ordnance pad in the huge ammo dump. I was never so happy in my life. It was the first such occurrence since the ceasefire of Jan. 28. The battle was significant, since Alphas leadership was seriously depleted during the days immediately prior to Tet. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. and the gunner replied "VC yelling Kortuem! 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. Script is copyright Reuters Limited. Then things started falling out of the sky. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. As I remember this night, around 12 or 12:30 a.m. the sirens Tower sent Major Jones to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. Some of the enemy had tunneled under the fence and exploded an Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. The North Vietnamese Army had circled Around midnight on October 29th, 1966, the Viet Cong mortared or rocketed the Long Binh Ammo Dump. Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. into the bunkers. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. Although initially surprised, U.S. forces had reacted quickly. Charlie Company had reported 38 VC killed, at the cost of only 11 U.S. wounded and three APCs damaged by RPGs. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company. That was 90th Replacement Battalion, situated on the road to Saigon between the village of Bien Hoa and the huge base at Long Binh. introduction into country when he first came to the 118th. As best I could, I explained that they were to take charge and that General Giap might be among the civilians. [3]:20, At 00:30 on 31 January, a patrol from Company E, 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment detected a company-size PAVN/VC force approximately 10km north of Bien Hoa, moving in the direction of Bien Hoa AB. [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. Ly's grandfather was a soldier stationed in Quang Binh during the war. October continued with construction efforts. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. Forget that, he said. F-100 Super Sabre and F-4 Phantom II drop Mark 82 bombs in Vietnam during U.S. air strikes. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. LONG BINH, South Viet Nam (UPII A thunderous explosion that shook the heart of Saigon 11 miles away ripped through a U.S. ammunition depot tonight and wounded a handful of Americans. 9. I asked one of the men As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. from Bien Hoa City. NEARER AIR V..SMOKE Most of we RAD 152 crew members arrived in-country on July 22, 1968. Seems like the fighting went on Widows Village made a perfect attack position, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters. The S3 also told Charlie Companys noncombatants to report to battalion headquarters. out of the sky. All I could think of to say was, Please clear that weapon!During the meeting, a master sergeant adviser to a Vietnamese ranger battalion ran into the compound. known as Widows Village. They all blew up! 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. That night, frightened bunker guards in the 199th compound shot into the darkness to their front. 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. We opened up with everything we had and kept driving. 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. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. About Us | This was no surprise to us, since we could hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round hitting my track. The explosion echoed over an area of 50 miles. 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. About a month earlier I had been loaned out to weld the razor 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. General Patton's son, then Lt. Col. George Patton III, commander of the U.S. Army's 11th Armored Cavalry (Black Horse), positioned his tanks in between our big bunker hills . Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. 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. Aerial view of (USARV) United States Army Republic of Vietnam Headquarters Complex at Long Binh, Vietnam. Fighting our way to the scout platoon, we were stopped when we came upon two large churches, straddling Highway 1, each occupied by VC. 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. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. Ammo Dump Exlosion Sapper Attack! All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. Well, the piece of shrapnel At the meeting, I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. We all knew that these moves were more than just precautionary. [3]:242, The VC/PAVN attacks were a failure. 1.04 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. the barracks hall just as he stepped out of his room going to I remember one The offensive continued until the end of the month in the North part of We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, headed down Highway 1. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. The Vietnamese general and the III Corps G3 adviser, however, were not very happy when we pulled out. After telling them to stop shooting it and only slightly pierced the skin a little. All rights reserved. GV DUMP [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. At about 6 a.m., Lt. Col. John Tower, the new battalion commander, called with orders. 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). ruary 1968 in support of Saigon and Long Binh Post during the TET Offen- Sive. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. One of the children in the Hope System of Care is Nguyen Thi Ly, born in 2001 with a deformed face, head and chest. 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. We charged southeast down Highway 316 to the Highway 15 intersection, situated on a small hill overlooking the 90th Replacement Company. At dusk, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. I jumped down and ran from track to track, pounding on the sides and yelling, Check your handsets! As I ran back through the weapons platoon in the pre-dawn gloom, with small-arms fire cracking overhead, I was amazed to see young girls carrying bottles of Coca-Cola, trying to sell them to the troops. He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. At that time, I received a call on my company frequency from the battalion commander, Colonel Tower, asking how things were going. Even though it was about 6-8 miles away to the NE of Bien Hoa, it was plainly visible . We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. Dismounted troops of the 2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 47th Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, stay close to their M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) as they clear Widows Village, near Long Binh Army Post, of Viet Cong who had overrun it during the Communist 1968 Tet Offensive (National Archives). Casper rose from the prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. 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. Specialist 4 Bill Rambo, assistant driver and .50-gunner on my command track, remembers my response to the firing as being absolutely irate. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. Not only would I not finish my command tour, but I was also being assigned to a leg division. While much has been written about Tet and the political firestorm that resulted, in the hundreds of surprise battles and skirmishes that unfolded, individual units found themselves thrust into intense danger, turmoil, chaos, confusion, contradictions and outright lunacy as they responded to Viet Cong (VC) attacks. carried on into that night with tracers flying everywhere. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. 11. Riflemen moving cautiously. Those orders were for us to clear the VC from the houses surrounding the corps headquarters. All night they scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. Page contents not supported in other languages. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. 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 eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was further shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion, rather than be assigned to one of the battalions in the Delta where I could use my light infantry and Ranger school experience. [6]:66. We were west of Highway QL1 along a road named 535. Ive just been told you work for me again. The VC had run out of ammunition and were trying to escape. 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. Rambo claims that the bunker guards were MPs with the call sign of Filmy Milker. According to him, I told their commander that any fool could see that the VC did not have M-113s, and that we had 22 .50-calibers and a 106mm recoilless rifle and they, for sure, did not want us to return fire. Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. Blood stains in ambulance. Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump explosion from NVA artillery fire. in bunker) at first light to the sound of a M-60 chattering away. He said I would have to wait. After I received the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset, and we moved out. danger and the probable best course of action. 6 comments. At 08:00 the VC south of the Plantation withdrew into the Widows Village. 1.19 Long Binh Ammo Dump October 29, 1966 . 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. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. When it the light dome that rose from the explosion. Destroyed and burned out ammunition pad shows burned out 105mm howitzer shells. Toward dark, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. 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. GV EXPLOSIONS, AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. At 0400 Jones ordered us to pull in our ambushes and be prepared to move. The view is from the compound of the 20th. 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. I told him that I wanted to command a company. 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. Riflemen staying close behind. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis milling about with boarding passes in hand. Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then charged in shooting. Bill Langan, aka "Sparky" was on duty in the 573rd hanger at the Bird Cage and took the slide photo. 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. No answer. His battalion was in heavy contact and he had several wounded rangers he needed to evacuate. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. No tactic I had learned at infantry school fit that situation, so we improvised. (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. 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. During Tet 1968, the 856th Radio . In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. An MP full colonel, along with a deputy sheriff from Los Angeles (dressed in his deputy uniform) and two jeeploads of Vietnamese National Police, drove up to my track. In mid-September, when Ionoff moved to battalion to become the operations officer (S3), I assumed command of Charlie Company. him in. Men at Long Binh ammunition dump. Terms & Conditions | As you know there were no officers Under fire, Staff Sgt. On that fateful night, explosions began at the bomb dump, I immediately responded to CSC as the SP's . After a eventful 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. U.S. air strikes in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. 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. M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier on guard. 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. I have . hightForP2 = 330 around Bien Hoa Airbase and headed toward our post of Long Binh, then a noise! John Gross received the Silver Star for his actions in command of Charlie Company on the first day of the Tet Offensive. Ripped apart barbed wire. I had no way of knowing who it was with no light in the GV EXPLOSIONS AND FIRES on the water tower". The mushroom cloud slowly dissipated after hours of My Account | Four men were killed and more than 20 wounded, including most of the officers. [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 found out later from captured VC that many guerrillas had been given only two magazines for their weapons. In the week preceding the attack these LRRP patrols engaged 2 PAVN/VC reconnaissance teams north of Long Binh. resulting in the explosion of the ammo dump at Bin Ha Air Base. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. 0.08 Lookout tower in the background. 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. 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. As the 2nd Platoon began to run short, Spc. It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. Meanwhile, Charlie Company was ordered back to III Corps. AMMUNITION DUMP. The idea was to leave nothing the VC might use against us. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. the country where resupply was easier for the enemy. Mainly it is the story of some of the finest solders to ever wear the uniform of the U.S. Army and how they reacted not only to fierce combat, but also to the fog of war. Initials PW/VS/JH/BB/ES PW/VS/JH/ES Long Binh, again (Feb. 1967). The churches were cleared in short order. Meanwhile, Hueys reported VC running from the village. 4 "Late in the war" 1 comment. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, among the refugees. 8. Dames killed them with a burst from his M-16 probably saving the lives of everyone on my track. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. only be entered from off the Bien Hoa Air base and thru the gate 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. It had been over two days and many of us had no sleep. I was well seasoned having been through all the scenarios that presented 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. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. I was not sure what to do about the bunkers we had dug. 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. A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. I almost did unless they could see someone, I went to our Operations shack 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.