Patrol Base Frontier City established information
C/4/9 INF
25 INF DIV

For date 690424


C/4/9 INF was a US Army unit
25 INF DIV was a US Army unit
Primary service involved, US Army
South Vietnam
Location, Patrol Base Frontier City
Description: The Army had perfected the techniques for establishing an "instant patrol base" in a hostile territory. Patrol Base Frontier City was constructed in a single day as follows. One bulldozer was brought in by a CH-54 and the other was floated down the Vam Co River and the Rach Bao Canal on a raft, and then driven into camp. The position of the base was selected, an engineer stake driven at the center and a 130-foot rope tied to the stake to trace the bunker line. Twenty-four standard packages were helicoptered in and dropped off around the perimeter. Each contained a shaped demolition charge, two sheets of pierced steel planking, and a bundle of sandbags. After the explosives created the initial bunker holes, the infantry tackled the hard job of squaring off the holes and using the packaged materials to build their nine-foot bunkers. All 24 bunkers were completed in 9 hours. As the bunkers were being completed, the dozers pushed up dirt berms between them. Other soldiers were busy clearing fields of fire, stringing rows of triple concertina wire, and setting up 300 claymore mines. A prefabricated 20-foot observation tower was flown in and set in the middle of the base. The tower was sandbagged and crowned with both a radar and starlight scope. Finally, two howitzers were flown in. Twenty-one CH-47 sorties were used to bring in the fortification packages, crew-served weapons, and ammunitions. By sundown the base was complete and ready for combat.

The source for this information was Rise & Fall P:299
Rise & Fall = The Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1963 - 1973 by Shelby Stanton.


Additional information is available on CD-ROM.

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Date posted on this site: 05/13/2023