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NOTICE:
Yahoo.com notified me 5/21/09 that they are shutting down their Geocities hosting services
at an unknown but imminent date in the future. I'm not adding any content to any of my
four websites. I'll probably not bring any of the sites back online because of the amounts
of time I spend doing website work. Just carrying over to another host would be horrificly
time consuming. I appreciated your comments about the content & pictures on my site,
and for those of you that contributed pics, etc.....thanks a lot.
I just can't spend all that time on websites when there's a lot of sunshine & my fishing license is valid for my lifetime. Thanks for all the contributions from you great Otter folks, I appreciated all. But I especially enjoyed getting back in touch with the members of the old 12th!
Bill Todd
Crooked River Ranch, OR
5/22/09
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| 92217 | 76132 AK NG | 76128 | 76108 | 76132 |
More Pictures of the 12th Inside! Off-duty prospecting, fishing, etc
What's 
as of: 23 May 2009 14:22
Go To: Fairbanks Facilities in Fairbanks Otter Aircraft
FBK Roster Jun 1961 to Oct 1963 ANC 1st Flt Plt Roster
Other Otter Sites Otter Spec's Army Otter's by Serial #
US Navy Otter's USAF Otter's Ultimate Otter?
AOCA & Other Article's I've written
US Marine Corps Otter's (pending; a "toughie!" ON HOLD!) I even wrote the "Gunny" on "Mail Call" but haven't heard diddly squat from him!
Photo Galleries:
Contributor Pics Otter Picture Gallery Gen'l Army Avn Pictures
Pages always under construction:
Otter Company Patches 12th Aviation Co. History
Contacts Army Otter Units Fairbanks (off-duty)
Hi! & Welcome to my 12th Aviation Company Website!
I'm William W. "Bill" Todd of the 12th. I've put together a site dedicated to the 12th Aviation Company, men assigned, the Otter aircraft, and pictures of other Otter Companies. I'm trying to contact people who know about the early days of the 12th. I'd really like tail numbers of the Otter's assigned and have some inputs about early history at Ft. Sill in 1958. I started a 12th Aviation Company unit history, but I'm missing the "early years," 1958 thru 1965. I relied on my memory (bad thing!) for years 1961 thru 1964. If you can help, please feel free to do so!
I'm always searching for 12th pictures and data; I'm very interested in any Aviation Company or smaller unit assigned Otters. I recently started a page on other Otter companies, and other Otter pictures. I can take pics in Internet format and will be glad to post them here for you with credit! See the "12th Picture Gallery" for photo submission details and my mailing address.
Overview:
The 12th Aviation Company (FW-LT) was a DeHavilland U1-A Otter (civilian DHC-3) Company when I joined it in July of 1961 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I had been the first EM in the newly forming 57th Aviation Company at Ft. Sill, but volunteered as a replacement in case of any last minute problems with 12th personnel. Sure enough, F/Sgt. George Pitman called me to come interview as a replacement! The 12th was headed to Alaska, and I left in early August 1961. There were two flight platoons of 8 aircraft each; one platoon went to Ft. Richardson at Anchorage, while I went to the Flight Platoon at Ladd AFB, Fairbanks Alaska. The base was renamed Ft. Wainwright in the Fall of '61. (NOTE: Al Rogers of the 568th sent a request to the Army in Alaska trying to establish the name change date. He was given the date of January, 1961, but I believe this is in error.)
This was the first time an Aviation Company was stationed in Alaska. There had been 30th TOPO Otter's there before, but not in Company strength. (Hugh Wellman, 12th Maintenance Officer in FBK had been in the unit!) There were also other one-of-a-kind Otter's assigned to the 568th TransCo maintenance company and the Arctic Test Board at Ft. Greeley in Big Delta, AK (unit unknown.)
We were shortly joined by a H-21 helicopter unit, the 65th Transportation Company from Ft. Eustis, VA. The H-21's were quartered in a "Butler Building" hangar west of the 12th in Hangar #6. (Interestingly, Hangar 6 is where the Russian's picked up Lend Lease aircraft in W.W.II!) All aviation was assigned to the south side of the airfield. We shared hangar space with the US Army Alaska (USARAL) Aviation Battalion. They flew L-20's, L-19's & L-23D's. The unit also had float L-19 & L-20's if memory serves; these were based on post, and used the Chena River flowing through the post as their mooring area. They later had HU-1A's "Huey" helicopters & OV-1 Mohawks. The Battalion Commander was Lt. Col. Sam Cockerham. I flew with him many times, and a better Bn. Commander never was! (I have been in contact with him, but need to re-establish contact to check out photo's, etc.)
A Field Maintenance Company, the 568th TC (GS) was housed in a smaller but newer hanger just to the east of the 12th's hangar. I believe they had more to their number designation like (Medium or Heavy) or something like that too. On 9/28/00 I found out from Al Rogers that the "(GS)" meant General Support. Thanks to Al for the update 3/31/00 & 9/28/00! He E-mailed me that he was in the 568th while I was there, and in fact only showed up a couple of days after I did! He was supposed to be in the 12th, transferring from the 1st at Ft. Benning. It was amended, and he wound up being an E-6 tech inspector, but retiring a colonel! Never knew about the Army that way! One day a guy is turning wrenches with 'ya, next day he's your CO!
The main objective with the Army in Alaska was to train a division from the lower US in cold weather operations in an annual field exercise. We joined our southern platoon brothers on a frozen airfield in the coldest times of the year. A subset of the purpose was to test Arctic gear. A large impound area housed items like the "Land-Train" that was being tested. This was a large modular unit that had "cars" coupled together, and was able to cross all kinds of obstacles. It did poorly in Alaska, burning out electric wheel drive motors at a high rate, I was told. I ferried some parts to it once, landing on a frozen river.
Website Data for the 12th Aviation Company
Since I've started setting up this Website for the unit, I've done some research on it. I found that the Unit History records are stored in Pennsylvania, at the Carlisle Army Barracks. (Revised 11/17) One of the Army base closures is Carlisle Barracks. I have no idea where the records will be moved for storage, or if they will be physically moved.
At the 15th Annual Reunion in San Diego, I was fortunate enough to get into a discussion with Jim Davis, who was CO of the 12th in 1970. The 12th went into Beech U-21 Ute's (civilian King Air) and HU-1 Huey's; later OV-1 Mohawks also joined the 12th, forming a composite company...via an Army ASTA platoon. Jim stated that it was a near nightmare of logistics support for the four differing types... U-1A's, U-21's, HU-1's and OV-1's! Plus, a few years later OH-58A Kiowa's were added too!
Via the Unit Histories, the 12th became part of the 19th Aviation Battalion with headquarters at Ft. Richardson. The 12th supported the Battalion "with a couple of Otters, one U-21 and one UH-1" according to Jim, and the platoon there was still referred to as "South Platoon," as always! Later it appears that the 222nd Combat Aviation Bn. was the command authority, date started was 27 Jan 1972. The unit started out in Anchorage, but transferred to Fairbanks later in the year; I assume (!) was the Battalion HQ until the 12th's standown in 1973.
I made contact with an excellent Otter information source in Ireland, Karl Hayes. He mailed me a copy of the unit history he had from Carlisle Army Barracks. Unfortunately, the history starts in 1966 with the files, so I've requested another search, since they state they have the records from 1958. I'll make an attempt at making something useful out of it, and have started a separate WebPages for 12th History. (Added: The Carlisle Army Barracks people misstated the time frame for their records. Unfortunately, no files are available from 1958 to 1966, durnit!).
If you're an ex-member of the 12th, no matter when, e-mail or regular mail me please? I've tried getting in touch with members, and had some success. My results and efforts are pasted into a new page called "Contacts."
To contact me at home:
Bill Todd
9360 SW Scout Camp Trail, CRR
Terrebonne, OR 97760
PLEASE NOTE: I've taken my e-mail address and phone number off the Web. There are unscrupulous people out there that use a "bot" (short for robot) that scours through the Internet, collecting names and numbers. They then sell that information to equally nasty and perverted companies to call me at dinner time! Why always at dinner time? Because they know I'll be home! Nowadays, it seems like the calls are from Bangladesh, India or the near East where I can't understand them a bit! They are of course, trying to sell me something like satellite connection, siding or a remodel job that I was just "picked for a trial project in my neighborhood!" Whoopee! You ought to see my neighborhood! If you know anything about Geocites and Yahoo, then you know how to leave me an e-mail message! Use my site name: "otter12thavnco" (without the parentheses, then the "at sign" and yahoo.com ("@yahoo.com") This is a pain in the butt, I know, but it defeats all those unscrupulous people that want to sell my name and number and e-mail address to some equally sleazy "telemarketer." Thanks, I appreciate it!
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If you or anyone you know was in the 12th, I'd surely like to hear from you &/or them!
If any of you readers have pictures of the "12th In Action" I'd really like to get them pasted in here! I also have other sets of Otter pictures, some showing ex-12th aircraft before or after duty with the 12th. For a check on them, see "Otter Aircraft" for pics like 76132 on floats for the AK-NG!
Credits:
The above image patches were generously supplied by Kay Elmore, whom I met while at the 15th Annual AOCA Reunion in San Diego. This "Oscar" patch was used while I was in the 12th, and referred to our Army designation as "FW-LT" which stood for Fixed Wing-Light Transportation. The Polar Bear patch was for USARAL (US Army Alaska,) or as we called it: "Yogi Bear!" The "TT" patch of later usage referred to "Tactical Transportation." (Same patch, just different verbiage.)
I had a patch of the later 57th Aviation Company forwarded to me, but it's from when it was a Caribou Company in 'nam. If anyone has info as to what if any patch was used by the 57th when and if it had one when it was an Otter Company, I'd surely appreciate it! See the link just below to see the Caribou patch.
For a complete treatment on 12th patches, see the page "Otter Company patches."
