After I got the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. the bunker. ton wrecker weighing in at 22 thousand pounds. His two daughters, Ly's mother and her sister, are disabled. At the meeting I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. PDF Scanned Document - United States Army The only contact I had had with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course just after I entered the Army. At the end of the previous day, Charlie Company had reported 38 VC killed, at the cost of only 11 U.S. wounded and three APCs damaged by RPGs. During this time, the battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. 8. 0.04 [3]:242, The VC/PAVN attacks were a failure. We never saw them again. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. Sugar Bear Dames, as he was called by his many friends, walked down a side alley toward the highway. Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. [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. 0.35 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Then things started falling out of the sky. Set. With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. I sat behind the .50-caliber, munching and giving thanks for the fact that, incredibly, nobody in Charlie Company had been killed. Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. 118th during the Tet of 1968, also called the Defense of Bien 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. Soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion 47th Infantry (Mechanized) and 4th Battalion 39th Infantry clearing a hamlet during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. In Bin Ha itself the 3rd Ranger Task Force, consisting of the 35th and 36th Ranger Battalions, provided a rapid reaction force supported by 2 155-mm howitzer battalions located on the southeast of the city. 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. 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. 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. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. bunker. At 3 a.m. on January 31, I received a call from Major Bill Jones, who had recently taken Ionoffs place as operations officer. Of course you never Over the two month recovery and clearing operation, tens of thousands of these hazardous munitions were recoverd by hand, one at a time. Talk:Long Bnh, Bin Ha - Wikipedia As I remember this night, around 12 or 12:30 a.m. the sirens Story Text: 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. The chrome When we arrived, we filed off the busses . 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. main target because they were outnumbered 5 to 1. Sand bags near barbed wire fence. As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. Unconfirmed reports reports said the blasts were . It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. Waking Dead. 10. In command for five months, I had been assured that I would be leading the company for one year, which suited me fine. Not only would I not finish my command tour, but I was also being assigned to a leg division. 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. Ammo Dump Explosion 18 Feb 1968 where 8 pads detonated with a total ammo value of $2,774,348: f. On 18 February 1968 at approximately 0300 an attempted penetration of the depot was. They had been told that the population would rise up against the Americans and that there would be plenty of captured U.S. weapons to fight with. USAF (United States Air Force) F-100 Super Sabre jet fighter aircraft drops Mark 82 (Mk.82) high-drag (HD) bombs. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. (Long Binh) ammunition dump. He 1. 15. Alpha Company was ordered to the 199th LIB compound, which was under attack. The 2nd Platoon took the one north of the road, the 1st Platoon attacked the other. Refusing evacuation, neither reported his wound. 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. All night they scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. However the ammunition storage bunkers prevented a chain reaction and the lost munitions were easily replaced with no impact on supply. 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. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. 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. The weapon was aimed at the newly built and painted (orange-white 5. However, Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could organize their attack. Around midnight on October 29th, 1966, the Viet Cong mortared or rocketed the Long Binh Ammo Dump. Widows Village made a perfect attack position, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters. The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas trying to flee into the jungle. 0.17 We packed up all of our gear, rolled up our concertina wire and waited. At dawn on 2 February the US counted approximately 50 VC/PAVN dead in the area and captured 3 VC. 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. He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, started off down Highway 1. We could haul more personal gear, live more comfortably and walk less than straight-leg troops. Unfortunately for the VC, they had no weapons other than the RPG launcher. South Vietnam: Viet Cong Explode U.s. Ammunition Dump. (Vietnam War period). 0.54 To get to the church, we had to run a gantlet of fire, through the VC 238th Regiment and into the flank of the 275th, which was fighting the 2-47s scout platoon in Widows Village. Charlie Company was ordered to a large open field across Highway 15 from the Long Thanh airfield. During this fighting, both platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. ", "Then we were all in the bunker The 2nd Platoon took on the one on the north side of the road, and the 1st Platoon attacked the other. 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. SAIGON, South Vietnam, June 1 (Reuters)Explosions ripped through a huge ammu nition dump near here today, killing one soldier and wound ing 13. Casper rose from the prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. They all blew up! SV AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND EXPLOSION I have . The attacks were repulsed with the VC/PAVN suffering heavy losses, having inflicted minimal damage on the bases. 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. Big Ammunition Dump Near Saigon Hit by Blasts [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. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis milling about with boarding passes in hand. I said again, "Who is there"? The action occurs January 31st, 1968 (on "Tet", the Vietnamese Lunar New Year holiday). It also contained tons of captured NVA ammo and guns from the A Shau Valley. Fred Casper, one of the bravest of the brave, was killed during the May offensive at the Y Bridge in Saigon, leading from the front as was his custom. I then jacked a round into my M-16 and who would you believe 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. Riflemen staying close behind. 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. 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. opened his mouth but, SGT Cuffee, the supply SGT. all personnel to the flight line. He waved me off. The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. The churches were cleared in short order. The offensive continued until the end of the month in the North part of We left the clearing of Bien Hoa City in the capable hands of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry. I assigned areas of operation to my two rifle platoons and positioned the weapons platoon inside the compound as a reserve and security force. 9. 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. [6]:36 In addition airborne "rocket watch" patrols were established in the Saigon-Bien Hoa area to reduce attacks by fire. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. The remains of a stack of over 15,000 high explosive 155mm artillery projectiles after the VC attack on February 4. APCs advance, firing 50 caliber machine guns. Less has been written about the danger, turmoil, chaos, confusion, contradictions and outright lunacy that confronted individual units as they responded to VC attacks on the morning of January 31. The bus ride to 90th Replacement was relatively short and everyone seemed exhausted from the long flight. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned left onto Highway 316. went off and all hell broke lose. Ive just been told you work for me again. 856th RRD-Defending Long Binh - ASA LIVES flight line and I was checking the bunker for anyone, I heard F-100 Super Sabre and F-4 Phantom II drop Mark 82 bombs in Vietnam during U.S. air strikes. 0.24 I walked back to my track, thinking this was going to be a nightmare. Satchel charges blew pallets of artillery ammunition, creating a mushroom cloud that made us think the VC had set off a tactical nuclear weapon. 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. As the 2nd Platoon began to run short, Spc. Battalion policy was that we had to fill in all holes and empty our sandbags each time we left a position. (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]). As 1st Lt. Brice Barnes led his scouts into Ho Nai, he ran full speed into a hornets nest. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company. Long Binh, again (Feb. 1967). I was not sure what to do about the bunkers. Long Binh Vietnam 1968 stock footage and images - CriticalPast At 0400 Jones ordered us to pull in our ambushes and be prepared to move. bodies across the road began to bloat into a grotesque scene. [2]:347[3]:236 The rocket/mortar attack was the signal to start the ground assaults on Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh. 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. 0.08 U.S. troops firing small arms as they proceed across tall grass into the hamlet. The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. The Long Binh ammunition dump had exploded. more 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. Destroyed and burned out ammunition pad shows burned out 105mm howitzer shells. Binh was a logistical mistake because the perimeter was so heavily armed A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. [4], The 179th Military Intelligence Detachment of the 199th LIB had been gathering intelligence on a pending attack on Long Binh for several weeks before the attacks based on human intelligence and ground radar. Jim Love recalls lying in a ditch near a dead civilian as the friendly fire cracked over our heads. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. Several of his tracks were hit by RPGs and surrounded by the enemy. [6]:66. 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 extremely careful with it. Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. 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. License Agreement | This group is primarily for those Vietnam veterans who experienced the ammo dump attacks in Long Binh in 1966, '67, & '68. 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.

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