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. Meanwhile, Huey gunships reported VC running from the village. front making it dangerous to return fire. We usually got mortared at night whenever Dong Tam was getting it from our district. As we turned to head back, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. 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. 0.24 0.04 A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymores and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable. Soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion 47th Infantry (Mechanized) and 4th Battalion 39th Infantry clearing a hamlet during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Charlie Company was ordered back to III Corps. Later, as the sun sank over the Long Binh base, they tossed a football and ate cold C rations. Chu Lai and LZ Baldy Photos. I told him about the order to clear an area of operations equal in size to that assigned the airborne battalion. VC/PAVN losses were 527 dead. Company B, 2nd Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment had arrived by helicopter from Bearcat and joined up with 2/47th Infantry to sweep the Widows Village. I was not sure what to do about the bunkers. Then things started falling out of the sky. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. maxhightForP2 = 13904; As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. 118th during the Tet of 1968, also called the Defense of Bien 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. His two daughters, Ly's mother and her sister, are disabled. Our outfit was a At dusk, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. 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. No tactic I had learned at infantry school fit that situation, so we improvised. Set. 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. 1.13 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. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. I dismounted the platoons and placed them on line on each side of the road: the second on the left, or north, and the first on the right, or south. 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. 6 External links modified. 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) I was disappointed when I received orders to join the 9th Infantry Division. AIR V..EXPLOSION Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. At the meeting, I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. Contact Us | Aerial view of (USARV) United States Army Republic of Vietnam Headquarters Complex at Long Binh, Vietnam. August 1966 November 1966 December 1966. This article was originally published in the February 2006 issue of Vietnam Magazine. 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. 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. [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. 11K views 9 years ago This is a brief clip of the ammo dump explosion at Long Binh, Vietnam, taken the morning of the Tet offensive, 1968. I sat behind the .50-caliber, munching and giving thanks for the fact that, incredibly, nobody in Charlie Company had been killed. [3]:2289, The Tt ceasefire began on 29 January, but was cancelled on 30 January after the VC/PAVN prematurely launched attacks in II Corps and at 17:30 the 7th Air Force commander General William W. Momyer ordered all air bases in South Vietnam to security condition red. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. AMMUNITION DUMP. With the explosion of the entire ammunition dump imminent, and in the midst of exploding shells, fire and debris, the men of COMPANY B, . remember being giddy and my brain was asking What is wrong with me?. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. 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. During the meeting, a master sergeant adviser to a Vietnamese ranger battalion ran into the compound. He ignored me and went to a nearby house where he and the deputy sheriff kicked in the front door. [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. LV DITTO with no lights waiting for the attack to lift so we could get 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. Fighting our way to the scout platoon, we were stopped when we came upon two large churches, straddling Highway 1, each occupied by VC. Long Binh Vietnam 1969 stock footage and images - Showing 1 to 6 of 5540 results Sort by: All Decade 1890 - 1899 Location (1) Norfolk Virginia USA (2) Normandy France (12) Norman Oklahoma USA (1) (1) (1) North Carolina United States USA (2) North Chicago Illinois USA (1) North Dakota United States USA (1) North Haven Maine USA (1) North Korea (1) I had been in Vietnam about nine months. M-117 bombs explode near and on road on wooden slopes near river north of Pleiku near Dak To, on 18 August, 1968. Charlie Company quickly reinforced Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. and no one was injured. He said I would have to wait. In April 1967 I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. This site was called Hill 63 because there was a hill nearby that had an elevation of 63 meters on the map. [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. 5. 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. The bombs descend and explode near structures in grove of tress in agricultural area 30 miles southwest of Saigon on 19 August, 1968. Hoa. agreement was that the stockade prisoners would pitch our sandbags, help In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. [3]:242, The VC/PAVN attacks were a failure. We never saw them again. 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. "What are you firing at? " Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. After I received the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset, and we moved out. Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. As you know there were no officers Benny Toney, the 2nd Platoon sergeant, hooked a tow cable to Stormy. 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. 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. One of the children in the Hope System of Care is Nguyen Thi Ly, born in 2001 with a deformed face, head and chest. I sounded off, "who is there"? 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. 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. Painting outside. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Of course you never the bunker. As the 2nd Platoon began to run short, Spc. There we would be assigned a unit we would serve with in Vietnam. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. 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. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. introduction into country when he first came to the 118th. Summary - October 1966. The bombs descend and explode on structures in grove of trees near rice paddies 23 miles east of Binh Thuy on 19th August. We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered on foot. 2 comments. mortar rounds and 90 122-mm. [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. Shoe of soldier on ground. 0.28 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. Battalion policy was that we had to fill in all holes and empty our sandbags each time we left a position. An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. APCs advance, firing 50 caliber machine guns. Relevant to these events; post recollections and descriptions, questions,. 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. 0.42 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. [6]:66. It dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. 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. Binh Hoa Airbase was lucky they were not the 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. Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then charged in shooting. 10. Toward dusk on January 30, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist to dig bunkers next to their APCs. [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. We packed up our gear, rolled up our wire and waited. Several of his tracks were hit by RPGs and surrounded by the enemy. After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. During this fighting, both platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned left onto Highway 316. [3]:23950, In the late afternoon of 31 January after clearing the Widow's Village 2/47th Infantry advanced into Ho Nai from the south, the town appeared deserted. The view is from the compound of the 20th. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. In command for five months, I had been assured that I would be leading the company for one year, which suited me fine. wire on the top of LBJ (Long Binh Jail). officer around. We use cookies on this website. for days and days. When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians seeking refuge. In April 1967, I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. 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. ". When I pointed out that the 101st Battalion had more than 500 troops and I had only two line platoons and fewer than 90 troops, he said, Youre mechanized, youre very strong., I told him we could not take the tracks off Highway 1 and into town because the streets and alleys were too narrow. The village of Ho Nai, now a ghost town, was still smoldering. The first explosion was 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. 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. hightForP2 = 330 I called battalion headquarters and asked what to do about the bunkers. 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. Men at Long Binh ammunition dump. [3]:2501, On the evening of 1 February 3 platoons from Company C, 4/12th Infantry and 2 platoons from Company D, 17th Cavalry Regiment were ordered 2km north of Ho Nai to establish an outer defense against any renewed VC/PAVN attack. Forget that, he said. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. NEARER AIR V..SMOKE At the meeting I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. He waved me off. Alpha Company was ordered to the 199th LIB compound, which was under attack. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into They tried to make us keep our heads down so we couldn't get them with our counter-mortar fire . HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. 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. My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. "I was the 1SGT of the The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. 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. All night they scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the operations officers radio operator. 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. I told him that I wanted to command a company. However, Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could organize their attack. According to Jones, that assault went so perfectly that it could have served as a demonstration at the infantry school. Something was definitely about to happen. The scout platoon had fought . He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. After I got the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset. An accurate body count could never be compiled since so many VC bodies were dragged away or were burned in the many fires that ravaged the towns and villages. Several tracks were hit by RPGs and surrounded by the enemy. Come back up on the battalion freq. I had never been so happy in my life. As our medics treated the wounded, I reported to the American lieutenant colonel who was the III Corps G3 adviser. (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. The weapon was aimed at the newly built and painted (orange-white About a month earlier I had been loaned out to weld the razor The churches were cleared in short order. At 03:45 the unit engaged the VC/PAVN with 2 ACAVs being quickly knocked out by RPG fire. I told him we couldnt take the tracks off Highway 1 into town because the streets were too narrow. had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. I When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion. 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. As time passed, I became a mechanized soldier.

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