long binh ammo dump explosion 1968

This is the story of one rifle company, and what it faced on that decisive day. 1968 - 1969, To See Lawrence's Service Battery Photos Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. PAVN/VC losses were 137 killed and 25 captured. 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. 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. Tet Offensive I had returned to Long Binh Post. was a point where the Ho Chi Min Trail came close to the countrys West As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. Incredibly, nobody in my company had been killed the day before. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. Back view of jeep with open doors. But no one would be leaving the country that day. Well, the piece of shrapnel 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. Sand bags near barbed wire fence. For additional reading, see: The Battle for Saigon, Tet 1968, by Keith Nolan; and History of the 5th Division, by Ho Son Dai and Nguyen Van Hung. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. [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. By July 1969 we were finally off the boats and in Dong Tam processing to head home. 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. As we rolled by, we looked down into the compound and saw soldiers in khakis milling about with boarding passes in hand. convoy about two days before and were repairing anything that had failed During Tet 1968, the 856th Radio . About two days later one the huge fuel bags next In another sign that the situation was serious, the battalion commander himself gave map coordinates of company objectives in the clear. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas trying to flee into the jungle. Four men were killed and more than 20 wounded, including most of the officers. During the last week of January, the battalion patrolled the jungles east of Highway 15, near the Binh Son rubber plantation. There was an ammo dump explosion in 1968 also and both 1967 and 1968 are correct and were of course separate incidents. We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. 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. Officer and soldiers examine barbed wire torn apart by Vietcong who infiltrated Long Binh ammunition dump. him in. At about 6 a.m., Lt. Col. John Tower, the new battalion commander, called with orders. 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. charred. more that happened that night. Bucks County Pennsylvania United States USA, Del Rio Texas Laughlin Air Force Base USA, Roxborough Pennsylvania United States USA, U-Tapao Royal Thai Air Force Base Thailand. At 03:45 the unit engaged the VC/PAVN with 2 ACAVs being quickly knocked out by RPG fire. 2. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into Dames walked down a side alley toward the highway. resulting in the explosion of the ammo dump at Bin Ha Air Base. We were west of Highway QL1 along a road named 535. [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. Then things started falling out of the sky. Come back up on the battalion freq. I had never been so happy in my life. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. 6 comments. Charlie Company had reported 38 VC killed, at the cost of only 11 U.S. wounded and three APCs damaged by RPGs. 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. This article was written by John E. Gross and originally published in the February 2008 issue of Vietnam Magazine. 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. Burned out 105mm howitzer shells at ammunition dump in Bien Hoa Air Force Base, Bien Hoa in Vietnam. The 2nd Platoon took on the one on the north side of the road, and the 1st Platoon attacked the other. We could haul more personal gear, live more comfortably and walk less than straight-leg troops. As our medics treated the wounded, I reported to the American lieutenant colonel who was the III Corps G3 adviser. ruary 1968 in support of Saigon and Long Binh Post during the TET Offen- Sive. We were ordered to go there and detain every male between the ages of 16 and 80. 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. 2023 CriticalPast LLC. Meanwhile, Charlie Company was ordered back to III Corps. Bien Hoa Air Base was the largest air base in the country, home to over 500 United States Air Force (USAF) and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) aircraft, while Long Binh Post was the US Army's largest logistics base, headquarters of II Field Force, Vietnam, the 199th Light Infantry Brigade (199th LIB) and the 12th Aviation Group and home to over 20,000 US personnel. [2]:347, At 01:00, a 6-man LRRP from Company F, 51st Infantry Regiment spotted PAVN/VC moving through rubber trees several hundred meters to the north of Long Binh Post. It involved transfer of powder projectiles and fuses enough to keep 11. However, Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could organize their attack. U.S. military officials vVould not give the exact number of casualties for security reasons. Unconfirmed reports reports said the blasts were . Riflemen moving cautiously. [6]:36 In addition airborne "rocket watch" patrols were established in the Saigon-Bien Hoa area to reduce attacks by fire. I was disappointed when I received orders to join the 9th Infantry Division. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a Bien Hoa suburb. 11K views 9 years ago This is a brief clip of the ammo dump explosion at Long Binh, Vietnam, taken the morning of the Tet offensive, 1968. 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. Shopping Cart | One reference claims that 4 February 1967 was the date, and another claims that 28 March was the date. Fires were burning late into the afternoon. The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. Charlie Company was ordered to a large open field across Highway 15 from the Long Thanh airfield. Toward dark, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. [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. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. At 0400 Jones ordered us to pull in our ambushes and be prepared to move. Since I was in an airborne unit, it seemed certain that I would go to the 173rd Airborne Brigade or the 101st Airborne Division. Tower sent Major Jones to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. . Men at Long Binh ammunition dump. After the fight for the churches, there occurred one of the most bizarre and inexplicable incidents of the day. An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. My Account | F-100 Super Sabre and F-4 Phantom II drop Mark 82 bombs in Vietnam during U.S. air strikes. 0.08 He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, headed down Highway 1. This group is primarily for those Vietnam veterans who experienced the ammo dump attacks in Long Binh in 1966, '67, & '68. all personnel to the flight line. A burst of VC machine gun fire erupted nearby, 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. He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. and the gunner replied "VC In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. He replied that I would have to wait. (Long Binh) ammunition dump. SP4 Lawrence Korteum The mushroom cloud slowly dissipated after hours of Not only would I not finish my command tour, I was being assigned to a leg division. agreement was that the stockade prisoners would pitch our sandbags, help probably one of the best deals I had been Used for because the 0.35 Most of we RAD 152 crew members arrived in-country on July 22, 1968. Big Boom! Later, captured VC said many guerrillas only had two magazines for their weapons in expectation that the population would rise up against the Americans and have plenty of captured weapons to fight with. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. 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. Privacy Policy | Links 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. [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. As dawn broke, everything was deathly quiet. The Communists were starting to carry out a plan that they had studied for a considerable period. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. 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. I remember one I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. rockets at Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh Post. First was sand then bigger stuff. As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. That night, frightened bunker guards in the 199th compound shot into the darkness to their front. recoil of my M14. 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. 4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades. 102 comments 105 shares. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. After a eventful [6]:66. I realized we were driving past our objective, halted the company and called for the 2nd Platoon to find a place to turn around. "What are you firing at? " Waking Dead. Hoa. United States officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Long Binh. The Vietnamese general and the III Corps G3 adviser, however, were not very happy when we pulled out. 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. Its predominantly Catholic population was made up of many Vietnamese who fled North Vietnam in 1954 after the Viet Minh victory. around Bien Hoa Airbase and headed toward our post of Long Binh, then