4 Joseph Sugar Bear Dames returned to the tracks for more grenades.
Summary - October 1966 Satchel charges blew pallets of artillery ammunition, creating a mushroom cloud that made us think the VC had set off a tactical nuclear weapon. It also contained tons of captured NVA ammo and guns from the A Shau Valley. In another sign that the situation was serious, the battalion commander himself gave map coordinates of company objectives in the clear. As time passed, I became a mechanized soldier. more
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. The attacks were repulsed with the VC/PAVN suffering heavy losses, having inflicted minimal damage on the bases. 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.
Maps of Heavily Sprayed Areas and Dioxin Hot Spots flight line and I was checking the bunker for anyone, I heard
2023 CriticalPast LLC. As was our normal practice, each company had sent two ambush patrols into the jungle to our front. Company E engaged the PAVN/VC supported by artillery fire killing 47 PAVN/VC. As dawn broke, everything was deathly quiet. October continued with construction efforts. who was tossed into a sewage ditch by the explosion, remembers 'killing the jeep' with his M-16. The only trouble was that Charlie Company tracks were sitting in the road right in front of their bunkers. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. By late afternoon the 275th Regiment retreated north, leaving over 200 dead. I had been in command for five months and had been assured that I would be in command for one year, which suited me fine. 1. 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. . 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. rockets at Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh Post. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned left onto Highway 316. His two daughters, Ly's mother and her sister, are disabled. 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. Rolling back through Bien Hoa, we were astounded to come upon the battalion S4, Captain Leroy Brown, in the middle of town with a 5,000-gallon fuel tanker and several ammunition trucks. 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. 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). At that time, I received a call on my company frequency from the battalion commander, Colonel Tower, asking how things were going. We packed up our gear, rolled up our wire and waited. [2]:352[3]:2067, At approximately 05:30, the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, mounted on M113 Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicles (ACAVs) coming from Bearcat approached the Plantation from the southwest and formed a skirmish line to engage the VC, while helicopter gunships from the 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment swept in to rocket and machine gun the VC positions. The bus ride to 90th Replacement was relatively short and everyone seemed exhausted from the long flight. January 12, 1972. by: Arnold John Houchin Bin Ha, USAF 3rd Security Police Squadron 1970-1972 Phu Cat, 37th SPS; Thu Hoa, 31st SPS; . I operated a heavy five
The weapon was aimed at the newly built and painted (orange-white
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. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. On that fateful night, explosions began at the bomb dump, I immediately responded to CSC as the SP's . Script is copyright Reuters Limited. At the meeting I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. I assigned areas of operation to my two rifle platoons, and positioned the weapons platoon inside the compound as a reserve and security force. on the Bailey Compound, only in the 145th CAB HQ which could
Tet offensive attacks on Bien Hoa and Long Binh - Wikipedia sixteen guns stationed next to the western border of Vietnam. He started
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. There was much
unless they could see someone, I went to our Operations shack
We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp. 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. Long Binh, again (Feb. 1967). 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. As best I could, I explained that they were to take charge and that General Giap might be among the civilians. Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. 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. Ive just been told you work for me again. As the afternoon of January 30 drifted toward dusk, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist and dug bunkers next to their M-113s. Some were complete projectiles weighing
wire on the top of LBJ (Long Binh Jail). The three companies formed a line almost three kilometers long, facing to the east, with their backs to the Long Binh wire. [7], The Tet offensive attacks and previous losses due to mortar and rocket attacks on air bases across South Vietnam led the Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze on 6 March 1968 to approve the construction of 165 "Wonderarch" roofed aircraft shelters at the major air bases. 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. GV EXPLOSIONS AND FIRES We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79 grenade launcher.
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(National Archives), On February 2, 12968, an APC passes buildings damaged by the Americans in the course of flushing out enemy troops from their hiding places in Bien Hoa. [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. This is the story of one rifle company, and what it faced on that decisive day.
The NAM - Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump | Facebook As my airborne mentality faded, I learned to love the M-113or track, as we called it. Sugar Bear Dames, as he was called by his many friends, walked down a side alley toward the highway. Charlie Company soldiers, used to months of patrolling and fighting in the jungles, suddenly found themselves fighting house to house as their fathers had done in World War II. 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. I sounded off, "who is there"?
I was not sure what to do about the bunkers. Not only would I not finish my command tour, I was being assigned to a leg division. The unit left their position at Firebase Concord north of Bin Ha and moved east proceeding along trails north of Ho Nai towards the LRRP position. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015.
Photo Index We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round hitting my track. door at the petroleum dump ruptured and fuel flowed down the ditch in
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. danger and the probable best course of action. [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. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round actually hitting my track. 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. One of the children in the Hope System of Care is Nguyen Thi Ly, born in 2001 with a deformed face, head and chest. John Gross received the Silver Star for his actions in command of Charlie Company on the first day of the Tet Offensive. [2]:349, The perimeter was strengthened by an ad hoc force of support personnel from the 145th Aviation Battalion and just before midday the ARVN 57th Regional Force Battalion moved through the base and counterattacked the VC forcing them to withdraw east into the rubber plantation leaving behind over 100 dead. This group is primarily for those Vietnam veterans who experienced the ammo dump attacks in Long Binh in 1966, '67, & '68. About a month earlier I had been loaned out to weld the razor
As my airborne mentality faded, I learned to love the M-113or track. We could haul more personal gear, live more comfortably and walk less than straight-leg troops. Now
The Vietnamese brigadier general, who was the ranking man at III Corps, drew circles around two equal-sized areas of downtown Bien Hoa. Our outfit was a
The 2nd Platoon took the one north of the road, the 1st Platoon attacked the other. 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. About two days later one the huge fuel bags next