939939. Some were complete projectiles weighing FAQs - How to Order | I explained to the colonel that this was not a police action, and that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. 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. 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. and no one was injured. Casper rose from a prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. 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. Their 81mm mortars were useless, since we were told we could not put any indirect fire into the town. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. 0.24 Love was so startled, he didnt fire. while we were gone. 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, I came upon an unbelievable sight. 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. 0.22 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. 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. 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. Activity in the area had picked up in November and To ensure you can use all the features please enable it. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. 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. When the Tet cease-fire period began on January 28, the battalion was called back to the vicinity of Bear Cat, a base camp near Long Thanh. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. 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. was a point where the Ho Chi Min Trail came close to the countrys West They all blew up! For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! The progress was slow and ammunition was becoming a scarce, particularly grenades, which city fighting consumes at an enormous rate. After all had left for the At the time of the [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 article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army Center of Military History. Painting outside. We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymores and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable. We were west of Highway QL1 along a road named 535. 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. I had been in Vietnam about nine months. 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. 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. Of course you never 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. 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. The view is from the compound of the 20th. Gradually, I became a mechanized soldier. Sergeant was already tucked under a 5 ton truck parked about 50 feet from Bien Hoa City. 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. [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. These photos were taken from December 9, 1967 to February 1968. NEARER V..EXPLOSIONS As our medics treated the wounded, I reported to the American lieutenant colonel who was the III Corps G3 adviser. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. 6. Widows Village made a perfect attack position, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters. 4 Joseph Dames was tasked to return to the tracks for more grenades. Get under! 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. The battle was significant, since Alphas leadership was seriously depleted during the days immediately prior to Tet. Attacking Long Waking Dead. . Jim Love recalls lying in a ditch near a dead civilian as the friendly fire cracked over our heads. M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier on guard. View of surrounding areas. Alpha Company, still licking its wounds from the January 23 fight, was left intact. During Tet 1968, the 856th Radio . 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. The probing attack units included VC sapper squads. All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. LV EXPLOSIONS Service Battery that supplied ordnance to the big guns in our battalion. Craven and another photographer, were both wounded in the engagement.) 0.08 Satchel charges blew pallets of artillery ammunition, creating a mushroom cloud that made us think the VC had set off a tactical nuclear weapon. The 2-47s scout platoon had just finished a brutal fight in Widows Village, and at 1600 hours, 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. 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. 0.17 As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. Tower sent Major Jones to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. AIR V..EXPLOSION We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. 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. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. Charlie Company quickly reinforced Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. The Communists were starting to carry out a plan that they had studied for a considerable period. Contact Us | - (Vietnam War period). We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered dismounted. 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. to contact the Commanding Officer(MAJ Guidroz). Hide. In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. 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. . History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Soon we could hear leaders moving up and down the bunker line yelling for the guards to stop firing. 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. Besides the fireworks, ARVN soldiers had linked tracer bullets together and were stitching the darkness with weaving streams of machine gun fire. 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. Since I was in an airborne unit, it seemed certain that I would go to the 173rd Airborne Brigade or the 101st Airborne Division. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into 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. August 1966 November 1966 December 1966. -- color photo Near Moc Hoa. We were in a cloud of disarray Other than temporarily disrupting operations at Bien Hoa AB for half a day and destroying ammunition at the Long Binh ammunition dump, the VC/PAVN inflicted minimal damage to the Bien Hoa-Long Binh complex. Incredibly, nobody in my company had been killed the day before. I remember one 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. Rambo claims that the bunker guards were MPs with the call sign of Filmy Milker. According to him, I told their commander that any fool could see that the VC did not have M-113s, and that we had 22 .50-calibers and a 106mm recoilless rifle and they, for sure, did not want us to return fire. Set. I told him that I wanted to command a company. It involved transfer of powder projectiles and fuses enough to keep 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. Dames killed them with a burst from his M-16 probably saving the lives of everyone on my track. ruary 1968 in support of Saigon and Long Binh Post during the TET Offen- Sive. As dawn broke on February 1, it was deathly quiet. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. It also contained tons of captured NVA ammo and guns from the A Shau Valley. 9. 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. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. Service Battery 6/27th As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. Battalion policy was that we had to fill in all holes and empty our sandbags each time we left a position. (Vietnam War period). Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company. It Smoke rises from surrounding area. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. By some veterans' accounts, it had the unofficial name "Long Binh Junction." In 1968, the base fell under attack during the Tet Offensive, and the Viet Cong assault force was repelled by American troops.
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