EXPLOSIONS IN DISTANCE We all knew these moves were more than precautionary. from the petroleum dump immediately next to our position. We charged southeast down Highway 316 to the Highway 15 intersection, located on a small hill overlooking the 90th Replacement Company. door at the petroleum dump ruptured and fuel flowed down the ditch in As 1st Lt. Brice Barnes led his scouts into Ho Nai, he ran full speed into a hornets nest. 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. Several M 113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) are seen accompanying the troops. Tet airstrike Long Binh Ammo Dump - YouTube I was having a few beers with several other sailors in the outside screened patio area of the Navy EM Club when we heard a noise to our left. We could ride, walk or be airlifted to war, travel great distances in a short amount of time, and arrive with many times the ammunition and equipment that could be lifted in by helicopter. 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. 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. Come back up on the battalion freq.. The North Vietnamese Army had circled The explosions at Long Binh, 15 miles northeast of Sia gon rattled windows and shook doors here in the capital. 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. Updated 7/26/2015. AMMUNITION DUMP. 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. However, Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could organize their attack. 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. 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 barracks hall just as he stepped out of his room going to License Agreement | An accurate body count could never be compiled since so many VC bodies were dragged away or were burned in the many fires that ravaged the towns and villages. SAIGON, South Vietnam, June 1 (Reuters)Explosions ripped through a huge ammu nition dump near here today, killing one soldier and wound ing 13. Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. Shopping Cart | secondary explosions. PAVN/VC losses were 137 killed and 25 captured. [2]:347[3]:225, At 03:00, the PAVN 84A Artillery Regiment began a barrage of approximately 100 82-mm. One A-37 and 1 F-100 were destroyed while a further 17 aircraft were damaged. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, walking among the refugees. 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. it and only slightly pierced the skin a little. As time passed, I became a mechanized soldier. Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79 grenade launcher. 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. Waking Dead. January 12, 1972. by: Arnold John Houchin Bin Ha, USAF 3rd Security Police Squadron 1970-1972 Phu Cat, 37th SPS; Thu Hoa, 31st SPS; . We came up with a T formation. bore in my M14 barrel had begun to flake off and the wooden stock was Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. From our positions we could see and hear the celebratory fireworks lighting the sky over Saigon to the west. We use cookies on this website. [5], USAF losses were 4 killed in action with another dying of a heart attack, while 26 were wounded. GV AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. introduction into country when he first came to the 118th. [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. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the operations officers radio operator. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. It As was our normal practice, each company had sent two ambush patrols into the jungle to our front. He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. wire on the top of LBJ (Long Binh Jail). 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 first explosion was 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. The chrome The Commo track, C-007, nicknamed Abdula and the Rug Merchants, with Pfc (current Vietnam editor) David Zabecki behind the .50-caliber, brought up the rear. raffia 12th combat aviation group - sites.google.com HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. At least 3,000 tons of ammu nition were reportedly de stroyed in the blasts, which be gan before dawn and continued until midmorning. border. I yelled at Lieutenant Casper, and everybody looked around as the VC tore out running the last few yards to safety. was out of the bldgs. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. 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. resulting in the explosion of the ammo dump at Bin Ha Air Base. 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. Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. Rambo claims that the bunker guards were MPs with the call sign of Filmy Milker. According to him, I told their commander that any fool could see that the VC did not have M-113s, and that we had 22 .50-calibers and a 106mm recoilless rifle and they, for sure, did not want us to return fire. At 03:45 the unit engaged the VC/PAVN with 2 ACAVs being quickly knocked out by RPG fire. I was never so happy in my life. At dawn on 2 February the US counted approximately 50 VC/PAVN dead in the area and captured 3 VC. . 9. 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. 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. According to the VC 5th Division official history, the 3rd Battalion, 5th VC Regiment was supported by the Bien Hoa Sapper Company; its mission was to overrun the compound, which was defended by about 15 ARVN soldiers and a smattering of MACV advisers. 4 and future U.S. senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel) had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widows Village fight. Following that fight, the 2-47 was ordered south of the 9th Divisions base camp. He waved me off. SAIGON, South Vietnam, June 1 (Reuters)Explosions ripped through a huge ammu nition dump near here today, killing one soldier and wound ing 13. charred. The first explosion was 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. A spokesman for the South Vietnamese command said that, according to unconfirmed re ports, satchel charges, of the type used by Vietcong sabotage squads were found near the dump. Our area from the I almost did more They ordered us to clear the VC from the houses surrounding the corps headquarters. Tom Allaback. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion. They all blew up! We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. First was sand then bigger stuff. All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a Bien Hoa suburb. hightForP2 = 330 Company B, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, which was placed under the operational control of the 2-47, made a combat air assault under fire into the middle of the Widows Village battle and fought bravely beside the Panthers all day long. As the sun sank low, 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. M-117 bombs explode near and on road on wooden slopes near river north of Pleiku near Dak To, on 18 August, 1968. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. 10. We fired all we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. The bus ride to 90th Replacement was relatively short and everyone seemed exhausted from the long flight. probably one of the best deals I had been Used for because the Then things started falling During this fighting, the two platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. Long Bnh Post and the Vietnam War | Worlds Revealed VC/PAVN losses were 527 dead. Fighting our way to the scout platoon, we were stopped when we came upon two large churches, straddling Highway 1, each occupied by VC. My Account | I said again, "Who is there"? Soon we could hear leaders moving up and down the bunker line yelling for the guards to stop firing. Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. Even though it was about 6-8 miles away to the NE of Bien Hoa, it was plainly visible . In mid-September, when Ionoff moved to battalion headquarters to become the operations officer (S3), I assumed command of Company C. In October, the 2-47 was tasked to secure engineers as they cleared Highway 1 from Xuan Loc to the II Corps boundary near Phan Thiet. SV AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND EXPLOSION Burned out 105mm howitzer shells at ammunition dump in Bien Hoa Air Force Base, Bien Hoa in Vietnam. Somehow the foam trucks from 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. 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. Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. [2]:350, At approximately 16:45 F-100 Super Sabres of the 531st Tactical Fighter Squadron conducted a Napalm strike against a PAVN/VC company at the east end of the base runway. ". To get to the church, we had to run a gantlet of fire, through the VC 238th Regiment and into the flank of the 275th, which was fighting the 2-47s scout platoon in Widows Village. With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. John Gross received the Silver Star for his actions in command of Charlie Company on the first day of the Tet Offensive. around Bien Hoa Airbase and headed toward our post of Long Binh, then After I got the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset. As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. Some of the enemy had tunneled under the fence and exploded an was his helmet and flack jacket! All I could think of to say was, Please clear that weapon!. Which date was it? bunker. I went through the quarters making sure everyone We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. 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. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. In addition, we were tremendously flexible. No answer. According to the official history of the VC 5th Division, the 3rd Battalion, 5th VC Regiment, supported by the Bien Hoa Sapper Company, had the mission of overrunning the compound, which was defended by about 15 ARVN soldiers and a smattering of MACV advisers. It also contained tons of captured NVA ammo and guns from the A Shau Valley. After the battles for the churches, there occurred one of the most bizarre incidents of the day. 12. 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. During this time, the battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. Riflemen moving cautiously. out of the sky. Meanwhile, Hueys reported VC running from the village. My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. His two daughters, Ly's mother and her sister, are disabled. 6. because Mankato (Minnesota)Vocational school had taught me to weld as We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered on foot. Featured Collections | Riflemen staying close behind. As my airborne mentality faded, I learned to love the M-113or track, as we called it. Remembering Tet 1968 Fifty Years Ago - quanloi.org The Vietnamese general and the III Corps G3 adviser, however, were not very happy when we pulled out. This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army Center of Military History. When it 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. Alpha Company, still licking its wounds from the January 23 fight, was left intact. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. FAQs - How to Order | 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. The churches were cleared in short order. A soldier, who has been hit, lying prone between two other soldiers, tries to get up. Lieutenant Barnes and one of his soldiers would be awarded Distinguished Service Crosses for their heroism that day. Rolling back through Bien Hoa, we were astounded to come upon the battalion S4, Captain Leroy Brown, in the middle of town with a 5,000-gallon fuel tanker and several ammunition trucks. As best I could, I explained that they were to take charge and that General Giap might be among the civilians. As dawn broke on February 1, it was deathly quiet. Realizing I had not eaten for 24 hours, I looked for some breakfast, but all I could find was a bag of pistachio nuts. AIR V..FIRES Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. It was When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians. Chu Lai and LZ Baldy Photos. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. At 08:00 the VC south of the Plantation withdrew into the Widows Village. Sappers had placed satchel charges on pallets of artillery ammunition, and the resulting mushroom cloud caused all its witnesses to think the VC had employed a tactical nuclear weapon. (Vietnam War period). A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. This was no surprise to us, since we could hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. I sounded off, "who is there"? Tower sent Major Jones to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. 0.22 As the 2nd Platoon began to run short, Spc. [2]:347 Within Bien Hoa AB, the USAF 3rd Security Police Squadron was responsible for security manning bunkers and operating mobile patrols within the base perimeter. PDF Scanned Document - United States Army 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. This site requires JavaScript. To get to the church, we had to run a gantlet of fire, through the VC 238th Regiment and into the flank of the 275th, which was fighting the 2-47s scout platoon in Widows Village. During December we made little enemy contact, probably because the Communists were lying low, preparing for Tet. 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. I had been in command for five months and had been assured that I would be in command for one year, which suited me fine. With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into rockets at Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh Post. He 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. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. CU SIGN "NO SMOKING" 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. Service Battery that supplied ordnance to the big guns in our battalion. He was alive but he suffered a busted ear drum and singed hair, eye brows and arms. Initials PW/VS/JH/BB/ES PW/VS/JH/ES As we turned around to head back west, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. In the early morning hours on 31 January, insurgent forces launched He said his battalion was in heavy contact, and he had several wounded rangers he needed to evacuate. 3. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned left onto Highway 316. 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. This article was written by John E. Gross and originally published in the February 2008 issue of Vietnam Magazine. In the week preceding the attack these LRRP patrols engaged 2 PAVN/VC reconnaissance teams north of Long Binh. Craven and another photographer, were both wounded in the engagement.) find all the dead so the countryside smelled like a scene from The 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. Listening to the scouts desperate fight on the radio, Charlie Company attacked with renewed vigor as we tried to get to Barnes and his men. Satchel charges blew pallets of artillery ammunition, creating a mushroom cloud that made us think the VC had set off a tactical nuclear weapon. "[3]:205, The Tet offensive attacks on Bien Hoa AB and Tan Son Nhut Air Base slowly led to an improvement in air base defense across South Vietnam, with improved bunkers and heavier defensive armament including 0.50 cal machine guns, M67 recoilless rifles and M29 mortars. Tet offensive attacks on Bien Hoa and Long Binh - Wikipedia As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis, boarding passes in hand, milling about. [2]:3523, General Weyand later noted that in their attacks on the Saigon area "Despite the large number of Communist troops committed, insufficient force was applied in any one area to take and hold the objectiveThe assault had been launched piecemeal and it was repulsed piecemeal in a series of relatively small battles. The three companies formed a line almost three kilometers long, facing to the east, with their backs to the Long Binh wire. The three companies formed a line almost three kilometers long, facing east, with their backs to the Long Binh wire, based on the mistaken assumption that the VC would attack from the jungle. As best I could, I explained that they were to take charge and that General Giap might be among the civilians. 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. One reference claims that 4 February 1967 was the date, and another claims that 28 March was the date. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. 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. Then I got a call from battalion commander Tower, asking how things were going. ", "Then we were all in the bunker Widows Village made a perfect attack position, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters. Its predominantly Catholic population was made up of many Vietnamese who fled North Vietnam in 1954 after the Viet Minh victory. I told the colonel that this was not a police action, that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. The VC who had fired the RPG slipped away, but Pfc Jim Love, who was tossed into a sewage ditch by the explosion, remembers killing the jeep with his M-16. the bunker. Having been struck by mortars or rockets, the fuel tanks at the air base, as well as several buildings throughout Bien Hoa, were burning brightly. Sugar Bear Dames, as he was called by his many friends, walked down a side alley toward the highway. (Vietnam War period). 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. Cambodian border to the South China sea was already considered a the light dome that rose from the explosion. 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. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. Around midnight on October 29th, 1966, the Viet Cong mortared or rocketed the Long Binh Ammo Dump. Ive just been told you work for me again. 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. He ignored me and proceeded to a nearby house where he and the deputy sheriff kicked in the front door. As my airborne mentality faded, I learned to love the M-113or track. We could haul more personal gear, live more comfortably and walk less than straight-leg troops. Well, the piece of shrapnel Powerful Explosion In Ammunition Dump Rocks S. Viet Nam Madera They tried to make us keep our heads down so we couldn't get them with our counter-mortar fire . 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. It had been over two days and many of us had no sleep. According to him, I told him that any fool could see that the VC did not have M-113s, and that we had 22 .50-calibers and a 106mm recoilless rifle and they, for sure, did not want us to return fire. The 2nd Platoon took the one north of the road, the 1st Platoon attacked the other. I was the DistrictSenior Advisor (Army) in Vinh Kim, Long Dinh District, right across the canal from Dong Tam in 1968-1969. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. During the morning of January 30, the 2-47 Mech was notified that the Tet cease-fire was canceled, and the unit was deployed into a defensive line along the road that ran around the east side of the Long Binh base. To ensure you can use all the features please enable it. I realize now that the track was high enough that the rounds would have passed over the troops in front of the vehicle, Love recalls. They bowed and looked confused.
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