Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
A:
Professionally trained, professionally on the go, with a very high degree of mission
orientation and a reality of our role.
Q:
Well, during this period, and this relates to the unit's thinking about deployment, and some
of the work I've done in World War II and the Southwest Pacific at least, they found that the
airborne engineer battalions' equipment was fairly light for some of the jobs that they were
given to do in the Pacific in the World War II period. What about the equipment of the 307th
during this period?
A:
Well, without doubt it was light. You don't send a D6 dozer to do a D7's kind of work.
You have to remember the role of the airborne division. Its role is to force the airhead as a
strategic projection. It allows us to project Army forces strategically, and its mobility is
strategic. It does not have great tactical mobility but it has great strategic mobility. So, you
can project force like we did in Panama, like we did in Grenada, and like we did in the
Dominican Republic years earlier.
The 82d had gone down to jump into Santo Domingo but did not jump, which turned out to
be a lesson learned. The first elements got word that they could land at San Isidro Airfield
unmolested, and so they landed. The equipment was all rigged for air drop. Once they landed
the troops got out and they could throw their gear off, but the equipment was sitting in the
airplanes on honeycomb and pallets. Now, how do you get it out? I mean, it comes out of the
plane via the drag chute in the air and it comes down, hits, and the honeycomb collapses.
You unrig it, and it drives off. Sitting in the airplane with nothing to drag it out, on pallets
and honeycomb, suspended, where its own power can't take care of it, then what do you do?
Then there were these aircraft all around the airfield, not in one location. You couldn't taxi
them in and pull the equipment out. So, it was really a problem. The lesson learned was if
you're rigged for drop, then you're better off dropping, not landing.
Now, we did have, as it remains today, attached to the 307th, the 618th Light Equipment
Company, which is a Corps-type company. It has always been attached to the 307th; they
wear the division patch, they're known as part of the 307th. The 618th has a considerable
amount of engineer equipment. Again, it is the same light equipment, except there is more of
it--graders, dozers, and so forth.
We practiced the 618th Engineer Company again and again in doing its mission. Its mission
was to jump into an area and build an air strip so that the follow-on forces could air land. The
division would jump in with a brigade or two brigades, surround the area and secure the
airhead, and keep bringing people in and expanding it. The 618th's job was to build an
airfield so that the follow-on forces could air land and more rapidly build up. For example, B
and C Companies of the 307th worked on an airfield right outside Saint Mere-Eglise at
Normandy. So, we practiced the same mission at Fort Bragg. The mission for the 618th was
air drop engineering. I remember we did this down near Darlington--drop into an area and
build an airfield out of virgin terrain to accommodate C130 traffic. Three days after the
drop, C130s came in to land on the completed airstrip. So, it was a realistic kind of mission.
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