NKP – August 1966
This is an excellent picture to
talk about how NKP got started after the decision was made to expand from the
earlier radar site to an operational air base. This could be considered the
south end of the base. Actually
the runway was 330/150, so the runway and roads are canted thirty degrees from
north. For ease of understanding
I’ll refer to the main road as north-south, even though it’s not exactly
north. To let you see more
details, I’ve also cropped the picture 3 times to focus on particular
sections. So I’ll talk more about details in the captions with some of
those, but give you a few identifiers here.
This one is The Big Picture.
The picture is toward the west
with the Mekong and Laos being about 8 miles behind the photographer.
The radar site known as Invert is stretched across the lower third of
the picture. Perhaps some of the
brothers who served there can send some specifics about the particular radars,
which will be shown in better detail in the other picture.
Note the line of shelters and their design in the foreground by the
radar installations. You can also
see another line of such bunkers beyond the buildings in the upper left and
stretching out beyond the parking ramp. The Karl Worst Memorial Chapel is at
the center of the picture facing west along the main road. If you follow the
east-west road out of the front door of the chapel, you reach the southeast
corner of the main parking ramp and two Jolly Green Giant HH-3s sitting alert
for search and rescue (SAR) missions. Their
four Sandy Skyraider escorts are to the right of the helicopters.
The approach end of Runway 33
(departure end of Runway 15) is near the top of the picture, straight on out
from the chapel. The FAC parking
ramp is at the right edge of the picture with one Bird Dog by the corner
facing away from the cameraman.
