South Viet Nam: Yes, We Have Bananas

There was nothing secret last week about the arrival of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Core. Belching clouds of black smoke from its single stack, Core moved 45 miles up a tributary of the Mekong River to President Ngo Dinh Diem’s capital city of Saigon, docked at a wharf directly in front of the Hotel Majestic and the Café Terrasse.

Hotel guests and idlers sipping Pernods at the café tables could count and identify the aircraft on the carrier deck: two H13 and 34 Shawnee H21 helicopters, plus nine T-28 fighter-trainer planes. Leaning on the ship’s rail were some of the 378 pilots and maintenance men of the U.S. Air Force.

The banana-shaped Shawnee helicopters, carrying a maximum of 21 soldiers and able to stay aloft three hours without refueling, should be invaluable in the jungle fighting against the Communist guerrillas, putting down South Vietnamese reinforcements at precisely the spot they are needed. As he stepped ashore in Saigon last week, one U.S. pilot said: “We have mixed emotions about being here, but our job is to fly the bananas and that’s what we’ll do.”