more History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. After I got the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset. 3. 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. Lieutenant Barnes and one of his soldiers would be awarded Distinguished Service Crosses for their heroism that day. The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas trying to flee into the jungle. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army used the base as a logistics and command center. Other than temporarily disrupting operations at Bien Hoa AB for half a day and destroying ammunition at the Long Binh ammunition dump, the VC/PAVN inflicted minimal damage to the Bien Hoa-Long Binh complex. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The fog of war was especially thick on the morning of January 31, 1968. the airbase made it too us in the daylight and foamed the ditch for 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. At least 3,000 tons of ammu nition were reportedly de stroyed in the blasts, which be gan before dawn and continued until midmorning. I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a Bien Hoa suburb. [2]:347[3]:236 The rocket/mortar attack was the signal to start the ground assaults on Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh. Some were complete projectiles weighing 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, I came upon an unbelievable sight. Get under! After what seemed like The remains of a stack of over 15,000 high explosive 155mm artillery projectiles after the VC attack on February 4. 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. convoy about two days before and were repairing anything that had failed 1 comment. and completely out of sync. 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. 8. As time passed, I became a mechanized soldier. USAF McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II bomber aircraft drop two Mk.84 HD bombs. 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. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. We were in a cloud of disarray 13. The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. Relevant to these events; post recollections and descriptions, questions,. Later, captured VC said many guerrillas only had two magazines for their weapons in expectation that the population would rise up against the Americans and have plenty of captured weapons to fight with. 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. [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. Less has been written about the danger, turmoil, chaos, confusion, contradictions and outright lunacy that confronted individual units as they responded to VC attacks on the morning of January 31. 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. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. 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. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. Tom Allaback. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into Attacking Long The three companies formed a line almost three kilometers long, facing to the east, with their backs to the Long Binh wire. 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. checkered) water tower by the main gate. in bunker) at first light to the sound of a M-60 chattering away. Some VC crossed Route 316 and took up firing positions in bush at the southern perimeter of the Plantation. He This is the story of one rifle company, and what it faced on that decisive day. (National Archives), https://www.historynet.com/lt-col-john-e-gross-recalls-the-tet-battles-of-bien-hoa-and-long-binh/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. Meanwhile, Huey gunships reported VC running from the village. As our medics treated the wounded, I reported to the American lieutenant colonel who was the III Corps G3 adviser. I was well seasoned having been through all the scenarios that presented The attacks were repulsed with the VC/PAVN suffering heavy losses, having inflicted minimal damage on the bases. First was sand then bigger stuff. Most of we RAD 152 crew members arrived in-country on July 22, 1968. In addition, we were tremendously flexible. The probing attack units included VC sapper squads. My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. 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. 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. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. maxhightForP2 = 13904; [6]:66. 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. We packed up our gear, rolled up our wire and waited. Since I was in an airborne unit, I was sure I would go to the 173rd Airborne Brigade or the 101st Airborne Division. Of course you never 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. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the operations officers radio operator. We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. A burst of VC machine gun fire erupted nearby, 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. FAQs - How to Order | was his helmet and flack jacket! Those orders were for us to clear the VC from the houses surrounding the corps headquarters. Page contents not supported in other languages. 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. Battalion policy was that we had to fill in all holes and empty our sandbags each time we left a position. remember that my right shoulder and chest were black and blue from the We opened up with everything we had and kept driving. [3]:2015, At 04:00 a 60-man VC sapper team penetrated the northeastern perimeter of the base killing three MPs and entered the massive ammunition dump (105646N 1065436E / 10.946N 106.91E / 10.946; 106.91) where they planted eighteen Satchel charges before being forced to withdraw by the 720th Military Police Battalion. Then things started falling out of the sky. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned onto Highway 316. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis milling about with boarding passes in hand. Officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Longbinh ammunition dump. At the meeting I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then went in shooting. We could haul more personal gear, live more comfortably and walk less than straight-leg troops. This site was called Hill 63 because there was a hill nearby that had an elevation of 63 meters on the map. The village of Ho Nai, now a ghost town, was still smoldering. I had learned no tactic at infantry school that fit the situation we were faced with, so we improvised. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. because Mankato (Minnesota)Vocational school had taught me to weld as There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. Get under! The weapon was aimed at the newly built and painted (orange-white Craven and another photographer, were both wounded in the engagement.) Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round hitting my track. I have . Specialist 4 Bill Rambo, assistant driver and .50-gunner on my command track, remembers my response to the firing as being absolutely irate. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. 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. who was tossed into a sewage ditch by the explosion, remembers 'killing the jeep' with his M-16. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. 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. 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. I had inherited the job Incredibly, nobody in my company had been killed the day before. The 2nd Platoon took the one north of the road, the 1st Platoon attacked the other. They bowed and looked confused. About two days later one the huge fuel bags next [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. Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. him in. Script is copyright Reuters Limited. 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. Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could get their attack organized. Some of the enemy had tunneled under the fence and exploded an for days and days. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. "I was the 1SGT of the I said again, "Who is there"? I then jacked a round into my M-16 and who would you believe Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79. It At the headquarters of the 2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 47th Infantry (2-47), nicknamed the Panthers, the commander, Lt. Col. Arthur Moreland, asked me what job I wanted. At dusk, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. A force from Company C, 2/3rd Infantry mounted on ACAVs was sent north from Ho Nai and pinned the VC/PAVN in a crossfire. 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. 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) At 03:45 the unit engaged the VC/PAVN with 2 ACAVs being quickly knocked out by RPG fire. 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. Benny Toney, the 2nd Platoon sergeant, hooked a tow cable to Stormy. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas who tried to escape to the nearby jungles. Ive just been told you work for me again. We opened up with everything we had and kept driving. biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. 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. I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. 939939. VC/PAVN losses were 527 dead. He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. We were ordered to go to that church and detain every male between the ages of 16 and 80. Sergeant John Ax, squad leader of 1st Squad, 2nd Platoon, recalls what the fighting near III Corps was like: An RPG hit Shocker, the C-21 track, in the side; but it must have been a glancing blow, because it did not explode. wire on the top of LBJ (Long Binh Jail). 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. Riflemen staying close behind. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. About Us | 6 External links modified. 0.24 1968 - 1969, To See Lawrence's Service Battery Photos 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. We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered dismounted. Ly's father is a bricklayer. A soldier, who has been hit, lying prone between two other soldiers, tries to get up. 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. 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. Our area from the Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. 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. [6]:36 In addition airborne "rocket watch" patrols were established in the Saigon-Bien Hoa area to reduce attacks by fire. I assigned areas of operation to my two rifle platoons, and positioned the weapons platoon inside the compound as a reserve and security force. I asked one of the men The scout platoon had fought valiantly all day long in Widows Village and in Ho Nai. To ensure you can use all the features please enable it. Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. [3]:242, The VC/PAVN attacks were a failure. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. Refine Your Search Long Binh Vietnam 1968 stock footage and images - Showing 1 to 6 of 5537 results Sort by: All All Search Results Decade 1890 - 1899 (3) 1900 - 1909 (18) 1910 - 1919 (136) 1920 - 1929 (83) more Location Aalen Germany (1) Aberdeen Proving Ground Maryland USA (1) Afghanistan (2) Africa (3) more Akron Ohio USA (3) In command for five months, I had been assured that I would be leading the company for one year, which suited me fine. carried on into that night with tracers flying everywhere. I told the colonel that this was not a police action, that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. [3]:2515, A VC/PAVN attack on the prisoner of war camp in Bin Ha which held over 2000 prisoners was repulsed by a platoon from Company C, 4/12th Infantry and a platoon from Company D, 17th Cavalry and their ACAVs. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. 4 "Late in the war" 1 comment. As best I could, I explained that they were to take charge and that General Giap might be among the civilians. The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. All night they scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. Long Binh Ammo Dump October 29, 1966 . The only contact I had had with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course just after I entered the Army. 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. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. 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. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. 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. [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. As 1st Lt. Brice Barnes led his scouts into Ho Nai, he ran full speed into a hornets nest. resulting in the explosion of the ammo dump at Bin Ha Air Base. The action occurs January 31st, 1968 (on "Tet", the Vietnamese Lunar New Year holiday). One reference claims that 4 February 1967 was the date, and another claims that 28 March was the date. 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. I called III Corps and reported that we had detained all of these people, and was told to wait until the Vietnamese National Police arrived to take charge. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. We had returned from a History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. 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. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. Four men were killed and more than 20 wounded, including most of the officers. 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. We never saw them again. 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. GV AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. We use cookies on this website. In the week preceding the attack these LRRP patrols engaged 2 PAVN/VC reconnaissance teams north of Long Binh. 102 comments 105 shares. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, among the refugees. Later, as the sun sank over the Long Binh base, they tossed a football and ate cold C rations. The VC had run out of ammunition and were trying to escape. Toward dark, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. 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. Summary - October 1966. it and only slightly pierced the skin a little. Shoe of soldier on ground. Binh Hoa Airbase was lucky they were not the The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. It also contained tons of captured NVA ammo and guns from the A Shau Valley. The chrome He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. After the fight for the churches, there occurred one of the most bizarre and inexplicable incidents of the day. NEARER AIR V..SMOKE This article was written by John E. Gross and originally published in the February 2008 issue of Vietnam Magazine. SP4 Lawrence Korteum Jan. 31. Back view of jeep with open doors. Sergeant was already tucked under a 5 ton truck parked about 50 feet By the evening the 2/47th Infantry withdrew into the Long Binh perimeter. SOUTH VIETNAM: VIET CONG EXPLODE U.S. F-100 Super Sabre and F-4 Phantom II drop Mark 82 bombs in Vietnam during U.S. air strikes. When it Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. We all knew these moves were more than precautionary. Click Here. Big Boom! I sat behind the .50-caliber, munching and giving thanks for the fact that, incredibly, nobody in Charlie Company had been killed. Unconfirmed reports reports said the blasts were the work of Vietcong sabotage teams. from Bien Hoa City. Hoa. During TET 1969 in front of Bunker Hill 17, VC sappers tried to penetrate our fence line. 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. Our outfit was a I yelled at Lieutenant Casper, and everybody looked around as the VC tore out running the last few yards to safety. United States officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Long Binh. On January 23, during a battalion sweep of a heavily jungled area south of Highway 1, Alpha Company walked into a well-camouflaged, well-defended enemy bunker system and was badly mauled, losing four men killed and more than 20 wounded, including almost all of the officers. This group is primarily for those Vietnam veterans who experienced the ammo dump attacks in Long Binh in 1966, '67, & '68. In the early morning hours on 31 January, insurgent forces launched door at the petroleum dump ruptured and fuel flowed down the ditch in Well, the piece of shrapnel I went through the quarters making sure everyone introduction into country when he first came to the 118th. find all the dead so the countryside smelled like a scene from The 0.35 Somehow the foam trucks from We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymores and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable.