The rugged C-123 Provider, one of USAF’s most-used tactical transports, was a workhorse of the long US war in Southeast Asia. The Fairchild airlifter many times proved its worth in Vietnam, where it carried troops and supplies into combat zones as hot as the encircled US Marine base at Khe Sanh in 1968 and provided the capability for Operation Ranch Hand, the US program of defoliant-spraying to eliminate jungle cover and thus unmask enemy troop movements.

Strangely enough, the C-123 began life as a glider, although designers drew it up with every expectation that, eventually, it would be powered. Russian expatriate engineer Michael Stroukoff, who had built a series of wooden gliders, shifted to metal in 1946, ultimately building the XG-20A. He added two radial engines to create the XC-123 Avitruc, following this with the XC-123A, powered by four turbojets. Eventually, Fairchild wound up with a contract to build 300 production aircraft. A small number were delivered to Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Venezuela, the Philippines, and, of course, South Vietnam.

These C-123s went on to fight harder, longer, and better than anyone could have imagined in the early 1950s. C-123s contributed a great deal of in-country airlift in Vietnam and Cambodia. They carried out combat airdrops of troops, supplies, and ammunition, search and rescue teams, and special forces. Even now, one can find old C-123s hauling freight in South America.