A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. Then I got a call from battalion commander Tower, asking how things were going. PDF Scanned Document - United States Army My plan was to make captain and go to Vietnam as an experienced company commander. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. The II Field Force commander, Lt. Gen. Frederick C. Weyand, had correctly guessed that a major attack was going to come during Tet, and his anticipation of the attacks no doubt saved Long Binh and Saigon from being overrun. The action occurs January 31st, 1968 (on "Tet", the Vietnamese Lunar New Year holiday). 2 comments. 0.08 Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the S3s radio operator. License Agreement | The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas trying to flee into the jungle. For additional reading, see: The Battle for Saigon, Tet 1968, by Keith Nolan; and History of the 5th Division, by Ho Son Dai and Nguyen Van Hung. As best I could, I explained that they were to take charge and that General Giap might be among the civilians. Charlie Company reacted quickly to reinforce Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. Advanced Search | However the VC/PAVN never made another ground attack on an air base and moved to attacks by fire with rockets, mortar and artillery. (Vietnam War period). opened his mouth but, SGT Cuffee, the supply SGT. 6 External links modified. Long Bnh Post and the Vietnam War | Worlds Revealed M-113 APCs of the 9th Infantry Division storm VC positions 200 meters outside II Field Force headquarters at Long Binh on February 1, 1968. I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. [3]:242, The VC/PAVN attacks were a failure. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. The Vietnamese brigadier generalthe ranking man at III Corpsdrew circles on a map around two areas of downtown Bien Hoa. U.S. troops firing small arms as they proceed across tall grass into the hamlet. Several tracks were hit by RPGs and surrounded by the enemy. One of the children in the Hope System of Care is Nguyen Thi Ly, born in 2001 with a deformed face, head and chest. [American sources in Vien tiane said, as quoted by The Associated Press, that the captured American was prob ably the pilot of a Continent al Air Service plane that was forced to land behind Pathet Lao lines after running out of fuel. 9. Ammo Dump Explosion 18 Feb 1968 where 8 pads detonated with a total ammo value of $2,774,348: f. On 18 February 1968 at approximately 0300 an attempted penetration of the depot was. U.S. military officials vVould not give the exact number of casualties for security reasons. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis, boarding passes in hand, milling about. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned left onto Highway 316. II Field Force commander LG Frederick C. Weyand had also ordered the 9th Infantry Division to be prepared to send its 1st Brigade from Bearcat Base 16km south of Long Binh to Bien Hoa-Long Binh in the event of an attack. I told him we couldnt take the tracks off Highway 1 into town because the streets were too narrow. The remains of a stack of over 15,000 high explosive 155mm artillery projectiles after the VC attack on February 4. There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. Shopping Cart | 0.59 TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. (Note: According to Colonel Sonny Craven, then leader of a combat photo team on the scene, these combat sequences was filmed by soldiers of the 221st Signal Company [Pictorial]). introduction into country when he first came to the 118th. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company. Back view of jeep with open doors. Get under! After what seemed like During TET 1969 in front of Bunker Hill 17, VC sappers tried to penetrate our fence line. [6]:66. Sand bags near barbed wire fence. We use cookies on this website. In addition to the US bases, the city of Bin Ha was the headquarters of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) III Corps and home to a large prisoner of war camp. the wrecker operator had to know how to weld. At that moment, a burst of VC machine gun fire erupted, causing the colonel, the deputy and their Vietnamese escorts to pile into their vehicles and roar off in the direction from whence they had come. I told him that I wanted to command a company. Under fire, Staff Sgt. Well, the piece of shrapnel It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. 4 Joseph Dames was tasked to return to the tracks for more grenades. The unit left their position at Firebase Concord north of Bin Ha and moved east proceeding along trails north of Ho Nai towards the LRRP position. The ammunition dump contained high explosives like: C-4, artillery rounds, mortar rounds, aerial flares, 50 caliber rounds, M-60 machine gun rounds, and aerial rockets for the Huey Cobra and gunships. When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was further shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion, rather than be assigned to one of the battalions in the Delta where I could use my light infantry and Ranger school experience. [2]:350, With the base returned to full operation, that afternoon C130s landed the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment to help ARVN forces fighting the VC in Bin Ha city. and completely out of sync. The first explosion was Talk:Long Bnh, Bin Ha - Wikipedia I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. The probing attack units included VC sapper squads. was his helmet and flack jacket! Casper rose from a prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. door at the petroleum dump ruptured and fuel flowed down the ditch in Remembering Tet 1968 Fifty Years Ago - quanloi.org By some veterans' accounts, it had the unofficial name "Long Binh Junction." In 1968, the base fell under attack during the Tet Offensive, and the Viet Cong assault force was repelled by American troops. He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, started off down Highway 1. The battle proved significant, as Alphas leadership was seriously depleted immediately prior to Tet. it and only slightly pierced the skin a little. He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. Contact Us | checkered) water tower by the main gate. M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier on guard. Fires were burning late into the afternoon. Copyright Screenocean 2022 | Powered byImagen. When I pointed out that the 101st Battalion had more than 500 troops and I had only two line platoons and fewer than 90 troops, he said, Youre mechanized, youre very strong., I told him we could not take the tracks off Highway 1 and into town because the streets and alleys were too narrow. The 2-47 was one of several units General Weyand pulled in from the jungles to guard the Long Binh headquarters and logistical complex 15 miles northeast of Saigon. I was not sure what to do about the bunkers we had dug. Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump explosion from NVA artillery fire. Long Binh Vietnam 1969 stock footage and images - Showing 1 to 6 of 5540 results Sort by: All Decade 1890 - 1899 Location (1) Norfolk Virginia USA (2) Normandy France (12) Norman Oklahoma USA (1) (1) (1) North Carolina United States USA (2) North Chicago Illinois USA (1) North Dakota United States USA (1) North Haven Maine USA (1) North Korea (1) When the shooting started it the country where resupply was easier for the enemy. This was no surprise to us, since we could hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. Charlie Company had reported 38 VC killed, at the cost of only 11 U.S. wounded and three APCs damaged by RPGs. The G3 adviser told me that they had received intelligence that Vo Nguyen Giap, the North Vietnamese commanding general, had his command post in a Catholic church about 1 kilometer east of III Corps. After we finished clearing the area around the compound and as our wounded were being dusted off, I received an absolutely incredible order from III Corps. Unfortunately for the VC, they had no weapons other than the RPG launcher. The idea was to leave nothing the VC might use against us. All rights reserved. Another VC battalion infiltrated near the area of the 3rd Ordnance (Long Binh) ammunition dump [and] in a few moments, the huge dump became a fireball. As he fell, a burst of automatic weapons fire stitched the wall right where he would have been had he not fallen.. He ignored me and went to a nearby house where he and the deputy sheriff kicked in the front door. I explained to the colonel that this was not a police action, and that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. In addition, gunships killed many more as they tried to escape from the villages. FAQs - How to Order | Early on January 30, we were told the Tet cease-fire was canceled, and our unit was deployed into a defensive line along the road that ran around the east side of the Long Binh base. 11K views 9 years ago This is a brief clip of the ammo dump explosion at Long Binh, Vietnam, taken the morning of the Tet offensive, 1968. Specialist 4 Bill Rambo, assistant driver and .50-gunner on my command track, remembers my response to the firing as being absolutely irate. 118th during the Tet of 1968, also called the Defense of Bien Its predominantly Catholic population was made up of many Vietnamese who fled North Vietnam in 1954 after the Viet Minh victory. Charlie Company soldiers, used to months of patrolling and fighting in the jungles, suddenly found themselves fighting house to house as their fathers had done in World War II. agreement was that the stockade prisoners would pitch our sandbags, help Satchel charges blew pallets of artillery ammunition, creating a mushroom cloud that made us think the VC had set off a tactical nuclear weapon. He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. Relevant to these events; post recollections and descriptions, questions,. The S3 also told Charlie Companys noncombatants to report to battalion headquarters. As a result long-range reconnaissance patrols (LRRPs) from Company F, 51st Infantry Regiment were positioned north of Long Binh to detect PAVN/VC approaching the base. in bunker) at first light to the sound of a M-60 chattering away. Photo Index In fact, the Communists had already infiltrated the city of Bien Hoa, suburban Ho Nai village and Widows Village, where pensioned families of deceased ARVN soldiers lived. The attacks were repulsed with the VC/PAVN suffering heavy losses, having inflicted minimal damage on the bases. 26 VC/PAVN were killed in the attack and several captured. Service Battery that supplied ordnance to the big guns in our battalion. Meanwhile, Charlie Company was ordered back to III Corps. 6. The three companies formed a line almost three kilometers long, facing to the east, with their backs to the Long Binh wire. [6]:12, Several dozen of the PAVN rockets exploded near the II Field Force and 199th LIB headquarters in the Plantation Compound (105728N 1065241E / 10.9577N 106.878E / 10.9577; 106.878) causing minimal damage. Chu Lai and LZ Baldy Photos. [2]:347, At 01:00, a 6-man LRRP from Company F, 51st Infantry Regiment spotted PAVN/VC moving through rubber trees several hundred meters to the north of Long Binh Post. His action probably saved the lives of everyone on my track. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. Jan. 31. Ive just been told you work for me again. ordnance pad in the huge ammo dump. As the afternoon of January 30 drifted toward dusk, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist and dug bunkers next to their M-113s. Not only would I not finish my command tour, I was being assigned to a leg division. [2]:347, The VC 275th Regiment had taken up positions in a residential area known at the Widows' Village (105731N 1065237E / 10.9587N 106.877E / 10.9587; 106.877), which housed the wives and families of dead ARVN soldiers and was located across Route 316 from the Plantation Compound. The 2nd Platoon, under Lieutenant Fred Casper, led the way, followed by my track, then Lieutenant Howard Jones 1st Platoon and, finally, the weapons platoon under Lieutenant Don Muir. Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. As our medics treated the wounded, I reported to the American lieutenant colonel who was the III Corps G3 adviser. around Bien Hoa Airbase and headed toward our post of Long Binh, then Bringing that volatile convoy through the city, which had not been totally cleared and was still burning in many places, was a tremendously heroic act. I said again, "Who is there"? Perpetual Siege region. My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. It dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. We could ride, walk or be airlifted to war, and we arrived with many times the ammo and equipment that could be lifted in by helicopter. Hoa. Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79. Bill Langan, aka "Sparky" was on duty in the 573rd hanger at the Bird Cage and took the slide photo. ruary 1968 in support of Saigon and Long Binh Post during the TET Offen- Sive. about 1/3 mile, All this carried on for about three maybe four days and the dead He stated that Bien Hoa airbase, the Long Binh facility, the II Field Force headquarters and the 199th Light Infantry Brigade (LIB) base camp were under heavy mortar and rocket attack. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. Script is copyright Reuters Limited. F-100 Super Sabre and F-4 Phantom II drop Mark 82 bombs in Vietnam during U.S. air strikes. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. NEARER V..EXPLOSIONS Artillery When the G3 adviser told me to lend the rangers a track, I told the sergeant that the M-113 was not a tank and to be extremely careful with it. Besides the actions of Charlie Company, under the leadership of the S3, Major Bill Jones, Alpha had conducted an assault on VC positions in a cemetery. The 2-47s scout platoon had just finished a brutal fight in Widows Village, and at 1600 hours, it was ordered to move to the junction of Highways 1 and 316, and to attack westward through the village of Ho Nai toward Charlie Company, in the hope of pinning the VC between us. At 4 a.m., Jones ordered us to pull in our ambushes and be prepared to move, and told Charlie Companys noncombatants to report to battalion headquarters. He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, headed down Highway 1. build bunkers, and help pick up the dead enemy across the fence. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. 1.04 As I walked around the front of a track, the .50-caliber gunner accidentally hit the trigger and pumped five rounds into the ground about three feet in front of me. In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. When it . In fact, VC effectiveness was so degraded that, after 1968, they were mainly replaced on the battlefield by North Vietnamese regulars, and were never a viable force after that. We left the clearing of Bien Hoa City in the capable hands of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry. 856th RRD-Defending Long Binh - ASA LIVES The attacks on Bin Ha, Bien Hoa Air Base and Long Binh Post, occurred during the early hours of 31 January 1968 and continued until 2 February 1968. The 2-47s enemy body count came in at more than 200, while the battalion suffered only four KIA. Website Terms & Conditions | Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a suburb of Bien Hoa. Barbed wire torn apart by Vietcong who infiltrated through Longbinh ammunition camp. Riflemen staying close behind. We had returned from a - Since I was in an airborne unit, I was sure I would go to the 173rd Airborne Brigade or the 101st Airborne Division. We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. Ly's grandfather was a soldier stationed in Quang Binh during the war. 102 comments 105 shares. At about 0600, Lt. Col. John Tower, the new battalion commander, called with orders. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. (Vietnam War period). [3]:2204, On 1 February Company B, 2/3rd Infantry, Company C, 4/12th Infantry and elements of 2/47th Infantry swept Ho Nai finding only dead VC/PAVN and civilians who had been murdered by the VC or killed in the fighting in the town. Then and Toggle the table of contents Talk: Long Bnh, Bin Ha. After I received the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset, and we moved out. The scout platoon had fought valiantly all day long in Widows Village and in Ho Nai. [2]:352[3]:2067, At approximately 05:30, the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, mounted on M113 Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicles (ACAVs) coming from Bearcat approached the Plantation from the southwest and formed a skirmish line to engage the VC, while helicopter gunships from the 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment swept in to rocket and machine gun the VC positions. By the evening the 2/47th Infantry withdrew into the Long Binh perimeter. out of the sky. ], The Laotian representative said six members of the Meo special forces were also cap tured with the American on May 7 in Xieng Khouang Province near the North Vietnamese bor der. (Long Binh) ammunition dump. After commanding 180 paratroopers, taking on four APCs and 40 troops seemed like a dreamexcept that now I was responsible for troops in combat, not training. CU SIGN "NO SMOKING" a noise! (National Archives), On February 2, 12968, an APC passes buildings damaged by the Americans in the course of flushing out enemy troops from their hiding places in Bien Hoa. The offensive continued until the end of the month in the North part of SAIGON, South Vietnam, June 1 (Reuters)Explosions ripped through a huge ammu nition dump near here today, killing one soldier and wound ing 13. AIR V..EXPLOSION We fired all we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. Then things started falling Big Boom! When we arrived, we filed off the busses . After we finished clearing the area around the compound and as our wounded were being dusted off, I received an absolutely incredible order from III Corps. This fire was observed by the helicopter gunships that had been circling the area north of Long Binh and they quickly moved to attack the launch sites and were soon joined by an AC-47 Spooky gunship and their combined fire soon stopped the rocket/mortar fire. the bunker. LV EXPLOSION, SIGN ON BOARD "DISNEY LAND FAR EAST" We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymores and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable. Charlie Company soldiers, used to months of patrolling and fighting in the jungles, suddenly found themselves fighting house to house as their fathers had done in World War II. Bien Hoa Air Base was the largest air base in the country, home to over 500 United States Air Force (USAF) and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) aircraft, while Long Binh Post was the US Army's largest logistics base, headquarters of II Field Force, Vietnam, the 199th Light Infantry Brigade (199th LIB) and the 12th Aviation Group and home to over 20,000 US personnel. At least 3,000 tons of ammu nition were reportedly de stroyed in the blasts, which be gan before dawn and continued until midmorning. As the C-23 track Stormy, which was in the lead, turned into a side street, an RPG slammed into its front, smashing the radiator and wounding several soldiers. When the Tet cease-fire period began on January 28, the battalion was called back to the vicinity of Bear Cat, and Charlie Company was ordered to a large open field across Highway 15 from the Long Tan airfield. him in. the light dome that rose from the explosion. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. Our outfit was a In the week preceding the attack these LRRP patrols engaged 2 PAVN/VC reconnaissance teams north of Long Binh. First was sand then bigger stuff. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round actually hitting my track. The first explosion was 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. Wrecked ambulance with flat tires. I almost did Evan Ammo dump - VHFCN 2. Widows Village made a perfect attack position for the VC, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters in the Long Binh complex. Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. The Commo track, C-007, nicknamed Abdula and the Rug Merchants, with then- Pfc (and current Vietnam editor) David Zabecki behind the .50-caliber, brought up the rear. In April 1967, I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. Initials PW/VS/JH/BB/ES PW/VS/JH/ES This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. the airbase made it too us in the daylight and foamed the ditch for No tactic I had learned at infantry school fit that situation, so we improvised. After the battles for the churches, there occurred one of the most bizarre incidents of the day. charred. I was not sure what to do about the bunkers. The churches were cleared in short order. The platoons attacked by successive bounds through the village as the tracks, forming the base of the T, gave fire support from the .50s and resupplied the troops with ammo. 5 Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. Here was another sign that the situation was serious: The battalion commander personally gave out map coordinates of company objectives in the clear.Alpha Company was ordered to the 199th LIB compound, which was under attack.
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