Naval Air Facility Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam Patch

Every trawler that tried to slip down the South Vietnamese coast after April 1967 had to get past the patrol planes of Naval Air Facility Cam Ranh Bay. The Navy stood up the air facility that spring on the sandy peninsula beside one of the finest deep-water harbors in Southeast Asia. It quickly became the center of coastal air patrol operations for the war. Crews flew long, low tracks over the South China Sea, logging every contact and passing it to the boats and cutters below. For the sailors who worked the flight line, Cam Ranh meant sand, heat and an airfield that never really shut down.

Cam Ranh Bay was the nerve center of Operation Market Time, the Navy's campaign to stop seaborne infiltration of men and supplies. In the summer of 1967 the Commander Coastal Surveillance Force moved his headquarters there from Saigon to run the effort up close. Lockheed P-2 Neptunes and P-3 Orions of the rotating patrol squadrons flew the outer barrier, and Martin SP-5B Marlin flying boats also operated from the bay. Their sighting reports sent Swift Boats and Coast Guard cutters toward suspect trawlers closer to shore. Across the peninsula, the Air Force flew F-4C Phantom IIs from Cam Ranh Bay Air Base with the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing. Between January and April 1972 the Navy turned the air facility over to the Vietnamese Navy and disestablished it.

The patch is an inverted triangle, 5 by 4.38 inches, finished with a gold merrowed edge. A white outer band carries U.S. NAVAL AIR FACILITY across the top, with CAM RANH BAY stitched down the left side and VIETNAM down the right in heavy black letters. Inside a thin red line sits a royal blue field with gold naval aviator wings, the anchor standing upright at their center. The wings rest on a silver-gray column wrapped by a gold scroll that reads CAM RANH BAY. It has an iron-on backing, and it can also be sewn on for a permanent hold.

Market Time was patient work, measured in hours on station. Patrol crews flew the same stretch of coastline day and night, and every trawler they spotted was one the surface units could meet before it reached the beach. Cam Ranh Bay was where that watch was planned, maintained and launched. Maintainers, aircrewmen, radiomen and ordnancemen kept the airplanes flying through sand and salt air. The sailors who served there remember a base that ran around the clock from 1967 until the 1972 turnover.

It fits a shadow box beside a VP squadron patch and a Vietnam Service ribbon, or the vest you wear to a patrol squadron reunion. It is also a thoughtful gift for a father or grandfather who flew the Market Time barrier and does not talk about it much. It is a small, sturdy reminder of the coast he watched over.