long binh ammo dump explosion 1968long binh ammo dump explosion 1968

We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. 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. 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. 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. But their 81mm mortars were useless, since we were told we could not put any indirect fire into the town. Meanwhile, Hueys reported VC running from the village. Widows Village made a perfect attack position, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters. 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 Long Binh ammunition dump had exploded. Service Battery 6/27th As a result long-range reconnaissance patrols (LRRPs) from Company F, 51st Infantry Regiment were positioned north of Long Binh to detect PAVN/VC approaching the base. 1.13 My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. SP4 Lawrence Korteum My plan was to make captain and go to Vietnam as an experienced company commander. 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. 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. By 1968 the Bien Hoa-Long Binh complex was the largest US/South Vietnamese military base in South Vietnam. Ripped apart barbed wire. - He ignored me and went to a nearby house where he and the deputy sheriff kicked in the front door. 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. Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump explosion from NVA artillery fire. on the Bailey Compound, only in the 145th CAB HQ which could 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. Toward dusk on January 30, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist to dig bunkers next to their APCs. After I received the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset, and we moved out. We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered dismounted. the country where resupply was easier for the enemy. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. 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. 4 Joseph Dames was tasked to return to the tracks for more grenades. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. 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. At 0700, as daylight was breaking, my track rolled past the ARVN III Corps compound gate. only be entered from off the Bien Hoa Air base and thru the gate Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. 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. Jeep parked along road. Privacy Policy | Links The S3 also told Charlie Companys noncombatants to report to battalion headquarters. Bomb squads disarmed seven of the charges, but at 07:30 the remainder exploded with three igniting pallets of artillery shells and their Propellant bags causing a massive explosion, blast wave and mushroom cloud. What we came up with was a T formation. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. the bunker. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. As dawn broke, everything was deathly quiet. The chrome During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army used the base as a logistics and command center. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. It involved transfer of powder projectiles and fuses enough to keep FAQs - How to Order | When it That night, frightened bunker guards in the 199th compound shot into the darkness to their front. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. John Gross received the Silver Star for his actions in command of Charlie Company on the first day of the Tet Offensive. Ive just been told you work for me again. In the week preceding the attack these LRRP patrols engaged 2 PAVN/VC reconnaissance teams north of Long Binh. Consequently, I was disappointed when I received orders to join the 9th Infantry Division. 0.59 6. Refusing evacuation, neither reported his wound. They bowed and looked confused. 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 . The idea was to leave nothing the VC might use against us. Specialist 4 Bill Rambo, assistant driver and .50-gunner on my command track, remembers my response to the firing as being absolutely irate. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the operations officers radio operator. probably one of the best deals I had been Used for because the 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. GV EXPLOSIONS, AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company. sixteen guns stationed next to the western border of Vietnam. 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. They bowed and looked confused. 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. 1968 - 1969, To See Lawrence's Service Battery Photos When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion. Tet Offensive I had returned to Long Binh Post. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. This was no surprise to us, since we could plainly hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. U.S. air strikes in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. During December we made little enemy contact, probably because the Communists were lying low preparing for Tet. At the meeting, I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. was his helmet and flack jacket! ", "I then went to the CP and tried border. This site was called Hill 63 because there was a hill nearby that had an elevation of 63 meters on the map. 0.42 bodies across the road began to bloat into a grotesque scene. SOUTH VIETNAM: VIET CONG EXPLODE U.S. [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. The VC had run out of ammunition and were trying to escape. AIR V..FIRES Painting outside. Under fire, Staff Sgt. At that moment, a burst of VC machine gun fire erupted, causing the colonel, the deputy and their Vietnamese escorts to pile into their vehicles and roar off in the direction from whence they had come. Sand bags near barbed wire fence. Besides the actions of Charlie Company, under the leadership of the S3, Major Bill Jones, Alpha had conducted an assault on VC positions in a cemetery. Charlie Company reacted quickly to reinforce Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. When I arrived at the 2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 47th Infantry, nicknamed the Panthers, Lt. Col. Arthur Moreland, the commander, asked me what job I wanted. When the Tet cease-fire period began on January 28, the battalion was called back to the vicinity of Bear Cat, and Charlie Company was ordered to a large open field across Highway 15 from the Long Tan airfield. 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. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Charlie Company was ordered to a large open field across Highway 15 from the Long Thanh airfield. During this time, the battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. For more great articles, subscribe to Vietnam magazine today! At 7 a.m., as daylight was breaking, my track rolled past the ARVN III Corps compound gate. 15. 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. (Vietnam War period). 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. Casper rose from a prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. Several M 113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) are seen accompanying the troops. We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymore mines and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable. By the evening the 2/47th Infantry withdrew into the Long Binh perimeter. Summary - October 1966. Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. We opened up with everything we had and kept driving. As the 2nd Platoon began to run short, Spc. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a suburb of Bien Hoa. As I remember the Tet Offensive began in the early morning of Anyone can read what you share. Craven and another photographer, were both wounded in the engagement.) 26 VC/PAVN were killed in the attack and several captured. Now According to the official history of the VC 5th Division, the 3rd Battalion, 5th VC Regiment, supported by the Bien Hoa Sapper Company, had the mission of overrunning the compound, which was defended by about 15 ARVN soldiers and a smattering of MACV advisers. He waved me off. A great deal has been written about the battles of Tet 1968 and the political firestorm that resulted from them. biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. Four men were killed and more than 20 wounded, including most of the officers. resulting in the explosion of the ammo dump at Bin Ha Air Base. ], 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. I told him about the order to clear an area of operations equal in size to that assigned the airborne battalion.He said: Forget that. As I remember this night, around 12 or 12:30 a.m. the sirens went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of Come back up on the battalion freq. I had never been so happy in my life. 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. 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 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. 0.48 History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. "[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. . During the meeting, a master sergeant adviser to a Vietnamese ranger battalion ran into the compound. In a few moments, the huge dump became a fireball, the shock of the explosion echoing over an area of 50 miles. 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. 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 attacks on Bin Ha, Bien Hoa Air Base and Long Binh Post, occurred during the early hours of 31 January 1968 and continued until 2 February 1968. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Toggle the table of contents Talk: Long Bnh, Bin Ha. As we turned to head back, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. around Bien Hoa Airbase and headed toward our post of Long Binh, then 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. The first explosion was 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. bunker. One of the children in the Hope System of Care is Nguyen Thi Ly, born in 2001 with a deformed face, head and chest. A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. I explained to the colonel that this was not a police action, and that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. There was much 118th during the Tet of 1968, also called the Defense of Bien agreement was that the stockade prisoners would pitch our sandbags, help door at the petroleum dump ruptured and fuel flowed down the ditch in 2 comments. Forget that, he said. 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. Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. Alpha Company was ordered to the 199th LIB compound, which was under attack. Policy was to fill in all holes and empty our sandbags when we left a position, to leave nothing the VC might use against us. I was told to forget about them, which reinforced our feeling that this situation was different and that combat was certainly imminent. The view is from the compound of the 20th. 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. (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. NEARER AIR V..SMOKE Meanwhile, Charlie Company was ordered back to III Corps. The bus ride to 90th Replacement was relatively short and everyone seemed exhausted from the long flight. 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. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. "What are you firing at? " The churches were cleared in short order. 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. A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. United States officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Long Binh. 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. The progress was slow and ammo was becoming scarce, particularly grenades, which get consumed at an enormous rate in city fighting. View of surrounding areas. Under fire, Staff Sgt. 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. remember that my right shoulder and chest were black and blue from the 10. 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. At 0400 Jones ordered us to pull in our ambushes and be prepared to move. The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. [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. 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. Then things started falling out of the sky. Featured Collections | find all the dead so the countryside smelled like a scene from The They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. In the early morning hours on 31 January, insurgent forces launched I called III Corps and reported that we had detained all of these people, and was told to wait until the Vietnamese National Police arrived to take charge. Satchel charges blew pallets of artillery ammunition, creating a mushroom cloud that made us think the VC had set off a tactical nuclear weapon. OK. About a month earlier I had been loaned out to weld the razor 939939. After all had left for the In mid-September, when Ionoff moved to battalion headquarters to become the operations officer (S3), I assumed command of Company C. In October, the 2-47 was tasked to secure engineers as they cleared Highway 1 from Xuan Loc to the II Corps boundary near Phan Thiet. Dames killed them with a burst from his M-16 probably saving the lives of everyone on my track. When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was further shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion, rather than be assigned to one of the battalions in the Delta where I could use my light infantry and Ranger school experience. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. We never saw them again. Unfortunately for the VC, they had no weapons other than the RPG launcher. [2]:352[3]:2067, At approximately 05:30, the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, mounted on M113 Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicles (ACAVs) coming from Bearcat approached the Plantation from the southwest and formed a skirmish line to engage the VC, while helicopter gunships from the 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment swept in to rocket and machine gun the VC positions. U.S. military officials vVould not give the exact number of casualties for security reasons. with no lights waiting for the attack to lift so we could get The North Vietnamese Army had circled THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. [2]:350, At approximately 16:45 F-100 Super Sabres of the 531st Tactical Fighter Squadron conducted a Napalm strike against a PAVN/VC company at the east end of the base runway. [2]:3512 US losses in the fighting in the Widow's Village were three dead. [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. charred. 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. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. 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. (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. [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. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. while we were gone. 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. 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. 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. 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. Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then charged in shooting. night on alert at the Birdcage, I was awakened (trying to sleep -- color photo Near Moc Hoa. Its predominantly Catholic population was made up of many Vietnamese who fled North Vietnam in 1954 after the Viet Minh victory. 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. I was disappointed when I received orders to join the 9th Infantry Division. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Page contents not supported in other languages. Lieutenant Barnes and one of his soldiers would be awarded Distinguished Service Crosses for their heroism that day. One A-37 and 1 F-100 were destroyed while a further 17 aircraft were damaged. 5 Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians seeking refuge. All of these placements were made with the wrongful assumption that the VC would attack from the jungles outside the base. The bombs descend and explode near structures in grove of tress in agricultural area 30 miles southwest of Saigon on 19 August, 1968. Then things started falling out of the sky. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. In April 1967 I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. (Vietnam War period). 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. Refine Your Search Long Binh Vietnam 1968 stock footage and images - Showing 1 to 6 of 5537 results Sort by: All All Search Results Decade 1890 - 1899 (3) 1900 - 1909 (18) 1910 - 1919 (136) 1920 - 1929 (83) more Location Aalen Germany (1) Aberdeen Proving Ground Maryland USA (1) Afghanistan (2) Africa (3) more Akron Ohio USA (3) As 1st Lt. Brice Barnes led his scouts into Ho Nai, he ran full speed into a hornets nest. I realized we were driving past our objective, halted the company and called for the 2nd Platoon to find a place to turn around. Ly's grandfather was a soldier stationed in Quang Binh during the war. the light dome that rose from the explosion. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! ". ", "We mustered everyone we could M-117 bombs explode near and on road on wooden slopes near river north of Pleiku near Dak To, on 18 August, 1968. 9. I have . There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. The churches were cleared in short order. He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. At dawn on 2 February the US counted approximately 50 VC/PAVN dead in the area and captured 3 VC. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. He said the first thing he could remember was the Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round hitting my track. I was having a few beers with several other sailors in the outside screened patio area of the Navy EM Club when we heard a noise to our left. Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then went in shooting. This site requires JavaScript. Views of a number of huts, in the hamlet, that have not been destroyed. We found out later from captured VC that many guerrillas had been given only two magazines for their weapons. As our medics treated the wounded, I reported to the American lieutenant colonel who was the III Corps G3 adviser.
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