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Bringing that volatile convoy through the city, which had not been totally cleared and was still burning in many places, was a tremendously heroic act. U.S. troops firing small arms as they proceed across tall grass into the hamlet. [3]:220, When the Company F, 51st Infantry LRRP team reported VC/PAVN moving past their position a reaction force from Company C, 4/12th Infantry mounted on ACAVs was sent to investigate. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. 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. After a eventful The first explosion was 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. After telling them to stop shooting Besides the actions of Charlie Company, under the leadership of the S3, Major Bill Jones, Alpha had conducted an assault on VC positions in a cemetery. (Long Binh) ammunition dump. 7. [6]:66. 26 VC/PAVN were killed in the attack and several captured. This was no surprise to us, since we could hear the enemy rounds slamming into Long Binh. The 2-47s enemy body count came in at more than 200, while the battalion suffered only four KIA. The only contact I had had with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course just after I entered the Army. the barracks hall just as he stepped out of his room going to I told him about the order to clear an area of operations equal in size to that assigned the airborne battalion. The battle proved significant, as Alphas leadership was seriously depleted immediately prior to Tet. known as Widows Village. After commanding 180 paratroopers, taking on four APCs and 40 troops seemed like a dreamexcept that now I was responsible for troops in combat, not training. At 3 a.m. on January 31, I received a call from Major Bill Jones, who had recently taken Ionoffs place as operations officer. 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. We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. 1.19 Toward dark, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. The 2-47s scout platoon had just finished a brutal fight in Widows Village, and at 4 p.m., it was ordered to move to the junction of Highways 1 and 316, and to attack westward through the village of Ho Nai toward Charlie Company, in the hope of pinning the VC between us. EXPLOSIONS IN DISTANCE all personnel to the flight line. The mushroom cloud slowly dissipated after hours of for days and days. He Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. In the early morning hours on 31 January, insurgent forces launched We suffered more wounded during the trip back to III Corps, where I was called to a meeting in the headquarters. out of the sky. Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. It also contained tons of captured NVA ammo and guns from the A Shau Valley. One of the children in the Hope System of Care is Nguyen Thi Ly, born in 2001 with a deformed face, head and chest. Toggle the table of contents Talk: Long Bnh, Bin Ha. He was alive but he suffered a busted ear drum and singed hair, eye brows and arms. During the morning of January 30, the 2-47 Mech was notified that the Tet cease-fire was canceled, and the unit was deployed into a defensive line along the road that ran around the east side of the Long Binh base. [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. (Vietnam War period). Company B, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, which was placed under the operational control of the 2-47, made a combat air assault under fire into the middle of the Widows Village battle and fought bravely beside the Panthers all day long. Craven and another photographer, were both wounded in the engagement.) We opened up with everything we had and kept driving. At that time, I received a call on my company frequency from the battalion commander, Colonel Tower, asking how things were going. into the bunkers. They tried to make us keep our heads down so we couldn't get them with our counter-mortar fire . Widows Village made a perfect attack position, since it lay directly across Highway 316 from II Field Force headquarters. Service Battery that supplied ordnance to the big guns in our battalion. When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians seeking refuge. . danger and the probable best course of action. from the petroleum dump immediately next to our position. The bombs descend and explode on structures in grove of trees near rice paddies 23 miles east of Binh Thuy on 19th August. 10. We never saw them again. bodies across the road began to bloat into a grotesque scene. I had assumed I would be assigned to one of the battalions in the Delta where I could use my light infantry and Ranger school experience. biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. mortar rounds and 90 122-mm. As darkness settled in, Charlie Company was ordered to move back the way it had come, to the junction of Highways 1 and 316, where we would form a screen in front of the 199th LIB base camp. Bravo Company (one member of which was Spc. Rocket Attack on Dong Tam - July 10, 1969. I called III Corps and reported that we had detained all of these people, and was told to wait until the Vietnamese National Police arrived to take charge. Ripped apart barbed wire. from Bien Hoa City. At the beginning of the Tet Offensive, one rifle company was ordered to to clear the village of Ho Nai, a Bien Hoa suburb. went off and all hell broke lose. U.S. air strikes in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. 200 pounds. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. ton wrecker weighing in at 22 thousand pounds. (Vietnam War period). I jumped down and ran from track to track, pounding on the sides and yelling, Check your handsets! As I ran back through the weapons platoon, I came upon an unbelievable sight. My Lightboxes | All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. October continued with construction efforts. Helicopter gunships took off from Bien Hoa AB to investigate, but were unable to locate the force in the darkness. Bravo Company was sent to protect the Long Binh ammunition dump, and Charlie Company was ordered into downtown Bien Hoa, where the ARVN III Corps headquarters was in danger of being overrun. I realized we were driving past our objective, halted the company and called for the 2nd Platoon to find a place to turn around. They both hobbled through the rest of the days fighting. In fact, the Communists had already infiltrated the city of Bien Hoa, suburban Ho Nai village and Widows Village, where pensioned families of deceased ARVN soldiers lived. The progress was slow and ammunition was becoming a scarce, particularly grenades, which city fighting consumes at an enormous rate. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. We were ordered to go there and detain every male between the ages of 16 and 80. During this fighting, the two platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. We packed up our gear, rolled up our wire and waited. This is the story of one rifle company, and what it faced on that decisive day. 1 comment. General Patton's son, then Lt. Col. George Patton III, commander of the U.S. Army's 11th Armored Cavalry (Black Horse), positioned his tanks in between our big bunker hills . 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. Men at Long Binh ammunition dump. I yelled at Lieutenant Casper and everybody looked around as the VC tore out running the last few yards to safety. United States officers and soldiers examine barbed wire fence where Vietcong broke through to enter Long Binh. Somehow the foam trucks from When I pointed out that the 101st Battalion had more than 500 troops and I had only two line platoons and fewer than 90 troops, he said, Youre mechanized, youre very strong., I told him we could not take the tracks off Highway 1 and into town because the streets and alleys were too narrow. remembered the 1SGT told him the first thing he was to get into He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. [3]:2501, On the evening of 1 February 3 platoons from Company C, 4/12th Infantry and 2 platoons from Company D, 17th Cavalry Regiment were ordered 2km north of Ho Nai to establish an outer defense against any renewed VC/PAVN attack. Summary - October 1966. yelling Kortuem! There we would be assigned a unit we would serve with in Vietnam. We packed up all of our gear, rolled up our concertina wire and waited. As the scouts escaped, the volume of enemy fire began to slacken, then died altogether. He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. [2]:3512 US losses in the fighting in the Widow's Village were three dead. We topped off our fuel tanks, replenished our ammo and continued to move toward our assigned blocking position. When it went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of the light dome that rose from the explosion. Contact Us | The VC concentrated their attack on Bunker 10 an old French concrete bunker on the eastern perimeter, hitting it with Rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and mortar fire, however the Security Police in Bunker 10 and adjacent bunkers fought back keeping the VC from penetrating far into the base. THE EXPLOSIONS RATTLED WINDOWS IN SAIGON, ABOUT 13 MILES (20 KILOMETERS) AWAY. All I could think of to say was, Please clear that weapon!During the meeting, a master sergeant adviser to a Vietnamese ranger battalion ran into the compound. Views of a number of huts, in the hamlet, that have not been destroyed. Meanwhile, Hueys reported VC running from the village. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. While much has been written about Tet and the political firestorm that resulted, in the hundreds of surprise battles and skirmishes that unfolded, individual units found themselves thrust into intense danger, turmoil, chaos, confusion, contradictions and outright lunacy as they responded to Viet Cong (VC) attacks. the country where resupply was easier for the enemy. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. Script is copyright Reuters Limited. He manned the .50 and, with a Charlie Company driver, started off down Highway 1. Some were complete projectiles weighing LONG BINH, South Viet Nam (UPII A thunderous explosion that shook the heart of Saigon 11 miles away ripped through a U.S. ammunition depot tonight and wounded a handful of Americans. 5. That was 90th Replacement Battalion, situated on the road to Saigon between the village of Bien Hoa and the huge base at Long Binh. [2]:346, The US 199th LIB was responsible for security in the towns and countryside around Long Binh, while the 720th Military Police Battalion was responsible for security within the base perimeter. The G3 adviser told me that they had received intelligence that Vo Nguyen Giap, the North Vietnamese commanding general (the enemy equivalent of General William Westmoreland), had his command post in a Catholic church about a kilometer east of III Corps. The acting commander of the 199th LIB, Col. Frederic E. Davison, ordered three of his infantry companies operating north of Long Binh to attack the rocket launch site, while LG Weyand ordered the 9th Infantry Division to send the 1st Brigade from Bearcat Base. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. The helmet had stopped It was the first such occurrence since the ceasefire of Jan. 28. Sugar Bear Dames, as he was called by his many friends, walked down a side alley toward the highway. STOCKPILES OF BOMBS AND ARTILLERY SHELLS AT THE U.S. ARMY AMMUNITION DUMP AT LONG BINH, IN SOUTH VIETNAM, ERUPTED YESTERDAY (SATURDAY) WHEN TIME CHARGES, PLACED BY VIET CONG RAIDERS, DETONATED AMID TONS OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES. went off my first thought was that it was a nuclear explosion because of Zabecki remembers taking his place on the wall with his M-79. License Agreement | When we arrived, we filed off the busses . His battalion was in heavy contact and he had several wounded rangers he needed to evacuate. [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. The VC/PAVN attacked the position that night in a 6 hour long assault which was met initially by US mortar and artillery fire, then helicopter gunships and then napalm strikes. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! Which date was it? I said again, "Who is there"? Later, as the sun sank over the Long Binh base, they tossed a football and ate cold C rations. [6]:36 In addition airborne "rocket watch" patrols were established in the Saigon-Bien Hoa area to reduce attacks by fire. We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. As he fell, a burst of automatic weapons fire stitched the wall right where he would have been had he not fallen.. Following that fight, the 2-47 was ordered south of the 9th Divisions base camp. 2. Charlie Company quickly reinforced Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. As the 2nd Platoon began to run short, Spc. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Service Battery 6/27th Tower sent the battalion S3, Major Jones, to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. Charlie Company had reported 38 VC killed, at the cost of only 11 U.S. wounded and three APCs damaged by RPGs. Then things started falling was his helmet and flack jacket! The first explosion was On January 23, during a battalion sweep of a heavily jungled area south of Highway 1, Alpha Company walked into a well-camouflaged, well-defended enemy bunker system and was badly mauled, losing four men killed and more than 20 wounded, including almost all of the officers. Less has been written about the danger, turmoil, chaos, confusion, contradictions and outright lunacy that confronted individual units as they responded to VC attacks on the morning of January 31. He replied that I would have to wait. Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. During December we made little enemy contact, probably because the Communists were lying low preparing for Tet. I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. As the afternoon of January 30 drifted toward dusk, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist and dug bunkers next to their M-113s. I told the colonel that this was not a police action, that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. Having been struck by mortars or rockets, the fuel tanks at the air base, as well as several buildings throughout Bien Hoa, were burning brightly. while we were gone. At 03:45 the unit engaged the VC/PAVN with 2 ACAVs being quickly knocked out by RPG fire. . Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the S3s radio operator. 8. A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. I was to be a platoon leader again, in Charlie Company, commanded by Captain John Ionoff. 1. View of surrounding areas. "What are you firing at? " Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could get their attack organized. Charlie Company reacted quickly to reinforce Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. 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. All rights reserved. The three companies formed a line almost three kilometers long, facing to the east, with their backs to the Long Binh wire. NEARER AIR V..SMOKE Then I got a call from battalion commander Tower, asking how things were going. remember being giddy and my brain was asking What is wrong with me?. The Long Binh ammunition dump had exploded. In April 1967, I was a first lieutenant commanding a rifle company in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. By July 1969 we were finally off the boats and in Dong Tam processing to head home. All night he stared at the body, which had one arm grotesquely sticking in the air, and wondered why nobody had taken the gold wristwatch off the arm. We were west of Highway QL1 along a road named 535. Suddenly he came upon a VC RPG team drawing a bead on my command track, which was a prime target given the number of radio antennas jutting from it. Most of these photos were taken in an area a few miles north of Chu Lai and south of Hoi An. Flames consuming huts. [3]:2204, On 1 February Company B, 2/3rd Infantry, Company C, 4/12th Infantry and elements of 2/47th Infantry swept Ho Nai finding only dead VC/PAVN and civilians who had been murdered by the VC or killed in the fighting in the town. around Bien Hoa Airbase and headed toward our post of Long Binh, then An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. The 2nd Platoon took on the one on the north side of the road, and the 1st Platoon attacked the other. Soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion 47th Infantry (Mechanized) and 4th Battalion 39th Infantry clearing a hamlet during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. The 2nd Platoon pulled the damaged track out of the side street and towed it back to the III Corps compound. Listening to the scouts desperate fight on the radio, Charlie Company attacked with renewed vigor as we tried to get to Barnes and his men. Updated 7/26/2015. The first explosion was 2,400,000 pounds of 8 inch high explosive artillery projectiles. 3. During this time, the battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. Page contents not supported in other languages. Although initially surprised, U.S. forces had reacted quickly and, despite what was reported in the press, American and ARVN forces handed the VC a devastating defeat during Tet. We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered dismounted. opened his mouth but, SGT Cuffee, the supply SGT. I operated a heavy five Most of we RAD 152 crew members arrived in-country on July 22, 1968. door at the petroleum dump ruptured and fuel flowed down the ditch in After I received the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset, and we moved out. It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. In addition to the US bases, the city of Bin Ha was the headquarters of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) III Corps and home to a large prisoner of war camp. As dawn broke, everything was deathly quiet. In the week preceding the attack these LRRP patrols engaged 2 PAVN/VC reconnaissance teams north of Long Binh. [2]:347 Within Bien Hoa AB, the USAF 3rd Security Police Squadron was responsible for security manning bunkers and operating mobile patrols within the base perimeter. Attacking Long agreement was that the stockade prisoners would pitch our sandbags, help was out of the bldgs. Casper rose from a prone position and yelled for his troops to follow him. We carried concertina wire, sand bags and hundreds of Claymores and trip flares to make our defensive positions practically impenetrable. From our positions, we could see and hear the fireworks lighting the sky over Saigon to the west. At about 0600, Lt. Col. John Tower, the new battalion commander, called with orders. As I remember this night, around 12 or 12:30 a.m. the sirens At 08:00 the VC south of the Plantation withdrew into the Widows Village. As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. This article incorporates public domain material from the .mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#3a3;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}Air Force Historical Research Agency. As we rolled back through Bien Hoa, we were astounded to find the battalion S4, Captain Leroy Brown, in the middle of town with a 5,000-gallon fuel tanker and several ammunition trucks. When the G3 adviser told me to lend the rangers a track, I told the sergeant that the M-113 was not a tank and to be careful with it. At 4 a.m., Jones ordered us to pull in our ambushes and be prepared to move, and told Charlie Companys noncombatants to report to battalion headquarters. a noise! We use cookies on this website. About two days later one the huge fuel bags next Company E engaged the PAVN/VC supported by artillery fire killing 47 PAVN/VC. Specialist 4 Bill Rambo, assistant driver and .50-gunner on my command track, remembers my response to the firing as being absolutely irate. Something was definitely about to happen. Story Text: STOCKPILES OF BOMBS AND ARTILLERY SHELLS AT THE U.S. ARMY AMMUNITION DUMP AT LONG BINH, IN SOUTH VIETNAM, ERUPTED YESTERDAY (SATURDAY) WHEN TIME CHARGES, PLACED BY VIET CONG RAIDERS, DETONATED AMID TONS OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES. 5 Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. As the ammo dump burst into flames, secondary explosions erupted in other storage areas, and for the next three days, fires burned out of control. Shopping Cart | A force from Company C, 2/3rd Infantry mounted on ACAVs was sent north from Ho Nai and pinned the VC/PAVN in a crossfire. (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Featured Collections | The Communists were starting to carry out a plan that they had studied for a considerable period. Over the two month recovery and clearing operation, tens of thousands of these hazardous munitions were recoverd by hand, one at a time. When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians. The attacks by Vietcong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) forces were one of several major attacks around Saigon in the first days of the Tet offensive. I told him that I wanted to command a company. Tower had called and told me that Charlie Company was under the operational control of III Corps and I was to take my orders from them. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. All day civilians had been darting from their homes and running from the fighting. 0.54 him in. introduction into country when he first came to the 118th. 102 comments 105 shares. At dusk, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. According to Jones, that assault went so perfectly that it could have served as a demonstration at the infantry school. A soldier, who has been hit, lying prone between two other soldiers, tries to get up. As enemy resistance stiffened, we realized we had bottled at least a company of the VC 275th Regiment in the village. However, Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could organize their attack. I sat behind the .50-caliber, munching and giving thanks for the fact that, incredibly, nobody in Charlie Company had been killed. Unconfirmed reports reports said the blasts were the work of Vietcong sabotage teams. As my airborne mentality faded, I learned to love the M-113or track, as we called it. [2]:350, At approximately 16:45 F-100 Super Sabres of the 531st Tactical Fighter Squadron conducted a Napalm strike against a PAVN/VC company at the east end of the base runway. 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. When it This is the airstrike on snipers at the 195th AHC perimeter and the Long Binh ammo dump explosion set off by sappers the morning of the 1968 Tet offensive with sound effects added. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Normally, operations orders issued over the radio were encoded and sent by the operations officers radio operator. Then, for the last week in January, the 2-47 was sent south of the 9th Divisions base camp to patrol the jungles east of Highway 15, near the Binh Son rubber plantation. In addition, gunships killed many more as they tried to escape from the villages. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. I assigned areas of operation to my two rifle platoons and positioned the weapons platoon inside the compound as a reserve and security force. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Benny Toney, the 2nd Platoon sergeant, hooked a tow cable to Stormy. AMMUNITION DUMP. Advanced Search | During Tet 1968, the 856th Radio . I almost did I was the DistrictSenior Advisor (Army) in Vinh Kim, Long Dinh District, right across the canal from Dong Tam in 1968-1969. Unconfirmed reports reports said the blasts were . Relevant to these events; post recollections and descriptions, questions,. Sappers had placed satchel charges on pallets of artillery ammunition, and the resulting mushroom cloud caused all its witnesses to think the VC had employed a tactical nuclear weapon. They bowed and looked confused. Tower ordered Charlie Company to attack eastward to clear the village of Ho Nai, a suburb of Bien Hoa. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. Then a report came in that a body had been found wearing a white shirt under a black pajama tunic. Since I was in an airborne unit, I was sure I would go to the 173rd Airborne Brigade or the 101st Airborne Division. Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. Charlie Company was ordered to a large open field across Highway 15 from the Long Thanh airfield. The 2nd Platoon, under Lieutenant Fred Casper, led the way, followed by my track, then Lieutenant Howard Jones 1st Platoon and, finally, the weapons platoon under Lieutenant Don Muir. In Bin Ha itself the 3rd Ranger Task Force, consisting of the 35th and 36th Ranger Battalions, provided a rapid reaction force supported by 2 155-mm howitzer battalions located on the southeast of the city. [3]:2289, The Tt ceasefire began on 29 January, but was cancelled on 30 January after the VC/PAVN prematurely launched attacks in II Corps and at 17:30 the 7th Air Force commander General William W. Momyer ordered all air bases in South Vietnam to security condition red.