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

We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered dismounted. He said the first thing he could remember was the Shopping Cart | 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. Long Binh Ammo Dump October 29, 1966 . On that fateful night, explosions began at the bomb dump, I immediately responded to CSC as the SP's . 13. 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. To ensure you can use all the features please enable it. We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymores and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. 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. Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79. Maps of Heavily Sprayed Areas and Dioxin Hot Spots Talk:Long Bnh, ng Nai - Wikipedia 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. Several of his tracks were hit by RPGs and surrounded by the enemy. The scout platoon had fought . Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. bore in my M14 barrel had begun to flake off and the wooden stock was I realized we were driving past our objective, halted the company and called for the 2nd Platoon to find a place to turn around. The remains of a stack of over 15,000 high explosive 155mm artillery projectiles after the VC attack on February 4. out of the sky. 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. By 1968 the Bien Hoa-Long Binh complex was the largest US/South Vietnamese military base in South Vietnam. The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. [3]:20, At 00:30 on 31 January, a patrol from Company E, 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment detected a company-size PAVN/VC force approximately 10km north of Bien Hoa, moving in the direction of Bien Hoa AB. Vehicles drive past on roads between the Long Binh Post area. That was 90th Replacement Battalion, situated on the road to Saigon between the village of Bien Hoa and the huge base at Long Binh. Remembering Tet 1968 Fifty Years Ago - quanloi.org Incredibly, nobody in my company had been killed the day before. 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. 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. 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. Hoa. 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. door at the petroleum dump ruptured and fuel flowed down the ditch in 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. I remember telling him that if the shooting persisted, or if they hit one of my troops, I wouldnt be responsible if my troops shot back. Under fire, Staff Sgt. 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. I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. The scout platoon had fought valiantly all day long in Widows Village and in Ho Nai. was out of the bldgs. who was tossed into a sewage ditch by the explosion, remembers 'killing the jeep' with his M-16. SOUTH VIETNAM: VIET CONG EXPLODE U.S. M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier on guard. Following that fight, the 2-47 was ordered south of the 9th Divisions base camp. 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 Vietnamese brigadier generalthe ranking man at III Corpsdrew circles on a map around two areas of downtown Bien Hoa. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned left onto Highway 316. Soon we could hear leaders moving up and down the bunker line yelling for the guards to stop firing. 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. During Tet 1968, the 856th Radio . He replied that I would have to wait. He For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! 4 Joseph Dames was tasked to return to the tracks for more grenades. 0.08 United States officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Long Binh. It had been over two days and many of us had no sleep. and completely out of sync. agreement was that the stockade prisoners would pitch our sandbags, help Meanwhile, Charlie Company was ordered back to III Corps. Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79 grenade launcher. the light dome that rose from the explosion. During this fighting, both platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. First was sand then bigger stuff. One of the children in the Hope System of Care is Nguyen Thi Ly, born in 2001 with a deformed face, head and chest. [3]:2204, On 1 February Company B, 2/3rd Infantry, Company C, 4/12th Infantry and elements of 2/47th Infantry swept Ho Nai finding only dead VC/PAVN and civilians who had been murdered by the VC or killed in the fighting in the town. 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.). Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump explosion from NVA artillery fire. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. danger and the probable best course of action. Something was definitely about to happen. On the morning of 31 January 1968, the Bien Hoa Air Base, III Corps HQ, the Prisoner of War Compound, and other key installations around Bien Hoa--Long Binh area received enemy mortar and rocket fire. 2023 CriticalPast LLC. At dawn on 2 February the US counted approximately 50 VC/PAVN dead in the area and captured 3 VC. They bowed and looked confused. 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. 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. ordnance pad in the huge ammo dump. 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. LONG BINH, South Viet Nam (UPII A thunderous explosion that shook the heart of Saigon 11 miles away ripped through a U.S. ammunition depot tonight and wounded a handful of Americans. As he fell, a burst of automatic weapons fire stitched the wall right where he would have been had he not fallen.. I assigned areas of operation to my two rifle platoons and positioned the weapons platoon inside the compound as a reserve and security force. The probing attack units included VC sapper squads. But no one would be leaving the country that day. 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. 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis, boarding passes in hand, milling about. Anyone can read what you share. Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. Sugar Bear Dames, as he was called by his many friends, walked down a side alley toward the highway. U.S. military officials vVould not give the exact number of casualties for security reasons. AIR V..FIRES 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. At that time, I received a call on my company frequency from the battalion commander, Colonel Tower, asking how things were going. All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. 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. After a eventful Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. Lt. Col. John E. Gross Recalls the Tet Battles of Bien Hoa and Long Binh July 10, 1969 - Page 3 - Brownwater Vietnam Veterans 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. We fired everything we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. I told him that I wanted to command a company. 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. I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. -- color photo Near Moc Hoa. . Our area from the After telling them to stop shooting As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. . Under fire, Staff Sgt. He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. 2 comments. No infantry school tactic fit the situation; improvisation became the order of the day. 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. At 3 a.m. on January 31, I received a call from Major Bill Jones, who had recently taken Ionoffs place as operations officer. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round hitting my track. No answer. 0.04 Realizing I had not eaten for 24 hours, I looked for some breakfast, but all I could find was a bag of pistachio nuts. F-100 Super Sabre and F-4 Phantom II drop Mark 82 bombs in Vietnam during U.S. air strikes. All I could think of to say was, Please clear that weapon!During the meeting, a master sergeant adviser to a Vietnamese ranger battalion ran into the compound. He said I would have to wait. About Us | 0.54 1.04 They all blew up! For more great articles, subscribe to Vietnam magazine today! 4 "Late in the war" 1 comment. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. When the shooting started it Ly's father is a bricklayer. NEARER AIR V..SMOKE 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. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. [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. As my airborne mentality faded, I learned to love the M-113or track, as we called it. In the week preceding the attack these LRRP patrols engaged 2 PAVN/VC reconnaissance teams north of Long Binh. 26 VC/PAVN were killed in the attack and several captured. 0.59 My Long Bnh Post and the Vietnam War | Worlds Revealed 5 Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Lieutenant Barnes and one of his soldiers would be awarded Distinguished Service Crosses for their heroism that day. 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. 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. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. Company E engaged the PAVN/VC supported by artillery fire killing 47 PAVN/VC. 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. "I was the 1SGT of the 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. 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. The village of Ho Nai, now a ghost town, was still smoldering. 3. I had been in Vietnam about nine months. GV EXPLOSIONS AND FIRES The progress was slow and ammunition was becoming a scarce, particularly grenades, which city fighting consumes at an enormous rate. I was not sure what to do about the bunkers we had dug. An accurate body count could never be compiled since so many VC bodies were dragged away or were burned in the many fires in the towns and villages. The Commo track, C-007, nicknamed Abdula and the Rug Merchants, with then- Pfc (and current Vietnam editor) David Zabecki behind the .50-caliber, brought up the rear. 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. more that happened that night. Jan. 31. We left the clearing of Bien Hoa City in the capable hands of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry. I sat behind the .50-caliber, munching and giving thanks for the fact that, incredibly, nobody in Charlie Company had been killed. As we turned to head back, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. [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. However, Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could organize their attack. 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. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. 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. October continued with construction efforts. The battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. 0.13 Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. GV DUMP The Long Binh ammunition dump had exploded. Ive just been told you work for me again. I assigned areas of operation to my two rifle platoons, and positioned the weapons platoon inside the compound as a reserve and security force. In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. I explained to the colonel that this was not a police action, and that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. ruary 1968 in support of Saigon and Long Binh Post during the TET Offen- Sive. When we arrived, we filed off the busses . This fire was observed by the helicopter gunships that had been circling the area north of Long Binh and they quickly moved to attack the launch sites and were soon joined by an AC-47 Spooky gunship and their combined fire soon stopped the rocket/mortar fire. At the beginning of the Tet Offensive, one rifle company was ordered to to clear the village of Ho Nai, a Bien Hoa suburb. Contact Us | HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis milling about with boarding passes in hand. Another VC battalion infiltrated near the area of the 3rd Ordnance (Long Binh) ammunition dump [and] in a few moments, the huge dump became a fireball. OK. [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. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. All I could think of to say was, Please clear that weapon!. 0.35 About a month earlier I had been loaned out to weld the razor Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. I remember one 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. (Vietnam War period). Copyright Screenocean 2022 | Powered byImagen. [6]:66. Casper rose from the prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. Four men were killed and more than 20 wounded, including most of the officers. Benny Toney, the 2nd Platoon sergeant, hooked a tow cable to Stormy. Activity in the area had picked up in November and Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. 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. 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. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned onto Highway 316. for days and days. Benny Toney, the 2nd Platoon sergeant, hooked a tow cable to Stormy. (Vietnam War period). 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. 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. All night they scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. We could haul more personal gear, live more comfortably and walk less than straight-leg troops. Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. That night, no one slept, but instead scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. the country where resupply was easier for the enemy. We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered on foot. This was no surprise to us, since we could plainly hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the S3s radio operator. This group is primarily for those Vietnam veterans who experienced the ammo dump attacks in Long Binh in 1966, '67, & '68. FAQs - How to Order | He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. Meanwhile, Huey gunships reported VC running from the village. We fired all we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. The ARVN general and III Corps G3 adviser, however, were not happy when we pulled out. We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. However the VC/PAVN never made another ground attack on an air base and moved to attacks by fire with rockets, mortar and artillery. Get under! After what seemed like Tet airstrike Long Binh Ammo Dump - YouTube The weapon was aimed at the newly built and painted (orange-white 9. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. A force from Company C, 2/3rd Infantry mounted on ACAVs was sent north from Ho Nai and pinned the VC/PAVN in a crossfire. We charged southeast down Highway 316 to the Highway 15 intersection, located on a small hill overlooking the 90th Replacement Company. ", "I then went to the CP and tried In another sign that the situation was serious, the battalion commander himself gave map coordinates of company objectives in the clear. 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. 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. The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas who tried to escape to the nearby jungles. Evan Ammo dump - VHFCN Relevant to these events; post recollections and descriptions, questions,. Remembering Tet 1968 Fifty Years Ago - quanloi.org About 30 minutes later, the track was back with only the driver, who reported the ranger sergeant had been killed and that it had been impossible to get the wounded. LV WATER TRUCKS ALONG ROAD, EXPLOSION IN B/G. . 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. [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. 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. 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. All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. 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. 7. An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. I walked back to my track, thinking this was going to be a real nightmare. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. At 08:00 the VC south of the Plantation withdrew into the Widows Village. Alpha Company, still licking its wounds from the January 23 fight, was left intact. After the battles for the churches, there occurred one of the most bizarre incidents of the day. "[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.