Bridge building DPR/TV/1127

Australian Army engineers in South Vietnam are reopening a main road which has been closed for many years. The work includes the rebuilding of two bridges and a number of culverts. Part of the Australian Task Forces pacification programme for Phuoc Tuy Province, the project will allow Vietnamese to resettle their old villages. The road, Route 23, is the coastal link with the north-south highway for provinces south east of Saigon. The first of the two bridges, about 15 miles east of the Task Force base at Nui Dat, is now finished. It is 52 feet long and its girders, each the same length as the bridge and weighing about 5500 pounds, had to be flown in, two at a time, by a United States Skycrane helicopter. Working rapidly, the 15 soldiers engaged on the project built up the superstructure under the direction of site officer, Captain Peter Knight of Hermit Park, Townsville, Qld. Three-and-a-half days from the time the first shovel was put into the ground to prepare the banks, the job was finished. The first vehicle to cross, a heavy bulldozer which had piled up the earthworks for the bridge, ambled across to mark the completion of the project. Also identified: Corporal Derwyn Hage of Wallaroo, SA; Task Force Commander Brigadier C. M. I. Pearson of Deakin, ACT; OC 1st Field Squadron, Major Rex Rowe of Holsworthy, NSW; Sapper John Murphy of Melthan, Perth, WA; Dep TF Comd Col K. S. MacKenzie of Brisbane, Qld; Sapper Peter Maloney of Kyneton, Vic; Sapper Greg Roberts.