long binh ammo dump explosion 1968

In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. Painting outside. Big Ammunition Dump Near Saigon Hit by Blasts This is the story of one rifle companycomprised of some of the finest soldiers to ever wear the uniform of the U.S. Armyand what they all faced on that decisive day. Long Binh, again (Feb. 1967). Vehicles drive past on roads between the Long Binh Post area. I remember one Besides the fireworks, ARVN soldiers had linked tracer bullets together and were stitching the darkness with weaving streams of machine gun fire. GV EXPLOSIONS AND FIRES This is the story of one rifle company, and what it faced on that decisive day. [2]:347[3]:236 The rocket/mortar attack was the signal to start the ground assaults on Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh. 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. Set. The probing attack units included VC sapper squads. With the explosion of the entire ammunition dump imminent, and in the midst of exploding shells, fire and debris, the men of COMPANY B, . I I was not sure what to do about the bunkers. and still no answer. Artillery Somehow the foam trucks from CU SIGN "NO SMOKING" That night, no one slept, but instead scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. I sounded off, "who is there"? As you know there were no officers A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. 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. We never saw them again. secondary explosions. We usually got mortared at night whenever Dong Tam was getting it from our district. They bowed and looked confused. 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. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. He said his battalion was in heavy contact, and he had several wounded rangers he needed to evacuate. 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. bunker. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned left onto Highway 316. 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 a few moments, the huge dump became a fireball, the shock of the explosion echoing over an area of 50 miles. Tet offensive attacks on Bien Hoa and Long Binh - Wikipedia Destroyed and burned out ammunition pad shows burned out 105mm howitzer shells. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. [American sources in Vien tiane said, as quoted by The Associated Press, that the captured American was prob ably the pilot of a Continent al Air Service plane that was forced to land behind Pathet Lao lines after running out of fuel. Many of the enlisted personnel with medical MOSs work two to three days per week at the 93 rd Evacuation Hospital, then came back to the 24 th to work on the various construction projects. 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. The offensive continued until the end of the month in the North part of In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. [5], USAF losses were 4 killed in action with another dying of a heart attack, while 26 were wounded. Consequently, I was disappointed when I received orders to join the 9th Infantry Division. 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. All of these placements were made with the wrongful assumption that the VC would attack from the jungles outside the base. 1.19 into the bunkers. 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. 6. It 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. At dusk, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. Tet airstrike Long Binh Ammo Dump - YouTube 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. USAF (United States Air Force) F-100 Super Sabre jet fighter aircraft drops Mark 82 (Mk.82) high-drag (HD) bombs. Then things started falling out of the sky. I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. 1968 - 1969, To See Lawrence's Service Battery Photos 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. Binh was a logistical mistake because the perimeter was so heavily armed 14. the wrecker operator had to know how to weld. 102 comments 105 shares. had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. sixteen guns stationed next to the western border of Vietnam. [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. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. 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. At about 0600, Lt. Col. John Tower, the new battalion commander, called with orders. 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. It had been over two days and many of us had no sleep. Specialist 4 Bill Rambo, assistant driver and .50-gunner on my command track, remembers my response to the firing as being absolutely irate. Charlie Company was ordered to a large open field across Highway 15 from the Long Thanh airfield. 9. Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump explosion from NVA artillery fire. We were in a cloud of disarray According to him, I told him 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. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. There was an ammo dump explosion in 1968 also and both 1967 and 1968 are correct and were of course separate incidents. [3]:242, The VC/PAVN attacks were a failure. The explosion echoed over an area of 50 miles. raffia 12th combat aviation group - sites.google.com Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. Evan Ammo dump - VHFCN A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. 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. As usual, each company had sent two ambush patrols into the jungle to our front. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. recoil of my M14. 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. 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) At 03:45 the unit engaged the VC/PAVN with 2 ACAVs being quickly knocked out by RPG fire. The VC had run out of ammunition and were trying to escape. An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. charred. Perpetual Siege region. 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. [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. We left the clearing of Bien Hoa City in the capable hands of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry. A spokesman for the South Vietnamese command said that, according to unconfirmed re ports, satchel charges, of the type used by Vietcong sabotage squads were found near the dump. APCs advance, firing 50 caliber machine guns. LV EXPLOSIONS By the evening the 2/47th Infantry withdrew into the Long Binh perimeter. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Jim Love recalls lying in a ditch near a dead civilian as the friendly fire cracked over our heads. Unconfirmed reports reports said the blasts were the work of Vietcong sabotage teams. In the week preceding the attack these LRRP patrols engaged 2 PAVN/VC reconnaissance teams north of Long Binh. Aerial view of (USARV) United States Army Republic of Vietnam Headquarters Complex at Long Binh, Vietnam. rockets at Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh Post. Over the two month recovery and clearing operation, tens of thousands of these hazardous munitions were recoverd by hand, one at a time. But no one would be leaving the country that day. I walked back to my track, thinking this was going to be a nightmare. . At 0700, as daylight was breaking, my track rolled past the ARVN III Corps compound gate. 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. [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. He was alive but he suffered a busted ear drum and singed hair, eye brows and arms. 4. SP4 Lawrence Korteum 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. HANOI, North Vietnam, June 1 (Agence FrancePresse)An American major was captured last month in a Communistcon trolled area of northern Laos by Pathet Lao forces, a Laotian representative said here today. (Vietnam War period). He said the first thing he could remember was the In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. 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. (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. 1. Hoa. When the Tet cease-fire period began on January 28, the battalion was called back to the vicinity of Bear Cat, a base camp near Long Thanh. Since I was in an airborne unit, it seemed certain that I would go to the 173rd Airborne Brigade or the 101st Airborne Division. 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. They tried to make us keep our heads down so we couldn't get them with our counter-mortar fire . 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. Four men were killed and more than 20 wounded, including most of the officers. The S3 also told Charlie Companys noncombatants to report to battalion headquarters. Later, as the sun sank over the Long Binh base, they tossed a football and ate cold C rations. Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79. 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. Big Ammunition Dump Near Saigon Hit by Blasts, https://www.nytimes.com/1973/06/02/archives/big-ammunition-dump-near-saigon-hit-by-blasts-laotian-reports.html. 939939. I told him about the order to clear an area of operations equal in size to that assigned the airborne battalion. As the ammo dump burst into flames, secondary explosions erupted in other storage areas, and . The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. 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. The Vietnamese brigadier generalthe ranking man at III Corpsdrew circles on a map around two areas of downtown Bien Hoa. NEARER AIR V..SMOKE Refusing evacuation, neither reported his wound. main target because they were outnumbered 5 to 1. and completely out of sync. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned onto Highway 316. Forget that, he said. 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. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. The helmet had stopped [6]:12, Several dozen of the PAVN rockets exploded near the II Field Force and 199th LIB headquarters in the Plantation Compound (105728N 1065241E / 10.9577N 106.878E / 10.9577; 106.878) causing minimal damage. 0.22 ", "We mustered everyone we could Hide. The three companies formed a line almost three kilometers long, facing to the east, with their backs to the Long Binh wire. [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. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the operations officers radio operator. There we would be assigned a unit we would serve with in Vietnam. Bill Langan, aka "Sparky" was on duty in the 573rd hanger at the Bird Cage and took the slide photo. Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. But their 81mm mortars were useless, since we were told we could not put any indirect fire into the town. The II Field Force commander, Lt. Gen. Frederick C. Weyand, had correctly predicted a major attack during Tet, and his anticipation no doubt saved Long Binh and Saigon from being overrun. 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. Several M 113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) are seen accompanying the troops. Alpha Company, still licking its wounds from the January 23 fight, was left intact. [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. We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. During this fighting, the two platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. [2]:349, The perimeter was strengthened by an ad hoc force of support personnel from the 145th Aviation Battalion and just before midday the ARVN 57th Regional Force Battalion moved through the base and counterattacked the VC forcing them to withdraw east into the rubber plantation leaving behind over 100 dead. AMMUNITION DUMP. Summary - October 1966. Maps of Heavily Sprayed Areas and Dioxin Hot Spots THE STORM BREAKS Part 1 In the late-night hours of 29 January 1968 The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas trying to flee into the jungle. After telling them to stop shooting With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. 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. Lt. Col. John E. Gross Recalls the Tet Battles of Bien Hoa and Long Binh U.S. air strikes in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Terms & Conditions | I had assumed I would be assigned to one of the battalions in the Delta where I could use my light infantry and Ranger school experience. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. After a eventful Talk:Long Bnh, Bin Ha - Wikipedia I called battalion headquarters and was told to forget about them, which reinforced our sense that combat was imminent. Most of these photos were taken in an area a few miles north of Chu Lai and south of Hoi An. Now the fight was on. In October, the 2-47 was given the mission of securing engineers as they cleared Highway 1 from Xuan Loc to the II Corps boundary near Phan Thiet. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. The bombs descend and explode near structures in grove of tress in agricultural area 30 miles southwest of Saigon on 19 August, 1968. [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. No infantry school tactic fit the situation; improvisation became the order of the day. 0.17 This was no surprise to us, since we could hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. Service Battery that supplied ordnance to the big guns in our battalion. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Bin Ha Air Base: Memories of Bin Ha, TET 1969, by Larry - VSPA PDF Scanned Document - United States Army 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. We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. Wrecked ambulance with flat tires. After I received the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset, and we moved out. I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. [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. An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then charged in shooting. 200 pounds. On that fateful night, explosions began at the bomb dump, I immediately responded to CSC as the SP's . 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. All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. Tom Allaback. The platoons attacked by successive bounds through the village as the tracks, forming the base of the T, gave fire support from the .50s and resupplied the troops with ammo. 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. Men at Long Binh ammunition dump. Fires were burning late into the afternoon. Several tracks were hit by RPGs and surrounded by the enemy. During the morning of January 30, the 2-47 Mech was notified that the Tet cease-fire was canceled, and the unit was deployed into a defensive line along the road that ran around the east side of the Long Binh base. The colonel explained that since we were infantry soldiers and did not know the proper method of searching a house, he and his crew had come to teach us. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Although initially surprised, U.S. forces had reacted quickly. As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. As was our normal practice, each company had sent two ambush patrols into the jungle to our front. 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. 0.24 [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 suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. 90th Replacement Battalion | My Vietnam Experience In April 1967 I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. Long Binh Ammo Dump Explosion, Tet, 1968 - YouTube 12. At 3 a.m. on January 31, I received a call from Major Bill Jones, who had recently taken Ionoffs place as operations officer. We were ordered to go to that church and detain every male between the ages of 16 and 80. biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. Meanwhile, Huey gunships reported VC running from the village. Copyright Screenocean 2022 | Powered byImagen. Battalion policy was that we had to fill in all holes and empty our sandbags each time we left a position. Several of his tracks were hit by RPGs and surrounded by the enemy. The 2nd Platoon, under Lieutenant Fred Casper, led the way, followed by my track, then Lieutenant Howard Jones 1st Platoon and, finally, the weapons platoon under Lieutenant Don Muir. Privacy Policy | Links John Gross received the Silver Star for his actions in command of Charlie Company on the first day of the Tet Offensive. 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. was out of the bldgs. ", "I then went to the CP and tried and the perimeter was still intact. During this fighting, both platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. Widows Village made a perfect attack position, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters. 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. Company E engaged the PAVN/VC supported by artillery fire killing 47 PAVN/VC. 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. By 1968 the Bien Hoa-Long Binh complex was the largest US/South Vietnamese military base in South Vietnam. [2]:347 Within Bien Hoa AB, the USAF 3rd Security Police Squadron was responsible for security manning bunkers and operating mobile patrols within the base perimeter. The action occurs January 31st, 1968 (on "Tet", the Vietnamese Lunar New Year holiday).