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Seems like the fighting went on Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the S3s radio operator. [6]:36 In addition airborne "rocket watch" patrols were established in the Saigon-Bien Hoa area to reduce attacks by fire. License Agreement | As darkness settled in, Charlie Company was ordered back to the junction of Highways 1 and 316, where we would form a screen in front of the 199th LIB base camp. Binh Hoa Airbase was lucky they were not the Well, the piece of shrapnel They all blew up! We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. By July 1969 we were finally off the boats and in Dong Tam processing to head home. My But no one would be leaving the country that day. As usual, each company had sent two ambush patrols into the jungle to our front. By Vietnam terms Specialist 4 Bill Rambo, assistant driver and .50-gunner on my command track, remembers my response to the firing as being absolutely irate. 4 Joseph Dames was tasked to return to the tracks for more grenades. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round hitting my track. It was the first such occurrence since the ceasefire of Jan. 28. the light dome that rose from the explosion. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a suburb of Bien Hoa. As my airborne mentality faded, I learned to love the M-113or track, as we called it. We were ordered to go to that church and detain every male between the ages of 16 and 80. The scout platoon had fought . With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. [3]:242, The VC/PAVN attacks were a failure. Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. . Not only would I not finish my command tour, I was being assigned to a leg division. We all knew these moves were more than precautionary. Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump explosion from NVA artillery fire. Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. 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. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. As dawn broke on February 1, it was deathly quiet. 11. (Long Binh) ammunition dump. The Vietnamese general and the III Corps G3 adviser, however, were not very happy when we pulled out. Meanwhile, Huey gunships reported VC running from the village. 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. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. 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. EXPLOSIONS IN DISTANCE The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. He retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel. I walked back to my track, thinking this was going to be a nightmare. 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. convoy about two days before and were repairing anything that had failed 10. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, walking among the refugees. 0.48 In the week preceding the attack these LRRP patrols engaged 2 PAVN/VC reconnaissance teams north of Long Binh. . [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. We had returned from a Binh was a logistical mistake because the perimeter was so heavily armed Come back up on the battalion freq.. He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. 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. 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. The battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. As the sun sank over the Long Binh base, they tossed a football and ate cold C rations. The remains of a stack of over 15,000 high explosive 155mm artillery projectiles after the VC attack on February 4. secondary explosions. [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. I told him that I wanted to command a company. On January 23, during a battalion sweep through heavy jungle south of Highway 1, Alpha Company walked into a camouflaged, well-defended enemy bunker system and was badly mauled. 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. Barbed wire torn apart by Vietcong who infiltrated through Longbinh ammunition camp. As I walked around the front of a track, the .50-caliber gunner accidentally hit the trigger and pumped five rounds into the ground about three feet in front of me. They ordered us to clear the VC from the houses surrounding the corps headquarters. During this fighting, the two platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. The Commo track, C-007, nicknamed Abdula and the Rug Merchants, with Pfc (current Vietnam editor) David Zabecki behind the .50-caliber, brought up the rear. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, among the refugees. [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. Click Here. An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. In addition, gunships killed many more as they tried to escape from the villages. [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. 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. M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier on guard. the airbase made it too us in the daylight and foamed the ditch for All night he stared at the body, which had one arm grotesquely sticking in the air, and wondered why nobody had taken the gold wristwatch off the arm. Specialist 4 Bill Rambo, assistant driver and .50-gunner on my command track, remembers my response to the firing as being absolutely irate. 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. NEARER AIR V..SMOKE ruary 1968 in support of Saigon and Long Binh Post during the TET Offen- Sive. 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. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. This is the story of one rifle company, and what it faced on that decisive day. bunker. Company B, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, which was placed under the operational control of the 2-47, made a combat air assault under fire into the middle of the Widows Village battle and fought bravely beside the Panthers all day long. Jan. 31. Charlie Company reacted quickly to reinforce Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. and still no answer. The 2-47 was one of several units he pulled in from the jungles to guard the Long Binh headquarters and logistical complex 15 miles northeast of Saigon. out of the sky. Since I was in an airborne unit, I was sure I would go to the 173rd Airborne Brigade or the 101st Airborne Division. biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. 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. United States officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Long Binh. Alpha Company was ordered to the 199th LIB compound, which was under attack. AMMUNITION DUMP. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. [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. In fact, VC effectiveness was so degraded that, after 1968, they were mainly replaced on the battlefield by North Vietnamese regulars, and were never a viable force after that. Shoe of soldier on ground. As we fought our way toward the scout platoon, we were blocked by two large churches that were directly across Highway 1 from each other, both occupied by the VC. 14. He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, headed down Highway 1. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. In command for five months, I had been assured that I would be leading the company for one year, which suited me fine. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. As best I could, I explained that they were to take charge and that General Giap might be among the civilians. Aerial view of (USARV) United States Army Republic of Vietnam Headquarters Complex at Long Binh, Vietnam. 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.