long binh ammo dump explosion 1968 long binh ammo dump explosion 1968

(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]). 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. Hoa. As darkness settled in, Charlie Company was ordered to move back the way it had come, to the junction of Highways 1 and 316, where we would form a screen in front of the 199th LIB base camp. His two daughters, Ly's mother and her sister, are disabled. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The explosion echoed over an area of 50 miles. There we would be assigned a unit we would serve with in Vietnam. I had been in Vietnam about nine months. 0.59 Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump explosion from NVA artillery fire. Not only would I not finish my command tour, but I was also being assigned to a leg division. 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. In April 1967, I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. 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. We never saw them again. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. https://www.historynet.com/tet-offensive-the-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. Later, captured VC said many guerrillas only had two magazines for their weapons in expectation that the population would rise up against the Americans and have plenty of captured weapons to fight with. When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians. I AIR V..FIRES (Long Binh) ammunition dump. 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. 14. I was the DistrictSenior Advisor (Army) in Vinh Kim, Long Dinh District, right across the canal from Dong Tam in 1968-1969. He ignored me and proceeded to a nearby house where he and the deputy sheriff kicked in the front door. As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. 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. 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. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then went in shooting. 118th during the Tet of 1968, also called the Defense of Bien A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. Aerial view of (USARV) United States Army Republic of Vietnam Headquarters Complex at Long Binh, Vietnam. We never saw them again. Here was another sign that the situation was serious: The battalion commander personally gave out map coordinates of company objectives in the clear.Alpha Company was ordered to the 199th LIB compound, which was under attack. During the last week of January, the battalion patrolled the jungles east of Highway 15, near the Binh Son rubber plantation. As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. 0.42 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. 0.35 Advanced Search | 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. I told him that I wanted to command a company. Most of these photos were taken in an area a few miles north of Chu Lai and south of Hoi An. As the ammo dump burst into flames, secondary explosions erupted in other storage areas, and for the next three days, fires burned out of control. Get under! After what seemed like We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. 6 comments. Privacy Policy | Links had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. Riflemen staying close behind. Smoke rises from surrounding area. 90th Replacement Battalion | My Vietnam Experience License Agreement | As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. Views of a number of huts, in the hamlet, that have not been destroyed. This was no surprise to us, since we could hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. APCs advance, firing 50 caliber machine guns. The three companies formed a line almost three kilometers long, facing to the east, with their backs to the Long Binh wire. The first explosion was 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. Then I got a call from battalion commander Tower, asking how things were going. 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. 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. After I got the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset. 0.17 Tet of 1968 - 118th AHC 0.54 A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. It involved transfer of powder projectiles and fuses enough to keep LV EXPLOSION, SIGN ON BOARD "DISNEY LAND FAR EAST" Cambodian border to the South China sea was already considered a 11. They tried to make us keep our heads down so we couldn't get them with our counter-mortar fire . 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. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. We all knew that these moves were more than just precautionary. convoy about two days before and were repairing anything that had failed In April 1967 I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. As our medics treated the wounded, I reported to the American lieutenant colonel who was the III Corps G3 adviser. It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. I asked one of the men We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered dismounted. During TET 1969 in front of Bunker Hill 17, VC sappers tried to penetrate our fence line. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. 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. Helicopter gunships took off from Bien Hoa AB to investigate, but were unable to locate the force in the darkness. Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79. Then, for the last week in January, the 2-47 was sent south of the 9th Divisions base camp to patrol the jungles east of Highway 15, near the Binh Son rubber plantation. 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. All night they scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. was his helmet and flack jacket! Burned out 105mm howitzer shells at ammunition dump in Bien Hoa Air Force Base, Bien Hoa in Vietnam. THE STORM BREAKS Part 1 In the late-night hours of 29 January 1968 The ARVN general and III Corps G3 adviser, however, were not happy when we pulled out. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. Big Ammunition Dump Near Saigon Hit by Blasts We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymores and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable. Its predominantly Catholic population was made up of many Vietnamese who fled North Vietnam in 1954 after the Viet Minh victory. In addition, gunships killed many more as they tried to escape from the villages. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned left onto Highway 316. My Lightboxes | ton wrecker weighing in at 22 thousand pounds. around Bien Hoa Airbase and headed toward our post of Long Binh, then Contact Us | Relevant to these events; post recollections and descriptions, questions,. VC informants inside the base had provided detailed information as to the base layout and defenses. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. 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. It Even though it was about 6-8 miles away to the NE of Bien Hoa, it was plainly visible . THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis milling about with boarding passes in hand. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. remember being giddy and my brain was asking What is wrong with me?. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. The VC attacks on Bien Hoa and the Long Binh complex were abject failures, due in part to the fact that on January 31, 1968, they had run into the Panthers of the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company, and 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. (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. 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. Soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion 47th Infantry (Mechanized) and 4th Battalion 39th Infantry clearing a hamlet during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. That night, frightened bunker guards in the 199th compound shot into the darkness to their front. The Communists were starting to carry out a plan that they had studied for a considerable period. He waved me off. This is the story of one rifle company, and what it faced on that decisive day. My Account | Following that fight, the 2-47 was ordered south of the 9th Divisions base camp. 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. 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. We fired everything we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. As we rolled back through Bien Hoa, we were astounded to find the battalion S4, Captain Leroy Brown, in the middle of town with a 5,000-gallon fuel tanker and several ammunition trucks. As my airborne mentality faded, I learned to love the M-113or track. We could haul more personal gear, live more comfortably and walk less than straight-leg troops. 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. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. 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. The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. 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. As time passed, I became a mechanized soldier. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. the airbase made it too us in the daylight and foamed the ditch for The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. The 2-47s enemy body count came in at over 200, while the battalion suffered only four KIA. "I was the 1SGT of the 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. 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.). An accurate body count could never be compiled since so many VC bodies were dragged away or were burned in the many fires in the towns and villages. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company. 0.24 Ive just been told you work for me again. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. Fires were burning late into the afternoon. As we cleared the ambush, the column suddenly came to a halt because of some kind of block in the road; simultaneously, someone keyed the company net. There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. At the time of 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. 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. The 2nd Platoon took on the one on the north side of the road, and the 1st Platoon attacked the other. USAF (United States Air Force) F-100 Super Sabre jet fighter aircraft drops Mark 82 (Mk.82) high-drag (HD) bombs. Under fire, Staff Sgt. As we turned to head back, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. I told him we couldnt take the tracks off Highway 1 into town because the streets were too narrow. We packed up all of our gear, rolled up our concertina wire and waited. I went through the quarters making sure everyone We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned onto Highway 316. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. For additional reading, see: The Battle for Saigon, Tet 1968, by Keith Nolan; and History of the 5th Division, by Ho Son Dai and Nguyen Van Hung. 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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. main target because they were outnumbered 5 to 1. I was not sure what to do about the bunkers. I was never so happy in my life. Some VC crossed Route 316 and took up firing positions in bush at the southern perimeter of the Plantation. I As he fell, a burst of automatic weapons fire stitched the wall right where he would have been had he not fallen.. Page contents not supported in other languages. Tower sent Major Jones to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. No infantry school tactic fit the situation; improvisation became the order of the day. charred. Chu Lai and LZ Baldy Photos. After a eventful 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. "[3]:205, The Tet offensive attacks on Bien Hoa AB and Tan Son Nhut Air Base slowly led to an improvement in air base defense across South Vietnam, with improved bunkers and heavier defensive armament including 0.50 cal machine guns, M67 recoilless rifles and M29 mortars. This site was called Hill 63 because there was a hill nearby that had an elevation of 63 meters on the map. Set. 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. As best I could, I explained that they were to take charge and that General Giap might be among the civilians. the light dome that rose from the explosion. Jeep parked along road. We usually got mortared at night whenever Dong Tam was getting it from our district. the country where resupply was easier for the enemy. We were ordered to go to that church and detain every male between the ages of 16 and 80. 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.