________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
When I arrived at Pleiku, there had been an advisory detachment at the II Corps headquarters
for some time. I don't know how long that time was, but it'd been staffed at about twelve
people. There was a small horseshoe-shaped compound of eighteen rooms, motel-like. It had
no security fence on the outside of it. It was a nice little area. Colonel "Coalbin Willy"
Wilson occupied two of those rooms as commander.
There were mostly colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors. I was the eighteenth person to
arrive. When I left a year later, there were 600 Americans in Pleiku, so that's how early it
was in the build-up. When I left, it was still advisory; we didn't have units. We had some
aviation detachments but not combat units. We had basically two fixed-wing aircraft, Otters,
to service the entire II Corps tactical zone, which was the central highlands. One of them was
a command aircraft for Colonel Wilson; the other was used to fly shuttle from one major
MAAG installation to another. We had the major cities of Pleiku, Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, Ban
Me Thuot and Kon Tum in our sector. That sort of framed the Corps area.
Q:
There were how many engineers out of that original eighteen?
A:
Well, I don't know how many of the original twelve, but in the eighteen there were three
engineers. There were two majors; one of them was promotable. He was the Corps engineer.
The other major was acting as the deputy Corps engineer and was the engineer group adviser.
The group consisted of three engineer battalions and a light equipment company, maybe a
bridge company. I was the first of the battalion advisers to arrive. So, previously, that 2d
Engineer Group adviser had been the adviser for everything in the group. At the point of my
arrival was the beginning of pushing American advisers down to the battalion level in the
Army, and so I was one of the first of those.
Q:
Do you remember who the major was or the major P?
A:
The major was Sadayo Nagata.
Q:
Okay.
A:
The major P's name was [John A., Jr.] Hughes.
Q:
This is a really interesting period. What did you do on the day-to-day level? What were your
activities like, being an adviser at the battalion level? How did it work?
A:
Well, I think I need to get into that by getting me into the job because everything we did was
freewheeling. I mean, we really created and did what we thought was right without really
being told. It was an interesting time. There was not a lot of guidance. There was also a
feeling that we Americans were going to make it happen. Without doubt we understood that
"Coalbin Willy" Wilson wanted things to happen. He also did not like engineers or signal
officers.
When I had my first interview with him, the Corps engineer, Major (P) Hughes, took me in
and Wilson said, "Welcome," rather gruffly, and "Glad you're here." We just chatted, a very
short, terse meeting. We walked back out and my boss was ecstatic because I was the first
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