62nd Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy)

Streamer Order List And History

                    
 

On 28 August the 62d Engineer Battalion (Construction) arrived at Cam Ranh from Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and was soon sent to Phan Rang. The process by which the battalion finally reached Phan Rang illustrates the effect of shifts in priorities at the last minute. The 62d had originally been slated to go to the Qui Nhon peninsula; in fact its advance party was already at Qui Nhon when the transport carrying the rest of the battalion reached the coast of Vietnam opposite Qui Nhon. In the meantime, however, a prior decision made in Headquarters, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, for an airfield to be built on the peninsula to the northeast of Qui Nhon harbor had been reversed and the site abandoned as impractical from the point of view of engineering feasibility and security. A proposed airfield at Phan Rang then immediately assumed the highest priority after the one at Cam Ranh Bay. Since no troops had been scheduled to start construction in Phan Rang at that time, the 62d was diverted to Cam Ranh Bay where its equipment was to have been unloaded for transshipment by small water craft to Qui Nhon. However, from Cam Ranh the battalion was routed into Phan Rang, with heavy equipment going over the beach in landing craft and light vehicles going by the road in a series of convoys organized as Operation ESSAYONS. An advance element of the 25th Infantry Division, still in Hawaii, Company C of the 65th Engineer Battalion, which had not yet received its organic equipment and which had landed at Cam Ranh to locate at Dong BA Thin, organized itself in an infantry configuration and provided convoy security. Air cover and surveillance were supplied by aircraft from the 35th Group headquarters. The chief projects of the 62d Battalion were the construction of an aluminum airstrip (AM2), 10,000 feet long and 102 feet wide, as well as a cantonment for incoming Air Force units. Later the 62d was charged with building a base camp for the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, while the division engaged in field operations

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Thank you,  Bob

100% Disabled Vietnam Vet