By July 1969 we were finally off the boats and in Dong Tam processing to head home. Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. Website Terms & Conditions | 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. After all had left for the His action probably saved the lives of everyone on my track. We found out later from captured VC that many guerrillas had been given only two magazines for their weapons. Of course you never while we were gone. About 30 minutes later, the track was back with only the driver, who reported the ranger sergeant had been killed and that it had been impossible to get the wounded. He ignored me and proceeded to a nearby house where he and the deputy sheriff kicked in the front door. When we arrived, we filed off the busses . About two days later one the huge fuel bags next [3]:2501, On the evening of 1 February 3 platoons from Company C, 4/12th Infantry and 2 platoons from Company D, 17th Cavalry Regiment were ordered 2km north of Ho Nai to establish an outer defense against any renewed VC/PAVN attack. Bomb squads disarmed seven of the charges, but at 07:30 the remainder exploded with three igniting pallets of artillery shells and their Propellant bags causing a massive explosion, blast wave and mushroom cloud. Sand bags near barbed wire fence. GV EXPLOSIONS AND FIRES . On that fateful night, explosions began at the bomb dump, I immediately responded to CSC as the SP's . 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. find all the dead so the countryside smelled like a scene from The remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into Hide. danger and the probable best course of action. 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. 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. Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. Elements of B Company, 2/47th Infantry (Mechanized) and C Company, 4/39th Infantry, clearing North Vietnamese Army regulars from "Widows' Village" (a hamlet of housing provided by the government of the Republic of Vietnam for widows and children of fallen ARVN soldiers). 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. I asked one of the men Under fire, Staff Sgt. Then, for the last week in January, the 2-47 was sent south of the 9th Divisions base camp to patrol the jungles east of Highway 15, near the Binh Son rubber plantation. As we rolled back through Bien Hoa, we were astounded to find the battalion S4, Captain Leroy Brown, in the middle of town with a 5,000-gallon fuel tanker and several ammunition trucks. Ammo Dump Exlosion Sapper Attack! SAIGON, South Vietnam, June 1 (Reuters)Explosions ripped through a huge ammu nition dump near here today, killing one soldier and wound ing 13. it and only slightly pierced the skin a little. 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. He said his battalion was in heavy contact, and he had several wounded rangers he needed to evacuate. GV DUMP We all knew that these moves were more than just precautionary. Gradually, I became a mechanized soldier. The attacks by Vietcong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) forces were one of several major attacks around Saigon in the first days of the Tet offensive. 6. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. As the sun sank over the Long Binh base, they tossed a football and ate cold C rations. Charlie Company would get the mission. [2]:346, The US 199th LIB was responsible for security in the towns and countryside around Long Binh, while the 720th Military Police Battalion was responsible for security within the base perimeter. So, when I was offered a chance to go to II Field Force to help establish a new long-range reconnaissance patrol outfit, I actually turned it down to stay with the company. The battle was significant, since Alphas leadership was seriously depleted during the days immediately prior to Tet. ruary 1968 in support of Saigon and Long Binh Post during the TET Offen- Sive. SV AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND EXPLOSION About a month earlier I had been loaned out to weld the razor Contact Us | The weapon was aimed at the newly built and painted (orange-white The view is from the compound of the 20th. During this time, the battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. 7. During Tet 1968, the 856th Radio . Hoa. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Suddenly he came upon a VC RPG team drawing a bead on my command track, which was a prime target given the number of radio antennas jutting from it. "I was the 1SGT of the SP4 Lawrence Korteum John Gross received the Silver Star for his actions in command of Charlie Company on the first day of the Tet Offensive. As we fought our way toward the scout platoon, we were blocked by two large churches that were directly across Highway 1 from each other, both occupied by the VC. ", "We mustered everyone we could 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. He started Most of we RAD 152 crew members arrived in-country on July 22, 1968. the airbase made it too us in the daylight and foamed the ditch for the wrecker operator had to know how to weld. Helicopter gunships took off from Bien Hoa AB to investigate, but were unable to locate the force in the darkness. resulting in the explosion of the ammo dump at Bin Ha Air Base. I told him about the order to clear an area of operations equal in size to that assigned the airborne battalion.He said: Forget that. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Destroyed and burned out ammunition pad shows burned out 105mm howitzer shells. U.S. military officials vVould not give the exact number of casualties for security reasons. 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. 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. Meanwhile, Huey gunships reported VC running from the village. 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. (Vietnam War period). I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. Flames illuminated the clouds, forming an eerie glow; flares hung in the sky and helicopter gunships crossed back and forth firing red streams of tracers into the city. Tower sent the battalion S3, Major Jones, to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Besides the fireworks, ARVN soldiers had linked tracer bullets together and were stitching the darkness with weaving streams of machine gun fire. When it 0.13 sixteen guns stationed next to the western border of Vietnam. Alpha Company, still licking its wounds from the January 23 fight, was left intact. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. The battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. The village of Ho Nai, now a ghost town, was still smoldering. After the cemetery had been cleared Company B, 2/3rd Infantry joined Company C, 4/12th Infantry and they made a night defensive perimeter north of Ho Nai, while the 2/47th Infantry was withdrawn to Bin Ha. convoy about two days before and were repairing anything that had failed Bravo Company was sent to protect the Long Binh ammunition dump, and Charlie Company was ordered into downtown Bien Hoa, where the ARVN III Corps headquarters was in danger of being overrun. FAQs - How to Order | 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Our outfit was a He was alive but he suffered a busted ear drum and singed hair, eye brows and arms. My 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 careful with it. They ordered us to clear the VC from the houses surrounding the corps headquarters. because Mankato (Minnesota)Vocational school had taught me to weld as Aerial view of (USARV) United States Army Republic of Vietnam Headquarters Complex at Long Binh, Vietnam. Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then went in shooting. . We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. [2]:348, As the rockets hit Bien Hoa AB, 2 battalions of the VC 274th Regiment emerged from a rubber plantation 500m east of the eastern perimeter of Bien Hoa AB. The acting commander of the 199th LIB, Col. Frederic E. Davison, ordered three of his infantry companies operating north of Long Binh to attack the rocket launch site, while LG Weyand ordered the 9th Infantry Division to send the 1st Brigade from Bearcat Base. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. Toward dusk on January 30, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist to dig bunkers next to their APCs. The churches were cleared in short order. 13. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. After the fight for the churches, there occurred one of the most bizarre and inexplicable incidents of the day. maxhightForP2 = 13904; 12. remember that my right shoulder and chest were black and blue from the Ly's grandfather was a soldier stationed in Quang Binh during the war. The Vietnamese brigadier general, who was the ranking man at III Corps, drew circles around two equal-sized areas of downtown Bien Hoa. Even though it was about 6-8 miles away to the NE of Bien Hoa, it was plainly visible . One of the children in the Hope System of Care is Nguyen Thi Ly, born in 2001 with a deformed face, head and chest. During December we made little enemy contact, probably because the Communists were lying low, preparing for Tet. At dawn on 2 February the US counted approximately 50 VC/PAVN dead in the area and captured 3 VC. The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas trying to flee into the jungle. 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. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round hitting my track. 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. [2]:349, At dawn several AH1 Cobra gunships from the 334th Assault Helicopter Company joined the defense spraying the VC with rockets and machine gun fire which started fires causing the VC assault to lose its impetus. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. and no one was injured. License Agreement | 6 External links modified. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. It dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. The mushroom cloud slowly dissipated after hours of This is the story of one rifle company, and what it faced on that decisive day. Men at Long Binh ammunition dump. 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. With small-arms fire cracking overhead, young girls carrying bottles of Coca-Cola were trying to sell them to the troops. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the operations officers radio operator. Long Binh Ammo Dump October 29, 1966 . Unconfirmed reports reports said the blasts were the work of Vietcong sabotage teams. 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. The ARVN general and III Corps G3 adviser, however, were not happy when we pulled out. Sergeant John Ax, squad leader of 1st Squad, 2nd Platoon, recalls the fighting near III Corps: An RPG hit Shocker, the C-21 track, in the side; but it must have been a glancing blow, because it did not explode. [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. ", "Then we were all in the bunker AIR V..EXPLOSION We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. flight line and I was checking the bunker for anyone, I heard bore in my M14 barrel had begun to flake off and the wooden stock was All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. The scout platoon had fought valiantly all day long in Widows Village and in Ho Nai. 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. Summary - October 1966. We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered on foot. Construction on the 24 th. Painting outside. We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. By late afternoon the 275th Regiment retreated north, leaving over 200 dead. Tet offensive attacks on Bien Hoa and Long Binh, Tet Offensive attacks on Bien Hoa and Long Binh, United States Army Center of Military History, "Tet Offensive: The Battles of Bien Hoa and Long Binh", Video of helicopter gunships and F-100s in action at Bien Hoa AB, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tet_offensive_attacks_on_Bien_Hoa_and_Long_Binh&oldid=1086914863, Battles and operations of the Vietnam War in 1968, Battles of the Vietnam War involving the United States, Attacks on military installations in the 1960s, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Air Force Historical Research Agency, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the United States Army Center of Military History, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 9 May 2022, at 04:36. 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. There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. In the early morning hours on 31 January, insurgent forces launched U.S. troops firing small arms as they proceed across tall grass into the hamlet. We charged southeast down Highway 316 to the Highway 15 intersection, located on a small hill overlooking the 90th Replacement Company. He read a memorandum charging that 100 days after the signing of the Vientiane ceasefire accords, the seven men had been planning to take command of groups of saboteurs recently infiltrated into the area., See the article in its original context from. Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. At 07:30 the VC/PAVN force stopped and made a stand in a cemetery where they continued to be hit by the gunships and the ACAVs of Company C. At 08:00 Company C was joined by a force from 2/47th Infantry and they proceeded to methodically kill all the VC/PAVN in the cemetery. Meanwhile, Hueys reported VC running from the village. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
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