Click logo for Home Page"
T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
Customs? What's That?
David Millican
One of the pilots in the 14th MAS brought a whole
Honda 250 back to the
states duty free by bringing it back part by part.
He stashed the parts at
Yokota, and he'd bring back a wheel one trip, a
frame the next, an engine the
next, etc.
I was on the Thai Shuttle mission with a senior 14th
MAS Loadmaster as part
of the crew. This Load was lugging two huge cartons
ever since leaving U-Tapao
heading back to Norton.
While clearing customs at Hickam, the inspector
asked him to open the cartons,
which he had declared "for personal use". In the two
boxes were 850 elephant
skin billfolds. Customs promptly seized the
billfolds. He subsequently appealed
the confiscation and successfully retrieved his
billfolds. He was never able to live that one down.