1971-74 3rd Supply Squadron Kunsan AB Korea USAF Vietnam Era Unit Photo Book For Sale

3RD SUPPLY SQKUNSAN AB KOREA
“WITHOUT SUPPLY THEY DON'T FLY”
Scarce original U.S. Air Force unit photo/history book documenting the 3rd Supply Squadron at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, during the Vietnam-era/Cold War period.
Research places this book in the approximately 1971-1974 period. The 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing arrived at Kunsan Air Base in March 1971 and remained there until September 1974, when the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing assumed the Kunsan mission.
The 3rd Wing operated F-4 Phantom II aircraft during this period, making the supply organization documented here an essential part of the logistical system supporting one of the USAF's important fighter installations in Korea.
This is much more than a conventional military yearbook.
It is an extensive photographic record of the men of the 3rd Supply Squadron and their daily operations at Kunsan. The book contains page after page of candid black-and-white photographs showing USAF personnel, offices, supply activities, equipment, facilities, vehicles and everyday life on the base.
Sections visible include:
• NORS Control / NCOIC / NORS Monitors• Individual Equipment• Supply personnel at work• Office and warehouse operations• Airmen in period USAF uniforms and insignia• Vehicles and base facilities• Group and individual personnel photographs• Numerous candid photographs with humorous original captions• Korean orphanage activities and interaction with local children• Kunsan Air Base scenes and buildings
The inside front cover additionally contains three mounted black-and-white photographs showing period base buildings and roads.
The wonderful illustrated cover reads:
“3RD SUPPLY SQ”“KUNSAN AB KOREA”“WITHOUT SUPPLY THEY DON'T FLY”
with a hand-drawn supply cartoon and the slogan “SURE! I CAN DO IT.”
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
The 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing arrived at Kunsan in March 1971, taking over personnel and equipment and operating F-4 Phantom II fighters during a particularly important period of American military activity in East Asia.
Elements of the wing were subsequently deployed from Korea back into Southeast Asian combat operations during 1972.
This book therefore provides an unusually personal photographic look at the logistics personnel working behind the flying mission during that period — the airmen whose job inspired the book's very appropriate slogan:
“WITHOUT SUPPLY THEY DON'T FLY.”
SCARCITY:
An extensive search located no other exact copy of this 3rd Supply Squadron Kunsan book currently offered online and no reliable indexed sold example.
That does not establish a known production quantity, so the book is described as SCARCE rather than definitively “rare.” Unit-produced overseas military books such as this were generally intended for the personnel connected with the organization rather than the commercial book market, and surviving examples can be difficult to locate decades later.
Excellent primary-source material for collectors and researchers of:
• U.S. Air Force history• Kunsan Air Base• USAF in Korea• 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing• Vietnam-era USAF• F-4 Phantom support operations• Military logistics and supply• Cold War Korea• American military social history• USAF uniforms and insignia
A fascinating and highly visual record of the enlisted men and NCOs who kept an American fighter base supplied and operational in Korea more than half a century ago.
Carefully researched and offered by Echoes of WWII.