My dozer had been loaded on to A-8. I don't remember exactly, but somewhere near the camp we were attacked. The group may have been returning from a re-con mission. The "bridge tank" was coming up a steep grade. The left rear had sunk up to the top of the track, and then the track broke disabling it. There were tanks, APCs and a tank retriever on site.

In an attempt to free the stuck AVLB (Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge), the tank retriever broke his forward winch. Of course I tried the direct approach. We hooked my winch on the D-7 to the AVLB. The result was a broken cable. I should have known better. The D-7 has about a one inch cable, that is okay to pull out another 25 ton D-7; but not an AVLB. (On the piece of equipment that I operate today, the cable that pulls that bucket is 1 5/8 inch and rated at 100 ton breaking strength.)

The next attempt was a pulley attached to the AVLB with the winch cable run through the pulley and anchored to a tank retriever with his front blade shoved completely into the ground. This gave a two part line advantage to the dozer for pulling power. However, the reuslt of this attempt was the dozer dragged itself backwards with the tracks locked and blade down.

The next attempt was the dozer repositioned 30 or 40 feet away. Then two APCs weree attached to the blade, one on each of the tie down eye holes at the top of the blade. The tank retriever stayed in place. The APCs even tracked forward in an attempt to hold but the dozer even with the APCs attached dragged itself backwards burying the winch into the ground.

Finally, the AVLB moved about 10 feet ahead before I had to stop pulling because of being against the pulley attached to the "bridge tank". By this time it was late afternoon. The tankers didn't want to spend the night there in the thick jungle. They were confident they could repair the track with it moved ahead and back on top of the ground.

I tracked back to the road, loaded up and we headed for a safer place. It would have been easier without the bridge on the tank, but everyone got out okay. (Don Hosler was in Company A from August 67 to August 68)


ARMORED VEHICLE LAUNCHED BRIDGE SPANNING THE RIVER ON HIGHWAY 509

          
      REPAIRING THE CABLE ON A D-7H                       HOSLER WITH THE PIECE OF EQUIPMENT
                                                                                                 HE OPERATES TODAY