tigerregis,
Ah ha! Another aging sailor here....or, maybe, just a perceptive student of history.
Let's see, this has gotta be about sailing....
Just a couple of years before I bought my little teak sailboat in Djakarta...as it was then spelled....TWA was flying those beautiful three-tailed constellations around Asia and the Malaysian-Indonesian archipeligo wasn't a heck of a lot different than during colonial times, except that there were some newly independent states. There were very few yachts plying those waters, except for the occasional 29' Dragon racer wandering to the 1,000 islands north of Java, and a very few others.
When I'd sail my little sloop off Djakarta, I'd often see the absolutely beautiful fishing fleet -- majestic native sailboats sailed by very skilled crew. Occasionally, I'd catch glimpse of one of the Makassar trading schooners, with their twin rudders and tillers oriented 90 degrees to the hull....a helmsman standing on each one to steer. This was a very good incentive for them not to fall asleep!
Meanwhile, a few hundred miles to the north the French were having a very bad go of it. And, yes, somewhere along the line DDE said we weren't gonna bail them out. Nevertheless, we secretly provided air support, viz:
"The United States participated covertly in the battle (Dien Bien Phu), following a request for help from Henri Navarre. US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, provided 2 squadrons of B-26 Marauder bomber aircraft to support the French. Subsequently, thirty-seven US pilots flew 682 sorties over the course of the battle. Two of them – Wallace Buford and James "Earthquake McGoon" McGovern Jr. – were killed in action. Seven of those pilots were later awarded the French Legion of Honor. The role the US pilots played in the battle has remained little known – "US historian Erik Kirsinger researched the case for more than a year to establish the facts."
Only about 70 of 1,700 made it out, making their way to Laos. This presaged the buildup of our White Star Teams (U.S. Army special forces), leading up to the Vietnam War.
A few years later, I joined the Foreign Service and chose to go to Laos precisely because it was landlocked. You see, after Indonesia I'd developed a very bad case of sea fever.
This resulted, the year before JFK was assassinated, in me acquiring a 10-ton gaff-rigged ketch which I kept docked only 10 minutes away from my then very low-level government job. Spent every lunchtime aboard (that's where I was when the awful news from Dallas came thru), and every weekend.
All too often, when the weather wasn't rotten and the winds were right, I'd slip her moorings at lunchtime and go for a sail. For two years, I didn't have an engine, the old Jeep having thrown a rod right thru the crankcase and me having a growing family to feed on a meager income. So, some of these lunchtime quick getaways weren't all that quick.
Being possessed of a stubborn streak, it took awhile for it to seep into my consciousness that this pattern of behavior was quite harmful to my family and, more immediately, to my promising career. So, when the wife asked if we shouldn't think about going back overseas I thought it prudent to put the boat up for sale and try living away from the sea for awhile....at least until my employers could see what a brilliant fellow I really was
Alas, there was indeed no sailing in Laos. There were lots of Frenchies though, and we spent a lot of time re-playing the history of Indochina at the bar in the Hotel Des Indes and lesser better-not-name bars.
Happily, this "dry" era came to an end, and my love of sailing and all things maritime survived intact.
Bill