Patricia Linder, wife of RADM James Linder, in her book "The Lady and the Tiger," wrote extensively about the place, including many humorous (and also some very serious) events that occurred there during their period of residence from 1977 until early 1980.
LTC Scott Ellinger was kind enough to identify the map coordinates for the former Quarters A (25.133202,121.542799), which I pasted into Google Maps for the images shown below.
This first image shows the location of Quarters A in relation to the HSA compound. You can see the aircraft symbol at the old airport in this photo, the HSA compound was about two kilometers (by my reckoning) due west of the airport. Well north of that location, appropriately labeled "A" in this image, is Quarters A. As always on this blog, you can click on the images to expand them for easier viewing.
Below is a satellite photo of the building as it appears today. When Pat saw this photo, she immediately recognized it, and said that the white area to the lower left of the house is the pool. A long porch faces the pool and looks out over Tien Mou. The house to the left of Quarters A was the South African Embassy with Bill and Renee Praetorious in residence at that time. She noted that nature is very forgiving because many large trees were destroyed during the typhoon that hit as they were moving into this house. As you can see, the area seems to have healed nicely since then.
Many thanks to Jenny, Scott and Patricia for helping me document this important part of US Taiwan Defense Command history.
7 comments:
VADM Roland Smoot was the Commander of USTDC while I was in Taiwan (1959-60). One of my duties while at USTDC was showing movies for the Admiral, his wife, and any guests they might invite to their house. I had tried to find the house on Google Earth several times, but Taiwan has changed so much and my memory of the house was so foggy that I never succeeded. My thanks to LTC Ellinger for providing the coordinates.
Even after seeing the Google images, I don't remember much about the house itself. I don't think there was a pool when I was there. I do have vivid memories of the view of Taipei from the house. It was spectacular and every time I think about it I wonder why I didn't take some pictures from there.
Across the drive from the Admiral's house was the house of the president of Civil Air Transport. I don't recognize it in the Google images, but the Admiral had me take some pictures of the house as a favor for his neighbor.
Stev,
I just met VADM Smoot's grandson in the airport last week... strange... he will look through his father's things to see what he can dig up from his father.
Scott Ellinger
Scott,
Again, my thanks for providing the coordinates for the house. I would really like to see any pictures of the house and area around it from that era - especially the view overlooking Taipei. If the grandson finds any, hopefully he will furnish copies to Don for the blog.
Stev:
So at the time, where was your house?
and do you remember who was the president of CAT? remember his name ?
Jenny Lee
Stev:
where is your house at the time ?
Do you remember ehat was the CAT President's name ?
Scott:
did you hear anything from VADM Roland Smoot yet?
Jenny
I didn't have a house. I lived in Hostel #1 on Grass Mountain. Sorry, I don't remember the CAT president's name.
Post a Comment