it and only slightly pierced the skin a little. As we cleared the ambush, the column suddenly came to a halt because of some kind of block in the road; simultaneously, someone keyed the company net. Perpetual Siege region. In a fight, the company had 22 .50-caliber machine guns, a 106mm and several 90mm recoilless rifles, and more radios and M-60 machine guns than a walking company could ever carry. I remember one
When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a Bien Hoa suburb. 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. Several M 113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) are seen accompanying the troops. had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. All I could think of to say was, Please clear that weapon!. Come back up on the battalion freq. I had never been so happy in my life. When offered the chance to go to II Field Force to help establish a new long-range reconnaissance patrol outfit, I turned it down to stay with the company. Dressed as travelers returning to ancestral homes for the Tet holiday, the guerrillas had quietly drifted into their urban assembly areas and put together their weapons. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. Smoke rises from surrounding area. 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. convoy about two days before and were repairing anything that had failed
We use cookies on this website. Charlie Company reacted quickly to reinforce Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. After I received the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset, and we moved out. Somehow the foam trucks from
Destroyed and burned out ammunition pad shows burned out 105mm howitzer shells. 0.13 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. 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. remember being giddy and my brain was asking What is wrong with me?. After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. 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. All I could think of to say was, Please clear that weapon!During the meeting, a master sergeant adviser to a Vietnamese ranger battalion ran into the compound. An MP full colonel, along with a deputy sheriff from Los Angeles (dressed in his deputy uniform) and two jeeploads of Vietnamese National Police, drove up to my track. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. 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 remember telling him that if the shooting persisted, or if they hit one of my troops, I wouldnt be responsible if my troops shot back. I dismounted the platoons and placed them on line on each side of the road: the second on the left, or north, and the first on the right, or south. On January 23, during a battalion sweep through heavy jungle south of Highway 1, Alpha Company walked into a camouflaged, well-defended enemy bunker system and was badly mauled. When it
[3]:20, At 00:30 on 31 January, a patrol from Company E, 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment detected a company-size PAVN/VC force approximately 10km north of Bien Hoa, moving in the direction of Bien Hoa AB. Tet of 1968 - 118th AHC For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. Officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Longbinh ammunition dump. 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. Now the fight was on. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. About Us |
We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. I told him about the order to clear an area of operations equal in size to that assigned the airborne battalion. As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. At the end of the previous day, Charlie Company had reported 38 VC killed, at the cost of only 11 U.S. wounded and three APCs damaged by RPGs. We came up with a T formation. The platoons attacked by successive bounds through the village as the companys tracks, forming the base of the T on the highway, provided fire support from the .50s and resupplied the troops with ammunition. These photos were taken from December 9, 1967 to February 1968. 2023 CriticalPast LLC. Alpha Company was ordered to the 199th LIB compound, which was under attack. Casper rose from a prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. 102 comments 105 shares. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned onto Highway 316. 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. AMMUNITION DUMP. Soon we could hear leaders moving up and down the bunker line yelling for the guards to stop firing. By continuing to use this site without changing your cookie settings, you agree that you are happy to accept our privacy policyand cookie policyand for us to access our cookies on your device. Advanced Search |
The idea was to leave nothing the VC might use against us. Later, as the sun sank over the Long Binh base, they tossed a football and ate cold C rations. About a month earlier I had been loaned out to weld the razor
I called III Corps to report that we had detained all of these people, and was told to wait for the Vietnamese National Police to take charge. The offensive continued until the end of the month in the North part of
Meanwhile, Charlie Company was ordered back to III Corps. The 1st Platoon of Bravo Company was made the II Field Force reaction force and was placed in the PX parking lot at Long Binh. The VC attacks on Bien Hoa and the Long Binh complex were abject failures, due in part to the fact that on January 31, 1968, they had run into the Panthers of the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry. Big Ammunition Dump Near Saigon Hit by Blasts flight line and I was checking the bunker for anyone, I heard
Fred Casper, one of the bravest of the brave, was killed during the May offensive at the Y Bridge in Saigon, leading from the front as was his custom. The 2-47s scout platoon had just finished a brutal fight in Widows Village, and at 4 p.m., 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. Contact Us |
I had been in Vietnam about nine months. 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. 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. Ive just been told you work for me again. (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. That night, frightened bunker guards in the 199th compound shot into the darkness to their front. We never saw them again. I went through the quarters making sure everyone
Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. Big Ammunition Dump Near Saigon Hit by Blasts, https://www.nytimes.com/1973/06/02/archives/big-ammunition-dump-near-saigon-hit-by-blasts-laotian-reports.html. When I arrived at the 2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 47th Infantry, nicknamed the Panthers, Lt. Col. Arthur Moreland, the commander, asked me what job I wanted. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. It knocked a dimple in the side of the track as I fired up the gunner., Later in the fighting, Casper and several 2nd Platoon troops were pinned down next to a building. sixteen guns stationed next to the western border of Vietnam. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. Construction on the 24 th. on the water tower". Summary - October 1966. Ive just been told you work for me again. All rights reserved. Ly's father is a bricklayer. Then things started falling out of the sky. Benny Toney, the 2nd Platoon sergeant, hooked a tow cable to Stormy. hightForP2 = 330
Lieutenant Barnes and one of his soldiers would be awarded Distinguished Service Crosses for their heroism that day. Service Battery 6/27th
Ripped apart barbed wire. Following that fight, the 2-47 was ordered south of the 9th Divisions base camp. Widows Village made a perfect attack position, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters. 6 comments. Of course you never
This is the story of one rifle company, and what it faced on that decisive day. He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, started off down Highway 1. [3]:242, The VC/PAVN attacks were a failure. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, among the refugees. We opened up with everything we had and kept driving. At 7 a.m., as daylight was breaking, my track rolled past the ARVN III Corps compound gate. After I got the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset. was a point where the Ho Chi Min Trail came close to the countrys West
August 1966 November 1966 December 1966. At dusk, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. Toward dark, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. LONG BINH, South Viet Nam (UPII A thunderous explosion that shook the heart of Saigon 11 miles away ripped through a U.S. ammunition depot tonight and wounded a handful of Americans. ], 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. Now
The 2nd Platoon led the way under Lieutenant Fred Casper, followed by my track, then Lieutenant Howard Jones 1st Platoon and, finally, the weapons platoon under Lieutenant Don Muir. resulting in the explosion of the ammo dump at Bin Ha Air Base. in bunker) at first light to the sound of a M-60 chattering away. Incredibly, nobody in my company had been killed the day before. First was sand then bigger stuff. They had been told that the population would rise up against the Americans and that there would be plenty of captured U.S. weapons to fight with. Forget that, he said. 939939. In a few moments, the huge dump became a fireball, the shock of the explosion echoing over an area of 50 miles. Tet Offensive: The Battles of Bien Hoa and Long Binh - HistoryNet Not only would I not finish my command tour, I was being assigned to a leg division. 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. Lt. Col. John E. Gross Recalls the Tet Battles of Bien Hoa and Long Binh As I remember the Tet Offensive began in the early morning of
U.S. military officials vVould not give the exact number of casualties for security reasons. We packed up our gear, rolled up our wire and waited. I had no way of knowing who it was with no light in the
I had assumed I would be assigned to one of the battalions in the Delta where I could use my light infantry and Ranger school experience. Then things started falling out of the sky. On the morning of 31 January 1968, the Bien Hoa Air Base, III Corps HQ, the Prisoner of War Compound, and other key installations around Bien Hoa--Long Binh area received enemy mortar and rocket fire. Binh Hoa Airbase was lucky they were not the
He started
We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. Officer and soldiers examine barbed wire torn apart by Vietcong who infiltrated Long Binh ammunition dump. The remains of a stack of over 15,000 high explosive 155mm artillery projectiles after the VC attack on February 4. Fires were burning late into the afternoon. As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians. [3]:220, When the Company F, 51st Infantry LRRP team reported VC/PAVN moving past their position a reaction force from Company C, 4/12th Infantry mounted on ACAVs was sent to investigate. We left the clearing of Bien Hoa City in the capable hands of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry. A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. 1 comment. 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. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. The Vietnamese brigadier general, who was the ranking man at III Corps, drew circles around two equal-sized areas of downtown Bien Hoa. We had returned from a
6 External links modified. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. At 0300 hours I received a call from Major Bill Jones, who had recently taken Ionoffs place as S3, stating 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. This site requires JavaScript. 14. Hoa. 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. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. In October, the 2-47 was given the mission of securing engineers as they cleared Highway 1 from Xuan Loc to the II Corps boundary near Phan Thiet. HANOI, North Vietnam, June 1 (Agence FrancePresse)An American major was captured last month in a Communistcon trolled area of northern Laos by Pathet Lao forces, a Laotian representative said here today. During this time, the battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. After the fight for the churches, there occurred one of the most bizarre and inexplicable incidents of the day. I walked back to my track, thinking this was going to be a nightmare. I was the DistrictSenior Advisor (Army) in Vinh Kim, Long Dinh District, right across the canal from Dong Tam in 1968-1969. The explosions at Long Binh, 15 miles northeast of Sia gon rattled windows and shook doors here in the capital. build bunkers, and help pick up the dead enemy across the fence. As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. Painting outside. The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. Toggle the table of contents Talk: Long Bnh, Bin Ha. agreement was that the stockade prisoners would pitch our sandbags, help
8. known as Widows Village. bunker. Set. Even though it was about 6-8 miles away to the NE of Bien Hoa, it was plainly visible . 5 Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. while we were gone. It involved transfer of powder projectiles and fuses enough to keep
2. Under fire, Staff Sgt. Binh was a logistical mistake because the perimeter was so heavily armed
The 1st Platoon of Bravo Company was made the II Field Force reaction force and was placed in the PX parking lot at Long Binh. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. About 30 minutes later, the track came back with only the driver, who reported the ranger sergeant had been killed and that it had been impossible to evacuate the wounded. No answer. As he fell, a burst of automatic weapons fire stitched the wall right where he would have been had he not fallen.. SP4 Lawrence Korteum
Summary - October 1966 The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. front making it dangerous to return fire. 856th RRD-Defending Long Binh - ASA LIVES Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could get their attack organized. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round actually hitting my track. Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. Tower had called and told me that Charlie Company was under the operational control of III Corps and I was to take my orders from them. Mainly it is the story of some of the finest solders to ever wear the uniform of the U.S. Army and how they reacted not only to fierce combat, but also to the fog of war. Lookout tower in the background. At dawn on 2 February the US counted approximately 50 VC/PAVN dead in the area and captured 3 VC. As the C-23 track in the lead, Stormy, turned into a side street, a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) slammed into its front, smashing the radiator and wounding several soldiers.
I realized we were driving past our objective, halted the company and called for the 2nd Platoon to find a place to turn around. We packed up all of our gear, rolled up our concertina wire and waited. I
The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. We closed within a few hundred meters of the scout platoon and watched as helicopter gunships destroyed a large yellow house from which the VC were pinning down Barnes troops. The village of Ho Nai, now a ghost town, still smoldered. I called battalion headquarters and was told to forget about them, which reinforced our sense that combat was imminent. I told the colonel that this was not a police action, that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. (Vietnam War period). we were a bit more trigger happy than usual. CRITICALPAST.COM:
As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. Satchel charges blew pallets of artillery ammunition, creating a mushroom cloud that made us think the VC had set off a tactical nuclear weapon. After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. about 1/3 mile, All this carried on for about three maybe four days and the dead
No tactic I had learned at infantry school fit that situation, so we improvised. LV WATER TRUCKS ALONG ROAD, EXPLOSION IN B/G. Not only would I not finish my command tour, but I was also being assigned to a leg division. 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. I jumped down and ran from track to track, pounding on the sides and yelling, Check your handsets! As I ran back through the weapons platoon in the pre-dawn gloom, with small-arms fire cracking overhead, I was amazed to see young girls carrying bottles of Coca-Cola, trying to sell them to the troops. AIR V..FIRES He waved me off. We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymore mines and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable. At that time, I received a call on my company frequency from the battalion commander, Colonel Tower, asking how things were going. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. Which date was it? I was well seasoned having been through all the scenarios that presented
As the ammo dump burst into flames, secondary explosions erupted in other storage areas, and . 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. When the shooting started it
Love was so startled, he didnt fire. 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. Consequently, I was disappointed when I received orders to join the 9th Infantry Division. Ammo Dump Exlosion Sapper Attack! A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. 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. "I was the 1SGT of the
Long Binh, again (Feb. 1967). This article was originally published in the February 2006 issue of Vietnam Magazine. Some were complete projectiles weighing
Our outfit was a
I told him that I wanted to command a company. He said I would have to wait. Long Bnh Post and the Vietnam War | Worlds Revealed As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. Policy was to fill in all holes and empty our sandbags when we left a position, to leave nothing the VC might use against us. Charlie Company quickly reinforced Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. 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. 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. GV DUMP Around midnight on October 29th, 1966, the Viet Cong mortared or rocketed the Long Binh Ammo Dump. [3]:210 Instead at approximately 03:30 the VC began firing across the road at the Plantation Compound being met by return fire from the perimeter bunkers. 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.