________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
I guess someone in the higher headquarters asked, "Why are we all of a sudden using all of
those Bangalores?" They came down to understand they were all being used by one engineer
battalion, the 577th. So, the whistle was blown, and our supply was cut off for not being used
for what they were intended. They were certainly being used for high productivity in keeping
the job going. We were both clearing and grubbing on rice paddy highways at the same time
we were clearing along this road from Tuy Hoa to Cung Son. So, for about three weeks we
had a field day, but then we were stopped.
Then we had to come up with something else on the roadway into Cung Son, and it was too
steep, really, for dozers to operate safely. So, we came up with what we called the yo-yo
technique. One dozer would stay at the top of the hill and put another on a winch that would
work down from the top, scraping away, come back up, go down another path and scrape it
away.
This area was too steep for the Texas ball or for normal kinds of clearing operations. Mostly
there we used straight-blade dozing, not the Rome plow and stinger. In other areas where we
had trees we used the Rome plow and stinger.
That operation continued for several weeks until we finished. That gets us back to the
schedule for echeloning the battalion from the Tuy Hoa area to the vicinity of Dalat.
When we developed the concept of how we would move the battalion, we first had to come
to grips with the schedule for completing the construction of QL1, leaving it paved from
Vung Ro to Tuy Hoa. Second, we were to finish the Ban Thach bridge. Third, we were trying
to wrap up all of the other projects in Phu Hiep, but the ammo depot, which had been last
priority, had been slipped and slipped and slipped. The berming for that and other projects
could be turned over to the 84th Engineer Battalion.
We needed to be in the new area so we could work on QL21A before the rainy season
began. The concept was that we would switch flags of Delta Company's with the 589th
Engineer Battalion. Delta Company had finished the northern part of the work on QL1 and
had moved down to the vicinity of Cam Ranh Bay, at Dong Ba Thin, to do some work there
that the group wanted done.
So, I gave my Delta Company to the 589th out of Phan Rang. The 589th gave their Delta
Company, already in place at Don Duong, up just below the reservoir, to me. So, we just
switched guidons.
Of course we didn't need the float bridge company once the Ban Thach bridge was finished.
The bridge company went back to group and brigade control down in the Dong Ba Thin area.
We gave up the light equipment company and the dump truck company once we'd finished
the paving. So, that meant really, then, we would echelon A, B, and C Companies and the
headquarters and headquarters company on down to the new area.
The last to arrive was B Company. They were doing the last bit of work on QL1. I put B and
C Companies down at Duc Trong, at the other end of the triangle. We left one platoon up at
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