Houses for Regional Force families DPR/TV/1379

The first stage of a half million dollar scheme to provide married quarters for Regional Force soldiers in Phuoc Tuy Province was recently completed. Work on the scheme, which is being financed by the Department of Foreign Affairs, has been undertaken by Australian Army engineers from the 1st Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat, five miles from the Province Capital, Baria. Work on the project began last September with sappers from the 17th Construction Squadron and 1st Australian Civil Affairs Unit, working alongside soldiers from Regional Force units, to provide, in this first stage, 50 homes, for the families of the local soldiers. The new quarters have been designed by Australians to Vietnamese specifications, and are a vast improvement on shanties in which many of the soldiers' families previously lived, made from flattened tins, old timber, canvas and old artillery shell boxes. The new quarters have electricity, reticulated water and septic systems. At the opening of the first stage recently the Deputy Commander of the Australian Task Force, 1120 Colonel Donald David Weir and the Chief of Staff on the Province Headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Ta Van Tan, took the salute as the national anthems of both countries were played and the two national flags fluttered overhead. Both officers praised the success of the joint venture and emphasised the importance of such housing projects. After the keys for the units were handed over the Regional Force soldiers and their families began to move in. In South Vietnam, the first stage of a half million dollar housing project for local soldiers and their families, is completed by Australian soldiers.