________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
A:
Yes, it was. Well, we maintained also rather tight battalion control. That was the priority
project. Production priority was there because that was the one that, if you lost time, you
couldn't make it up. At different parts of the highway and projects like the POL tank farm
and the ammunition depot there were things you could do when you couldn't do other things
because equipment had been diverted.
Out on the bridge, if you lost a day driving piles, then that was a day you weren't going to be
able to pour the pile cap, or start putting stringers down, or eventually place the concrete
deck panels.
We would have all those operations going at once. We'd be driving batter piles and we'd be
forming for the pile cap on others that had been driven. We'd be placing stringers, and we
would be bringing out deck panels, and then later on we'd be putting on railings and
finishing the deck.
So, there was always something going on on that bridge. We were building it from both ends,
all the time, and so we never wanted to let it slip behind schedule.
Q:
Were you under a pretty tight schedule to complete it?
A:
Well, not initially. Like anything, you made a projection of when you were going to
complete, and you wanted to make that projection. Our jobs were so comprehensive and the
responsibilities changed so often that basically we weren't fixed with any hard and fast date
that it had to be done. That changed when Colonel Bill Barnes replaced Colonel Del Fowler
as the 35th Engineer Group commander about halfway through my tour. I was there six
months under each, basically.
Just before that was happening, Brigadier General John Elder, the brigade commander, had
been thinking about how to change operations over time. The work was changing, and in
response he was relooking the responsibilities of his three groups: the 45th Group in the
north, the 937th located in the center, and the 35th in the south.
For instance, the 937th was in the center, but it really was operating along the highlands in
the interior. It was centered out of Pleiku and went down to Ban Me Thuot. The 35th had
been located in Qui Nhon and had the coastal area along the coastline of the South China
Sea.
The change that John Elder was considering and working with his three group commanders
was to make an eastwest horizontal slice in the area of operations so the 45th would
continue in the north; the 937th would take the center, both coast and inland, along Route 19
from Qui Nhon to Pleiku; and the 35th would move south to Cam Ranh Bay and take the
things it already had at Cam Ranh Bay and the 577th in Phu Yen, but give up the 84th
Engineer Battalion at Qui Nhon, which would go to the 937th. Then the 35th would take
responsibility for the 70th Engineer Battalion, which was moving down to Ban Me Thuot.
Then the 35th would go along the eastwest highway from Nha Trang to Ban Me Thuot. The
brigade's new plan really oriented along the main supply routes.
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