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. 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. I sat behind the .50-caliber, munching and giving thanks for the fact that, incredibly, nobody in Charlie Company had been killed. Benny Toney, the 2nd Platoon sergeant, hooked a tow cable to Stormy. known as Widows Village. CRITICALPAST.COM: 4. who was tossed into a sewage ditch by the explosion, remembers 'killing the jeep' with his M-16. Summary - October 1966. Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. [6]:36 In addition airborne "rocket watch" patrols were established in the Saigon-Bien Hoa area to reduce attacks by fire. night on alert at the Birdcage, I was awakened (trying to sleep Binh was a logistical mistake because the perimeter was so heavily armed I sounded off, "who is there"? unless they could see someone, I went to our Operations shack The two of them refused evacuation and neither reported his wound. We fired all we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. The explosions at Long Binh, 15 miles northeast of Sia gon rattled windows and shook doors here in the capital. Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. Most of we RAD 152 crew members arrived in-country on July 22, 1968. 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. EOD in Vietnam 1966-1967, Photo Album - ZiaNet I While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. I had been in Vietnam about nine months. As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. 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. The Vietnamese general and the III Corps G3 adviser, however, were not very happy when we pulled out. charred. 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. Painting outside. We came up with a T formation. 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. 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. ". it and only slightly pierced the skin a little. 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. October continued with construction efforts. We had returned from a secondary explosions. Page contents not supported in other languages. No answer. When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians seeking refuge. Its predominantly Catholic population was made up of many Vietnamese who fled North Vietnam in 1954 after the Viet Minh victory. the barracks hall just as he stepped out of his room going to 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. Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. Tom Allaback. sixteen guns stationed next to the western border of Vietnam. His two daughters, Ly's mother and her sister, are disabled. 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. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. opened his mouth but, SGT Cuffee, the supply SGT. A slightly wounded soldier, lying on the ground, smiles as he points to his leg as another soldier helps him. I told the colonel that this was not a police action, that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. 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. . As usual, each company had sent two ambush patrols into the jungle to our front. The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. With small-arms fire cracking overhead, young girls carrying bottles of Coca-Cola were trying to sell them to the troops. 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. biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. Long Binh Ammo Dump - '67 & '68 | Facebook [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. 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. and the gunner replied "VC Updated 7/26/2015. Perpetual Siege region. 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. THE STORM BREAKS Part 1 In the late-night hours of 29 January 1968 By July 1969 we were finally off the boats and in Dong Tam processing to head home. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. 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. By 1968 the Bien Hoa-Long Binh complex was the largest US/South Vietnamese military base in South Vietnam. Website Terms & Conditions | Lookout tower in the background. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Long Binh Vietnam 1969 stock footage and images - CriticalPast After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. 14. and completely out of sync. 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. An MP full colonel, accompanied by a Los Angeles deputy sheriff (dressed in his deputy uniform) and two jeeploads of National Police, drove up to my track. He retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel. to check-in and see what was going on, and found myself the only Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. 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. Initials PW/VS/JH/BB/ES PW/VS/JH/ES I yelled at Lieutenant Casper, and everybody looked around as the VC tore out running the last few yards to safety. Then I got a call from battalion commander Tower, asking how things were going. That night, frightened bunker guards in the 199th compound shot into the darkness to their front. 1.19 Maps of Heavily Sprayed Areas and Dioxin Hot Spots Get under! After what seemed like Love was so startled, he didnt fire. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. 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. When the shooting started it What we came up with was a T formation. 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. Bravo Company (one member of which was Spc. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. During this fighting, the two platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. wire on the top of LBJ (Long Binh Jail). With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. July 10, 1969 - Page 3 - Brownwater Vietnam Veterans 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. Ly's grandfather was a soldier stationed in Quang Binh during the war. 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. Realizing we were driving past our objective, I halted the company and called for the 2nd Platoon to find a place to turn around. This article was originally published in the February 2006 issue of Vietnam Magazine. [6]:66. Set. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. During this time, the battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. 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. 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. 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. We fired everything we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. After I got the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset. I was the DistrictSenior Advisor (Army) in Vinh Kim, Long Dinh District, right across the canal from Dong Tam in 1968-1969. (Vietnam War period). This site requires JavaScript. All of these placements were made with the wrongful assumption that the VC would attack from the jungles outside the base. The first explosion was 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. Come back up on the battalion freq.. 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). GV EXPLOSIONS, AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. 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. LV EXPLOSION, SIGN ON BOARD "DISNEY LAND FAR EAST" ton wrecker weighing in at 22 thousand pounds. the airbase made it too us in the daylight and foamed the ditch for I told him about the order to clear an area of operations equal in size to that assigned the airborne battalion. 9. The Long Binh ammunition dump had exploded. U.S. military officials vVould not give the exact number of casualties for security reasons. 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. It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. 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. At least 3,000 tons of ammu nition were reportedly de stroyed in the blasts, which be gan before dawn and continued until midmorning. He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. GV DUMP Shoe of soldier on ground. Several tracks were hit by RPGs and surrounded by the enemy. [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. He started As darkness settled in, Charlie Company was ordered back to the junction of Highways 1 and 316, where we would form a screen in front of the 199th LIB base camp. Toward dark, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. This was no surprise to us, since we could hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas who tried to escape to the nearby jungles. 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. We never saw them again. Anyone can read what you share. The churches were cleared in short order. recoil of my M14. LV WATER TRUCKS ALONG ROAD, EXPLOSION IN B/G. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis, boarding passes in hand, milling about. Vehicles drive past on roads between the Long Binh Post area. because Mankato (Minnesota)Vocational school had taught me to weld as History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. As dawn broke on February 1, it was deathly quiet. for days and days. At 3 a.m. on January 31, I received a call from Major Bill Jones, who had recently taken Ionoffs place as operations officer. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp. [2]:347[3]:236 The rocket/mortar attack was the signal to start the ground assaults on Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh. 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. When I pointed out that the 101st Battalion had more than 500 troops and I had only two line platoons and less than 90 troops, he said, Youre mechanized, youre very strong.. 939939. Charlie Company would get the mission. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the operations officers radio operator. more that happened that night. At the meeting I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. APCs advance, firing 50 caliber machine guns. Chu Lai and LZ Baldy Photos. around Bien Hoa Airbase and headed toward our post of Long Binh, then When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into Rocket Attack on Dong Tam - July 10, 1969. This site was called Hill 63 because there was a hill nearby that had an elevation of 63 meters on the map. 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. During the last week of January, the battalion patrolled the jungles east of Highway 15, near the Binh Son rubber plantation. 90th Replacement Battalion | My Vietnam Experience No infantry school tactic fit the situation; improvisation became the order of the day. Big Ammunition Dump Near Saigon Hit by Blasts yelling Kortuem! 11. At 03:45 the unit engaged the VC/PAVN with 2 ACAVs being quickly knocked out by RPG fire. In April 1967, I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. the bunker. 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. Smoke rises from surrounding area. 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. 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. 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. [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. from the petroleum dump immediately next to our position. In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. 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 (Mechanized), 47th Infantry. 0.35 0.28 After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. LV DITTO 0.22 Activity in the area had picked up in November and The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. They tried to make us keep our heads down so we couldn't get them with our counter-mortar fire . Sugar Bear Dames, as he was called by his many friends, walked down a side alley toward the highway. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 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. [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. 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. the wrecker operator had to know how to weld. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. Casper rose from the prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. PAVN/VC losses were 137 killed and 25 captured. Shopping Cart | 0.24 There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. Back view of jeep with open doors. They ordered us to clear the VC from the houses surrounding the corps headquarters. In the early morning hours on 31 January, insurgent forces launched The village of Ho Nai, now a ghost town, still smoldered. 4 Joseph Dames was tasked to return to the tracks for more grenades. Wrecked ambulance with flat tires. As he fell, a burst of automatic weapons fire stitched the wall right where he would have been had he not fallen. (Casper, one of the bravest of the brave, died during the May offensive in Saigon, leading from the front.). There we would be assigned a unit we would serve with in Vietnam. 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. Alpha Company, still licking its wounds from the January 23 fight, was left intact. ", "Then we were all in the bunker The North Vietnamese Army had circled First was sand then bigger stuff. The 2-47s enemy body count came in at more than 200, while the battalion suffered only four KIA. 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. Then things started falling out of the sky. Attacking Long Well, the piece of shrapnel 2 comments. StoriesPage6 - 118th AHC 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. When the Tet cease-fire period began on January 28, the battalion was called back to the vicinity of Bear Cat, a base camp near Long Thanh. "What are you firing at? " 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. He Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. 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. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. The scout platoon had fought valiantly all day long in Widows Village and in Ho Nai. GV AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. I said again, "Who is there"? I had inherited the job 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. 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) 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. This group is primarily for those Vietnam veterans who experienced the ammo dump attacks in Long Binh in 1966, '67, & '68. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. I remember one 0.04 But their 81mm mortars were useless, since we were told we could not put any indirect fire into the town. checkered) water tower by the main gate. 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. He waved me off. It also contained tons of captured NVA ammo and guns from the A Shau Valley. 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. The fog of war was especially thick on the morning of January 31, 1968. As the 2/47th Infantry approached the town a Vietnamese warned that it contained many VC and the VC then launched an ambush on the column knocking out 3 ACAVs with RPGs setting off a 4-hour battle as the US forces engaged the VC position and rescued the survivors in the damaged ACAVs. However the ammunition storage bunkers prevented a chain reaction and the lost munitions were easily replaced with no impact on supply. 2. This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army Center of Military History. At 0400 Jones ordered us to pull in our ambushes and be prepared to move. At 08:00 the VC south of the Plantation withdrew into the Widows Village. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. rockets at Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh Post. We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. 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. By Vietnam terms 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. 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. NEARER AIR V..SMOKE AIR V..EXPLOSION went off and all hell broke lose. We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. 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. Jim Love recalls lying in a ditch near a dead civilian as the friendly fire cracked over our heads. 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. 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. 6 comments. As I remember this night, around 12 or 12:30 a.m. the sirens Blood stains in ambulance. My Account | I operated a heavy five [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. Get under! introduction into country when he first came to the 118th. Toggle the table of contents Talk: Long Bnh, Bin Ha. That night, no one slept, but instead scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. At 7 a.m., as daylight was breaking, my track rolled past the ARVN III Corps compound gate. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. According to Jones, that assault went so perfectly that it could have served as a demonstration at the infantry school. Terms & Conditions | At dusk, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. 118th during the Tet of 1968, also called the Defense of Bien [4], The 179th Military Intelligence Detachment of the 199th LIB had been gathering intelligence on a pending attack on Long Binh for several weeks before the attacks based on human intelligence and ground radar. He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, started off down Highway 1.

Sinus Pain After Covid Recovery, Articles L