks were conducted against Thailand, however, and the unidentified aircraft that were intercepted almost always proved to be from the Central Intelligence Agency-controlled Air America. In January 1965 two Sabres accidentally overflew North Vietnam after becoming lost during a training sortie but returned safely to Ubon.
[Home movie by Robert Victor Richardson (8mm standard/colour (Kodachrome)/silent) in Thailand: Ubon 1963-1965. AWM collection https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F04783 ]
From early April 1965, Ubon became an important base for United States Air Force (USAF) attacks on North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and No. 79 Squadron became part of an integrated air defence system controlled by the USAF on 25 June. This changed the status of the squadron’s presence in Thailand, and RAAF Headquarters assessed that the North Vietnamese would be justified in regarding it as forming part of the air campaign against their country. Due to the threat of counter-attacks on Ubon, the base’s ground defences were upgraded during 1966; this included the construction of defensive positions for No. 79 Squadron’s aircraft and personnel as well as the deployment of a detachment of RAAF airfield defence guards. While the squadron did not play an active role in the war, it supported the US effort by providing air defence for Ubon and taking part in exercises with USAF aircraft in which the Sabres adopted tactics used by North Vietnamese MiG-17 fighters. In December 1965 the commander of the United States Pacific Air Forces, General Hunter Harris Jr., wrote to the chief of the RAAF, Air Marshal Alister Murdoch, to suggest that No. 79 Squadron join the USAF operations against the Ho Chi Minh trail in southern Laos which were being covertly conducted by Ubon-based aircraft. The Thai Government indicated that it would allow the squadron to be used for this purpose as long as the Australian operations were conducted without a formal agreement or any public announcement. On 2 March 1966 the Australian Cabinet decided to reinforce the Army and RAAF force in South Vietnam, but rejected the option of expanding the scope of RAAF operations in Thailand. This decision was made on the grounds that the expanded force in South Vietnam and existing deployments to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore represented the maximum forces Australia could commit to the region.
By mid-1968, No. 79 Squadron no longer had a clear role at Ubon. The USAF had sufficient fighters based in Thailand to defend the country and was reluctant to use the Australian fighters—which were now regarded as obsolete—to intercept potentially hostile aircraft, as the squadron’s rules of engagement did not allow it to pursue contacts that left Thai airspace. As a result, the Australian military’s chiefs of staff determined that the RAAF presence in Thailand had outlived its political and military usefulness and decided to withdraw the squadron without replacement. No. 79 Squadron was taken off alert status on 26 July and disbanded at the end of the month. On 31 March 2011 it received a battle honour for its deployment to Ubon between May 1962 and August 1968.
