long binh attack 1969

So proficient had I become at this task that I had acquired the nickname Lieutenant Bullets. Officially, however, I was an ammunition stock control officer in the Army Ordnance Corps. The rifle was accompanied by a single magazine of tracer roundsbullets treated with a chemical that creates a trail of light when fired. Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. Tet Offensive attack on Long Binh and Bien Hoa 31 January 1968.jpg . 24:11. As Levitow dragged one of the other airmen toward the center of the cabin, he saw the flare between No. The right tire was flat, having been cut by shrapnel, and it was all Carpenter could do, standing on the left brake, to keep control until he brought the airplane to a stop. He decided to try a different specialty after an experience in which the power was not turned off when I thought it was turned off, so he cross trained as a loadmaster. 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. Citation Nr: 0307323 Decision Date: 04/16/03 Archive Date: 04/24/03 DOCKET NO. YouTube, Ni bt nht; Gn y; Gi. [4]:101. And yet there was nobody, absolutely nobody, visible out there. I try to control what I say, although for the most part, Im very quiet. It was another hot February day in 1969 at the sprawling Long Binh logistics base about 20 miles northeast of Saigon. In the attack on Bien Hoa Air Base the PAVN lost 264 killed and 87 captured while ARVN losses were 10 killed and US. more 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. Ike originally intended these dominos to represent Chinas neighbors such as North and South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia, but it was not long before some believed that places like Cuba, Angola, Chile, Peru, Michigan and South Carolina would also be on the list. Then came a sound akin to that of large paper sacks tearing, as AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships began strafing the battlefield with 7.62 mm minigun bullets fired at the rate of about 4,000 rounds per minute. Long Binh Post was a sprawling, 3,500 building . The rounds landed on post with some igniting the POL fuel site east of the highway. At most, there would be 20 seconds before it exploded. David L. Hamel, director of the institute. After the massive casualties it suffered during the vicious battles in 1966 and 1967, and especially due to the division's disastrous . I crawled to the location of the flare. In early 1969, the 277th was re-assigned from Long Binh to Tay Ninh West Base Camp, where it became the superior command of the 228th. The 199th later became known as the "Redcatchers" for its mission objectiveto seek out and destroy Communist cadres in Vietnam. The pilot fired the guns, using a sight at the left side of the cockpit. Ike originally intended these dominos to represent Chinas neighbors such as North and South Vietnam. Johanalvheey 1 ting trc. Thoughts now turned to what we should do if we came face to face with the enemy. [Three] thousand rounds a minute was more than sufficient.. 44th Medical Brigade Headquarters Long Binh 1969.jpeg 2,079 1,716; 209 KB. Tet 1969 refers to the attacks mounted by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Viet Cong (VC) in February 1969 in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, one year after the original Tet Offensive. 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. An injured North Vietnamese soldier fighting with the Viet Cong, Pvt. Instructions to promote Levitow to sergeant without regard to skill level had not been followed. On 19 February, a defector surrendered to Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces and revealed a large VC force would attack key installations in the Saigon area to include Long Binh Post. It was modified from the C-47 transport aircraft, plenty of which were available. I consider the fact that the aircraft was able to fly at all a miracle, Carpenter said. It would light up, oh, about half a mile, a good area, quite brightly, Levitow said. Supported videos include: 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. Interestingly, the only thing that came readily to mind was a small sign I discovered at one of the outdoor latrines set back in the woods: ALL TERDS [sic.] In 1968, a group of black inmates were fed up with their treatment and the war. Numerous bases were attacked, these attacks were all beaten back but did inflict casualties and reinforced the fact that PAVN/VC forces were able to mount attacks at will. There are some night scenes of the base under attack showing mostly flares, explosions and gunships firing on enemy targets. There was another motivation for Tran as he attacked the American base. South Vietnamese forces follow after terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding . The pilot was Maj. Kenneth B. Carpenter, flying his first combat mission as aircraft commander. After sundown on the 22nd, elements of the VC 274th Regiment, 5th Division made their final preparations while occupying three hills along Highway 15 approximately three kilometers south of the base. At approximately 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 23, the battle gradually died out. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. In my case it was my unusual ability to count. They tell me I ended up jumping on it, finally getting control and dragging myself and the flare back to the rear cargo door which was open and just managed to push it outside the door as it ejected and ignited simultaneously., Later, the citation to accompany the Medal of Honor put it this way: Unable to grasp the rolling flare with his hands, he threw himself bodily upon the burning flare. --- and so it went for lots of the fighting in Vietnam. Photo of the famous Saigon Taxi. History is not a fixed set of facts. The series of assaults met heavy resistance by the battalion of PAVN who had turned the villagers sandbagged shelters into a series of well-fortified defensive positions. . Binh chng c cng l binh chng chin u c bit tinh nhu ca Qun i nhn dn Vit Nam, do B Tng tham mu Qun i nhn dn Vit Nam trc tip qun l v ch o. He is remembered at the Walk of Fame at Hurlburt Field, Fla. Levitow died Nov. 8, 2000, at his home in Connecticut after a lengthy battle with cancer. . My Account | Full-scale sweeping operations to secure the perimeter began just after noon that day. The spilled ammunition19,000 rounds of it by Platts estimatewould start cooking off in seconds. The Medal of Honor was presented to John L. Levitow at the White House by President Nixon on May 14, 1970. Nowhere, however, is Levitows memory recalled more vividly than at the Enlisted Heritage Research Institute at the Senior Noncommissioned Officer Academy at Maxwell AFB, Gunter Annex, Ala. Levitow willed his Medal of Honor to the Enlisted Heritage Hall there. As of 1969 Lieutenant General Do Cao Tri's III CTZ . . The rocket and mortar attacks on the bases picked up when darkness fell. maxhightForP2 = 14168; Hugging the deadly device to his body, he dragged himself back to the rear of the aircraft and hurled the flare through the open cargo door. I am interested in corresponding with any Black Scarf soldiers who . 28 March Ambush and Recon Team #75, and #76 were on a joint night operation on Hill-15 in the southeastern sector of the TAOR. United States and South Vietnamese forces responded with . [4]:99, Before dawn on 23 February, the first day of Tt, the PAVN/VC fired 25 122mm rockets at Da Nang's deep water port hitting an ARVN ammunition dump and a fuel tank farm at Da Nang Air Base and cause minor damage to an A-6A and 6 helicopters at the Air Base. A blistering, 148-page document by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that Afghan, SDA Taps Raytheon for Seven More Missile-Tracking Satellites, Photos: F-22s Deploy to Tinian for First Time as Part of ACE Exercise, In Message to Force, Austin Touts Once-in-a-Generation Investments, Heres What USAFs Science Board Is Studying Now, Were Weird: New Commander Details Life Inside Task Force 99, Top Pentagon Official: Chinas Air Actions Are Dangerous and Destabilizing, Entire F-35 Fleet to Get Fix for Engine Vibration Issue, Service Will Remain at Heart of King Aerospace No Matter How Aviation and Technology Change, US Set Up Afghans for Failure, With a Force Too Complex to Maintain, IG Says. The Tet lunar new year of 1968the one history remembershad seen large-scale coordinated attacks on cities, provincial capitals, and bases all over South Vietnam. Near Saigon, the VC made attacks on Long Binh and Bien Hoa. Despite his wounds, Levitow helped secure the airplane on the way back. The Long Binh Army post, adjacent to Spookys home base at Bien Hoa, was under mortar attack. The deployment, which began March 1, is part of an exercise dubbed Agile Reaper 23-1. In reality, it is a collection of ideas, images, and information that enough people have chosen to preserve and disseminate. Between the town of Bien Hoa and the base was an old French minefield, never cleared and fenced by barbed wire. On July 1, an article titled "Libya and Syria: When Anti-Imperialism Goes Wrong" was published on the North Star website, signed by "Pham Binh of Occupy Wall Street, Class War Camp." The article argues that imperialist interventions in Libya and Syria are justified because they are demanded by forces the author calls revolutionary. The last pocket along the An Tan ridgeline proved more difficult and Company L, 3/7 Marines suffered numerous casualties forcing it to withdraw. When daylight came, I reported to my new duty station in the Engineer Section of USARV HQ, where, from the second floor of the air-conditioned building, we could observe the Post's perimeter wire about 1/4 mile away. . I was a 2nd Lieutenant, on my second night in Vietnam when the attack on Long Bing Post began at 2 AM. It includes footage shot between 17 Feb and 24 Feb 1. 1 minigun and a jumble of spilled ammunition. It was also called Dragonship and Puff the Magic Dragon (after a song, then popular, by Peter, Paul, and Mary) but went mostly by Spooky, the call sign with which it flew its missions. I realize that what I say will be represented not only as a Vietnam veteran but as a Medal of Honor recipient, and the media will have a field day. Note the attacking Skyhawk in the lower right and one directly left of the explosions on the bridge. We were officially MOS (Military Operational Specialty) 32F20, which was depot-level repair and maintenance on AUTOSEVOCOM (AUTOmatic SEcure VOice COMmunications) crypto . From there, I had a good view of the perimeter and the rapidlyunfolding battle. A three-second burst would saturate an area the size of a football field. The attacks on Bin Ha, Bien Hoa Air Base and Long Binh Post, occurred during the early hours of 31 January 1968 and continued until 2 February 1968. Photos (51) by Lou Mengoli, 1967. An ammunition dump at Long Binh, Vietnam. TAOR With the enemy still in force south of the Buong River there remained the continuing threat of additional ground, rocket and heavy mortar attacks against Long Binh Post.. Battalion TOC still considered the eastern sector as the weak spot of the TAOR, so they called for a strong-point (outpost) to be constructed on the Finger of Land just to the west of the abandoned tank on the crest of . During the Vietnam War, Long Binh Post was the U.S. Army's largest base located in the former South Vietnam. "Riot at Long Binh Stockade Attributed to Racial Acts." New York Times, September 4, 1968, p. 38. Sixteen bulldozers were quickly deployed to spend the rest of the day sealing the entrances. The paperwork for advancement in skill level (from three to five) in his original specialty had been lost. But a battle was waiting instead. Featured Collections | The Viet Cong had constructed some sort of headquarters compound, or staging area, or supply depot or maybe even an officers club. Trans primary motivations seem quite similar to our own: eating and getting home. You can imagine how frightful that was to the mind of a 6-year-old. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. The basic course at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland allocated one week in the field for brushing up on combat skills. 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 clouds hung low, making flying helicopters . For reasons unknown, it had not been emptied when the AC-47 went to Vietnam. Brigadier General Francis J. Roberts addresses troops. "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. An ambush platoon reaction team that was held in ready reserve was assigned to conduct a sweep of the tree line where the post perimeter had received heavy enemy fire from during the early morning attack. ARVN psychological operations units broadcast repeated loud-speaker appeals and warnings, and all of the remaining villagers and several wounded PAVN/VC evacuated out of Thai Riep. Night was approaching as Spooky 71, an AC-47 gunship, took off from Bien Hoa Air Base, a few miles northwest of Saigon. At the end of his tour in Vietnam, Levitow was assigned to Norton AFB, Calif., as a loadmaster on C-141s. The enemy fire was situated across Highway 1A, directing a heavy concentration of fire into the 12th Group and II Field Force compounds. The loadmaster on Spooky 71 was A1C John L. Levitow, 23, from Glastonbury, Conn. On 9 May 1969, Pentagon correspondent William Beecher stated that US air raids against ammo dumps and base camps in Cambodia . At that rate, a three-second burst placed a shot every square foot in an area the size of a football field. Nhng Chin Binh Ph Thu Xinh p tp 29. st_Luna-kun. 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. . This article was written by John E. Gross and originally published in the February 2008 issue of Vietnam Magazine.