In the week preceding the attack these LRRP patrols engaged 2 PAVN/VC reconnaissance teams north of Long Binh. [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. SAIGON, South Vietnam, June 1 (Reuters)Explosions ripped through a huge ammu nition dump near here today, killing one soldier and wound ing 13. Get under! After what seemed like The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. forever the big pieces stopped. . We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered on foot. Long Binh Ammo Dump October 29, 1966 . At 03:45 the unit engaged the VC/PAVN with 2 ACAVs being quickly knocked out by RPG fire. 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. Gradually, I became a mechanized soldier. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. Then I got a call from battalion commander Tower, asking how things were going. His battalion was in heavy contact and he had several wounded rangers he needed to evacuate. 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. 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. went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of 0.59 An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. He replied that I would have to wait. We never saw them again. According to Jones, that assault went so perfectly that it could have served as a demonstration at the infantry school. Meanwhile, Hueys reported VC running from the village. Advanced Search | When offered the chance to go to II Field Force to help establish a new long-range reconnaissance patrol outfit, I turned it down to stay with the company. The churches were cleared in short order. January 12, 1972. by: Arnold John Houchin Bin Ha, USAF 3rd Security Police Squadron 1970-1972 Phu Cat, 37th SPS; Thu Hoa, 31st SPS; . Realizing I had not eaten for 24 hours, I looked for some breakfast, but all I could find was a bag of pistachio nuts. I sounded off, "who is there"? 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. For more great articles, subscribe to Vietnam magazine today! When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. was out of the bldgs. danger and the probable best course of action. The gun-jeeps were progressively replaced by M113s and XM-706 Commando armored cars. . By continuing to use this site without changing your cookie settings, you agree that you are happy to accept our privacy policyand cookie policyand for us to access our cookies on your device. 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. The bombs descend and explode on structures in grove of trees near rice paddies 23 miles east of Binh Thuy on 19th August. 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. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Unconfirmed reports reports said the blasts were the work of Vietcong sabotage teams. (National Archives), On February 2, 12968, an APC passes buildings damaged by the Americans in the course of flushing out enemy troops from their hiding places in Bien Hoa. With small-arms fire cracking overhead, young girls carrying bottles of Coca-Cola were trying to sell them to the troops. The 2-47 was one of several units he pulled in from the jungles to guard the Long Binh headquarters and logistical complex 15 miles northeast of Saigon. Company E engaged the PAVN/VC supported by artillery fire killing 47 PAVN/VC. Dames walked down a side alley toward the highway. With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. 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. Under fire, Staff Sgt. Over the two month recovery and clearing operation, tens of thousands of these hazardous munitions were recoverd by hand, one at a time. Our area from the 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. I was not sure what to do about the bunkers. 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. We fired all we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. 12. The action occurs January 31st, 1968 (on "Tet", the Vietnamese Lunar New Year holiday). Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79 grenade launcher. 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. The 2-47s enemy body count came in at more than 200, while the battalion suffered only four KIA. As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. Page contents not supported in other languages. As I walked around the front of a track, the .50-caliber gunner accidentally hit the trigger and pumped five rounds into the ground about three feet in front of me. officer around. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. 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. Charlie Company quickly reinforced Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. The probing attack units included VC sapper squads. The VC concentrated their attack on Bunker 10 an old French concrete bunker on the eastern perimeter, hitting it with Rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and mortar fire, however the Security Police in Bunker 10 and adjacent bunkers fought back keeping the VC from penetrating far into the base. This is the story of one rifle company, and what it faced on that decisive day. Jim Love recalls lying in a ditch near a dead civilian as the friendly fire cracked over our heads. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the S3s radio operator. known as Widows Village. The two of them refused evacuation and neither reported his wound. Alpha Company was ordered to the 199th LIB compound, which was under attack. One A-37 and 1 F-100 were destroyed while a further 17 aircraft were damaged. Attacking Long As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Artillery During Tet 1968, the 856th Radio . It dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. The scout platoon had fought . After I received the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset, and we moved out. Come back up on the battalion freq.. All rights reserved. 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. [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. We packed up all of our gear, rolled up our concertina wire and waited. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. Initials PW/VS/JH/BB/ES PW/VS/JH/ES Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. We were west of Highway QL1 along a road named 535. 10. 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. Lookout tower in the background. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. USAF McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II bomber aircraft drop two Mk.84 HD bombs. in bunker) at first light to the sound of a M-60 chattering away. The progress was slow and ammunition was becoming a scarce, particularly grenades, which city fighting consumes at an enormous rate. remember that my right shoulder and chest were black and blue from the During December we made little enemy contact, probably because the Communists were lying low, preparing for Tet. At 3 a.m. on January 31, I received a call from Major Bill Jones, who had recently taken Ionoffs place as operations officer. As you know there were no officers 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. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. SV AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND EXPLOSION This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army Center of Military History. We had returned from a (Note: According to Colonel Sonny Craven, then leader of a combat photo team on the scene, these combat sequences was filmed by soldiers of the 221st Signal Company [Pictorial]). Barbed wire torn apart by Vietcong who infiltrated through Longbinh ammunition camp. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. Jan. 31. We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymores and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable. LV EXPLOSIONS We could shoot about 21 miles into Cambodia. As the afternoon of January 30 drifted toward dusk, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist and dug bunkers next to their M-113s. At dusk, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. 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.). The VC had run out of ammunition and were trying to escape. Shopping Cart | I There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. 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. 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. It was the first such occurrence since the ceasefire of Jan. 28. I had no way of knowing who it was with no light in the -- color photo Near Moc Hoa. Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. Now the fight was on. all personnel to the flight line. Blood stains in ambulance. 0.17 Widows Village made a perfect attack position for the VC, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters in the Long Binh complex. I was not sure what to do about the bunkers we had dug. FAQs - How to Order | 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. 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. Meanwhile, Charlie Company was ordered back to III Corps. To ensure you can use all the features please enable it. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. 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. Copyright Screenocean 2022 | Powered byImagen. Tom Allaback. 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.. Men at Long Binh ammunition dump. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Aerial view of (USARV) United States Army Republic of Vietnam Headquarters Complex at Long Binh, Vietnam. As our medics treated the wounded, I reported to the American lieutenant colonel who was the III Corps G3 adviser. [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. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. During this fighting, both platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. [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. Something was definitely about to happen. remember being giddy and my brain was asking What is wrong with me?. After I got the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. 2. Under fire, Staff Sgt. In April 1967 I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. 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. He EXPLOSIONS IN DISTANCE HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. convoy about two days before and were repairing anything that had failed bunker. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Tower sent Major Jones to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. I operated a heavy five Love was so startled, he didnt fire. [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. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round hitting my track. The S3 also told Charlie Companys noncombatants to report to battalion headquarters. who was tossed into a sewage ditch by the explosion, remembers 'killing the jeep' with his M-16. The unit left their position at Firebase Concord north of Bin Ha and moved east proceeding along trails north of Ho Nai towards the LRRP position. 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 fired everything we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. on the water tower". ", "We mustered everyone we could I sat behind the .50-caliber, munching and giving thanks for the fact that, incredibly, nobody in Charlie Company had been killed. Riflemen moving cautiously. Toward dusk on January 30, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist to dig bunkers next to their APCs. There was an ammo dump explosion in 1968 also and both 1967 and 1968 are correct and were of course separate incidents. GV AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. 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. He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. 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. Then things started falling out of the sky. As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. 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. 0.42 PAVN/VC losses were 137 killed and 25 captured. In addition to the US bases, the city of Bin Ha was the headquarters of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) III Corps and home to a large prisoner of war camp. 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. As he fell, a burst of automatic weapons fire stitched the wall right where he would have been had he not fallen.. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army used the base as a logistics and command center. The Vietnamese brigadier generalthe ranking man at III Corpsdrew circles on a map around two areas of downtown Bien Hoa. All night he stared at the body, which had one arm grotesquely sticking in the air, and wondered why nobody had taken the gold wristwatch off the arm. 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. Long Binh, again (Feb. 1967). 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. 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. [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. ". I said again, "Who is there"? All of these placements were made with the wrongful assumption that the VC would attack from the jungles outside the base. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. Realizing we were driving past our objective, I halted the company and called for the 2nd Platoon to find a place to turn around. By late afternoon the 275th Regiment retreated north, leaving over 200 dead. 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. it and only slightly pierced the skin a little. more Tower had called and told me Charlie Company was under the operational control of III Corps and I was to take my orders from them. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. charred. "I was the 1SGT of the It was I Contact Us | 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. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. 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. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round actually hitting my track. Those orders were for us to clear the VC from the houses surrounding the corps headquarters. 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. First was sand then bigger stuff. 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. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. ruary 1968 in support of Saigon and Long Binh Post during the TET Offen- Sive. [7], The Tet offensive attacks and previous losses due to mortar and rocket attacks on air bases across South Vietnam led the Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze on 6 March 1968 to approve the construction of 165 "Wonderarch" roofed aircraft shelters at the major air bases. They all blew up! (Long Binh) ammunition dump. By the evening the 2/47th Infantry withdrew into the Long Binh perimeter. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. Website Terms & Conditions | When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. 2 comments. As dawn broke on February 1, it was deathly quiet. John Gross received the Silver Star for his actions in command of Charlie Company on the first day of the Tet Offensive. 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. 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). It involved transfer of powder projectiles and fuses enough to keep This group is primarily for those Vietnam veterans who experienced the ammo dump attacks in Long Binh in 1966, '67, & '68. 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.

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