How about some in country made patches.

[all-bull]

examples of backs

[all-bull]

Two of the prettiest and most detailed hand embroidered patches we have. The AF patch is amazing in detail, but sadly old glue has soaked to the front and stained the patch (we got it like this). The transportation is an Australian unit in Vietnam.

[Patrick Dempsey]

Hunter,

with the last two patches in particular i can see why people specialise in cloth insignia, they put all the Bevo German stuff to shame.



What an absolute treat to see patches such as these.

[Gil Burket]

This one is for Guy. I bought a collection this week and this was in a bag of misc patches.
Great Thai hand embroidered and removed from a uniform.

Funny you brought that one up... I have a very similar patch that I bought from Tom Clinton probably 15 years ago.

[Patrick Dempsey]

Gil,

does it differ in any meaningful fashion...?

[D. Michael Kim]

I tend to collect patches by unit or groups, for their design or the workmanship.

)ne of my favorites designs is the upper left patch for the armed helicopter company "Nighthawk".

[D. Michael Kim]

One of my favorite hand embroidered patch is the middle left patch, 357th Transportation Company. The amount of detail and workmanship is unbelievable.

Check out the motto on the bottom left patch 120th Armed Helicopter Company, DEATH IS OUR BUSSINESS, BUSSINESS IS GOOD. If I may, this is a classic motto.

[D. Michael Kim]

Guy,

I read on this thread from Bob that you have a real penchant for Thai made photo units patches.

The upper left patch I have not identified, however from what I see I would make a guess that it was a photo unit associated with Moonbeam operations.

DMK

[Beau Brummel.]

Beautiful Patches Hunter and Dennis,

truly Impressive examples, thank you very much for taking the time to show us.

Dennis, thats a really Interesting patch, I would tend to think It was some form of photo patch for a unit that operated at night as well. Interestingly the camera seems to be a movie camera as opposed to stills. Don't suppose that helps at all though. Keep us Informed as to weather you find out It's origins.

Yours, Guy.

[D. Michael Kim]

Guy,

Here is an example for the Moonbeam operations. Moonbeam operations were air assets that were continuously flying overhead to provide immediate air command and control support for SOG operations on the ground during the night. Command and Control operations during daylight hours were called Hillsboro.

Based on the Moonbeam patch I believe my assumptions are correct.

DMK

[Beau Brummel.]

Hello Dennis,

I am familiar with Moonbeam and Hillsboro and your patch does Indeed have elements of the moonbeam design to It. I agree that It Is possible this patch could be to a certain element of that asset. I was simply commenting on the cartouche and putting forward the notion tha this represents a film as opposed to stills camera. Hopefully someone will be able to identify It and end our conjecture.

Guy.

[Patrick Dempsey]

Dennis,

perhaps a question posed at this linked site may help?

I have had some luck there in the past.



PS. Nice spelling error on the larger Moonbeam patch.

[Bob Chatt]

Okay, I Guess it is time for me to throw in my opinion, and we all know what opinions are like.
I do not think the camera patch has anything to do with Moonbeam. I think it only shares the same background colors.
My guess is that it is part of the USAF "Big Eye" program / unit. Again, this is a guess, but it would make way more sense then a Moonbeam. As I don't see any reason why a Moonbeam, Hillsboro, Cricket, and for the life of me right now can't remember the other, would have a motion picture uint attached to it.
Plus, it could be something totally unrelated to both and a stand alone unit. My best advice is to post this on usafpatches.com and see if anyone there has a positive id.
I know all collectors, me included, want every patch they keep to be to an uber cool elite unit, but it is not always the case.

[kammo man]

Are you sure Paddy control is a US patch?

I think it may be a British Army patch from 69-85 Ulster.

I once had a Paddy dosnt surf patch many moons ago .



owen

[D. Michael Kim]

Kammo man,

From my research this is what I found. Detachment 3, 619th TCS operated out of Binh Thuy Air Base in the Delta (IV Corps). I got it because of the construction (Chain Stich) and the fact that it was a small unit controlling a great deal of aircraft. Below is what I frond from another web site.

Remembering

Contributed by Jerry Williamson
When I got to Paddy Control in Jan of 1967 there were three crews with two controllers to a crew. We were operating similar to the way you were...buy the end of March we had a total of nine enlisted guys in ops and three officers plus the commander.

Mike Kearney, who I went to Vietnam with from Shaw, and I were the ranking guys (SSgt) He took the day crew and I had the night crew. We worked a 13 hour night shift and an 11 hour day shift, five guys on days, four guys on nights. For the most part the officers took care of all the administrative stuff and stayed out of ops.

I think we were able to control the amount of traffic that we did because we didn't know it couldn't be done. It was a bunch of young two and three stripers who were doing something really interesting and challenging and they did it. It was funny to watch sometimes, try to relive a guy on the flight follow scope when it was busy and they would get pissed. My hardest job as crew chief was making sure everyone got a fair share of the duties without pissing anyone off. Well sometimes I would piss them off because I would insist on working. :-)
Basically we ran one tactical scope for hooking up FAC's and Fighters and one flight following scope, one scope for the VNAF and a spare. That was all their was.

I would do the coordinating with the Command Post, DASC and the TACC and whoever. The other guy would help with comm and piss-breaks...on quiet nights he would nap. This went on until about mid October when we started getting replacements in. By December we were fully manned and Mike and I concentrated on getting the new site built and screwing off, we had trained our replacements and were tired.

Jerry Williamson.