Project Waterpump
Their first hasty assignment was transition training to the T-28 Trojan for American civilian pilots; the resulting A Team would exist through 1967.
The purportedly civilian Programs Evaluation Office (PEO) sprang into being in December 1955 to offset a communist insurgency.
Thus, when the decision was made to train up and improve the Royal Lao Air Force (RLAF) to help prosecute the Laotian Civil War, the precedent had been set for covert support of the mission.
It carried out training specified by Deputy Chief, Joint United States Military Advisory Group, Thailand (DEPCHIEFJUSTMAGTHAI).
Major Cochran forwarded the four Waterpump T-28s to Vientiane on the 18th; Thao Ma and his wingmen flew 12 combat sorties that afternoon.
Three days later, ten replacement T-28s arrived at Waterpump, forwarded from the Republic of Vietnam Air Force as excess to their needs.
On 25 May 1964, after a week's familiarization training with the T-28, five Air America pilots flew their first combat mission, but to little effect except bullet holes in two of the planes.
[4][8] Thereafter, use of the A Team was always highly selective because of the potential international media sensation if an American fell into communist hands.
However, in the absence of any other combat search and rescue capabilities, the A Team covered pilot retrieval efforts in Laos.
Moreover, when U.S. Navy Lieutenant Charles F. Klusman was shot down on an armed reconnaissance mission on 6 June 1964, B and A Team pilots successively flew cover for the combat search and rescue effort.
[4] Also in June, a Waterpump officer and two enlisted specialists were covertly sent to Luang Prabang to support B Team efforts there.
[10] The following month, Cochran, his unit's intelligence officer, and several other Air Commandos were covertly smuggled into Laos to participate in Operation Triangle.
[11] Despite the distraction of Operation Triangle, Waterpump managed to bring the RLAF T-28 force to 15 fully trained pilots, with five more in process.
[13] CIA case agent James William Lair began a pilot training program for him in Thailand, using scrounged light aircraft and instructor pilots scrounged from the Thai Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit, Continental Air Services, Inc, and the Royal Thai Air Force.
The ongoing deaths in action made it difficult to supply sufficient numbers of Lao pilots to the RLAF.
The AOC expansion was codified as Palace Dog; many experienced Waterpump veterans would return for repeat tours under this program.
[17] On 18 March 1969, Waterpump began a new mission supervising a Mobile Training Team instructing air crew members for AC-47 gunships.
The first class of Nok Ka Tien FACS graduated in January 1972 and began directing RLAF air strikes.
[23][24] By the time Waterpump ceased operations, the Air Force it supported had grown to 75 T-28s, ten AC-47s, 21 C-47s, 26 H-34 helicopters, and 24 O-1 Bird Dogs.
Beginning with informal medical missions to villages near the Udorn air base, the civic action program would spread throughout Thailand, and result in a hospital for RLAF personnel in Savannakhet, Laos.
[4] The PGNU's attitude changed after the Fall of Saigon brought a Communist victory in the neighboring Vietnam War.
