The Air Force had a mandate and a plan. An operation code named MUSCLE-SHOALS (later renamed to IGLOO-WHITE) was already underway. Run in the closest possible secrecy, the operation was under the immediate control of TASK FORCE ALPHA, based at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Base. NKP or "Naked Fanny" as it came to be known to those assigned there is located in North East Thailand, 8 clicks west of the Mekong River, north of the 17th Parallel which just happened to define the DMZ in Vietnam.
But they needed an additional helicopter squadron to handle a few chores in Laos since the 20th Helicopter Squadron "Green Hornets" were working overtime on cross-border operations with MACV-SOG Special Forces in CCC and CCS. They flew for some time out of Ban Me Thout, East Field. The other detachments of the 20th became known as the "Pony Express" for their "We Always Deliver" spirit and flew out of many places throughout Vietnam.
A detachment of the 20th Helicopter Squadron, The Green Hornets flying the UH-1F, would gain fame for Cpt James P Flemming, the first USAF Helicopter pilot to win the Medal of Honor. His daring and heroic rescue of a Special Forces Team, trapped against a river bank, is the subject of an outstanding painting called "Not Today" by the artist Bill Farnsworth. Accurately depicting the hovering UH-1F with the toes of the skids on the riverbank, rotor blades stripping leaves from the surrounding trees, the rescue successfully extracted the team from their precarious situation. Meanwhile the CH-3C's of the Pony Express were fully occupied in SVN. Later they would move to the Udorn RTAFB and work in northern Laos, covering the Plain of Jars and North Vietnam.