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Civil Air Transport (CAT) was a Nationalist Chinese airline, later owned by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), that supported United States covert operations throughout East and Southeast Asia. During the Cold War, missions consisted in assistance to "Free World" allies according to the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949.
Pinal Airpark, also known as Pinal County Airpark, is a non-towered, county-owned, public-use airport located 8 miles northwest of the central business district of Marana, in Pinal County, Arizona, United States. Silverbell Army Heliport is co-located with Pinal Airpark. The heliport is a private-use military facility operated by the Arizona Army National Guard.
Intermountain Airlines, also known as Intermountain Aviation and Intermountain Airways, was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) airline front company. Intermountain performed covert operations for the CIA in Southeast Asia and elsewhere during the Vietnam War era.
Evergreen International Aviation, Inc. was a global aviation services company based in McMinnville, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1960, Evergreen was primarily known publicly for commercial helicopter operations in agricultural and forestry applications.
The Programs Evaluation Office was a covert paramilitary mission to the Kingdom of Laos, established on 13 December 1955 by the United States Department of Defense. The 23 July 1962 International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos would cause it to be shut down in September 1962. It would be succeeded by the Requirements Office.
HMS Aurochs (P426/S26), was an Amphion-class submarine of the Royal Navy, built by Vickers Armstrong and launched 28 July 1945. Her namesake was the aurochs, an extinct Eurasian wild ox ancestral to domestic cattle and often portrayed in cave art and heraldry.
Sierra Pacific Airlines is an American charter airline based in Tucson, Arizona, USA. It operates passenger charters and sub-charters for other airlines, as well as for the United States Forest Service, United States Military and the United States Marshals Service with jet aircraft. Sierra Pacific also previously operated scheduled passenger service in the western U.S. with prop and turboprop aircraft.
Allen Lawrence Pope was an American military and paramilitary aviator. He rose to international attention as the subject of a diplomatic dispute between the United States and Indonesia after the B-26 Invader aircraft he was piloting in a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert operation was shot down over Ambon on May 18, 1958, during the "Indonesian Crisis".
St. Lucia Airways Limited was a privately owned company founded in 1975. General and tourist flights were operated mainly to Martinique and Barbados, but also extended throughout the Caribbean and South America. There was also a shuttle service between the two St. Lucia airports of Vigie and Hewannora. A Boeing 707 was acquired in 1982 for cargo charter work. Head office was listed as PO Box 253, Castries, St. Lucia, West Indies.
Morotai Island is an island in the Halmahera group of eastern Indonesia's Maluku Islands (Moluccas). It is one of Indonesia's northernmost islands.
Jerrold B. Daniels or Jerry Daniels was a CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer (PMOO) in their Special Activities Center who worked in Laos and Thailand from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. He was known by his self-chosen CIA call-sign of "Hog." In the early 1960s, he was recruited by the CIA as a liaison officer between Hmong General Vang Pao and the CIA. He worked with the Hmong people for the CIA's operation in Laos commonly called the "Secret War" as it was little known at the time. In 1975, as the communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Army advanced on the Hmong base at Long Tieng, Daniels organized the air evacuation of Vang Pao and more than two thousand of his officers, soldiers, and their families to Thailand. Immediately after the departure of Daniels and Vang Pao, thousands more Hmong fled across the Mekong river to Thailand, where they lived in refugee camps. From 1975 to 1982 Daniels worked among Hmong refugees in Thailand facilitating the resettlement of more than 50,000 of them in the United States and other countries.
William Henry Beale Jr. was a US military and paramilitary aviator. In the Second World War, he was in the USAAF and flew bombing missions in the northern Pacific theater. In the Permesta rebellion in Indonesia in 1958 he flew bombing missions for the CIA. His career ended on a CIA covert mission in Laos in 1962 when he was killed in a plane crash.
SS San Flaviano was a British oil tanker owned by Eagle Oil and Shipping Company, a British subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. She was built by Cammell Laird in England in 1956 and attacked and sunk by the CIA in Borneo in 1958.
SS Aquila was a cargo ship built in Britain in 1940 for Stavros Livanos' Trent Maritime Co Ltd. by William Gray & Company. An identical sister, Duke of Athens, was built for Trent at the same time.
SS Flying Lark was a ship built in Fredrikstad, Norway in 1915 as the banana boat SS Honduras. Over a 43 year career that spanned oceans and seas the world over she had 10 owners, eight names and a succession of different managers.
Operation Pincushion was a covert training program for hill tribe recruits to become guerrilla soldiers during the Laotian Civil War. Run by United States Special Forces and funded by the Central Intelligence Agency, it trained 12 companies of irregulars in southern Laos between December 1961 and September 1962. These guerrilla forces were near the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and intended to secure the Royal Lao Government's hold on the Bolovens Plateau.
Operation Millpond, which operated from 13 March 1961 through August 1961, was an American covert operation designed to introduce air power into the Laotian Civil War. A force of 16 B26s, 16 Sikorsky H-34s, and other military materiel was hastily shipped in from Okinawa and held ready to operate from the Kingdom of Thailand. After this hasty preparation for bombing in Laos, the debacle at the Bay of Pigs invasion resulted in the cancellation of Millpond. The B-26s were returned to Okinawa. However, the precedent had been set for covert Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored air operations in Laos.
The raid onBan Naden of 9 January 1967 was a successful rescue of prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. The raid was improvised after local Central Intelligence Agency officers induced a Pathet Lao deserter to lead a rescue party back to the prison camp. At about 0400 hours on 9 January 1967, a raiding party of 10 Lao mercenaries led by Sergeant Te killed or dispersed the communist guard force, only to discover twice as many rescuees as they had counted upon. Some of the captives immediately returned to their local homes, while the others followed their rescuers to an impromptu pickup zone in the midst of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Hastily summoned Air America helicopters retrieved the raiders and the remaining prisoners, one of whom was Phisit Intharathat.
Unity was the code name for Thailand's covert supply of mercenary soldiers to the Kingdom of Laos during the Laotian Civil War. From 4 July 1964 until March 1973, battalions of Thai volunteers fought Communist insurgents on the Plain of Jars in Military Region 2. As the Hmong L'Armée Clandestine was sapped by ongoing casualties and a limited basis for replacements, Unity battalions replaced them.
References
- Conboy, Kenneth J., and James Morrison. Feet to the Fire: CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia, 1957-1958. Naval Institute Press, 1999. ISBN 1557501939, 9781557501936.