Let us know if you remember Steve as we seek more information and photos to make a MyPage for him. hightForP2 = 330 The point man for Team #75, SP/4 Cressman, tripped a Viet Cong antipersonnel mine on the trail that runs down from the south side of the hill to the Buong River. At that instant the flare separated and ignited in the air, but clear of the aircraft.. Brigadier General Francis J. Roberts addresses troops. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Note the attacking Skyhawk in the lower right and one directly left of the explosions on the bridge. [4]:101. Top graduates of Air Force Airman Leadership Schools receive the Levitow Honor Graduate Award. Following the employment of the supporting fires, the 36th Ranger Battalion moved back into the village. Shortly, another mortar battery began firing. We had a perfect view of the VC hill, and it slowly began to dawn on me that for the past seven months, as each evenings shift began with my casually scanning the quiet hills to the south and southeast of Long Binh, there was a fair probability I was being scanned right backlikely by some VC ammo counter busily inventorying his AK-47 bullets, 122 mm rockets, 82 mm mortars and B-40 rocket-propelled grenade rounds, while I counted M16 bullets, Claymore mines and howitzer shells. It was nothing like what I saw in my imagination or what is shown in movie theaters or on television. It isnt every day one peaceably sets off for work knowing someone is intent on ones personal demise. The Tet 1969 offensive was carried out mostly by Viet Cong irregulars. A VC mortar attack on the airfield at Binh Thuy on the banks of the Mekong resulted in the destruction of a Bird Dog FAC aircraft. 23 July 1969 - SFC Eddie Hamby escorts Sgt McIntosh to Moc Hoa by boat on first leg of stops heading stateside. He was told his unit would capture many C-rations. Food was always a dominant concern for the habitually starved Viet Cong. Mr. Cook served with the 1st Infantry Division, 2-16th Infantry, as a 1st Lieutenant in the Long Binh area of Vietnam. For the next six hours, Spooky 71 would fly a combat air patrol circuit over the Saigon/Tan Son Nhut area, ready to respond wherever its fire support was needed. This is a brief clip of the ammo dump explosion at Long Binh, Vietnam, taken the morning of the Tet offensive, 1968. The deployment, which began March 1, is part of an exercise dubbed Agile Reaper 23-1. Bruce Stern at his desk in Long Binh, circa 1968-69. . "Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report #105 - Special Report: The Fourth Offensive - 23 February-3 April 1969", Cold War International History Project's Cold War Files, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tet_1969&oldid=1142428918, This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 09:26. . As darkness approached some comfort was provided by the constant sweeps outside the perimeter made at treetop level by the guys in their little OH-6 Loach light observation helicopters. Thirty-four years after it happened, the story of John L. Levitow has lost none of its power to excite and inspire. Levitows hometown, Glastonbury, dedicated a memorial to him on the town green May 31, 2004. Between the town of Bien Hoa and the base was an old French minefield, never cleared and fenced by barbed wire. These Vietnam War photos taken by U.S. Army photographers reveal a side of the conflict that few people have ever seen. Terms & Conditions | When it finally ended with the assistance of several Cobra gunbships, 23 enemy dead were discovered. Between 1970 and 72 my father wound up in Vietnam as a civilian aircraft mechanic, working on helicopters. Three B Company ambush squads were positioned along the eastern end of the TAOR on the "Finger Of Land," and a reinforced squad of twelve MP's, including two Scout Dog handlers from the 212th MP Company, were positioned on Hill-15 along the Buong River. They fought to the last because (1) they were told that they would be tortured mercilessly by US soldiers should they be captured, and (2) being Buddhists, they did not want to die on foreign soil, but hoped to escape so they could go home to North Vietnam to die. On top of that came the domino theory of 1954, invented by then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The prisoners revealed that their mission had been to attack Bien Hoa city and the Bien Hoa Air Base. Some of our troops had recaptured it from the VC a few months before. In 1968, a group of black inmates were fed up with their treatment and the war. Over time, the Department of Defense plans to turn. A sign reads 'Headquarters II Field Force Vietnam Artillery'. Media Battle of Long Binh 1969 Parts 1 & 2 11thACRCombat Operations After Action Report of Attacks in Northern Binh Long Province 10-13aug69 (All content and photos on this site are the property of their named owners and may not be copied or used for any other purposes without permission. The medics cut away the dead and contaminated flesh to prevent infection, and Levitow was flown to the big Air Force hospital at Tachikawa, Japan, where 40 pieces of shrapnel were removed between his knee and his hip. Filmmaker Mel Brooks once said he looked upon his Army experience in World War II as a newsreel.. more Photos (51) by Lou Mengoli, 1967. Nov. Dec. [4]:99, Meanwhile to the west 3/7 Marines continued to engage PAVN forces, forcing them into 3 pockets along the Song Tuy Loan river. He delivered the keynote address. Very seldom did we ever fire fast rounds at 18,000 rounds a minute because it had a tendency to turn the airplane. The Hot War (1968-October 1969) The Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army in late 1967 launched several costly attacks. Most attacks centered on military targets near Saigon and Da Nang and were quickly beaten off. Inbound, Carpenter had called for an ambulance and a medevac helicopter to meet them on the ramp. c, Holland h tr v kh cho Ukraine. I hated it. More to his liking, he went home to Connecticut and became a medical administration officer in the VA hospital system and special assistant to the chief of Medical Administration Service in New England. Levitows progress was clearly marked with his own blood on the floor of the aircraft.. 24:11. It was presented in ceremonies in February 2002 by his son to CMSgt. They briefly seize control of Binh Gia, a village only 40 miles from Saigon. [4]:98, At dawn PAVN sappers attacked the 1st Marine Division headquarters on Hill 327 and the 2/7 Marines command post to the northwest. Tet offensive attack on Long Binh and Bien Hoa, 31 January 1968: Date: 31 January-2 February 1968: Location: Bien Hoa, Bien Hoa Air Base and Long Binh Post, South Vietnam. The Space Development Agency has added another batch of missile-tracking satellites to its expansive constellation, awarding Raytheon a $250 million contract March 2 to build seven spacecraft. Clip Type: Unedited. We heard later that the VC who attacked were trained as something akin to Peace Corps workers in North Vietnam, but when they arrived in South Vietnam, they met with a VC commander who told them that there was only one more small pocket of corrupt "fat desk soldiers" to root out in order to rid South Vietnam completely of U.S. soldiers. Stacks of 155mm artillery shells are loaded onto a truck by a crane, in groups of 16 at a time, on wooden skids holding 8 apiece.The soldiers are stripped to the waist. nhc nn - Nguyn Quc Hng - cng ty Hng Long Phc. Levitow set the timersallowing 10 seconds after the safety pin was pulled before a minor explosion deployed the parachute and another 10 seconds before the flare ignitedthen handed the flare to Owen, who attached a lanyard, which created a little extra distance before the pin was pulled after Owen tossed the flare from the aircraft. Just after 16:00 US Air Force F-100s and F-4s along with Republic of Vietnam Air Force A-1 Skyraiders were directed against the PAVN/VC positions in the village. 5 Lt xem. The view is from the compound of the 20. He was 55. N Vietnamese forces overrun and capture Phuoc Binh City, Phuoc Long Prov capital, after wklong siege, striking significant psychological blow to S Vietnamese Govt; loss of town, with population . FAQs - How to Order | Long Binh Post was situated East of Bien Hoa and approximately 20 miles northeast of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City.) SUMMARY: On December 17, 1968, a 39-vehicle convoy from the 48th Transportation Group was moving ammunition and food between Long Binh and Dau Tieng, South Vietnam when the lead vehicles were suddenly hit by mortar fire. The Rangers met only slight, disorganized resistance. Under Col. Robert Smoker, Task Force 99s new commander, the unit will continue to try to cut through red tape and field new systems quickly. I then looked back to see a flare that had slid up against the cans of 19,000 rounds of ammunition, Platt said. Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. Before the night was over, Levitow would perform an act of astounding bravery for which he would ultimately be awarded the Medal of Honor. The miniguns fired four rounds of invisible ball bullets followed by one tracer round, but the bullets came so fast they looked like a continuous red stream. The Army always tries to capitalize on a soldiers individual strengths. . At first, he was a power line specialist with the civil engineering squadron at McGuire AFB, N.J. "Text of Camp Lejeune Committee's Report to Commanding General." The MP squad suffered three wounded. I must add, though, that from a different perspective the battle I witnessed in Vietnam was exactly the same as those I had seen in movies: One was just as unreal as the other. Thought to be in retaliation for Chuyen's disappearance. 1st Signal Brigade 1966-1972, Saigon, Long Binh VISIT HOME PAGE 101st Airborne Division 1965-1971, Bien Hoa, Phan Rang, Phu Bai VISIT HOME PAGE 9th Infantry Division 1966-1969, Bear Cat, Dong Tam Opportunity knocks. The pilot fired the guns, using a sight at the left side of the cockpit. Vehicles drive past on roads between the Long Binh Post area. I heard that five American soldiers were killed and some 30 wounded. The Long Binh/Bien Hoa complex was huge, with thousands of soldiers and airmen assigned to the combined logistics complex and air base. Airman Levitow was setting [the ejection and ignition dials] and handing me the flares, Owen said. The battle area had been cleared for at least 500 to 1,000 yards from the perimeterall foliage and any source of cover had been bulldozed flat. Visitors can also watch a videotape of Carpenter and John Levitow Jr. talking about the Medal of Honor mission. Nearly 60 years after he was first recommended for the nation's highest military award for his bravery during the Vietnam War, retired Col. Paris Davis, one of the first Black officers to lead a Special Forces team in combat, received the Medal of Honor on Friday. By Richard E. Killblane - Transportation Branch Historian September 15, 2008. So they were given guns and were told to attack Long Binh Post (population 30,000 armed U.S. soldiers). Unit flags at the headquarters. Im very careful what I do, he said in an oral history interview in 1986. In the interest of security - and to ease communications - the army centralized Saigon's American forces in 1967 by stationing them all at an enormous compound built just outside of the city. The decision to make the fix to. It took considerable effort to get Spooky 71 back to base. Jim Van Eldik is a retired Army lieutenant colonel. Southeast Asia is a very strange part of the world, where for centuries its leaders have had little or noregard for the lives of their own people. This place is situated in Bien Hoa Town, Dong Nai, Vietnam, its geographical coordinates are 10 54' 0" North, 106 51' 0" East and its original name (with diacritics) is Long Bnh. Landing short would have been a disaster. Spooky 71 flew with a crew of eight. .Anyway, the U.S. effort in Vietnam was (believe it or not) ultimately successful, for at the end, it was politically untenable for the Soviet Union to establish at Cam Ranh Bay its coveted "warm water" nuclear submarine base --- which, to my thinking, was what Vietnam was all about. The rocket and mortar attacks on the bases picked up when darkness fell. There was another motivation for Tran as he attacked the American base. (Vietnam War period). For reasons unknown, it had not been emptied when the AC-47 went to Vietnam. 1 minigun and a jumble of spilled ammunition. My driver arrived at the usual time, a little before sundown, on Feb. 22, for my 12-hour graveyard shift at the 1st Logistics Command headquarters. (Vietnam War period). DaNang Ammo Dump April 27 1969. The soldiers with old (MPC) currency notes takes the receipt and proceeds towards the next officer. The squad came under an immediate rain of grenades, automatic weapons fire and rocket propelled grenades from an entrenched enemy platoon hidden in the top of the berm. That evening, several ambush squads from the 720th Military Police Battalion, 18th MP Brigade kept watch along potential avenues of approach to Long Binh Post. Dedicated to those who were there.
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