Im not going to bring shame on either the medal or myself, so I do watch it very carefully.. Intelligence had indicators of the pending attacks. The Army always tries to capitalize on a soldiers individual strengths. It was his 180th combat mission, but he had never flown with this crew before. One of the MP ambush squads held a position within a kilometer of the VC stronghold. Surely neither the. The Viet Cong were no longer in the tunnels around Long Binh, most probably having taken the subway back to the main tunnel complex at Cu Chi. Vit Trinh thng hiu tht l trn Vit Trinh, sinh ngy 27 mon 11 nm 1972, l con gi din vin nng lng in nh, tn dn chng trnh, o din vi gim kho ngi vit Nam. The last major battle occurred along the berm of the rifle range on Highway 317 in the early morning just after daylight. [Three] thousand rounds a minute was more than sufficient.. United States Army soldiers exchanging MPC currency at their headquarters in Long Binh Vietnam. The spilled ammunition19,000 rounds of it by Platts estimatewould start cooking off in seconds. 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. 23 February, Attack on Long Binh Post The rumors of an impending attack became fact when at 0200 hours [2:00 AM] the first enemy rockets soared across the eastern end of the TAOR and landed on Long Binh Post. Levitow was struggling toward the flare despite the violent maneuvering of the aircraft. Date: 1969, August 11. 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. At that time, the air base security forces reported that they had lost contact with the enemy reconnaissance element which withdrew east toward Thai Hiep. He was discharged from active duty after his Vietnam tour and shortly afterward was assigned to an Army Reserve unit. License Agreement | The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Supported videos include: Each one of the guns could fire two speeds, Levitow said. At most, there would be 20 seconds before it exploded. GitHub export from English Wikipedia. It was full until ruptured in the battle. Alsoand central to the story of Spooky 71it carried about 50 magnesium flares to illuminate targets on the ground. Poor guys; they didn't stand a chance. As Ole-Luk-Oie, the pen name for British officer Ernest Swinton, wrote in the 1915 book. Quan Loi August 12/13, 1969 by Bill Rubenstein. With usual soldier directness the driver divulged the ominous news: Sir, were gonna get hit tonight, so youre gonna need your helmet, flak jacket and rifle., A Viet Cong deserter had warned South Vietnamese officials on Feb.19 that an attack would occur on Feb. 22, but Long Binh didnt get the word until the day of the planned assault. Many features may not work properly without it. Surely neither the Viet Cong nor North Vietnamese Army would attempt such a suicidal mission. David L. Hamel, director of the institute. Mini-Tet 1969 Begins February 23, 1969. Slow fire was 3,000 rounds a minute each, or fast fire which was 6,000 rounds a minute each. The gunship carried about 150,000 rounds of ammunition on each flight, Levitow said. Capt. Between the town of Bien Hoa and the base was an old French minefield, never cleared and fenced by barbed wire. Tran, who was from the Haiphong area of North Vietnam, had high expectations for a victory in the attack, according to an interview in Stars and Stripes. (Vietnam War period). Im very careful what I do, he said in an oral history interview in 1986. Includes captions and a music soundtrack. Edward Fuzie, the flight engineer] were knocked to the floor and the flare was knocked out of my hands. June The second of two new outpost's was built on the western end of the Finger Of Land. 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. 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. As a soldier unfastens a skid of 8 shells, from the crane, it falls over sideways. By 01:00 the next morning, the bodies of 264 PAVN/VC soldiers lay in the village, and 87 had been captured or surrendered. The idea seemed absurd! [1], In the early morning hours of 26 February, a force of approximately 400 men from the VC 275th Regiment, 5th Division, had infiltrated into the tiny village of Thai Hiep on the outskirts of Bien Hoa. The typist soldier types on the form with a type-writer. He was 55. I felt as if someone had taken a two-by-four and squarely hit me against the whole right-hand side of my body, Levitow said later. 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. 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. 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 . His grieving son had no option but to file away those unanswered questions forever. Many of the tracers bounced off the ground like rubber balls. The soldiers with old (MPC) currency notes takes the receipt and proceeds towards the next officer. He will look for photos. The aircraft veered sharply to the right and down.. The intense heat of the flare would burn rapidly through the aluminum floor of the cargo bay and drop on the empennage control cables, destroying them and causing the aircraft to go out of control. Smoke rises from surrounding area. (true?/false? 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. . F-100C Super Sabre 54-1956 120 TFS, 35 TFW, USAF . We're weird, he said. The Viet Cong had constructed some sort of headquarters compound, or staging area, or supply depot or maybe even an officers club. I heard that five American soldiers were killed and some 30 wounded. 99-08 286 ) DATE ) ) On appeal from the Department of Veterans Affairs Regional Office in St. Louis, This is a brief clip of the ammo dump explosion at Long Binh, Vietnam, taken the morning of the Tet offensive, 1968. By mid-1967, United States Army, Vietnam (USARV), 1st Logistical Command and many other Army units dispersed in Saigon were moved to Long Binh Post to resolve centralization, security, and troop billeting issues. The next day, I was promoted to E-4, retroactive nine months with pay, Levitow said, but by then, he had decided to take an early out. 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. Members of the 1st Squadron 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, surround their M551, Air Droppable Assault Vehicle as they wait for the word to move out, 23 February 1969 Overview; The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launch artillery attacks on over 100 population centers and military . When it finally ended with the assistance of several Cobra gunbships, 23 enemy dead were discovered. c chuyn cho qun i Ukraine 1.000 v kh chng xe tng v 500 ha tin di t - trn khng Typ/kiu Stinger (bo vc dch l : tn la t i khng).c cng ng thun cho Holland chuyn cho qun Ukraine 400 Panzerfaeuste/ v kh chng xe tng v cc v kh khc do c ch . Dedicated to those who were there. Inbound, Carpenter had called for an ambulance and a medevac helicopter to meet them on the ramp. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Johanalvheey 1 ting trc. I consider the fact that the aircraft was able to fly at all a miracle, Carpenter said. The rifle was accompanied by a single magazine of tracer roundsbullets treated with a chemical that creates a trail of light when fired. Photos (51) by Lou Mengoli, 1967. So here I was, wounds and all, finally managed to stand up and Im lifting 140-pound ammo cans and stuffing them between the guns [so they would not] go flying all around and really hurt somebody, Levitow said. "6 To Face Murder Charges for G.I.'s Riot in Prison." New York Times, October 1, 1968, p. 3. They could'nt tell how big the post was, for the post's perimeter lighting had not yet been installed. 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. Viet Cong attack on Tan Son Nhut Air Base (1966) Part of the Vietnam War: Date: 4-5 December 1966: Location: Tan Son Nhut Air Base, South Vietnam. U.S. Navy Douglas A-4E Skyhawks from Attack Squadrons VA-163 Saints and VA-164 Ghost Riders attack the Phuong Dinh railroad bypass bridge, 10 kilometers north of Thanh Hoe, North Vietnam, on September 10, 1967. 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. --- and so it went for lots of the fighting in Vietnam. These Vietnam War photos taken by U.S. Army photographers reveal a side of the conflict that few people have ever seen. The cavalry troopers also stumbled onto a large tunnel complex not more than a mile from our perimeter. His most recent article, Rolling Thunder, appeared in the March issue. (Vietnam War period). On top of that came the domino theory of 1954, invented by then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower. I was not in this Regiment, but I believe I may have observed some of the Regiment's activities the day of the attack. Grabbing my helmet and flak jacket (and finding that, after sitting on the shelf for several months, neither would fit properly), I departed with my Jeep driver for the Logistics Commands large yellow headquarters building. Things quieted down for a while. Hc_Thn. Levitows Medal of Honor is prominently displayed at Enlisted Heritage Hall. Remember: Using others' images on the web without their permission may be bad manners, or worse, copyright infringement. 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. Lieutenant General Julian J. Ewell shakes hands with both of the brigadier generals. at the 24th Evacuation Hospital in Long Binh, South Vietnam, both patient and unit members, to find each other and join in the. Unfortunately, the reporting was delayed and did not reach Long Binh until the morning of 22 February 1969, the day the defector warned the attacks were set to begin. It was originally called the FC-47D (for fighter cargo) but subsequently changed to AC-47 (attack cargo) in response to objections from fighter pilots. At approximately 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 23, the battle gradually died out. It was nothing like what I saw in my imagination or what is shown in movie theaters or on television. If I got stopped drinking and driving, its going to say, Medal of Honor Drunk. I realize that. Thirty-four years after it happened, the story of John L. Levitow has lost none of its power to excite and inspire. 3 Lt xem. 128 KB. He was told his unit would capture many C-rations. Food was always a dominant concern for the habitually starved Viet Cong. Since my finger was through the safety pin ring the safety pin was pulled.. 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. At the end of his tour in Vietnam, Levitow was assigned to Norton AFB, Calif., as a loadmaster on C-141s. Viet Cong sappers infiltrated the base and lay in long grass between the runways for several hours before placing their satchel charges. 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. Hide. Navy) Spooky was flying at about 3,500 feet. About Us | Dad wanted to be buried standing up. The Long Binh Army post, adjacent to Spookys home base at Bien Hoa, was under mortar attack. 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. This article was written by John E. Gross and originally published in the February 2008 issue of Vietnam Magazine. There was another motivation for Tran as he attacked the American base. The attack continued into 27 February when the Marines overran the PAVN resulting in a total of more than 200 killed. I am interested in corresponding with any Black Scarf soldiers who . It would light up, oh, about half a mile, a good area, quite brightly, Levitow said. Soldiers of the 221st Signal Company Vietnam have military payment certificates (MPC) exchanged at their headquarters in Long Binh Vietnam as part of a country wide general order. . A three-second burst would saturate an area the size of a football field. The clouds hung low, making flying helicopters . NEW on HistoryNet: Attack on Long Binh, a 1969 Viet Cong attack on a US logistics base in Vietnam #VietnamWar http://trib.al/poYUWdo Militarily, it was a failure for the North Vietnamese, but it undercut the confidence of the American public and it was a turning point in the war. Although at first overwhelmed by the intensity of the enemy fire the MPs stood their ground, suppressed the enemy fire, eliminated an enemy machine gun emplacement and were able to evacuate their seriously wounded point man, SP/4 Brown. I had the lanyard on the flare hooked up and my finger through the safety pin ring. So they were given guns and were told to attack Long Binh Post (population 30,000 armed U.S. soldiers). 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History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Part 2 nya min . The Tet 1969 offensive was carried out mostly by Viet Cong irregulars. Carpenter rolled the gunship wings level and began his run on the mortar positions. In my case it was my unusual ability to count. One of the larger battles of the Vietnam War had been fought right in front of me, and I never saw the enemy. A 70-strong VC force attacked the 2/1 Marines command post 6km south of Marble Mountain losing 17 dead. If your URL is correct, you'll see an image preview here. [4]:99, The PAVN/VC attacks on Da Nang were a failure resulting in more than 500 dead. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. 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 Contribute to chinapedia/wikipedia.en development by creating an account on GitHub. Furthermore, the flare would be burning at a temperature of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The pilot fired the guns, using a sight at the left side of the cockpit.

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