133s in the Sino-Indian War of 1962

Happy 2016! Our combination Author/Historian/Reunion Emcee, Rick Spencer, has connected on this subject that should be interesting to any of us crewing 133s in ’62, especially those actually involved in "An emergency airlift of supplies was sent to Calcutta” (a quote from a related article in the “Economist”) like he was. I highly recommend you click on the links to the WSJ & Economist articles and Sign-in/Register if you’re not a Subscriber. Here’s his story for your follow-up:

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Good Day All C-133 Crewmembers:

                               We need your assistance!

There is a rich history throughout our many missions embedded within that service we provided the country during the years of the C-133, mostly the ‘60’s.  Much of this history now lies among our surviving veterans and from time-to-time we are reminded of it.

It was especially so for me while reading a recent WSJ’s book review of JFK’s Forgotten Crisis, by Bruce Riedel.  Riedel has produced a “… readable and timely account…” of the Sino-Indian War that began 20oct62.  It brought back the memory that I was on the first plane to take CIA cargo into India via a SAM mission, so I thought Riedel might be interested as a matter of curiosity as he is a bit younger.  He was delighted to hear from me and I am now in the process of attempting to recreate that flight from memories of old for his files.

Bruce O. Riedel is one of America’s leading experts on U.S. security, South Asia, and counter-terrorism. He is currently a senior fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He also serves as a senior adviser at Albright Stonebridge Group. Bruce is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst and counter-terrorism expert, serving in the Agency for 29 years until his retirement in 2006.

I then directed Bruce to our website and suggested that almost all of the CIA cargo and the actual historic memories lie within the surviving crew members who participated and that we can access them via our website.

Thus, this is a call for any and all who participated in those flights to contact Mr. Riedel via his e-mail in order to set up how they would like to communicate with him as he would like all the history that he can obtain for his file of that era and that particular conflict..  The Sino-Indian War of 1962 truly is a forgotten war.

Mr. Riedel can be contacted through his e-mail: briedel@brookings.edu and would very much like to hear from you.

Also, here is the link for the WSJ review of the book that jolted my memory as it will yours: http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-kennedy-stared-down-mao-1450742247; 

and another in the Economist: 
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21684764-war-echoes-down-decades-clash-titans

Thank you very much for your help in this project of bringing our service history alive. 

Richard L. Spencer, 

Navigator, 39^th ATS DAFB, 1962-65

Click on: http://www.amazon.com/JFKs-Forgotten-Crisis-Tibet-Sino-Indian/dp/0815726996/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452192968&sr=1-1&refinements=p_27%3ABruce+Riedel 

Bruce Riedel: briedel@brookings.edu