THE WORKHORSE

The Workhorse, 26 x 40 inch acrylic on canvas painting by George C. Clark    U.S. Air Force Art Collection

BECAUSE THE ROADS WERE UNSAFE, EVERYTHING WE NEEDED AT BRAVO BATTERY WAS FLOWN IN.  THE C-130 WAS THE WORKHORSE OF AIR TRANSPORT IN VIETNAM.  IT BROUGHT THE PROJECTILES AND POWDER CHARGES FOR OUR BIG GUNS, AND NEW TUBES (BARRELS) FOR OUR 175MM CANNONS, WHICH HAD TO BE REPLACED EACH TIME THEY HAD FIRED 300 CHARGE 3 ROUNDS.  AN OTHERWISE EMPTY C-130 COULD TAKE OFF CARRYING A TUBE FROM THE 2 MILE LONG RUNWAY AT BIEN HOA AND LAND AT SONG BE, BUT THE RUNWAY AT SONG BE WAS TOO SHORT TO TAKE OFF WITH A SPENT TUBE FOR RECYCLING, SO WE DUMPED THE SPENT TUBES OUT ALONG THE RUNWAY.  I USED TO WONDER IF THEY WERE STILL THERE, BUT I'M SURE THE VIETNAMESE HAVE LONG SINCE RECYCLED ALL THOSE TONS OF HIGH-GRADE STEEL.

Comment:

I researched this painting when I flew in this plane from Chicago to Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany with an Illinois Air National Guard unit in the 1980s as a guest of the Air Force Art Program.   It is a really long flight from Chicago to Germany at about 200 miles per hour.  On the way over we stopped to refuel at St. Johns, Newfoundland and Mildenhall RAF in England, and on the way back at Keflavyk, Iceland and Goose Bay, Labrador.  The same planes built in the 1950s that I had flown on in Vietnam were still in service.  For this painting I showed the plane as it would have looked in 1969 with Vietnam-era camouflage and the tail number of a C-130 I had photographed at Song Be Airstrip.