John W. Morris
about it. They were the first battalion to stand down. The next was the 70th. Colonel Jim Hays
had that battalion, and he shows up later in the Israeli airfield business.
We replaced the 169th at Bao
with the 116th Engineer Battalion, which had been beaten up
very badly over on the east coast north of Qui Nhon. The Vietcong must have watched the 169th
They never could
leave because the 116th was in trouble the whole time they were at Bao
get the enemy straightened out like the 169th did.
Q ..
At the outset, was the engineer withdrawal taken mostly out of the LOC effort?
A ..
These were both combat battalions. The LOC effort survived the
longer.
Q ..
I know that deadlined equipment and getting parts had been a problem.
A ..
It had been a problem, but there are books written on this thing that are much more detailed. The
one thing I know is that the LOC system worked quite well. If we had a piece of equipment go
down, we had an instant replacement. Now, if it had been military-issued equipment, we would
not have had that luxury. General Clarke convinced the Army not to do the LOC work with
ordinary military equipment and he was on target.
Q .. Were you involved at all with the Vietnamization program?
A .. Yes. That's why the 299th got in trouble. Yes, we had a lot to do with the Vietnamization
program. The brigade supported the advisory groups, local mayors, and district leaders. Of
course, the 299th got in trouble because the Vietnamese security left the scene of battle when the
started. The Vietnamization program ultimately fell to the enemy.
Strangely enough, the North Vietnamese Army came the same route more or less that trapped the
French near Dien Bien Phu which was in the 18th Brigade area. The Vietnamization program was
all right in concept, I think. It had a chance, but it didn't work. Something failed because of poor
leadership at the national senior Army levels.
Q .. What was the state of the Vietnamese engineer units?
A .. We tried very hard to integrate them into our work, and I would say they were weak, basically.
The equipment was tough for them. We were training them on the equipment. I don't recall now
any Vietnamese engineer unit building roads, for example, of the type we were building. I don't
recall them being involved with the LOC program during my tour-maybe later. We did have
cooperative projects- b r i d g e s and things like that-particularly secondary roads.
Q .. They had difficulty recruiting good caliber officers, didn't they?
A .. I don't remember that. I remember that some of the Vietnam divisions were led by some
outstanding generals. General Stillwell, General Zais after him, were very high on the Vietnamese
First Division commander. The battalion commanders were all right. I don't have any recollection
of any problems with the Vietnamese engineers. We didn't work with them as much as you might
have thought. I remember visiting the Vietnamese engineer group's battalion commanders and
having them to our place for meetings. Coordination was ongoing. It's possible that there were
missions that I just don't recall. All of our battalion and group commanders kept close contact
with the Vietnamese units in their areas. My feeling today is there wasn't enough time to do good
training before transition.
Q .. You mentioned one other topic earlier, and I wondered if you might want to expand on it. I find
it very interesting. You said that the engineer units didn't have the morale problems or the drug
problems that some other units had.
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