Word: airfield
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...Waiting. Next day Rodriguez Echavarria, his hopes dwindling, went to visit the Council of State hostages imprisoned at the airfield. He offered a deal: they could have the government back if they kept him on as Armed Forces Secretary. As he pleaded, a group of his fellow officers marched into the room, told him that he was "under arrest." "Wait," he said, but there was no waiting. Stripped of sidearms, he was marched off and imprisoned...
...hotels of Saigon last week were jammed with officers of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. The once-neglected airfield at Bien Hoa, 20 miles northeast of Saigon, is now receiving a steady stream of Globemasters that unload tons of electric generators, radar equipment, trucks and Quonset huts. A U.S. ground crew of 200 lives in tents near by to service the planes and take care of 24 U.S. fighter-bombers and transports scheduled to be turned over to the South Viet Nam government...
...turned up over East German Communist territory, lost and low on fuel. It was a clear violation of East Germany's airspace, just the kind of incident to touch off trouble. The tower in West Berlin could only order the planes to land at nearby Tegel, the French airfield in Berlin, for if the pilots headed back west on nearly empty fuel tanks, they might be forced to make an emergency landing in German Communist territory...
Tuesday was the turning point. The men ashore had fought bravely and gained their planned objectives. They had even seized and bulldozed the airfield. But they were desperately short of ammunition and food, and under the pressure of Castro's superior fire power and number they were being forced back across the beach. There remained one last chance to make the thing go. Boxer was still on station. The release of a few of its jets simply for air cover should see two landing craft with ammunition and rations safely to the shore...
...neared Sola, the weather worsened. Fog shrouded the fjords and the airfield; a 70-m.p.h. wind and rain buffeted the plane, lashed the ocean below into scudding foam. The pilot. Captain Philip Watts, radioed Sola, reported. "I can't see a thing." and said that he would make an instrument letdown. He made one futile pass, headed back out to sea to start another approach. "Cleared to descend to 1,400 feet." advised the Sola tower. There was no reply. Next morning, after an all-night sea and air search, the fire-gutted wreckage of "Papa Mike" was found...