[2]:3512 US losses in the fighting in the Widow's Village were three dead. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. I told him we couldnt take the tracks off Highway 1 into town because the streets were too narrow. I told him that I wanted to command a company. [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. As dawn broke on February 1, it was deathly quiet. 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Company C, 4/12th Infantry and they made a night defensive perimeter north of Ho Nai, while the 2/47th Infantry was withdrawn to Bin Ha. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. Toward dusk on January 30, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist to dig bunkers next to their APCs. I was the DistrictSenior Advisor (Army) in Vinh Kim, Long Dinh District, right across the canal from Dong Tam in 1968-1969. As was our normal practice, each company had sent two ambush patrols into the jungle to our front. All I could think of to say was, Please clear that weapon!. The Long Binh ammunition dump had exploded. [3]:218, The town of Ho Nai (105812N 1065335E / 10.970N 106.893E / 10.970; 106.893) was located on Highway 1 north of the Widow's Village and Long Binh Post. 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. The mushroom cloud slowly dissipated after hours of ton wrecker weighing in at 22 thousand pounds. The view is from the compound of the 20th. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. 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. 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. We all knew that these moves were more than just precautionary. secondary explosions. Unfortunately for the VC, they had no weapons other than the RPG launcher. (Long Binh) ammunition dump. On that fateful night, explosions began at the bomb dump, I immediately responded to CSC as the SP's . 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. Smoke rises from surrounding area. Tower sent Major Jones to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. When the G3 adviser told me to lend the rangers a track, I told the sergeant that the M-113 was not a tank and to be careful with it. Flames consuming huts. Of course you never The attacks on Bin Ha, Bien Hoa Air Base and Long Binh Post, occurred during the early hours of 31 January 1968 and continued until 2 February 1968. Tom Allaback. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned left onto Highway 316. 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. 2. The G3 adviser told me that they had received intelligence that Vo Nguyen Giap, the North Vietnamese commanding general (the enemy equivalent of General William Westmoreland), had his command post in a Catholic church about a kilometer east of III Corps. The explosions at Long Binh, 15 miles northeast of Sia gon rattled windows and shook doors here in the capital. A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. Perpetual Siege region. In another sign that the situation was serious, the battalion commander himself gave map coordinates of company objectives in the clear. bunker. [3]:2204, On 1 February Company B, 2/3rd Infantry, Company C, 4/12th Infantry and elements of 2/47th Infantry swept Ho Nai finding only dead VC/PAVN and civilians who had been murdered by the VC or killed in the fighting in the town. Our area from the Binh Hoa Airbase was lucky they were not the He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, started off down Highway 1. AIR V..FIRES the bunker. 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. 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. Bucks County Pennsylvania United States USA, Del Rio Texas Laughlin Air Force Base USA, Roxborough Pennsylvania United States USA, U-Tapao Royal Thai Air Force Base Thailand. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis, boarding passes in hand, milling about. The North Vietnamese Army had circled The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. Barbed wire torn apart by Vietcong who infiltrated through Longbinh ammunition camp. 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. [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. 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. After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. Their 81mm mortars were useless, since we were told we could not put any indirect fire into the town. 118th during the Tet of 1968, also called the Defense of Bien The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas trying to flee into the jungle. 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. By the evening the 2/47th Infantry withdrew into the Long Binh perimeter. [2]:347 Weyand also requested the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF) to defend the eastern approaches to Long Binh/Bien Hoa and 1 ATF had commenced Operation Coburg on 24 January. We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. John Gross received the Silver Star for his actions in command of Charlie Company on the first day of the Tet Offensive. [3]:220, When the Company F, 51st Infantry LRRP team reported VC/PAVN moving past their position a reaction force from Company C, 4/12th Infantry mounted on ACAVs was sent to investigate. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. The attacks on Bin Ha, Bien Hoa Air Base and Long Binh Post, occurred during the early hours of 31 January 1968 and continued until 2 February 1968. who was tossed into a sewage ditch by the explosion, remembers 'killing the jeep' with his M-16. As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. By 1968 the Bien Hoa-Long Binh complex was the largest US/South Vietnamese military base in South Vietnam. Forget that, he said. . As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion. A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. 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. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. The 2nd Platoon took the one north of the road, the 1st Platoon attacked the other. Long Binh, again (Feb. 1967). 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. Views of a number of huts, in the hamlet, that have not been destroyed. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis milling about with boarding passes in hand. 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 progress was slow and ammo was becoming scarce, particularly grenades, which get consumed at an enormous rate in city fighting. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the operations officers radio operator. Aerial view of (USARV) United States Army Republic of Vietnam Headquarters Complex at Long Binh, Vietnam. I had inherited the job the light dome that rose from the explosion. We fired everything we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. As 1st Lt. Brice Barnes led his scout platoon into the edge of Ho Nai, he ran full speed into a hornets nest. 1968 - 1969, To See Lawrence's Service Battery Photos 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. Contact Us | 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. from Bien Hoa City. Riflemen moving cautiously. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. We could haul more personal gear, live more comfortably and walk less than straight-leg troops. He 0.13 Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79 grenade launcher. with no lights waiting for the attack to lift so we could get Then things started falling out of the sky. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. The explosion echoed over an area of 50 miles. There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. The battle was significant, since Alphas leadership was seriously depleted during the days immediately prior to Tet. At 0400 Jones ordered us to pull in our ambushes and be prepared to move. GV DUMP My plan was to make captain and go to Vietnam as an experienced company commander. happened to hit him just over the forehead. It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. We left the clearing of Bien Hoa City in the capable hands of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry. Waking Dead. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. 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. Vehicles drive past on roads between the Long Binh Post area. 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. ], The Laotian representative said six members of the Meo special forces were also cap tured with the American on May 7 in Xieng Khouang Province near the North Vietnamese bor der. (Vietnam War period). known as Widows Village. But no one would be leaving the country that day. yelling Kortuem! In addition, gunships killed many more as they tried to escape from the villages. An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. 11. SV AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND EXPLOSION 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. 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. 13. [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. All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. 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. [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. mortar rounds and 90 122-mm. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. 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. Gradually, I became a mechanized soldier. The progress was slow and ammunition was becoming a scarce, particularly grenades, which city fighting consumes at an enormous rate. I told him about the order to clear an area of operations equal in size to that assigned the airborne battalion. 2 comments. Tower sent the battalion S3, Major Jones, to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. 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. 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. In a fight, the company had 22 .50-caliber machine guns, a 106mm and several 90mm recoilless rifles, and more radios and M-60 machine guns than a walking company could ever carry. There was much Meanwhile, Huey gunships reported VC running from the village. 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. Lieutenant Barnes and one of his soldiers would be awarded Distinguished Service Crosses for their heroism that day. The II Field Force commander, Lt. Gen. Frederick C. Weyand, had correctly guessed that a major attack was going to come during Tet, and his anticipation of the attacks no doubt saved Long Binh and Saigon from being overrun. Charlie Company had reported 38 VC killed, at the cost of only 11 U.S. wounded and three APCs damaged by RPGs. I was not sure what to do about the bunkers. At 03:45 the unit engaged the VC/PAVN with 2 ACAVs being quickly knocked out by RPG fire. As the 2nd Platoon began to run short, Spc. By late afternoon the 275th Regiment retreated north, leaving over 200 dead. The S3 also told Charlie Companys noncombatants to report to battalion headquarters. 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. while we were gone. Since I was in an airborne unit, it seemed certain that I would go to the 173rd Airborne Brigade or the 101st Airborne Division. 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.. went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of 6 comments. probably one of the best deals I had been Used for because the Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. . As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. GV EXPLOSIONS, AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. 1 comment. [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. 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. I had no way of knowing who it was with no light in the About a month earlier I had been loaned out to weld the razor The probing attack units included VC sapper squads. 1.13 The VC/PAVN attacked the position that night in a 6 hour long assault which was met initially by US mortar and artillery fire, then helicopter gunships and then napalm strikes. I realized we were driving past our objective, halted the company and called for the 2nd Platoon to find a place to turn around. 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]:347, At 01:00, a 6-man LRRP from Company F, 51st Infantry Regiment spotted PAVN/VC moving through rubber trees several hundred meters to the north of Long Binh Post. Hoa. My plan was to make captain and go to Vietnam as an experienced company commander. As my airborne mentality faded, I learned to love the M-113or track, as we called it. 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. 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. SOUTH VIETNAM: VIET CONG EXPLODE U.S. The scout platoon had fought valiantly all day long in Widows Village and in Ho Nai. the country where resupply was easier for the enemy. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a suburb of Bien Hoa. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Not only would I not finish my command tour, I was being assigned to a leg division. Unfortunately for them, the hapless VC had no weapons other than the RPG launcher, and Dames dispatched them with a burst from his M-16. Benny Toney, the 2nd Platoon sergeant, hooked a tow cable to Stormy. We were west of Highway QL1 along a road named 535. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. We never saw them again. When it build bunkers, and help pick up the dead enemy across the fence. At 0700, as daylight was breaking, my track rolled past the ARVN III Corps compound gate. We could shoot about 21 miles into Cambodia. He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. They bowed and looked confused. USAF McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II bomber aircraft drop two Mk.84 HD bombs. Fighting our way to the scout platoon, we were stopped when we came upon two large churches, straddling Highway 1, each occupied by VC. had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. To ensure you can use all the features please enable it. When I arrived at the 2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 47th Infantry, nicknamed the Panthers, Lt. Col. Arthur Moreland, the commander, asked me what job I wanted. went off and all hell broke lose. Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. 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. Website Terms & Conditions | 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. 10. Officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Longbinh ammunition dump. Sugar Bear Dames, as he was called by his many friends, walked down a side alley toward the highway. January 12, 1972. by: Arnold John Houchin Bin Ha, USAF 3rd Security Police Squadron 1970-1972 Phu Cat, 37th SPS; Thu Hoa, 31st SPS; . After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. because Mankato (Minnesota)Vocational school had taught me to weld as Script is copyright Reuters Limited. Some of the enemy had tunneled under the fence and exploded an F-100 Super Sabre and F-4 Phantom II drop Mark 82 bombs in Vietnam during U.S. air strikes. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. Incredibly, nobody in my company had been killed the day before. Our outfit was a Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. 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. The bombs descend and explode near structures in grove of tress in agricultural area 30 miles southwest of Saigon on 19 August, 1968. The Communists were starting to carry out a plan that they had studied for a considerable period. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. border. 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. "I was the 1SGT of the was out of the bldgs. However the ammunition storage bunkers prevented a chain reaction and the lost munitions were easily replaced with no impact on supply. There we would be assigned a unit we would serve with in Vietnam. 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. [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. Under fire, Staff Sgt. Meanwhile, Hueys reported VC running from the village. Service Battery that supplied ordnance to the big guns in our battalion. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. Ammo Dump Exlosion Sapper Attack! 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. 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. During the meeting, a master sergeant adviser to a Vietnamese ranger battalion ran into the compound. agreement was that the stockade prisoners would pitch our sandbags, help 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. The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. About two days later one the huge fuel bags next During TET 1969 in front of Bunker Hill 17, VC sappers tried to penetrate our fence line. 6 External links modified. door at the petroleum dump ruptured and fuel flowed down the ditch in Around midnight on October 29th, 1966, the Viet Cong mortared or rocketed the Long Binh Ammo Dump. My I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. 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. ". At the meeting I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. 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). Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun.
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