There, Charlie Company soldiers joined ARVN and U.S. MACV soldiers manning the walls. 3. But their 81mm mortars were useless, since we were told we could not put any indirect fire into the town. (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. As best I could, I explained that they were to take charge and that General Giap might be among the civilians. We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. Soon we could hear leaders moving up and down the bunker line yelling for the guards to stop firing. 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. 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. This is the story of one rifle companycomprised of some of the finest soldiers to ever wear the uniform of the U.S. Armyand what they all faced on that decisive day. Advanced Search | When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. As the afternoon of January 30 drifted toward dusk, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist and dug bunkers next to their M-113s. By Vietnam terms https://www.historynet.com/tet-offensive-the-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. Helicopter gunships took off from Bien Hoa AB to investigate, but were unable to locate the force in the darkness. 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.). During this fighting, the two platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. Some were complete projectiles weighing At the meeting I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. Shopping Cart | This group is primarily for those Vietnam veterans who experienced the ammo dump attacks in Long Binh in 1966, '67, & '68. in bunker) at first light to the sound of a M-60 chattering away. The scout platoon had fought valiantly all day long in Widows Village and in Ho Nai. A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket. 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. When Lieutenant Casper jumped up, our legs became entangled and I tripped him, Ax remembers. 11. 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. officer around. GV DUMP The battle proved significant, as Alphas leadership was seriously depleted immediately prior to Tet. I had inherited the job 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. Elements of B Company, 2/47th Infantry (Mechanized) and C Company, 4/39th Infantry, clearing North Vietnamese Army regulars from "Widows' Village" (a hamlet of housing provided by the government of the Republic of Vietnam for widows and children of fallen ARVN soldiers). Come back up on the battalion freq.. 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. The explosions at Long Binh, 15 miles northeast of Sia gon rattled windows and shook doors here in the capital. Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. 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. As I remember the Tet Offensive began in the early morning of 9. Construction on the 24 th. Jim Love recalls lying in a ditch near a dead civilian as the friendly fire cracked over our heads. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. Several M 113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) are seen accompanying the troops. carried on into that night with tracers flying everywhere. 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. [2]:3523, General Weyand later noted that in their attacks on the Saigon area "Despite the large number of Communist troops committed, insufficient force was applied in any one area to take and hold the objectiveThe assault had been launched piecemeal and it was repulsed piecemeal in a series of relatively small battles. . 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. Toward dark, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. Fires were burning late into the afternoon. In April 1967, I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. License Agreement | Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could get their attack organized. [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. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. Ripped apart barbed wire. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. 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. Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians seeking refuge. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. (Vietnam War period). 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. When the shooting started it Jan. 31. 6. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. We packed up our gear, rolled up our wire and waited. Now someone pointed out that there were a lot of young men, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, among the refugees. One of the children in the Hope System of Care is Nguyen Thi Ly, born in 2001 with a deformed face, head and chest. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. 4. The armed helicopter teams had a field day shooting guerrillas who tried to escape to the nearby jungles. I was well seasoned having been through all the scenarios that presented I told him about the order to clear an area of operations equal in size to that assigned the airborne battalion. Well, the piece of shrapnel from Bien Hoa City. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then charged in shooting. . Soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion 47th Infantry (Mechanized) and 4th Battalion 39th Infantry clearing a hamlet during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. into the bunkers. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a suburb of Bien Hoa. 1. the light dome that rose from the explosion. After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. By late afternoon the 275th Regiment retreated north, leaving over 200 dead. As we turned to head back, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. 4 Joseph Dames was tasked to return to the tracks for more grenades. He replied that I would have to wait. Lieutenant Barnes and one of his soldiers would be awarded Distinguished Service Crosses for their heroism that day. My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. 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. Chu Lai and LZ Baldy Photos. Seems like the fighting went on 2023 CriticalPast LLC. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company. Company B, 2nd Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment had arrived by helicopter from Bearcat and joined up with 2/47th Infantry to sweep the Widows Village. find all the dead so the countryside smelled like a scene from The wire on the top of LBJ (Long Binh Jail). Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. [3]:2305 By dawn the VC/PAVN were retreating northwards pursued by helicopter gunships and at 06:15 Company C, 4/12th Infantry began moving north in pursuit, intending to pin the VC/PAVN against a force from Company B, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment which was moving south. while we were gone. [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. At the time of the 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. The probing attack units included VC sapper squads. The progress was slow and ammo was becoming scarce, particularly grenades, which get consumed at an enormous rate in city fighting. 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. At about 6 a.m., Lt. Col. John Tower, the new battalion commander, called with orders. Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. 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. FAQs - How to Order | [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. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. Even though it was about 6-8 miles away to the NE of Bien Hoa, it was plainly visible . A VC guerrilla hiding behind a parked ARVN jeep had fired the rocket.