long binh ammo dump explosion 1968

With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. build bunkers, and help pick up the dead enemy across the fence. We usually got mortared at night whenever Dong Tam was getting it from our district. Views of a number of huts, in the hamlet, that have not been destroyed. No answer. Bill Langan, aka "Sparky" was on duty in the 573rd hanger at the Bird Cage and took the slide photo. 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. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion. convoy about two days before and were repairing anything that had failed As the ammo dump burst into flames, secondary explosions erupted in other storage areas, and . This site requires JavaScript. Initials PW/VS/JH/BB/ES PW/VS/JH/ES I sounded off, "who is there"? Refusing evacuation, neither reported his wound. forever the big pieces stopped. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. who was tossed into a sewage ditch by the explosion, remembers 'killing the jeep' with his M-16. As we cleared the ambush, the column suddenly came to a halt because of some kind of block in the road; simultaneously, someone keyed the company net. The acting commander of the 199th LIB, Col. Frederic E. Davison, ordered three of his infantry companies operating north of Long Binh to attack the rocket launch site, while LG Weyand ordered the 9th Infantry Division to send the 1st Brigade from Bearcat Base. He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, headed down Highway 1. APCs advance, firing 50 caliber machine guns. We packed up all of our gear, rolled up our concertina wire and waited. I assigned areas of operation to my two rifle platoons, and positioned the weapons platoon inside the compound as a reserve and security force. border. 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. The ARVN general and III Corps G3 adviser, however, were not happy when we pulled out. At 0400 Jones ordered us to pull in our ambushes and be prepared to move. Soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion 47th Infantry (Mechanized) and 4th Battalion 39th Infantry clearing a hamlet during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. A VC commander captured later in the battle revealed that his orders were only to start the attack after several hundred rockets had hit the Plantation, but as the rocket sites had been neutralized before the rocket threshold was reached, the ground assault on the Plantation never began. Their 81mm mortars were useless, since we were told we could not put any indirect fire into the town. 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 1st Platoon of Bravo Company was made the II Field Force reaction force and was placed in the PX parking lot at Long Binh. in bunker) at first light to the sound of a M-60 chattering away. 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. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. [2]:347[3]:236 The rocket/mortar attack was the signal to start the ground assaults on Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh. 0.54 At least 3,000 tons of ammu nition were reportedly de stroyed in the blasts, which be gan before dawn and continued until midmorning. On that fateful night, explosions began at the bomb dump, I immediately responded to CSC as the SP's . ], The Laotian representative said six members of the Meo special forces were also cap tured with the American on May 7 in Xieng Khouang Province near the North Vietnamese bor der. from Bien Hoa City. Anyone can read what you share. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. sixteen guns stationed next to the western border of Vietnam. At about 0600, Lt. Col. John Tower, the new battalion commander, called with orders. My plan was to make captain and go to Vietnam as an experienced company commander. 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. We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered on foot. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. The three companies formed a line almost three kilometers long, facing to the east, with their backs to the Long Binh wire. Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump explosion from NVA artillery fire. 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. As the C-23 track Stormy, which was in the lead, turned into a side street, an RPG slammed into its front, smashing the radiator and wounding several soldiers. The bombs descend and explode near structures in grove of tress in agricultural area 30 miles southwest of Saigon on 19 August, 1968. 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. [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. I have . Shoe of soldier on ground. An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. I told the colonel that this was not a police action, that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. As we turned to head back, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. USAF (United States Air Force) F-100 Super Sabre jet fighter aircraft drops Mark 82 (Mk.82) high-drag (HD) bombs. That was 90th Replacement Battalion, situated on the road to Saigon between the village of Bien Hoa and the huge base at Long Binh. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned onto Highway 316. a noise! Activity in the area had picked up in November and Fighting our way to the scout platoon, we were stopped when we came upon two large churches, straddling Highway 1, each occupied by VC. That night, frightened bunker guards in the 199th compound shot into the darkness to their front. The chrome With small-arms fire cracking overhead, young girls carrying bottles of Coca-Cola were trying to sell them to the troops. I was well seasoned having been through all the scenarios that presented Craven and another photographer, were both wounded in the engagement.) He started 3. Long Binh Ammo Dump October 29, 1966 . Get under! After what seemed like 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. Under fire, Staff Sgt. He said the first thing he could remember was the Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. door at the petroleum dump ruptured and fuel flowed down the ditch in Alpha Company, still licking its wounds from the January 23 fight, was left intact. 2 comments. 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. 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. 102 comments 105 shares. Hoa. We all knew that these moves were more than just precautionary. He ignored me and proceeded to a nearby house where he and the deputy sheriff kicked in the front door. [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. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. 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. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. AIR V..EXPLOSION 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. Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. He said his battalion was in heavy contact, and he had several wounded rangers he needed to evacuate. Ammo Dump Exlosion Sapper Attack! - [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. This site was called Hill 63 because there was a hill nearby that had an elevation of 63 meters on the map. I told him that I wanted to command a company. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company. GV AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. I told him that I wanted to command a company. the wrecker operator had to know how to weld. was out of the bldgs. 5 Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. The fog of war was especially thick on the morning of January 31, 1968. (Long Binh) ammunition dump. (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. 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. During December we made little enemy contact, probably because the Communists were lying low preparing for Tet. 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. went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of M-117 bombs explode near and on road on wooden slopes near river north of Pleiku near Dak To, on 18 August, 1968. SOUTH VIETNAM: VIET CONG EXPLODE U.S. checkered) water tower by the main gate. He waved me off. I almost did 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. He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. In April 1967 I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. 12. Page contents not supported in other languages. him in. After we finished clearing the area around the compound and as our wounded were being dusted off, I received an absolutely incredible order from III Corps. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. 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. He ignored me and went to a nearby house where he and the deputy sheriff kicked in the front door. We opened up with everything we had and kept driving. 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 EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. At 7 a.m., as daylight was breaking, my track rolled past the ARVN III Corps compound gate. all personnel to the flight line. It dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. All of these placements were made with the wrongful assumption that the VC would attack from the jungles outside the base. Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. His action probably saved the lives of everyone on my track. NEARER AIR V..SMOKE 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. charred. [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. Around midnight on October 29th, 1966, the Viet Cong mortared or rocketed the Long Binh Ammo Dump. At the beginning of the Tet Offensive, one rifle company was ordered to to clear the village of Ho Nai, a Bien Hoa suburb. 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. Most of we RAD 152 crew members arrived in-country on July 22, 1968. 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. 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]:36 In addition airborne "rocket watch" patrols were established in the Saigon-Bien Hoa area to reduce attacks by fire. 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. It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. During this fighting, the two platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. 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. 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. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, walking among the refugees. 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. 0.59 We fired everything we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. on the Bailey Compound, only in the 145th CAB HQ which could After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. secondary explosions. All night they scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. As best I could, I explained that they were to take charge and that General Giap might be among the civilians. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a Bien Hoa suburb. 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. We all knew these moves were more than precautionary. I was told to forget about them, which reinforced our feeling that this situation was different and that combat was certainly imminent. The two of them refused evacuation and neither reported his wound. 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 . 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 was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. 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. These photos were taken from December 9, 1967 to February 1968. ". ", "I then went to the CP and tried HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. 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. . [2]:347[3]:225, At 03:00, the PAVN 84A Artillery Regiment began a barrage of approximately 100 82-mm. Charlie Company would get the mission. because Mankato (Minnesota)Vocational school had taught me to weld as (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]). After all had left for the About 30 minutes later, the track came back with only the driver, who reported the ranger sergeant had been killed and that it had been impossible to evacuate the wounded. Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Flames consuming huts. Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. unless they could see someone, I went to our Operations shack The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. The scout platoon had fought . Barbed wire torn apart by Vietcong who infiltrated through Longbinh ammunition camp. Set. Following that fight, the 2-47 was ordered south of the 9th Divisions base camp. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. Officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Longbinh ammunition dump. It involved transfer of powder projectiles and fuses enough to keep January 12, 1972. by: Arnold John Houchin Bin Ha, USAF 3rd Security Police Squadron 1970-1972 Phu Cat, 37th SPS; Thu Hoa, 31st SPS; . 6 External links modified. In another sign that the situation was serious, the battalion commander himself gave map coordinates of company objectives in the clear. and completely out of sync. I yelled at Lieutenant Casper, and everybody looked around as the VC tore out running the last few yards to safety. SV AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND EXPLOSION 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. As I remember this night, around 12 or 12:30 a.m. the sirens We had returned from a We could shoot about 21 miles into Cambodia. Perpetual Siege region. Get under! mortar rounds and 90 122-mm. [7], The Tet offensive attacks and previous losses due to mortar and rocket attacks on air bases across South Vietnam led the Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze on 6 March 1968 to approve the construction of 165 "Wonderarch" roofed aircraft shelters at the major air bases. After we finished clearing the area around the compound and as our wounded were being dusted off, I received an absolutely incredible order from III Corps. Dames killed them with a burst from his M-16 probably saving the lives of everyone on my track. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into was a point where the Ho Chi Min Trail came close to the countrys West "[3]:205, The Tet offensive attacks on Bien Hoa AB and Tan Son Nhut Air Base slowly led to an improvement in air base defense across South Vietnam, with improved bunkers and heavier defensive armament including 0.50 cal machine guns, M67 recoilless rifles and M29 mortars. . (Vietnam War period). Soon we could hear leaders moving up and down the bunker line yelling for the guards to stop firing. I walked back to my track, thinking this was going to be a nightmare. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. I had been in Vietnam about nine months. Meanwhile, Charlie Company was ordered back to III Corps. Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could get their attack organized. 0.13 bore in my M14 barrel had begun to flake off and the wooden stock was We were ordered to go to that church and detain every male between the ages of 16 and 80. Big Boom! [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. 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.

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