Visited an Old field of abandoned warriors....

[ozpont]

.. let me share something different if I may.. that might interest a few guys here.. expecially those over 50 & ex military types.... Its not REALLY car related.. but anyway....

..over the last few years more & more I've been interested in Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos.. all countries that join the lower leg of that part of Asia. Vietnams interest is with great respect the cars left over their.. the things still remaining of American /Australian intervention in trying to support a government & the physical stuff we left over there.

.. for instance.. Flying into Saigon Airport are still the military bunkers for choppers.. still military watch towers in different locations.. but overall.. its dissapearing.. .. In the mid 80's they were still running around with old lat 50's US Dodge & chev sedans.. a few Pontiac's have been dug up in the photo archives too..
I've written a story some years back that covered the cars I could find in South Vietnam.. .., the US military trucks still in service & older US produced cars... but this time I went up to Cambodia.. the weekend before last.....


ANYWAY... Talking thru things with an informed contact..... about older US or Australia cars in that country..... American Jeeps.. Russian equipment etc.. he took me out to the remains of the Royal Cambodian Airforce squadron... I'd heard about them but seeing is believing.
... in a dusty weed & critter infested side track service runway not far from the present Phnom Penh "International" airport.. lays a grave yard.. of old mainly Russian military helicopters.. about 10 of them... a older 707 with "Presidential Airlines" logos on it laying in a abandoned fenced compound .. apparently not used since the days of Pol Pots "Killing Fields" (for those that are too young to recall.. its mid -late 70's time.. while Sally & Burt were boot-legging on celuloid... This asian dictator with strange ideas.... killed in the scale of genicide murdering 3 million locals while the world looked the other way......)... anyway... The Vietnamese army invaded in 79 and cleaned up, brought some order to the country over the next decade before it was part of a UN campain that has lead to the buddist nation having free elections again.. ONE of the more successfull stories but.. it does not sell newspapers eh...

Anyway .. digressing again..... as well as the old presidents jet.... a line up of maybe 12 old Russian Mig21 fighter jets.... some still with identity colors on them.. others just abandoned.. . There were more..like hangers with abandoned western style military aircraft.. and a hanger full of out of service army grunt trucks and tracked vehicles.. with grass growing thru the wheels...
I've got a few good pictures that can be posted .. if anybody else is interested.

First Picture is what is the only resemblence of care. with two older Migs with their butts out of the garage.. but what you can't clearly see.. is the chickens that are roaming around freely around their wheels....

Few more pictures including some older Russian heavy lift M1-17 missile launching helicopers.... that currently have other critters living in them now otherwise I'd have climbed up into the cockpits..

[ozpont]

more pictures... The one inside the hanger is from an Australian UN photo in the early 90s after the country started to open up.

[ozpont]

more pictures..

[ozpont]

and a mixed view... mainly the migs.. some are seemingly complete..others are butchered.. but for what.. and when... ?? this is stuff left over from some time in the 80's when the russian had influence in the country......

The white jet.. is whats left of the 70's President of Cambodia.. who along with the King Norodom Sihanouk and placed under a weird Palace arrest... in the capital.. while the 3 million people killer Pol Pott went about emptying the city (see movie 'The Killing Fields") and slaughtering anybody with an ounce of intelligence.. right down to If you wore reading glass's.. you dead...
.. Anyway .. the white jet is the remains of the "Presidents Airlines".. enlosed in a now broken down fence structure.. the tyres are all flat but parts missing now here and there..

[ozpont]

.. no real threat anymore....

[Larry]

Hi Dave,
This is just mind-boggling to see these remanents of war just sitting and deteriorating. It is so amazing to see items like this today that were so vital to such a period of man's inhumanity to man.
I guess the world will never learn, but whether one believes there is sometimes a time to fight (as I do, unfortunately), it inevitably ends with nobody seeming to actually win, and everything turning back to dust.
Thanks for sharing these haunting pictures.
Larry