We were officially MOS (Military Operational Specialty) 32F20, which was depot-level repair and maintenance on AUTOSEVOCOM (AUTOmatic SEcure VOice COMmunications) crypto . War and peace. [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. A three-second burst would saturate an area the size of a football field. The clouds hung low, making flying helicopters . (Vietnam War period). I was a 2nd Lieutenant, on my second night in Vietnam when the attack on Long Bing Post began at 2 AM. In my case it was my unusual ability to count. If your URL is correct, you'll see an image preview here. The Spooky 71 crew could see mortar tube flashes about one mile south of the area of the earlier attack. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. 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. The loadmaster on Spooky 71 was A1C John L. Levitow, 23, from Glastonbury, Conn. There was another motivation for Tran as he attacked the American base. They briefly seize control of Binh Gia, a village only 40 miles from Saigon. 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 . A South . hightForP2 = 330 Im very careful what I do, he said in an oral history interview in 1986. The attack was expected to come on the ground, as opposed to those . 23 July 1969 - SFC Eddie Hamby escorts Sgt McIntosh to Moc Hoa by boat on first leg of stops heading stateside. 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. COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT, VIETNAM 1969. I heard that five American soldiers were killed and some 30 wounded. He will look for photos. . It was Feb. 24, 1969, and the second day of the Tet counteroffensive. Many of the tracers bounced off the ground like rubber balls. A three-second burst would saturate an area the size of a football field. Slow fire was 3,000 rounds a minute each, or fast fire which was 6,000 rounds a minute each. Dense blue smoke was pouring out of the burning flare fuze.. Thomas Baer, the other gunner, and SSgt. 1971 serving with the 95th Military Police Battalion. 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. Easily create a Forum Website with Website Toolbox. We were young men in the U.S. Army. Back in the States, the aircraft had been fitted with a tank inside the fuselage to hold isopropyl alcohol. 24:11. The U.S. created an Afghan air force that was too technologically advanced for its native country to sustain, then pulled the rug out from under it, according to a U.S. government inspector general report. nhc nn - Mo One Piece - Thnh Long Jr. This was a bit disconcerting. It was another hot February day in 1969 at the sprawling Long Binh logistics base about 20 miles northeast of Saigon. [4]:99100, PAVN/VC retreating to the south from Da Nang were intercepted by elements of the 1st Marine Regiment and ARVN 1st Battalion, 51st Regiment 11km south of Da Nang losing 139 dead in 3 days of fighting. 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. 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. As far as political considerations go, he hardly seemed interested in building a communist utopia at all. The Viet Cong had constructed some sort of headquarters compound, or staging area, or supply depot or maybe even an officers club. SSG Richard E, Slaven died from his wounds the next day. Carpenter waved off taxi instructions from the tower and the crew got out fast. History is not a fixed set of facts. Copyright 2023. 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. Remember: Using others' images on the web without their permission may be bad manners, or worse, copyright infringement. independent documentary Letters from Long Binh. . With the progression of the battle came a feeling of incredulity. maxhightForP2 = 14168; Inbound, Carpenter had called for an ambulance and a medevac helicopter to meet them on the ramp. He flew two more AC-47 combat missions and showed up at the flight line for a third when the squadron commander told him he was grounded. Over time, the Department of Defense plans to turn. In the attack on Bien Hoa Air Base the PAVN lost 264 killed and 87 captured while ARVN losses were 10 killed and US. Shrapnel and jagged shards of metal ricocheted through the cargo bay, and a shock wave from the explosion swept the interior of the airplane. remembrance of shared experience. For reasons unknown, it had not been emptied when the AC-47 went to Vietnam. Very seldom did we ever fire fast rounds at 18,000 rounds a minute because it had a tendency to turn the airplane. 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. We heard that the commander of the tanks was Col. George S. Patton Jr. Navy) The VC attacks on Bien Hoa and the Long Binh complex were abject failures, due in part to the fact that on January 31, 1968, they had run into the Panthers of the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry. Pan Am had a ticket office on base. Media in category "Long Binh Post" The following 36 files are in this category, out of 36 total. The enemy was too close for artillery, so gunships were . But a battle was waiting instead. . Day scenes show soldiers defending positions and firing at the enemy. Soldiers of the United States Army Signal Group have military payment certificates exchanged at their headquarters in Long Binh Vi, U.S. soldiers handling 155mm artilery shells in an ammunition dump at Long Binh, Vietnam. Din vin Ninh Dng Lan Ngc Ninh Dng Lan Ngc Vit Trinh. OVER 30 POUNDS IN WEIGHT MUST BE LOWERED BY ROPE. With no clear idea of what to do in combat, I would have to improvise. Perhaps a word of explanation is in order on how I and all the others in our mix of volunteers and draftees ended up in this hot, smelly, unsafe corner of the world. Is it possible Tran and his friends would have simply elected to return to North Vietnam and forgotten the idea of an attack on Long Binh altogether? Small-arms fire opened up in his path. The idea seemed absurd! . 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. The remaining elements of the company were held in ready reserve. All was relatively quiet until approximately 11:30 p.m., when suddenly a string of 82 mm mortar rounds marched directly across our end of the headquarters complex. Most attacks centered on military targets near Saigon and Da Nang and were quickly beaten off. 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. The brigade was comprised of 2d Battalion, 3d . It was nothing like what I saw in my imagination or what is shown in movie theaters or on television. (Lt. Cdr. Each one of the guns could fire two speeds, Levitow said. Spooky 71 had gone as far as it was going. Long Binh Post was a sprawling logistics facility and the largest U.S. Army base in Vietnam, with a peak of 60,000 personnel in 1969. Apparently, it was impossible for an Iowa corn farmer to get his mind around the idea of hundreds of men actually trying to kill each other. Since my finger was through the safety pin ring the safety pin was pulled.. Nov. Dec. He was discharged from active duty after his Vietnam tour and shortly afterward was assigned to an Army Reserve unit. Color: Color. . But now the tough Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army itself were coming. As Ole-Luk-Oie, the pen name for British officer Ernest Swinton, wrote in the 1915 book The Great Tab Dope: Who can blame a desire for the real thing, or professional zeal, whether it be that of a burglar, a Harley Street appendix hunter, or a trainer of blind monkeys?. Excerpt from 1st Aviation Brigade Newsletter: The VC attack at Long Binh was directed at the 12th Combat Aviation Group and II Field Force Vietnam. Brigadier General Leo D. Kinnard speaks to the troops. Inside the aircraft is a mannequin of Levitow, struggling to get the flare to the door. They could'nt tell how big the post was, for the post's perimeter lighting had not yet been installed. Thirty-four years after it happened, the story of John L. Levitow has lost none of its power to excite and inspire. . Stephen Hugh Lane SP5 Lead Clerk Jan 1969 to Sep 1970, MOS 67N20 has checked in and joined the 3/4 Cav Chapter. 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. Furthermore, the flare would be burning at a temperature of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The Long Binh Army post, adjacent to Spookys home base at Bien Hoa, was under mortar attack. On 22 February, elements of the VC 274th Regiment, 5th Division assembled at three hills along Highway 15, approximately three kilometers south of Long Binh. I was a ticket office supervisor with several Vietnamese and Chinese-Vietnamese women reservations/ticket agents. The soldiers with old (MPC) currency notes takes the receipt and proceeds towards the next officer. 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. Location: Long Binh Vietnam. Military aviation and technology are ever-changing, from the prevalence of drones to a shift to jets for special mission surveillance, once the province of propeller aircraft. 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. 1965 January 1 - February 7, 1965: Vietcong forces mount a series of attacks across South Vietnam. I heard that five American soldiers were killed and some 30 wounded. Surely neither the. --- and so it went for lots of the fighting in Vietnam. The last major battle occurred along the berm of the rifle range on Highway 317 in the early morning just after daylight. The typist soldier types on the form with a type-writer. South Vietnamese woman 1969 Sep 15, 2017. . Jerry Breast/U.S. Opportunity knocks. Once my eight-man crew of ammo counters had assembled, we set aside our usual duties and made the best preparations we could to survive the night. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Danil_1969 4 ting trc. Shortly before midnight the entire perimeter lit up with machine gun fire. 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. It would light up, oh, about half a mile, a good area, quite brightly, Levitow said. Citation Nr: 0307323 Decision Date: 04/16/03 Archive Date: 04/24/03 DOCKET NO. On 23 February 1969, Task Force Privette (A and B Troops, 1st Squadron, 11th Cav and a company of 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry) reacted to an attack on the Long Binh perimeter, killing 88 NVA. The nomination package included statements from Carpenter and most of the crew. He was filling in for a loadmaster who had taken his place when he was sick. Ambush at Ap Nhi. I was not in this Regiment, but I believe I may have observed some of the Regiment's activities the day of the attack. 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 situated between Bien Hoa, the location of a large American airbase, and Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. As Levitow dragged one of the other airmen toward the center of the cabin, he saw the flare between No. Troops lined up on a field. I am compiling a history of our Regiment's service in the war. (Vietnam War period). Aerial view of Long Binh Post in Vietnam. 472.6.9 Records of the U.S. Army Garrison, Long Binh Post, Vietnam (Provisional) The resultant damage was a hole two feet in diameter through the wing and over 3,500 shrapnel holes riddling the fuselage, said Lt. Col. Robert A. Davidson, commander of the AC-47 forward operating location at Bien Hoa. The Geography and Map Division holds a map from the war that was printed and created by the 66 th Engineer Company (known as the "Topo Corps"). 21 July 1969 - Rheault, Marasco, and others transferred to Long Binh Jail (LBJ). He went back on active duty in 1983 and retired in 1995. It weighed 27 pounds. The idea seemed absurd! On searching the site at dawn it was found that 2 PAVN 81mm mortar teams had been destroyed in the barrage. 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. An injured North Vietnamese soldier fighting with the Viet Cong, Pvt. I immediately detected signs that all was not right. Note: Your browser does not have JavaScript enabled. The pilot, copilot, and navigator were in the forward cabin, and the flight engineer, two gunners, and the loadmaster were in the cargo bay in back. Clip Type: Unedited. 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. 30. In 1968, a group of black inmates were fed up with their treatment and the war. Photo courtesy of Tom Lefavour and taken around October 1969. Levitow was struggling toward the flare despite the violent maneuvering of the aircraft. Alsoand central to the story of Spooky 71it carried about 50 magnesium flares to illuminate targets on the ground. The flare was armed and rolling loose in the aircraft.

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