From the S&S archives: 69th Signal links Saigon to far-flung Viet posts

SAIGON — Once the largest battalion in the U.S. Army, the 69th Signal still holds one of the biggest jobs — linking Saigon's main headquarters with the rest of Vietnam.

Headquarters MACV, Free World Forces, and other U.S. agencies such as USAID rely on the 69th Signal to deliver their vital messages. For the 1,100 men of the battalion it's a round-the-clock job.

The most familiar of the battalion's communications devices are the 7,500 telephones scattered everywhere in Saigon. Four seemingly small switchboards, two automatic and two manually operated, route thousands of calls each day. One of them, Saigon LD (long-distance), with 27operators receives an average of 26,00 calls each day/

"I can call anywhere I want in Vietnam through my switchboard," said SFC Mariell LaBooth, Fort Smith, Ark., Saigon LD section chief. "We have circuits reaching as far north as Da Nang and as far south as Can Tho."

Long-distance calls are relayed through the Signal Support Company's transmitter station nicknamed " The Octopus." Bundles of cables running between antenna towers and transmitter buildings explain the station's name.

The Octopus sends out a total of 460 channels, 306 of which could carry 16 teletype messages each if necessary. One of the channels is used to send Armed Forces Radio north to Pleiku.

These operations depend on the miles of wire strung and maintained by the Wire and Cable Construction Platoon, It provides the first channel of communication for all messages.

When one of the 600- or 1200-strand cables of the telephone system is broken, each individual wire must be spliced together. In recent weeks these four-hour splicing jobs have been done by the platoon's crews amidst heavy Saigon street-fighting.

Some messages handled by the battalion are uneconomical to send by radio but too classified to read over the telephone. These messages are delivered in person by the Air Courier Section of A Co.

These couriers average 250 hours per week, in the air, but are not eligible for flight pay. Their distribution routes are also Vietnam-wide.