 anywhere in the world at short notice. In some ways, the squadron could be seen as a permanent version of the Mill Pond unit created in Thailand a few weeks earlier. It was likely to operate from primitive airfields with limited logistical support, and of necessity had to use fairly unsophisticated aircraft. A total of twenty-seven Invaders were taken out of storage at Davis Monthan AFB between March and September 1961, and reconditioned at Hill AFB for use by Jungle Jim. Once reconditioned, many went back into temporary storage, however, and by the end of 1961 the 4400th CCTS only had some fifteen B 26Bs on strength. The unit also used T 28s and SC 47s, again with additional aircraft held in temporary storage.
Jungle Jim had its main base at Hurlburt Field, also known as Auxiliary Field 9 of Eglin AFB, Florida. Hurlburt had seen extensive use during the Second World War, including training for Doolittle's Tokyo raid. Since 1945 it had mainly been used as a test facility, but on occasion it had also served as a base for medium bomber units. Under the command of Colonel Benjamin H. King, the all volunteer 4400th spent the next several months in training, with the first crews becoming ready for operations in September.
President Kennedy officially sanctioned the sending of US forces to Vietnam on 22 November 1961, but by this time the first aircraft of Jungle Jim had already arrived in the country. The President had authorized their deployment on 11 October. On 5 November about half the squadron - some 150 men, together with four SC 47s and eight T 28s - left Florida for Southeast Asia. This was Detachment 2A of the 4400th CCTS, which had received the project name Farm Gate for its service in Vietnam. It became operationally ready in Vietnam with some of its T 28s on 16 November. At the request of the US Ambassador to Vietnam, all Farm Gate aircraft carried Vietnamese national insignia, in order to keep a low profile.
From the outset, the main base of Farm Gate was Bien Hoa Air Base, some fifteen miles north of Saigon. This was a former French base, taken over by the VNAF on formation in 1955. It also housed the 1st Fighter Squadron of the VNAF. The Farm Gate aircraft were initially maintained and serviced by Detachment 9 of the 13th Air Force. The personnel of this unit were mainly drafted from the 6009th Tactical Support Group at Tachikawa, Japan, and had arrived in Vietnam in late October. Later on, the maintenance personnel were seconded from Hurlburt Field.
The initial main mission of Farm Gate was to provide training for the VNAF. There was considerable confusion as to whether or not the US crews could participate in actual combat missions, and Farm Gate received several conflicting directives from different sources. Although a few T 28 missions were flown in support of VNAF Skyraider attacks, the main employment of the unit during the last weeks of 1961 was to reconnoiter the junk traffic along the Vietnamese coast, using SC 47s and T 28s.
When deployed to Vietnam, the detachment had not brought any of its own B 26 aircraft. But, in anticipation of the arrival of the first Invaders a few weeks later, PACAF immediately set about securing spare parts for the aircraft. During the middle of November 1961, instructions were sent to bases in the 5th Air Force area to urgently ship all B 26 spares and engines to Clark Field in the Philippines. All boxes were to be marked 'Project Farm Gate' and no formal shipping documents were required. After having arrived at Clark, the materiel was simply listed as 'found on base,' thereby neatly avoiding a lot of red tape and time- consuming paper work. The total weight of the spares collected in this way was 64,404 lbs.
Farm Gate was initially allocated four B 26Bs already in Southeast Asia. All four were almost certainly aircraft formerly used by Project Mill Pond. They were picked up at the Air Asia facility on Taiwan by Farm Gate crews and arrived at Bien Hoa around Christmas 1961.
It should be noted that the USAF initially tended to refer to all Farm Gate Invaders as 'RB 26s' in 