long binh ammo dump explosion 1968

The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. [3]:2305 By dawn the VC/PAVN were retreating northwards pursued by helicopter gunships and at 06:15 Company C, 4/12th Infantry began moving north in pursuit, intending to pin the VC/PAVN against a force from Company B, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment which was moving south. who was tossed into a sewage ditch by the explosion, remembers 'killing the jeep' with his M-16. The NAM - Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump | Facebook 856th RRD-Defending Long Binh - ASA LIVES Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. 118th during the Tet of 1968, also called the Defense of Bien Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. On that fateful night, explosions began at the bomb dump, I immediately responded to CSC as the SP's . SV AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND EXPLOSION PDF Scanned Document - United States Army I almost did The explosions at Long Binh, 15 miles northeast of Sia gon rattled windows and shook doors here in the capital. 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. him in. 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. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. In a few moments, the huge dump became a fireball, the shock of the explosion echoing over an area of 50 miles. I had inherited the job We all knew that these moves were more than just precautionary. We packed up all of our gear, rolled up our concertina wire and waited. Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then went in shooting. During Tet 1968, the 856th Radio . [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. into the bunkers. As usual, each company had sent two ambush patrols into the jungle to our front. Barbed wire torn apart by Vietcong who infiltrated through Longbinh ammunition camp. 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. trooper was injured by a piece of shrapnel that had come down We had returned from a 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. Suddenly he came upon a VC RPG team drawing a bead on my command track, which was a prime target given the number of radio antennas jutting from it. on the water tower". [2]:347[3]:225, At 03:00, the PAVN 84A Artillery Regiment began a barrage of approximately 100 82-mm. The Vietnamese brigadier general, who was the ranking man at III Corps, drew circles around two equal-sized areas of downtown Bien Hoa. He said I would have to wait. Officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Longbinh ammunition dump. We opened up with everything we had and kept driving. 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. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. In the early morning hours on 31 January, insurgent forces launched Unconfirmed reports reports said the blasts were . 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. 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. "I was the 1SGT of the The remains of a stack of over 15,000 high explosive 155mm artillery projectiles after the VC attack on February 4. We opened up with everything we had and kept driving. [2]:349, At dawn several AH1 Cobra gunships from the 334th Assault Helicopter Company joined the defense spraying the VC with rockets and machine gun fire which started fires causing the VC assault to lose its impetus. A great deal has been written about the battles of Tet 1968 and the political firestorm that resulted from them. During December we made little enemy contact, probably because the Communists were lying low preparing for Tet. Talk:Long Bnh, Bin Ha - Wikipedia Blood stains in ambulance. I told him that I wanted to command a company. At 0700, as daylight was breaking, my track rolled past the ARVN III Corps compound gate. SAIGON, South Vietnam, June 1 (Reuters)Explosions ripped through a huge ammu nition dump near here today, killing one soldier and wound ing 13. A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. remember that my right shoulder and chest were black and blue from the convoy about two days before and were repairing anything that had failed 3. Sugar Bear Dames, as he was called by his many friends, walked down a side alley toward the highway. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. 11. [3]:2515, A VC/PAVN attack on the prisoner of war camp in Bin Ha which held over 2000 prisoners was repulsed by a platoon from Company C, 4/12th Infantry and a platoon from Company D, 17th Cavalry and their ACAVs. danger and the probable best course of action. USAF (United States Air Force) F-100 Super Sabre jet fighter aircraft drops Mark 82 (Mk.82) high-drag (HD) bombs. 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.). We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned onto Highway 316. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Most of these photos were taken in an area a few miles north of Chu Lai and south of Hoi An. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. Long Binh Ammo Dump October 29, 1966 . Summary - October 1966 My Lightboxes | During this fighting, the two platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. Then things started falling out of the sky. He stated 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. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered on foot. We were ordered to go there and detain every male between the ages of 16 and 80. The attacks were repulsed with the VC/PAVN suffering heavy losses, having inflicted minimal damage on the bases. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. a noise! The probing attack units included VC sapper squads. John Gross received the Silver Star for his actions in command of Charlie Company on the first day of the Tet Offensive. 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. Updated 7/26/2015. I told the colonel that this was not a police action, that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. GV AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. unless they could see someone, I went to our Operations shack with no lights waiting for the attack to lift so we could get 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. 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. Refusing evacuation, neither reported his wound. 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 told him we couldnt take the tracks off Highway 1 into town because the streets were too narrow. 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. 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. Alpha Company, still licking its wounds from the January 23 fight, was left intact. It was It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. 1.19 The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. 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. We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered dismounted. Contact Us | VC informants inside the base had provided detailed information as to the base layout and defenses. around Bien Hoa Airbase and headed toward our post of Long Binh, then As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. 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. The two of them refused evacuation and neither reported his wound. At dusk, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. AIR V..EXPLOSION to check-in and see what was going on, and found myself the only About Us | The 2nd Platoon led the way under Lieutenant Fred Casper, followed by my track, then Lieutenant Howard Jones 1st Platoon and, finally, the weapons platoon under Lieutenant Don Muir. 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. 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. 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. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. 6. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. 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. 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. Casper rose from the prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. known as Widows Village. He retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the operations officers radio operator. 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. Long Binh Ammo Dump - '67 & '68 | Facebook 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 charged southeast down Highway 316 to the Highway 15 intersection, located on a small hill overlooking the 90th Replacement Company. As we turned to head back, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. 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. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. As I remember the Tet Offensive began in the early morning of 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. Construction on the 24 th. Tet offensive attacks on Bien Hoa and Long Binh, Tet Offensive attacks on Bien Hoa and Long Binh, United States Army Center of Military History, "Tet Offensive: The Battles of Bien Hoa and Long Binh", Video of helicopter gunships and F-100s in action at Bien Hoa AB, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tet_offensive_attacks_on_Bien_Hoa_and_Long_Binh&oldid=1086914863, Battles and operations of the Vietnam War in 1968, Battles of the Vietnam War involving the United States, Attacks on military installations in the 1960s, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Air Force Historical Research Agency, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the United States Army Center of Military History, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 9 May 2022, at 04:36. 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. In addition, we were tremendously flexible. Gradually, I became a mechanized soldier. Soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion 47th Infantry (Mechanized) and 4th Battalion 39th Infantry clearing a hamlet during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. THE STORM BREAKS Part 1 In the late-night hours of 29 January 1968 His two daughters, Ly's mother and her sister, are disabled. The helmet had stopped Meanwhile, Huey gunships reported VC running from the village. [2]:350, With the base returned to full operation, that afternoon C130s landed the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment to help ARVN forces fighting the VC in Bin Ha city. 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). 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. bore in my M14 barrel had begun to flake off and the wooden stock was As the afternoon of January 30 drifted toward dusk, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist and dug bunkers next to their M-113s. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. The village of Ho Nai, now a ghost town, was still smoldering. They tried to make us keep our heads down so we couldn't get them with our counter-mortar fire . (Vietnam War period). The first explosion was 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. The scout platoon had fought . That night, frightened bunker guards in the 199th compound shot into the darkness to their front. We could shoot about 21 miles into Cambodia. 2023 CriticalPast LLC. Bin Ha Air Base: Memories of Bin Ha, TET 1969, by Larry - VSPA He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. 0.08 With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. night on alert at the Birdcage, I was awakened (trying to sleep ton wrecker weighing in at 22 thousand pounds. The VC concentrated their attack on Bunker 10 an old French concrete bunker on the eastern perimeter, hitting it with Rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and mortar fire, however the Security Police in Bunker 10 and adjacent bunkers fought back keeping the VC from penetrating far into the base. 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. The village of Ho Nai, now a ghost town, still smoldered. ", "We mustered everyone we could [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. As you know there were no officers 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. Early on January 30, we were told the Tet cease-fire was canceled, and our unit was deployed into a defensive line along the road that ran around the east side of the Long Binh base. But no one would be leaving the country that day. door at the petroleum dump ruptured and fuel flowed down the ditch in in bunker) at first light to the sound of a M-60 chattering away. He started During December we made little enemy contact, probably because the Communists were lying low, preparing for Tet. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the S3s radio operator. ", "Then we were all in the bunker The explosion echoed over an area of 50 miles. the wrecker operator had to know how to weld. August 1966 November 1966 December 1966. July 10, 1969 - Page 3 - Brownwater Vietnam Veterans The 2nd Platoon took on the one on the north side of the road, and the 1st Platoon attacked the other. 102 comments 105 shares. The churches were cleared in short order. 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. 0.17 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. Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. Later, as the sun sank over the Long Binh base, they tossed a football and ate cold C rations. Tom Allaback. Under fire, Staff Sgt. Rolling back through Bien Hoa, we were astounded to come upon the battalion S4, Captain Leroy Brown, in the middle of town with a 5,000-gallon fuel tanker and several ammunition trucks. 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. went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the [2]:347[3]:236 The rocket/mortar attack was the signal to start the ground assaults on Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh. The platoons attacked by successive bounds through the village as the companys tracks, forming the base of the T on the highway, provided fire support from the .50s and resupplied the troops with ammunition. U.S. military officials vVould not give the exact number of casualties for security reasons. . I Fires were burning late into the afternoon. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. From our positions we could see and hear the celebratory fireworks lighting the sky over Saigon to the west. probably one of the best deals I had been Used for because the Sappers had placed satchel charges on pallets of artillery ammunition, and the resulting mushroom cloud caused all its witnesses to think the VC had employed a tactical nuclear weapon. A soldier, who has been hit, lying prone between two other soldiers, tries to get up. [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 armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas who tried to escape to the nearby jungles. First was sand then bigger stuff. As 1st Lt. Brice Barnes led his scouts into Ho Nai, he ran full speed into a hornets nest. Besides the fireworks, ARVN soldiers had linked tracer bullets together and were stitching the darkness with weaving streams of machine gun fire. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into Powerful Explosion In Ammunition Dump Rocks S. Viet Nam Madera For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! Then and By Vietnam terms [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. 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. When offered the chance to go to II Field Force to help establish a new long-range reconnaissance patrol outfit, I turned it down to stay with the company. 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. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. bodies across the road began to bloat into a grotesque scene. The offensive continued until the end of the month in the North part of During this fighting, both platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. AIR V..AMMUNITION DUMPS AND FIRES 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. 0.13 Relevant to these events; post recollections and descriptions, questions,. [3]:218, The town of Ho Nai (105812N 1065335E / 10.970N 106.893E / 10.970; 106.893) was located on Highway 1 north of the Widow's Village and Long Binh Post.