long binh ammo dump explosion 1968phoenix police chief salary

939939. I was well seasoned having been through all the scenarios that presented Hide. I was not sure what to do about the bunkers. 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. All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. 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. He Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then went in shooting. we were a bit more trigger happy than usual. I almost did We came up with a T formation. 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. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. 3. Well, the piece of shrapnel Toward dusk on January 30, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist to dig bunkers next to their APCs. Bill Langan, aka "Sparky" was on duty in the 573rd hanger at the Bird Cage and took the slide photo. Our arrival had canceled fears that III Corps headquarters might be overrun. and the gunner replied "VC Jim Love recalls lying in a ditch near a dead civilian as the friendly fire cracked over our heads. 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. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. I told him that I wanted to command a company. These photos were taken from December 9, 1967 to February 1968. 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. Then and 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. Benny Toney, the 2nd Platoon sergeant, hooked a tow cable to Stormy. By late afternoon the 275th Regiment retreated north, leaving over 200 dead. USAF (United States Air Force) F-100 Super Sabre jet fighter aircraft drops Mark 82 (Mk.82) high-drag (HD) bombs. "What are you firing at? " 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. During Tet 1968, the 856th Radio . Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, headed down Highway 1. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round hitting my track. Binh was a logistical mistake because the perimeter was so heavily armed When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. 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. First was sand then bigger stuff. Unfortunately for the VC, they had no weapons other than the RPG launcher. This article incorporates public domain material from the .mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#3a3;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}Air Force Historical Research Agency. maxhightForP2 = 13904; Ly's grandfather was a soldier stationed in Quang Binh during the war. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. We could haul more personal gear, live more comfortably and walk less than straight-leg troops. I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. 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. to contact the Commanding Officer(MAJ Guidroz). His two daughters, Ly's mother and her sister, are disabled. night on alert at the Birdcage, I was awakened (trying to sleep (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. As we turned around to head back west, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. At the meeting, I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. Their 81mm mortars were useless, since we were told we could not put any indirect fire into the town. 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 . When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians seeking refuge. According to him, I told him 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. 0.24 Fires were burning late into the afternoon. around Bien Hoa Airbase and headed toward our post of Long Binh, then View of surrounding areas. After the battles for the churches, there occurred one of the most bizarre incidents of the day. We use cookies on this website. Get under! Meanwhile, Huey gunships reported VC running from the village. 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. This was no surprise to us, since we could hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. 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. 2. At 3 a.m. on January 31, I received a call from Major Bill Jones, who had recently taken Ionoffs place as operations officer. At the end of the previous day, Charlie Company had reported 38 VC killed, at the cost of only 11 U.S. wounded and three APCs damaged by RPGs. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. As we rolled back through Bien Hoa, we were astounded to find the battalion S4, Captain Leroy Brown, in the middle of town with a 5,000-gallon fuel tanker and several ammunition trucks. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. The 2-47 was one of several units he pulled in from the jungles to guard the Long Binh headquarters and logistical complex 15 miles northeast of Saigon. The progress was slow and ammo was becoming scarce, particularly grenades, which get consumed at an enormous rate in city fighting. Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. Smoke rises from surrounding area. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Widows Village made a perfect attack position, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters. I was told to forget about them, which reinforced our feeling that this situation was different and that combat was certainly imminent. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, walking among the refugees. 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. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. Then things started falling out of the sky. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. I realized we were driving past our objective, halted the company and called for the 2nd Platoon to find a place to turn around. 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. SP4 Lawrence Korteum 26 VC/PAVN were killed in the attack and several captured. Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. He said his battalion was in heavy contact, and he had several wounded rangers he needed to evacuate. With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. Less has been written about the danger, turmoil, chaos, confusion, contradictions and outright lunacy that confronted individual units as they responded to VC attacks on the morning of January 31. Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. Not only would I not finish my command tour, I was being assigned to a leg division. 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. We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymores and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable. Terms & Conditions | The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. As time passed, I became a mechanized soldier. As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. During TET 1969 in front of Bunker Hill 17, VC sappers tried to penetrate our fence line. 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. 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. Even though it was about 6-8 miles away to the NE of Bien Hoa, it was plainly visible . Kortuem! That night, no one slept, but instead scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. About two days later one the huge fuel bags next In addition, gunships killed many more as they tried to escape from the villages. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. We fired everything we had into the buildings lining the roadway and took several wounded while getting to the church. Activity in the area had picked up in November and GV EXPLOSIONS, AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN F/G. When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion. Which date was it? By continuing to use this site without changing your cookie settings, you agree that you are happy to accept our privacy policyand cookie policyand for us to access our cookies on your device. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. We were in a cloud of disarray (Vietnam War period). Although initially surprised, U.S. forces had reacted quickly. In April 1967, I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. 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. 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. Charlie Company would get the mission. With small-arms fire cracking overhead, young girls carrying bottles of Coca-Cola were trying to sell them to the troops. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. Service Battery 6/27th 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. We were ordered to go there and detain every male between the ages of 16 and 80. on the Bailey Compound, only in the 145th CAB HQ which could Specialist 4 Bill Rambo, assistant driver and .50-gunner on my command track, remembers my response to the firing as being absolutely irate. As was our normal practice, each company had sent two ambush patrols into the jungle to our front. Several M 113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) are seen accompanying the troops. charred. According to Jones, that assault went so perfectly that it could have served as a demonstration at the infantry school. Big Boom! 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). A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. happened to hit him just over the forehead. Some were complete projectiles weighing secondary explosions. There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. him in. 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. it and only slightly pierced the skin a little. Then things started falling out of the sky. front making it dangerous to return fire. At 0700, as daylight was breaking, my track rolled past the ARVN III Corps compound gate. 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. 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.

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