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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-07867 to 363-07871.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-07867 to 363-07871
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Title
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Article about the fortifications near Laos' border
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Description
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Article draft about the fortifications near South Vietnam's border with Laos, for the Associated Press
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Transcript
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Beverly Deepe
Associated Press
Rue Pasteur 158 D/3
Saigon, Vietnam
KHAM DUC, SOUTH VIET HAM-I thought I was seeing the filming of a cowboy
and Indian movie. Below mo, as the helicopter circled the area, was a bit
of the Old Frontier Days of 17th-century U. S. Ao
The large wooden fort with gunner holes and log cabins were not,
however, in the Wild West. They were transplanted to the Far East--in the
deep jungles of South Viet Nam.
There were built on cleared jungle land only 13 miles from the Laotian
border for protection from an o onomy more serious than the Indians-
the guerrilla-type Communist Viet Cong.
The project at Kham Duo might be called President Ngo Dinh Dien's
"New Frontior." One of about 20 outposts dotting the Laotian bornder, it
involves clearing 3166 acres of jungle land to build a resettlement
village--a protected fortress-for Vietnamese and mountainoor tribesmen
for miles around.
More than 3000 villagers will be brought into Kham Duc on its expected
completition in May from isolated jungle areas where the Viet Cong
exploit them for intelligence information, rice, young men for military
purposes, women and children from porters and any available weapons.
Each family is to be given for homesteading two acres of fertile cleared
land on the outskirts of the village--one of the largest resettlement
it schemes in the country.
The scone was not too different from the stories my Grandfather had
told me when he top westward from Ohio to Kansas and then
Nebraska in a covered wagon, ninakazat many of them clustered together in a
train for self-protection against maraudering Indians.
One was another kind of wagon
There were only two ways to reach Kham Duc.
train an extensive military convoy of tx trucks and joops.
(More)
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Doope-2
The enemy instead of Indians with bows and arrows-was the Communist
Viet Cong equipped with submashine guns and automatic rifles, well concealed
behind trees for sniping and ambushing.
One American milita ry advisor was ambushed twice in one day last October
on one of the two roads leading to Khan Duc.
I visited the area in a modern-day metal stagecoach-the helicopters used
to ferry troops or cargo over impassably jungled mountains. The H-21
Shawnee, loaded with TNT,
Nam.
flew 50 miles from Da Nang, a large seaport
miles from the 17th parallel sur separating North and South Viet
It flew through the passes of mountains covered with primary
jungle, over small riverlets creeping down the crevices and followed Highway
14, a red clay road hugging the hillside contours.
"That's one of the most ambushed roads in the country," the helicopter
pilot told me over the earphones. Occassionally the U. S. Army craft dipped
over a triangular French-styled outpost, which a small Vietnamese defensive
unit hold. A Vietnamese patrol on the road waved to the 2 "chopper" gunner
standing in the open doorway. If they had boon onomy troops, they could have
shot him.
Bundled in a heavy bullet-proof vest, I sat on the emergency survival kit,
a wooden box afx containing modioino, purified water, food and a long machete
for hacking out the jungle.
"That vest doesn't stop the bullets," the pilot said. "It just eases
the pain.
it."
We put one on a post yesterday and shot holes all the way through
The roaring stagecoach landed on a small circular area cleared from the
mase of hilly jungle. A one-mile long (1750 meter) airstrip, capable of landing
0-47s, was nearly finished, but a three-months ja operation of outting 100-foot
trees and leveling mountain toops remained before the planes acquired the
necessary clearance.
Terraced along the hillsides were log cabins with grass roofs, a shaok
with a cross on top, and an administrative center. A bounce across on an
opposited hillside was the five-sided fort the Pentagon of Kham Duo-built
from a row of logs packed with clay two foot thick at the top and five foot
thick at the bottom.
"That will stop almost any kind of bullet," I was told.
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Doope-3
I noticed steel helmets, used as wash basins, and potted flowers
decorated the porches of living quarters as I waslked up the steps hewn
out of hardened clay to the administrative office of a representative of
the province chief. The
province chiefs in South Viet Nam are
comparable to a state gMENTEX COVOrnor in the United States. They
excers exercise both military and administrative control of the area.
"Phase I in Kham Due consists of building a market, school, church,
pagoda, medical and social services in the village for military and
administrative personnel," the young administrative officer explained to me
in his office with a desk and three large paintings.
The second phase was to build houses and shops for the Vietnamese and
mountaineers, he said.
"Phase III is to pull Vietnamese and mountaineers in from the hills
to live in the strategic hamelt, to train them to fight the V. C. so the
regular at army can eventually withdraw," he concluded.
Also included in the project are a civilian administrative complex, including
a town hall, water wells and, presumably for President Dion, a V. I. P.
house the only whitewashed, tile-floored building in the village.
A network of outposts is also planned to dot the uz surrounding hills.
The number of outposts and the entire cost of the project is classified.
Military security for the area is provided by two companies of the
2d Inf. Div., Army of Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN)x to protect construction
crew from the guerrillas which surround them.
Construction is being done by 400 civilians plus the 450-man 22nd
Engineer Combat Battalion of the Vietnamese 2d Engineer Combat Group of
ARVN.
Village housing construction will be sublet to private contractors.
The Department of Public Works is building & the airstrip, which will be the
largest in the I Corps area, the northern ono-third of the country touching
both the 17th parallel and the Laotian border.
"This Vietnamese enginner engineer battalion hasn't been home as a unit
for two years," said an American military advisor to the battalion. "That's
really a hardship tour in your own country."
(Moro)
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Capti
Capt. Robert L. Van In Vranken, of Derby, Kas., (1245 El Paso St.),
suburban Wichita, ax has succeeded as advisor to the onginoor battalion
Capt. Tasman L. Graham, of Idaho Falls, Idaho (1225 First Street).
President Diom visited the site in 1960 for a simple ceremonyx in an
austere setting including a helicopter pad, four steps chipped out of dirt loading
to a small landing for a single row of chairs. He gave the name of Kham
Due to an old deserted mountaineer village of leveled grass shacks.
Work began in love, 1961, but the rainy season slowed progress.
80 per cent of the days were at least party rainy until the
the dry season began.
About
March when
"In one rainy day, we drove about two miles in two hours," an American
military advisor explained. "We finally had to get out and walk to Kham
Duc for two more hours.
to come in.
It took 'til six the next night for the trucks
"We'd be completely finishec by now if it hadn't been for the wet
weather," he lamented. "But we've done more in the last six weeks than
we have in the past six months."
30
90
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Deape
Captions
Pix 1-2 Grass-roofed log cabins dot the hillsides on cleared jungle
land at # Khan Duc, one of the largest resettlement villages in South Viet Nam.
Pix 3: A grass hut serves as a chapel at Kham Duce
Pix 4s Laborors at Kham Duc.
Mechanical equipment, including bulldozers,
roadgraders and air compressors, still leaves plenty of work for muscles.
Pix 5-68 The wooden fort of Kham Duo will serve as protection for 3000
villagess who resettle here from their jungle homes. Pix 6-with steal
helmets as wash ba sins and potted flower decorations in the foreground.
Pix 7 The white-washed V. I. P. house at Kham Duc, presumably to be used
if President Diem re-visits the site.
30
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Date
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1962
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Fortification; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Campaigns--Laos; Strategy; Tactics
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B1, F5
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
