Scope and Contents

Four linear feet of materials document the 109th Quartermaster Company (Air Delivery), the 383rd Quartermaster Detachment, and the 549th Quartermaster Company's (earlier known as the 8081st Quartermaster Company) service during the Vietnam Conflict. Dates of materials range from the war era up through the 1990s.
National Security Files copied from the LBJ Library make up the bulk of the document section of the collection and contain the following: office files of Walter W. Rostow, the files of General William C. Westmoreland, National Security Council Histories, and memorandums to the President's office. The large number of declassified documents in the collection were assembled in order to illustrate the importance and priority of the airdrops at Khe Sanh, which has been minimized in the post-war years. As these documents show, of the 12,000 tons of supplies delivered to Khe Sanh during the siege, 8,000 tons were delivered by parachute and extraction systems. This significant contribution was frequently accomplished with unproven techniques. Due to the efficacy of techniques developed at Khe Sanh, Army riggers essentially 'wrote the book' on aerial delivery in Vietnam. These documents are primarily from the war era.
NOTE: The box number within parenthesis in the inventory section of this finding aid refer to the box number at the LBJ Library from which they were copied.
Also included in this document collection are company histories, orders, rosters and photograph reproductions of the 190th Quartermaster Company (Air Delivery), the 383rd Quartermaster Detachment (Air Supply) and the 549th Quartermaster Company (earlier known as the 8081st Quartermaster Company). A small group of men from this unit (8081st) trained and covertly assisted the French with airdrops during the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu. While on 'Temporary Duty' in Vietnam, this unit made contributions to both the Dien Bien Phu siege in 1954 and the Khe Sanh siege in 1968. Although the 549th was never assigned as a unit in Vietnam, it assisted the CIA with airdrops in Laos and rigged the supplies for the An Loc siege in Vietnam during 1972. The 383rd made major contributions in Vietnam while attached as part of the 109th Quartermaster Company and later as a separate air delivery unit.
Books, photographs, posters, museum artifacts, two VHS tapes, and periodicals make up the separated materials section of the collection and are primarily from the post-war era.

Biographical / Historical

The men who served in the 109th Quartermaster Company (Air Delivery) made this donation of documents to the archive possible. The project began as an effort by Ballinger, Texas Municipal Judge Ray Anderson to record the activities of his unit in Vietnam during his tour of duty. Mr. Anderson, drafted into the US Army, was an E-5 assigned to the motor pool of the 109th at Cam Ranh Bay from June 1967 to June 1968. This project not only fulfilled his hopes; it often exceeded his expectations. One of Mr. Anderson's goals was to locate members of his unit and in this he experienced considerable success: An important outcome was the creation of an organization of former members of the 109th Quartermaster Company and 383rd Quartermaster Detachment. This group, the 'Red Hat Chapter' of the US Army Quartermaster Association, presently has First Sergeant Delma Weitman (Ret.) as president. Mr. Weitman, a Platoon Sergeant in the 109th during the critical airdrops at Khe Sanh, contributed some of the materials.
It is impossible to list all the contributors to this project. Key contributors include:
Captain Eldon Anderson (Ret.), Company Commander in 1958.
Colonel A] Lanier (Ret.), Company Commander during most of the1967 and 1968 airdrops at Khe Sanh.
Colonel William 'Rigger' Mortis (Ret.), who spent 18 months in the 109th in Vietnam and was on the ground at Khe Sanh as a First Lieutenant.
First Sergeant Art Goodrid (Ret.), the 'Top Hat' during the airdrops to Khe Sanh.
Warrant Officers (Ret.) Lowell Hamel, Ray Ward, and Terrell 'Richard' Wallace.
Enlisted men making major contributions include Fred Bolt and Al Burk. Mr. Burk 'flew' with many of the airdrop loads at Khe Sanh and did much of the research to recover clippings, photos and film footage. Mr. Bolt, who recovered airdrop equipment on the ground at Khe Sanh, contributed a large collection of newspaper clippings he had saved.
Colonel Al Lanier blew the dust off of one his old footlockers in storage and provided many of the crucial documents, photos and articles. These items formed the basis of this collection. He was an enthusiastic participant offering his valuable support and guidance throughout this project. Another major contributor is Peter Brush, who has both written articles and taught college courses on the history of the Vietnam War. He is presently a librarian at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. With Mr. Anderson's help, Mr. Brush was able to pull together much previously neglected information on airdrops in Vietnam. This resulted in the publication of articles concerning the role of the 109th Quartermaster Company (AD) in Vietnam. Mr. Brush served in a Marine Corps artillery unit during the 1968 siege of Khe Sanh.
This donation is made in memory of Sergeant Charles Lynn Baney of Warsaw, Indiana who was killed at Khe Sanh in a US Air Force airplane crash while flying airdrops. Sergeant Baney was assigned to the 109th Quartermaster Company at the time of his death. In 1997,Sergeant Baney was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the Quartermaster Regiment. His mother, Lucy Baney, accepted the award presented by Quartermaster General James Wright during a ceremony at Fort Lee, Virginia.