required its own air conditioner and refrigerator, the demand for electricity far outstripped the capacity of the city’s old power plant. Brownouts ensued. To meet the surging power demand, the U.S. military at first anchored generator barges in the Saigon River and then flew in thousands of small generators that could be installed outside each billet. Bert Fraleigh of USAID, who returned for another tour at roughly the same time as Lansdale, noted, “Within a few weeks, the quiet old city was filled around-the-clock with a strong, low-pitched hum from these generators, and the previously
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