The Vietnamese brigadier general, who was the ranking man at III Corps, drew circles around two equal-sized areas of downtown Bien Hoa. A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. In Bin Ha itself the 3rd Ranger Task Force, consisting of the 35th and 36th Ranger Battalions, provided a rapid reaction force supported by 2 155-mm howitzer battalions located on the southeast of the city. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. For more great articles, subscribe to Vietnam magazine today! Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the S3s radio operator. Chu Lai and LZ Baldy Photos. Forget that, he said. The battle proved significant, as Alphas leadership was seriously depleted immediately prior to Tet. Come back up on the battalion freq.. Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. 5 Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. 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. About two days later one the huge fuel bags next
Meanwhile, Hueys reported VC running from the village.
Although initially surprised, U.S. forces had reacted quickly. During this time, the battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. 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. As the afternoon of January 30 drifted toward dusk, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist and dug bunkers next to their M-113s. I was told to forget about them, which reinforced our feeling that this situation was different and that combat was certainly imminent. 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. All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. Suddenly he came upon a VC RPG team drawing a bead on my command track, which was marked as a prime target by the number of radio antennas jutting from it. This is the airstrike on snipers at the 195th AHC perimeter and the Long Binh ammo dump explosion set off by sappers the morning of the 1968 Tet offensive with sound effects added. A soldier, who has been hit, lying prone between two other soldiers, tries to get up. Our outfit was a
U.S. troops firing small arms as they proceed across tall grass into the hamlet. 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. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. 118th during the Tet of 1968, also called the Defense of Bien
As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis milling about with boarding passes in hand. 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. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company. Casper rose from the prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. Story Text: STOCKPILES OF BOMBS AND ARTILLERY SHELLS AT THE U.S. ARMY AMMUNITION DUMP AT LONG BINH, IN SOUTH VIETNAM, ERUPTED YESTERDAY (SATURDAY) WHEN TIME CHARGES, PLACED BY VIET CONG RAIDERS, DETONATED AMID TONS OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. AIR V..FIRES 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. [5], USAF losses were 4 killed in action with another dying of a heart attack, while 26 were wounded. I assigned areas of operation to my two rifle platoons and positioned the weapons platoon inside the compound as a reserve and security force. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. 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. (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. We never saw them again. My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. U.S. air strikes in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion. That night, frightened bunker guards in the 199th compound shot into the darkness to their front. After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. We use cookies on this website. 10. (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. 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. [2]:347, The ARVN 53rd Regional Force Battalion was responsible for security in the countryside around Bin Ha. had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. 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. 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. At the beginning of the Tet Offensive, one rifle company was ordered to to clear the village of Ho Nai, a Bien Hoa suburb. 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. 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. I had no way of knowing who it was with no light in the
We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. I yelled at Lieutenant Casper, and everybody looked around as the VC tore out running the last few yards to safety. 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. Shoe of soldier on ground. Refusing evacuation, neither reported his wound. 0.59 On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. the wrecker operator had to know how to weld. This was no surprise to us, since we could plainly hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. The village of Ho Nai, now a ghost town, still smoldered. When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians. In a few moments, the huge dump became a fireball, the shock of the explosion echoing over an area of 50 miles. SOUTH VIETNAM: VIET CONG EXPLODE U.S. PAVN/VC losses were 137 killed and 25 captured. Contact Us |
We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round hitting my track. [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. By 1968 the Bien Hoa-Long Binh complex was the largest US/South Vietnamese military base in South Vietnam. 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.
After I got the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset. [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. I told him that I wanted to command a company. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. 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. Incredibly, nobody in my company had been killed the day before. Tower sent Major Jones to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. Website Terms & Conditions |
4 Joseph Dames was tasked to return to the tracks for more grenades. After the battles for the churches, there occurred one of the most bizarre incidents of the day. . 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. 12. 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. When it
(Long Binh) ammunition dump. I was the DistrictSenior Advisor (Army) in Vinh Kim, Long Dinh District, right across the canal from Dong Tam in 1968-1969. In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. At 08:00 the VC south of the Plantation withdrew into the Widows Village. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, among the refugees. [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. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, walking among the refugees. GV DUMP The battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a suburb of Bien Hoa. At that time, I received a call on my company frequency from the battalion commander, Colonel Tower, asking how things were going. He said his battalion was in heavy contact, and he had several wounded rangers he needed to evacuate. Not only would I not finish my command tour, but I was also being assigned to a leg division. With the explosion of the entire ammunition dump imminent, and in the midst of exploding shells, fire and debris, the men of COMPANY B, . Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. Ripped apart barbed wire. from Bien Hoa City. We could ride, walk or be airlifted to war, travel great distances in a short amount of time, and arrive with many times the ammunition and equipment that could be lifted in by helicopter. LV EXPLOSIONS Soon we could hear leaders moving up and down the bunker line yelling for the guards to stop firing. I then jacked a round into my M-16 and who would you believe
Meanwhile, Charlie Company was ordered back to III Corps. There we would be assigned a unit we would serve with in Vietnam. After I received the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset, and we moved out. As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. 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. One of the children in the Hope System of Care is Nguyen Thi Ly, born in 2001 with a deformed face, head and chest. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. Its predominantly Catholic population was made up of many Vietnamese who fled North Vietnam in 1954 after the Viet Minh victory. It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. and still no answer. We fired everything we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. I was well seasoned having been through all the scenarios that presented
SV AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND EXPLOSION Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. 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. During the meeting, a master sergeant adviser to a Vietnamese ranger battalion ran into the compound. 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. Something was definitely about to happen. 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. [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. 3. I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. I remember one
The village of Ho Nai, now a ghost town, was still smoldering. A VC commander captured later in the battle revealed that his orders were only to start the attack after several hundred rockets had hit the Plantation, but as the rocket sites had been neutralized before the rocket threshold was reached, the ground assault on the Plantation never began. They had been told that the population would rise up against the Americans and that there would be plenty of captured U.S. weapons to fight with.