________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
down 21 Alpha. This was the intersection or the meeting point of the roads from Dalat and
from Duc Trong, QL21 Alpha.
Now, that was controversial later when General Morris arrived. He challenged why would we
build our base camp right below the dam, from the standpoint of concern that the Vietcong
could blow the dam with a large loss of life. One of the things I had to do early on was show
him why we weren't in great jeopardy. I did this by demonstrating the amount of work that
would have to happen for them to be able to provide a demolition charge large enough to
have a catastrophic failure or breach of the dams so the water would pour on us below in the
base camp.
We had our artillery at both ends of the dam, and it was secured. The kind of effort that
would be required to breach the dam would take such a number of hours, or such noise, that
it would be very obvious, and counteraction would be taken.
Further, no matter what happened with the breach where we were, we were so close that the
entire river valley below us, along 21 Alpha, would be inundated. Because it was very
populated with Vietnamese sympathetic to the Vietcong, any kind of warning for them to get
out of the way would be certainly noticeable to us as we were going about our operations.
With that, General Morris acceded to the point that we were okay.
Q:
So, one of your missions down there was to keep the road open during the rainy season, I
think?
A:
To get ready for the upcoming rainy season.
Q:
To get ready for it.
A:
When I departed, we were just getting into the first weeks of the rainy season. The mission
was to keep 21 Alpha open. We were then to prepare to widen QL21 south of Duc Trong.
We were also to look for a quarry site for rock to support further construction and paving
operations. Finally, we were to take charge of the rest of the area and to build the switchback
roadway down the mountain. That was a real challenge because it had severe high grades and
switchbacks up a rather precipitous hillside.
We had three incidents during that time. One of them was natural. There was a tremendous
rainstorm just before I left that breached a roadway where we had just put in three culverts. I
mean, that's how quickly, in this narrow valley, the water came up. So, there was reason for
us to be there to keep that road open.
Second, the Vietcong blew out part of the roadway leading up the mountain through the
switchbacks. They did it very skillfully at a bend, so skillfully that the small Vietnamese
buses that were typical of the area, loaded with folks, could get around the crater. Yet, our 1st
Log Command stake and platform trucks couldn't get around it.
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