________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
Later on we were trying to clear and grub along the stretch of highway going through the
paddies. There was a lot of rice and grasses. We found that by putting a Bangalore down
beside the road along the shoulder--there was no ditch--and setting it off, we could blow
grass and water and everything out. So, we would grub using the Bangalores so we could
then bring in a dragline, clear out the soft paddy mud, and then bring laterite and rock in and
dump it into what remained.
As we were progressing and trying to complete projects to inch on down to the Dalat area--I
still have to come back to explain our plan to move out--we were given an additional
mission. Even after we'd established a move date, we were given a mission to clear the
highway from Tuy Hoa west to Cung Son, about 30 kilometers away. We were to use Rome
plows to clear all foliage back 100 meters from the road.
This was a complicated operation. First of all, I had set the dates we were going to move, and
this was a new mission. Second, we were told we would not get a Rome plow company or
platoon. We'd be given about three Rome plow kits to put on our own dozers. This meant I
had to take three dozers off production somewhere else.
Q:
If I could get you to go through the Texas ball again. I believe we missed a little of that.
A:
The Texas ball was a huge metal sphere used in land-clearing operations in Texas. I guess it
must have been 8 to 10 feet in diameter, with chains that came out either end. You'd hook
those chains with dozers, and the chains would cut the undergrowth while the ball rolled
around. It wouldn't knock down large trees. It might knock out some smaller trees.
Now, the brush we were clearing along QL7 really wasn't jungle. It was heavy brush and
scrub kinds of trees with some bigger trees, but this wasn't thick jungle we were trying to
clear away.
So, we embarked on that operation, and it was really difficult--difficult from the standpoint
that, first of all, for the first several kilometers out from Tuy Hoa there was an irrigation
canal lying right next to the roadway. The roadway was only about a lane and a half wide for
one of our trucks, and there was the steep canal bank next to the road. We had to go over to
the other side of the canal to get to the hillside to clear and cut away the foliage.
You really couldn't turn a low-bed on that roadway. To move back and forth across the canal
was very difficult. It had to be almost a 90-degree turn. So, we built M4T6 trestle spans, and
we would lift that in by Chinook helicopter, lower it into the canal, bring the trucks up, drop
the balk in place on the trestles. The dozer would come down and make a 90-degree turn on
the road, go across that completed bridge, then move up the hillside.
We had a company of armor--and I say armor because it was a tank company--but they
were in armored personnel carriers with mounted .50-caliber machine guns from the 173d
Airborne. They were our security out there; they went with our work party. The force stayed
out in the field every night as they made their way west from Tuy Hoa.
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