COL James H. Simons
Commander, 937th Engineer Group

Interview Conducted 15 March 1991 at the 937th Engineer Group Command Post, Southeast of Rafha, Northern Province, Saudi Arabia

Interviewer: MAJ Robert B. Honec, III, and SSG LaDona S. Kirkland (116th Military History Detachment)

Oral History Interview DSIT AE 067

MAJ HONEC: This is an Operation DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM interview. I'm MAJ Robert B. Honec. I'm here today along with SSG LaDona S. Kirkland. We're both of the 116th Military History Detachment at the 937th Engineer Group and talking to COL Simons. For the record, sir, could you state your full name, Social Security Number, your position and how long you've been in that position?

COL SIMONS: I'm James H. Simons, ***-**-****. I'm commander of the 937th Group. I've been in command since August of [19]89, so that makes it 20 months or whatever it makes.

MAJ HONEC: Good, sir, okay.

COL SIMONS: Personal [INAUDIBLE].

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: All right. The major difficulty we had in deploying over here was first of all finding out when we were coming; secondly, trying to deploy ourselves at the time we were trying to deploy a lot of subordinate elements that belonged to us at Fort Riley, [Kansas]. For example, the 541st Maintenance Battalion deployed first, its headquarters; and then two of its companies after that. Then actually a third company. At the same time--they belonged to me--at that same time we had a rear large engineer task force already deployed in Bolivia. We had to take time to take care of those details. That was a rather hectic period for us up to the moment when we got on the airplane. And then of course whatever was going on at Fort Riley was going to happen without us and we really had involvement and concern about it, yes.

Once we got here the greatest challenge that my headquarters faced and all the battalions faced was a logistics challenge. It seemed like the theater was ill-prepared, initially, for the numbers of people that came over as quickly as they did. Simple things like being able to get the latrines that were supposed to be already there and waiting for you and all the showers that weren't necessarily there waiting for you.

MAJ HONEC: This was down in [Ad] Dammam?

COL SIMONS: In Dammam.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, sir.

COL SIMONS: Successful units were those who went out and hustled things on their own. Frankly the supply system in this theater was broke the day we got here. And I think it's still broke.

MAJ HONEC: What date was that?

COL SIMONS: It was 27 October.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, sir, thank you.

COL SIMONS: That was the first big challenge. Overcoming the logistics problems that you have. Getting your equipment off the boat and getting out here. Once out in the field it becomes much easier to deal with because you have your mission and your perspective that you had back in the Dammam area was just not there anymore. A lot of the same problems we had--logistics problems. When we first got here three battalions and an [INAUDIBLE] were already on the ground. And one was already in place in the area of operations and the other two were not yet in place. They all went forward about the same time as we did. That might have been the first week or so in November. By then we were all out in place in the field in the area near An Nu'ariyah.

MAJ HONEC: So the Phase One DESERT SHIELD was spent consolidating or actually getting the units in place for some move?

COL SIMONS: Getting them in place didn't take very long. We were in place by the first week of November. During the DESERT SHIELD phase we supported the 101st [Airborne Division], the 3d ACR [Armored Cavalry regiment], the 75th [Field] Artillery Brigade, the 212th [Field] Artillery Brigade, and a host of other in the region there. And with the mobility and survivability--we built a number of MSRs [Main Supply Routes]. We built a number of airstrips. We dug in the artillery--a number of positions, hundreds of positions for the artillery (for their guns, for their HEMTTs,¹ for their ammo). An endless amount of work. And I say endless in that we never--we never finished all the projects that we were assigned. We would finish individual projects obviously. But during the entire time on DESERT SHIELD the list kept growing and growing and growing. That's the great advantage of being an engineer. We're always busy. We've never lost for work; time went quickly. All our soldiers had lots of things to keep them busy in support of the [XVIII Airborne] Corps.

MAJ HONEC: Did you all do the support work for like MSR AUDI, TOYOTA? Any of those where you had to set up like one of their stopping points for the trucks ... set up?

COL SIMONS: We didn't work on any of those. The major MSRs that we worked were the Tapline Road² parallel to it. Extending all the way from a six lane hardball³ all the way up to Hafar Al Batin. That was a major project. Well over one hundred miles of road that we worked--up until the time we redeployed up into TAA [Tactical Assembly Area] ELM up here. Most of the other MSR work was MSR ... just do support of the 101st in their area of operations and the 3d ACR in their area of operations.

MAJ HONEC: So that would be like NEWMARKET--MSR NEWMARKET for the 101st?

COL SIMONS: Similar to that. We didn't work on NEWMARKET--that's up here. But in the defensive posture that the 101st and the other elements were in down there. They required a number of MSRs to link them from the other, major, MSRs like Tapline Road, like MERCEDES. They could resupply themselves and handle their positions and that was our driving responsibility there. Same with the air fields; had an airfield most of the time out in the middle of nowhere and then to build roads into them. The next question.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

SSG KIRKLAND: What projects didn't you finish? Did you have a lot of projects that were unfinished?

COL SIMONS: No, we finished countless projects. What I mean is we would finish one and five more would be added to the list--[that] is what I'm getting at.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay.

COL SIMONS: Everyone up until the time we redeployed up here wanted more work in terms of survivability. Just pushing up berms and digging individual fighting positions and vehicle fighting positions, defensive positions. The road work was a continuous project. You never finished a road project because it always required some sort of maintenance in the area. You might finish one today and then in three days have to go back out and repair some potholes or whatever because of the amount of trucks on it. It just caused a lot of deterioration and it just continuously went on. That's what I mean when I say we never finished our work because we always had more work than we could possibly do. Which is good.

SSG KIRKLAND: Were all of your projects were road work?

COL SIMONS: Oh, no. We had a lot of road work. We put down a lot of matting, M-119 matting for airstrips and helipads. We pulled up a lot of matting and moved it around. We built ASPs [Ammunition Supply Points]; I believe ASP SKIBBIE.

MAJ HONEC: Ammo supply.

COL SIMONS: Ammo supply points. Which involved leveling pads on which they could put ammo. Pushing up berms between the pads so that if one of the pads would happen to blow up we don't loose the entire ASP. Interconnecting all those pads with road networks. In the case of ASP SKIBBIE you're talking in the neighborhood of 150 individual pads.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, go ahead. SKIBBIE ... the ASP?

COL SIMONS: Yeah. I had in the neighborhood of 150 individual pads. Now by pad, I mean a level area free of rock, good enough for a forklift to drive on and vehicles could drive on, on which they would stack the ammo. And each of those pads were separated by five or six foot high earthen berms pushed up by bulldozers. And all interconnected with roads. There were 150 or so of those pads. All the associate berm work that they were doing with that and I think with SKIBBIE roughly about 100 miles of road interconnecting all of that together. You want me to spell that?

MAJ HONEC: Okay, SKIBBIE spelled ... ?

COL SIMONS: S-K-I-B-B-I-E.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: Water points.

MAJ HONEC: Water points, sir?

COL SIMONS: Water points require road networks. All these little bladders--the big bladders that go on the ground where we get our water from, there require level pads. They required berms around them to protect them. They required road networks so vehicles could get in and out. DPTs, DPT stands for Defensive Petroleum Transfer Point or something.

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

COL SIMONS: All those required pads, earthen berms and road networks. We did all those in the vicinity of An Nu'ariyah. Gee, I can't recall the name of the base⁴ of the 101st was in there.

MAJ HONEC: The 3d ACR support?

COL SIMONS: We did an awful lot of work for them. And an awful lot of work for the two artillery brigades.

MAJ HONEC: In the case of artillery in desert conditions what did you have to do as an engineer for the artillery, besides berm work?

COL SIMONS: We would dig defensive positions for their guns. Dig a hole in the ground into which they could roll their tube and their firing and be protected in case they took incoming fire. Digging in their HEMTT ammo transporters to get them below ground. Drive-in type positions, a position well below ground that they could drive into and drive right out of, and yet be safe enough--and low enough--so that if there was incoming artillery they wouldn't lose all their ammunition to incoming artillery.

MAJ HONEC: Did you face any hard rock situations where the bedrock was just a few inches below; and so therefore had to perhaps come up with a new innovation?

COL SIMONS: Not in that area.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: Most of that was sand far enough down that we didn't have a problem digging. Up here it was a different story.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Talking about near the Rafha area. Okay, sir.

COL SIMONS: Right.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. And so ... all right, this is DESERT SHIELD now. Going into the air campaign: Phase II or Phase ... yeah, Phase II.

COL SIMONS: Okay.

MAJ HONEC: What were the units or the units located and what sort of missions did they ... did it change in ... from Phase I to Phase II?

COL SIMONS: Absolutely and dramatically.

MAJ HONEC: Please explain.

COL SIMONS: We were all in the vicinity of An Nu'ariyah at that time. The night the air campaign started [0152C on 17 January 1991] we had one battalion on the road moving in this direction before the air campaign even began. We held them just this side of--on the west side of Hafar Al Batin until it was official that the campaign had begun, at which time we moved them up here. That was the 20th Engineer Battalion. They immediately went to work and set up Log[istical] Base CHARLIE.

MAJ HONEC: Good.

COL SIMONS: Their mission was to get Log Base CHARLIE in within 48 hours--or at least functional within 48 hours to include the TPT [Tactical Petroleum Terminal] and ASP and a water point. And everything else was ... that subsequently went in there. They were here on the day after the air campaign started--in force--working on that log base.

MAJ HONEC: Security-wise was there enough security--101st was here and the French were here to protect you?

COL SIMONS: No, there wasn't anybody here.

MAJ HONEC: So you had to resort to aerial security?

COL SIMONS: We defended ourselves.

MAJ HONEC: Good.

SSG KIRKLAND: [INAUDIBLE]

COL SIMONS: We were assigned this area before. We had been up here before. We knew where the log base was going to go and I helped site the log base [INAUDIBLE].

MAJ HONEC: Log Base CHARLIE had a unique set of problems that one as an engineer had to address. Could you elaborate as a commander in those areas?

COL SIMONS: The rocky terrain made it difficult. You couldn't dig very deep because of the bedrock underneath.

MAJ HONEC: How far would you say you that averaged?

COL SIMONS: You could go down a couple of feet before you really hit the hard stuff.

MAJ HONEC: And this was granite or was it ...

COL SIMONS: I don't know but hard enough that you couldn't easily cut through it with a bulldozer. So what we would do when we pushed up the berms or we had to push up Log Base CHARLIE, we simply dropped down a couple feet for simple [INAUDIBLE]. And that was quite interesting. Scrape the rocks out of the way with graders and had the surfers [?] to put diesel down to keep the road surface here intact. Put diesel down, not just for dust control, but you put it down to secure the road and to prolong its life. Otherwise we would have had powder in an instant. The diesel helped prevent that and eliminates a lot of the repair work that otherwise would be required. Without that kind of surface treatment one would be in there constantly working and we just can't afford to have that. We don't have the assets or the [INAUDIBLE].

MAJ HONEC: Is this a normal SOP [standing operating procedure] to use diesel to control powder [and] the dust?

COL SIMONS: We prefer to use other construction material, a form of liquid asphalt that one puts down--MC-1 we call it. It's not available here.

MAJ HONEC: Why, sir?

COL SIMONS: It just wasn't here.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: It was only until just recently that we were able to get a little of that and even then in 55-gallon drums which is not the kind of--what you want it to come to you in.

MAJ HONEC: Where did it come from?

COL SIMONS: Dammam.

MAJ HONEC: Is it produced by the Saudis?

COL SIMONS: As far as I know it is.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, sir.

COL SIMONS: We used diesel because we had nothing else. Diesel works fine. It's not a panacea, but it works for fine for our purposes. We ultimately wound up using some light crude oil on many of the roads up here.

MAJ HONEC: How did that perform?

COL SIMONS: Better than diesel. And, of course, the advantage in using light crude oil (if you can get light crude oil) is that you're not consuming something that is primarily intended for something else; like, diesel is intended not for roads but vehicles to run on.

MAJ HONEC: A very good point, sir.

COL SIMONS: Well, anyway back to ...

MAJ HONEC: Log Base CHARLIE, sir.

COL SIMONS: ... Log Base CHARLIE. The 20th Battalion moved on--came out of the air campaign and we had had that log base in within 48 hours. Close on their heels was the 37th Engineer Battalion. And their primary mission, once they got into this area, was to construct a field landing strip at Log Base CHARLIE. Actually, we used the road as the landing strip itself. We had to widen the shoulders, the dirt shoulders of the road.

MAJ HONEC: Are you talking about MSR DODGE, sir?

COL SIMONS: Right.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: We expanded the shoulders of the road and we added a little more safety margins for the aircraft. We built--the 37th built--the taxiway and the connections on the taxiway to the runway. And built the bypass road around the airstrip and built the trailer parking areas and the logistics area so that ... to provide space for the aircraft to be unloaded and the pallets stacked for payloaders to get in and out and get all the supplies in and out of there.

MAJ HONEC: Who designed the FLS, sir?

COL SIMONS: We have standard designs in the Army for field landing strips, depending on how many aircraft you want to have on the ground at any given time. In this case we worked with the Air Force and their combat control team that runs the airstrip and we built it to their specifications. In fact, we satisfied their needs.

MAJ HONEC: Any special needs on this FLS?

COL SIMONS: And that's common to do that. It's a matter of just getting together. We negotiated to reduce the engineer effort involved, but it is their design nonetheless. And they have the final say on when we're done and when the aircraft can come in.

MAJ HONEC: What made you decide on a piece of already established hardball road?

COL SIMONS: Oh, time ... to get the airstrip in. We wanted the airstrip in within 96 hours. We felt we could do that if we used the road and we were able to do that. I would guess that would be the primary factor. The secondary factor was the maintenance work that's required on an airstrip that takes a beating like that one. A dirt strip would take terrible beating and we'd be on it all the time trying to maintain it. With the result, perhaps, were to close it to unload supplies. We didn't want to do that. We had a perfectly good solution out there to use DODGE as a runway. It was very easy to build a bypass around it in this terrain. It was just the smart thing to do.

MAJ HONEC: Great. Okay, moving forward to ... is there any ... any, perhaps things that you would have done differently at this point that perhaps in the future people would be interested in? Or some observations of any of the operations that you had up to the point of building Log Base CHARLIE under Phase II? That you may ... may come to mind?

COL SIMONS: Well, before I get to that let me speak to the 27th [Engineer] Battalion. Because they had, I guess ... what they did while they were up here.

MAJ HONEC: Fine.

COL SIMONS: Their mission was to link MSR DODGE with the hardball known as MSR TEXAS. So they built what we call the MSR TEXAS Extension, which runs from DODGE up through the escarpment and over the top. They built to Phase Line RAZOR within a matter of days. They had a very good high speed MSR going in and out within two days.

MAJ HONEC: High speed is how many kilometers per hour? Or miles per hour?

COL SIMONS: It was 25 or 30 at that time.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, sir.

COL SIMONS: It was originally intended to be nothing more than a combat trail--which is bumping all the way and five to ten miles an hour. It turned out to be much better than that. And fortunately for the Corps. We were held at Phase Line RAZOR due to the tactical situation. Once one worked beyond RAZOR it was very easy for any Iraqi forces sitting up on the escarpment to see us. If they could see us, then potentially we were giving away part of the Corps plan and we didn't want to do that.

MAJ HONEC: Good.

COL SIMONS: So Corps held us there. A few days before G-Day--I think on G-4--we were given the approval to push forward at that point. And we did. We had already reconned the routes through the escarpment. We had already reconned and determined how we were going to go up the escarpment--the three routes, Red, White and Blue. We had done an advance. We had already determined where we were going to push through the berm. We had already determined where we were going to push across on the top of Hill 455 and link up with the hardball on the other side.

So on G-4 when we got the word to go it was simply a matter of going out and executing what we had already planned. And hoping that we could get it done in time for G-Day. We felt we could, and I told the Corps before--I told the DCG⁵ that I needed three days to get up the escarpment. They gave us three days. It turned out that because we held on G-3 for a couple of days that we had more than that. It was simply enabling us to do a better job up there.

And that was the 27th's primary mission while they were up here during the air campaign, prior to the start of the ground campaign. I will also note that we did a lot of other work for the units in the region. Virtually all of them came to us asking for some sort of help to dig in defensive positions, protective positions. We did that. There was a Corps deception effort. We were involved with that. And helped the Corps [Tactical] CP [Command Post] get in and some other things to do with it. So again, it was a situation where from the moment we arrived here in the Rafha area until we launched across the LD [Line of Departure], we were gainfully employed in the beginning. And never lacked for work to do.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Focusing in on MSR DODGE what sort of--it was already an established tarmac road sitting--two lanes most of the way. How much improvement did the engineers have to do to make it combat ... ?

COL SIMONS: Absolutely none.

MAJ HONEC: Great.

COL SIMONS: It was a good enough road as is.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. And TEXAS after you--why the choice of the three routes up through TEXAS? What was the main plan for that, speed?

COL SIMONS: Well it made tactical sense to divide the Corps up on more than one route. That's a very difficult escarpment to get up.

MAJ HONEC: What grade is it?

COL SIMONS: A six percent right now. It was ten percent when we started.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: Ten percent in the best places. And greater than that in other places. I did not want to give the Corps one option. I did not want them to take the risk that they might get lucky with an artillery shell and queer the road. I did not want them to take the risk that something might break down at the worst possible spot on that road going up the hill and slow the entire Corps down. We had the time and we had the resources. We planned it and we built three to get them all up and provide an extra measure of safety and an extra measure of mobility to the Corps. It was just sound planning.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, sir. We're into Phase ... we're into Phase III right now with the ground campaign going. Now to quickly go over the missions that you had.

COL SIMONS: Okay. Initially the 937th in its entirety was placed in general support to the French [6th Light Armored Division]. So we worked very closely with the French from the moment we got into this area. We did some training with them. We planned to have one battalion at the front very close with the French. And we planned for the integration of that battalion with their maneuver forces and with their engineer forces.

When we launched across the LD that's exactly what happened. The 27th Battalion was up close with the French. Their mission was to assist in breaching any obstacles that existed along MSR TEXAS. We were doing the repairs necessary on TEXAS. To clear to ten meters on either side of any obstacles, mines or whatever. And to open up MSR TEXAS for the Corps. And in order for them to do that they had to be well forward with the French and they were. They did that job extremely well. And they also provided mine clearing line charges and the teams to operate that munitions with the ... both the French maneuver elements and maneuver elements of the 2d Brigade of the 82d [Airborne Division].

MAJ HONEC: Did you run into extensive mine ... requirements to clear mines?

COL SIMONS: Not along MSR Texas directly. In some cases there were mostly unexploded U.S. munitions which the 27th cleared along the way. In a few isolated spots. But in the main there were very little things in terms of obstacles along the MSR TEXAS.

MAJ HONEC: Good.

COL SIMONS: The rest of the group followed behind. The 20th Battalion followed the 27th; and the 37th was behind them. The 37th Battalion moved with the French Divisional trains, their DISCOM [Division Support Command], if you will. Supported them in the move getting up here.

Once we reached the junction of MSR TEXAS and MSR VIRGINIA, the 27th pushed on with the French into the As Salman Air Field. Their mission was to open up that air field. That included clearance of any mines or unexploded munitions that might be there. The French did a good bit of that. The 27th did a significant amount of clearance work up there to open up that air field and did a super job of that. We lost some soldiers doing that but it was an outstanding job nevertheless.

While they were doing that the 20th Battalion turned right on MSR VIRGINIA and pushed out to Log Base ROMEO. Their mission going in was to clear VIRGINIA from TEXAS to ROMEO and then build Log Base ROMEO to preplanned specifications, if you will. We worked with the support group that was going to operate ROMEO. We had a design in advance. The 20th went in there and immediately went to work.

MAJ HONEC: Going to work on unknown ground?

COL SIMONS: I'd never seen it before.

MAJ HONEC: Did you have any problems?

COL SIMONS: We had seen some aerial photos. We had a good bit of terrain data. In fact we had shifted the location of the log base a little bit to accommodate the terrain but, yes, we had not seen it. It was totally unknown. That's the risk that you take in this kind of business, I guess. I should also note that there was another log base that was to have gone in in the vicinity of As Salman Air Field, on Objective WHITE. That was Log Base OSCAR. That did not go in. Things moved too quickly--which is good.

MAJ HONEC: Let me go to the next tape.

COL SIMONS: Okay.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, continue with Log Base OSCAR.

COL SIMONS: We were talking about Log Base OSCAR. There was a plan to put in Log Base OSCAR at As Salman. That did not go in. And the reason it did not was because the Corps was moving so quickly to the north and then turning very quickly to the east. There was no need for a log base to support the Corps from there. It would have simply been too far back. So we abandoned that and moved on.

The 20th--as I mentioned to Log Base ROMEO--and they went in there and put that log base in according to the design that we had already worked out with the 46th Support Group. The 37th at that point eventually caught up. They actually crossed the LD about 24 hours later than the rest of us because the French trains were ... came that late. And at that point we all moved to the east to Objective PURPLE and went out VIRGINIA all the way up to the Corps boundary on Objective PURPLE, and turned to the northeast with the mission of constructing a road--MSR WASHINGTON-- from Objective PURPLE to what was going to be Log Base SATURN. As we got into Objective PURPLE--and I can't recall the name of the town--we encountered a significant amount of mines and unexploded ordnance which we had to clear.

MAJ HONEC: Unexploded American ordnance, sir?

COL SIMONS: Yes.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: And our lead battalion at that time was the 37th Battalion. They conducted a clearing operation and got us through that town. And then we pushed on to the northeast. We dropped the 20th Battalion off at that time to do more clearance at just the destruction of enemy bunkers, positions, weaponry, ammo that was in the vicinity of that town. There was a lot of it. The 37th and the 27th pushed on constructing a road as we went across the desert.

And we linked, then, to MSR NEW YORK which was a hardball that came down just south of an existing air field in the vicinity of Objective SATURN. It's taken now four or five days to get to this point. We have not stopped and slept more than one night in the same place. Right about that point we went into a cease fire. We held our current position, which was about halfway between Objective PURPLE and Objective SATURN out in the middle of nowhere. Held that for a couple of days.

The 37th continued to build the road--MSR WASHINGTON--to link into MSR NEW YORK. The 27th went forward on MSR NEW YORK. It was a hardball, but it had sand blowing over many portions of it. And their role was to clear that and open that MSR, which they did. Now, the 20th remained in Objective PURPLE at that point, clearing additional mines and unexploded ordnance and enemy bunkers as I mentioned before. We also had the mission to improve and maintain MSR VIRGINIA. After a point VIRGINIA turned from a paved road into a dirt road into an unimproved dirt road and on into a desert trail. We widened that and improved that and opened that up to make it more trafficable. There was a very large gully that the Iraqis had gotten to and had not breached. They simply bypassed it but in a very crude manner. The 20th Battalion opened that up with bulldozers and improved that and made it a good two lane road going around down through that gully. A significant piece of work.

MAJ HONEC: How deep was the gully that you were working on?

COL SIMONS: It was about two kilometers across and maybe 100 feet or 150 feet difference in elevation on the on the axis.

MAJ HONEC: And did you reach it by improved, elevated road?

COL SIMONS: There was an existing trail that people had been using that was very slow and it was dangerous. It was difficult to maneuver because there were a lot larger rock outcroppings on either side of the trail. If you got stuck there you were stuck and everybody got stuck. So the mission of the 20th Battalion was to remove those rock outcroppings [and] make it a good two lane road so people could traverse very easily. They did that. And those rock outcroppings existed on both sides of the gully and once we got down into the valley floor it was fine. We just widened and improved it a little bit which they did. The difficult part was getting up and down the sides of that little valley, if you will.

MAJ HONEC: Uh-huh, okay.

COL SIMONS: Now what happened next. At that point we got the mission to support the 82d. They were up in the vicinity of Objective GOLD. They had encountered or discovered a very large bunker complex, a very large ammunition supply point that was beyond their capability to destroy. That mission went to the 37th Battalion. and they spent about five days up there destroying those bunkers. And I can't begin to tell you how many--I don't have a count yet of how many bunkers they destroyed and how much ammunition and weaponry they destroyed. But a significant amount of ammunition and weaponry was destroyed by them during that four or five day period.

While they were doing that, we brought the 27th Battalion back down to this location. This was into the cease fire at this point. We were concerned about the condition of the MSR TEXAS extension. After all, virtually the entire Corps rolled up that one-way road and it was powder in most places. So they went back to ... specifically to work on that road and to get them back into trafficable condition and then get on. The last day or so, you know, they had done a very good job of that.

MAJ HONEC: What materials were you using for the--to improve it?

COL SIMONS: Whatever we could find out there in the desert that we felt would sustain a little bit of traffic. In some places the road crosses with what we call mud flats. A very, very silt, powders in a heartbeat. The objective there is to remove a good bit of that where the road exists and to fill in with more granular material that one can scrap up on the high ground out there and then to pack that with water and then surface treat it with diesel or crude oil, whatever we can get.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: In many places on that road ... the road was a little bit wavy in some spots because we drove on top of rock outcrops and when they built that road initially they simply would go in there with a dozer and knock those outcrops down and try to straighten the road out and straighten it out a little bit. After the French division and the 82d and the 101st--not them so much--but the Corps Artillery and every logistician in the world went up, TEXAS was in very bad shape. The 27th's job was to come back and restore it and make it a good MSR again which they did.

MAJ HONEC: You said they did retrograde operations as it does now?

COL SIMONS: Say again?

MAJ HONEC: This repairing aids and the retrograde operations.

COL SIMONS: Yes, we still had significant forces up there, you know, and the 82d has got a task force of two brigades up there and they will come down MSR TEXAS when they come out. And the French still have forces up there; they will come down MSR TEXAS when the rest of them come out. Significant numbers of them have come out and they all came down MSR TEXAS. And as yet the 937th Group will, as will many others.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: At some point--and I can't tell you what day it was--we finished our work on MSR VIRGINIA and Objective PURPLE. We finished clearing that and we were well into the cease fire again. We had the 20th Battalion back here. Then after the 37th finished their work up with the 82d just this past weekend we brought them back and they kind of got back in this area.

At this point we are getting ready to send units home. We rolled the 27th out of here last night going back to their redeployment assembly area in the vicinity of Dammam. And in another week or ten days we will get the 37th back to their assembly area. And then a few days after that the 20th and then my headquarters will go back.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: In the meantime, our role here is to keep MSR TEXAS open; to be prepared to support any contingency operations which might occur in Iraq, because after all, we do not have a permanent cease-fire at this point, and we are prepared to do that. At the same time we are planning on and preparing for the ultimate retrograde of all our soldiers back home.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, great sir. Now a few more questions. Did you have enough Class IV to work with and any other materials that you used? Did you have sufficient quantities to do your job starting from Phase I all the way through Phase III or Phase IV?

COL SIMONS: Ultimately, yes.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, why were there shortages? What phase?

COL SIMONS: The initial shortages in DESERT SHIELD were in construction materials: lumber, plywood, four by fours. Those things that one uses to construct overhead cover. After all we were in a defensive posture at that point, and as yet we did not have the kind of material that we needed to construct a typical defensive positions, the protective positions for our soldiers out there.

Near the end of DESERT SHIELD that started arriving by the truck load. To the tune of 40 to 50,000 sheets of plywood for example, which was never used because it came too late during DESERT SHIELD. As far as other Class IV materials were concerned during that phase, we had some shortages from time to time of various things but never any great length of time. I recall a shortage of long pickets, for example. They eventually came, we used some. We got short again, more came. That happened. During DESERT SHIELD the late arrival of construction material to build defensive positions was a significant problem in my view. During DESERT STORM availability of Class IV was not an issue. Transportation to haul it to the battlefield was an issue. Transportation to haul engineer assets to the battlefield in general was an issue. The engineer units did not have the haul assets to haul all their construction materials and equipment.

MAJ HONEC: Equipment.

COL SIMONS: Equipment.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: For example, in the 937th I had forty prime movers. Yet I had 44 bulldozers and 28 bucket loaders. Each of those has to have a prime mover. That's a total of 72 pieces to move right there versus the 40 prime movers to move them on. That assumes that I'm walking all of my graders--my 20 some-odd graders--which we did walk all the way to Iraq and back. Assume that we walked the 18 scrapers that exist, which we did. But we never did get any haul assets to haul anything over and above what we were able to carry on organic assets.

That means that we left a significant amount of engineer construction equipment behind. In this case that did not matter. That did not hurt us--but that's in this case. We may not be so fortunate next time. If there was a structure issue or an organizational issue that engineers really need to resolve it's that lack of haul assets. We just don't have [them] in sufficient numbers to get the right kind of stuff forward quickly enough.

Since we've turned to the lessons learned, let me speak of another engineer lesson learned. And that is that our combat battalions are not equipped to do the kind of work we were required to do in this theater. Most of the work that we did in this theater during DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM involved road construction. Our combat engineer battalions do not have the right kind of compaction equipment. The 20th, for example, has no compaction equipment. The 20th has insufficient numbers of graders. There are plenty of dozers but they don't have the compaction equipment or the road graders to do the kinds of work that they were asked to do in this theater. The 27th and 37th [Engineer] (Combat)(Airborne) Battalions are much better configured for the kind of work that they did in that they each had light equipment teams that have scrapers, dozers, graders in significant numbers. And they were perhaps the most valuable asset that we've had in this theater because of their logistic ability.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: I'd like to ask for a history, also, for each of the battalions in some detail and document that in a written report that will go up to the Corps and on to the Engineer School and others that might be involved in addition to help overcome some of the engineer difficulties that we've encountered here. That as well as unit histories all being prepared, going in, and hopefully some will wind up in the Archives.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Dealing with the Saudi ... with the national .. with the market here. This is an established country that has availability. Did you fill some of your shortages or your need for equipment through using the local economy, is what I'm trying to get at?

COL SIMONS: That's a good question. Yes, on two aspects. We leased an awful lot of engineer construction equipment. We leased water distributors, we leased graders, we leased compaction equipment. We leased bulldozers. We leased the prime movers to haul that stuff around. We leased the maintenance teams and the equipment to maintain them. I think the mere fact that we're doing that supports my earlier statements about the lack of engineer resources due to the required levels in this theater.

There were some unique problems with the leasing of that equipment. Although you say this is a modern country, if you will, much of that equipment was in a very poor state of repair. As a result, it was very difficult for the Saudi contractors to maintain, and most of it never operated.

The second aspect of the economy is repair parts. The engineer field was fortunate in that much of our equipment is equipment that is standard in the world. Caterpillar, for example, makes our D-5 bulldozers and D-7 bulldozers. There are Caterpillar dealers are here in Saudi Arabia. And we used them extensively, as well as other local outlets, to procure the repair pairs that we needed to keep functional and maintain a high operational rate. As I'm sure that most units did. We looked and purchased anything we could get to keep our equipment going. And without that, given the difficulty in the Army supply system, I've got to tell you that we wouldn't have been able to maintain the readiness that we maintained without the availability of local purchase and the availability of repair parts on the economy.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Any other questions, SSG Kirkland?

SSG KIRKLAND: No, sir. No more.

MAJ HONEC: I have another.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, let's move on to personnel issues; to morale and work hours and work periods. Could you give me an idea what it was like to work as an engineer in this theater?

COL SIMONS: All right. In the headquarters, I guess you want to start with that, we operated around the clock. Now that's not to say that we had half our people working days and half working nights. We did not do that. The vast majority of our people worked the day and we had a night shift run the TOC [Tactical Operations Center]. I think each of the battalions operated the same way. In some cases we worked on construction projects around the clock if it was necessary and appropriate to do so.

A risk assessment that one has to make there in terms of safety, the criticality of the mission and so forth and we do that assessment and we do what's right. In some cases it was right to work around the clock. In most cases it was not necessary to do that. Soldiers need rest [INAUDIBLE]. That generally describes our work hours.

In terms of morale and other soldier support issues. Taking care of soldiers was the first priority and there are a number of ways that one does that. One gets very aggressive about the mail here. From day one we were very aggressive about that. We had gone and secured our own mail and brought it up here and distributed it to the battalion ourselves. And we have never accepted anything short of first-class service from our supporting agencies on the mail.

Chow. Our policy on chow is a hot meal, MRE [Meal, Ready-to-Eat], hot meal [cycle]. And that's not always achievable but that's the objective.

Hot showers. Every day, that's the standard. It's not always achievable. Certainly it wasn't achievable in Iraq. And in this kind of environment, here, PT [physical training] two days a week. A&R on the other two days.

During DESERT SHIELD we would not work on Sundays. During DESERT STORM we worked seven days a week. We probably will not work this Sunday for the first time since the air campaign began.

We encourage soldiers to do what they can to improve their own living conditions. If you walk in some of these tents in this headquarters, you will see cubicles that they have constructed themselves on their own time. You will see floors in their tents. You will see some marvelous things in terms of their own little bookcases and their own little wardrobes that they have constructed on their own. And I believe in the 'give them the materials and give them a license just to do it,' and let them improve their living conditions. That creates better morale for them. They better perform their mission when they're happier. And it keeps them busy and the time passes. And it passes quickly for them. So while I do have--there was a limit. I mean we're not going to have Taj Mahals around here. But I am a believer in allowing soldiers to construct things that make their own living environment as comfortable as they can make it while they're here for all those reasons. It's just the right thing to do. Soldiers have a right to live in comfort as best we can provide them with that. And to the extent that they can help themselves, "go for it guys."

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

COL SIMONS: It's all leadership.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Any other ... any other, perhaps, innovations that you had due to the desert environment? How was it on your equipment? The harsh environment, 130 [degree] during-the-day heat.

COL SIMONS: It's a very difficult environment. PMCS [Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services] is the key to success. The key to a successful PMCS is first-line leadership doing its job. Our OR [operational readiness] rate in the Group peaked right before the ground campaign at a little over 90 percent. We can't achieve that in peacetime. The reason we can achieve it here is because we're focused on our equipment. We focused our time to keep it up, to work on that equipment, and giving it constant attention and pulling maintenance. That's the answer.

So, yes, while this environment does present some difficult maintenance challenges, I'll tell you that it is probably easier in this environment to get your maintenance level up and sustain it than ... components for example. We found that the repair parts were not coming through the system, and that's exactly poor. Each of our units had very aggressive purchasing teams out on the economy constantly looking for whatever it is that required competent repair parts. They continually scoured the Army logistics system looking for whatever was there that they needed. The fact that we were so good at maintenance in the Group is attributed to the initiative of the purchasing teams and maintenance NCOs, maintenance officers in each of those battalions and companies. Getting out and really beating the bushes trying to find whatever it is that they needed. They did it. And our ... I think our successes speak to how well they did.

MAJ HONEC: Did you have any problems with the quality of fuel?

COL SIMONS: Not that I'm aware of. It stinks to high heavens when you put on the roads but ...

MAJ HONEC: Okay, sir. Any other questions, SSG Kirkland?

SSG KIRKLAND: No.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, this concludes this portion of the DESERT SHIELD/ DESERT STORM interviews. Thank you very much, sir.