I told him about the order to clear an area of operations equal in size to that assigned the airborne battalion.He said: Forget that. At 03:45 the unit engaged the VC/PAVN with 2 ACAVs being quickly knocked out by RPG fire. Sergeant was already tucked under a 5 ton truck parked about 50 feet [2]:347 Weyand also requested the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF) to defend the eastern approaches to Long Binh/Bien Hoa and 1 ATF had commenced Operation Coburg on 24 January. known as Widows Village. AIR V..AMMUNITION DUMPS AND FIRES Then and Blood stains in ambulance. I sounded off, "who is there"? A soldier, who has been hit, lying prone between two other soldiers, tries to get up. Perpetual Siege region. At least 3,000 tons of ammu nition were reportedly de stroyed in the blasts, which be gan before dawn and continued until midmorning. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. Soon we could hear leaders moving up and down the bunker line yelling for the guards to stop firing. In January 1968, our battalion relocated to the area between Xuan Loc and Bien Hoa, where intelligence had located a VC battalion. 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. SOUTH VIETNAM: VIET CONG EXPLODE U.S. As you know there were no officers 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. Most of we RAD 152 crew members arrived in-country on July 22, 1968. I Somehow the foam trucks from We threw grenades over the wall behind them, but hit nothing.. The chrome As we turned to head back, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. The probing attack units included VC sapper squads. Toward dark, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. Ripped apart barbed wire. Alpha Company, still licking its wounds from the January 23 fight, was left intact. By 1968 the Bien Hoa-Long Binh complex was the largest US/South Vietnamese military base in South Vietnam. After the roadblock was cleared and communications restored, Charlie Company continued toward its objective. The gun-jeeps were progressively replaced by M113s and XM-706 Commando armored cars. He assigned one to the airborne battalion and the other to Charlie Company. [2]:347, At 01:00, a 6-man LRRP from Company F, 51st Infantry Regiment spotted PAVN/VC moving through rubber trees several hundred meters to the north of Long Binh Post. He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. The 2nd Platoon took on the one on the north side of the road, and the 1st Platoon attacked the other. Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. The 2-47s enemy body count came in at over 200, while the battalion suffered only four KIA. I yelled at Lieutenant Casper, and everybody looked around as the VC tore out running the last few yards to safety. As I walked around the front of a track, the .50-caliber gunner accidentally hit the trigger and pumped five rounds into the ground about three feet in front of me. I called battalion headquarters and asked what to do about the bunkers. On January 23, during a battalion sweep through heavy jungle south of Highway 1, Alpha Company walked into a camouflaged, well-defended enemy bunker system and was badly mauled. But no one would be leaving the country that day. We could use our tracks as a base of fire or in a blocking position as the company maneuvered on foot. it and only slightly pierced the skin a little. A few minutes later, a jeep drove up carrying two extremely frightened white-shirted policemen. During this fighting, the two platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. 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. For additional reading, see: The Battle for Saigon, Tet 1968, by Keith Nolan; and History of the 5th Division, by Ho Son Dai and Nguyen Van Hung. We opened up with everything we had and kept driving. . agreement was that the stockade prisoners would pitch our sandbags, help An eyewitness account of the battle for control of Bien Hoa and Long Binh on the first day of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Unconfirmed reports reports said the blasts were the work of Vietcong sabotage teams. danger and the probable best course of action. By Vietnam terms Refusing evacuation, neither reported his wound. 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. As I remember the Tet Offensive began in the early morning of To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. The three companies formed a line almost three kilometers long, facing east, with their backs to the Long Binh wire, based on the mistaken assumption that the VC would attack from the jungle. [2]:347[3]:236 The rocket/mortar attack was the signal to start the ground assaults on Bien Hoa AB and Long Binh. THE STORM BREAKS Part 1 In the late-night hours of 29 January 1968 Charlie Company reacted quickly to reinforce Alpha, and a daylong fight ensued. ton wrecker weighing in at 22 thousand pounds. The ARVN general and III Corps G3 adviser, however, were not happy when we pulled out. 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. As the afternoon of January 30 drifted toward dusk, Charlie Company soldiers stripped to the waist and dug bunkers next to their M-113s. The attacks were repulsed with the VC/PAVN suffering heavy losses, having inflicted minimal damage on the bases. Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. Long Binh Ammo Dump October 29, 1966 . My Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Not only would I not finish my command tour, I was being assigned to a leg division. Through sporadic fire, we continued northwest on Highway 15 to where it intersected Highway 1 on the western edge of Bien Hoa. (Vietnam War period). resulting in the explosion of the ammo dump at Bin Ha Air Base. GV EXPLOSIONS AND FIRES Charlie Company had reported 38 VC killed, at the cost of only 11 U.S. wounded and three APCs damaged by RPGs. The G3 adviser told me that they had received intelligence that Vo Nguyen Giap, the North Vietnamese commanding general, had his command post in a Catholic church about 1 kilometer east of III Corps. At 0300 hours I received a call from Major Bill Jones, who had recently taken Ionoffs place as S3, stating that Bien Hoa airbase, the Long Binh facility, the II Field Force headquarters and the 199th Light Infantry Brigade (LIB) base camp were under heavy mortar and rocket attack. Jeep parked along road. The fog of war was especially thick on the morning of January 31, 1968. We rolled through Long Binh and out the main gate, then turned onto Highway 316. 0.54 [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. I yelled at Lieutenant Casper and everybody looked around as the VC tore out running the last few yards to safety. I called battalion headquarters and was told to forget about them, which reinforced our sense that combat was imminent. a noise! When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians seeking refuge. 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. We began to pop hand-held flares so they could see we were there, but the shooting persisted, one round actually hitting my track. Just then a three-man VC RPG team calmly walked across the street right in front of the damaged APC. 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. all personnel to the flight line. Explosion at Long Binh ammunition storage facility. ", "I then went to the CP and tried Now commanded by a brand-new second lieutenant, the men of Alpha Company balked when they were told to move. When I pointed out that the 101st Battalion had more than 500 troops and I had only two line platoons and less than 90 troops, he said, Youre mechanized, youre very strong.. My only previous contact with M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) was during a training exercise at the officers basic course. Simultaneously, platoon leaders reported finding discarded AK-47s. Talk:Long Bnh, ng Nai - Wikipedia Then things started falling out of the sky. The 2nd Platoon led the way under Lieutenant Fred Casper, followed by my track, then Lieutenant Howard Jones 1st Platoon and, finally, the weapons platoon under Lieutenant Don Muir. Page contents not supported in other languages. Bravo Company (one member of which was Spc. As the 2nd Platoon began to run short, Spc. 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. Tet airstrike Long Binh Ammo Dump - YouTube As we turned around to head back west, a tremendous blast shook the whole city of Bien Hoa. Website Terms & Conditions | . They had been told that the population would rise up against the Americans and that there would be plenty of captured U.S. weapons to fight with. About 30 minutes later, the track was back with only the driver, who reported the ranger sergeant had been killed and that it had been impossible to get the wounded. find all the dead so the countryside smelled like a scene from The The VC had run out of ammunition and were trying to escape. Charlie Company would get the mission. As time passed, I became a mechanized soldier. We began detaining the well-dressed young men among the refugees. to check-in and see what was going on, and found myself the only I had been in Vietnam about nine months. Jan. 31. 0.35 Updated 7/26/2015. At dawn on 2 February the US counted approximately 50 VC/PAVN dead in the area and captured 3 VC. 2023 CriticalPast LLC. The scout platoon had fought . At the meeting I was joined by the S3 of a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. 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 (Mechanized), 47th Infantry. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. After I got the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset. We could ride, walk or be airlifted to war, travel great distances in a short amount of time, and arrive with many times the ammunition and equipment that could be lifted in by helicopter. As the ammo dump burst into flames, secondary explosions erupted in other storage areas, and . In command for five months, I had been assured that I would be leading the company for one year, which suited me fine. Tet of 1968 - 118th AHC However the ammunition storage bunkers prevented a chain reaction and the lost munitions were easily replaced with no impact on supply. mortar rounds and 90 122-mm. I had inherited the job Around midnight on October 29th, 1966, the Viet Cong mortared or rocketed the Long Binh Ammo Dump. A great deal has been written about the battles of Tet 1968 and the political firestorm that resulted from them. The churches were cleared in short order. Forget that, he said. [2]:3523, General Weyand later noted that in their attacks on the Saigon area "Despite the large number of Communist troops committed, insufficient force was applied in any one area to take and hold the objectiveThe assault had been launched piecemeal and it was repulsed piecemeal in a series of relatively small battles. 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. The battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. Charlie Company soldiers, used to months of patrolling and fighting in the jungles, suddenly found themselves fighting house to house as their fathers had done in World War II. Helicopter gunships took off from Bien Hoa AB to investigate, but were unable to locate the force in the darkness. At 08:00 the VC south of the Plantation withdrew into the Widows Village. Attacking Long Dames walked down a side alley toward the highway. Love was so startled, he didnt fire. Long Binh Vietnam 1969 stock footage and images - Showing 1 to 6 of 5540 results Sort by: All Decade 1890 - 1899 Location (1) Norfolk Virginia USA (2) Normandy France (12) Norman Oklahoma USA (1) (1) (1) North Carolina United States USA (2) North Chicago Illinois USA (1) North Dakota United States USA (1) North Haven Maine USA (1) North Korea (1) As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. Many of the enlisted personnel with medical MOSs work two to three days per week at the 93 rd Evacuation Hospital, then came back to the 24 th to work on the various construction projects. Cambodian border to the South China sea was already considered a [6]:36 In addition airborne "rocket watch" patrols were established in the Saigon-Bien Hoa area to reduce attacks by fire. 6. The recon platoon was ordered to establish a blocking position south of Long Binh on Highway 15. we were a bit more trigger happy than usual. Consequently, I was disappointed when I received orders to join the 9th Infantry Division. That night, frightened bunker guards in the 199th compound shot into the darkness to their front. Privacy Policy2023 CriticalPast LLC. Which date was it? I remember telling him that if the shooting persisted, or if they hit one of my troops, I wouldnt be responsible if my troops shot back. . SV AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND EXPLOSION 118th during the Tet of 1968, also called the Defense of Bien Charlie Company soldiers, used to months of patrolling and fighting in the jungles, suddenly found themselves fighting house to house as their fathers had done in World War II. In mid-September, when Ionoff moved to battalion to become the operations officer (S3), I assumed command of Charlie Company. AIR V..FIRES At 0400 Jones ordered us to pull in our ambushes and be prepared to move. carried on into that night with tracers flying everywhere. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company. the airbase made it too us in the daylight and foamed the ditch for [3]:218, The town of Ho Nai (105812N 1065335E / 10.970N 106.893E / 10.970; 106.893) was located on Highway 1 north of the Widow's Village and Long Binh Post. We were west of Highway QL1 along a road named 535. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. Over the two month recovery and clearing operation, tens of thousands of these hazardous munitions were recoverd by hand, one at a time. The combat around III Corps headquarters was intense. Under fire, Staff Sgt. At dusk, airstrikes had to be called in to blast the VC from the hill. My plan was to make captain and go to Vietnam as an experienced company commander. We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. From our positions, we could see and hear the fireworks lighting the sky over Saigon to the west. forever the big pieces stopped. Four men were killed and more than 20 wounded, including most of the officers. SP4 Lawrence Korteum With a push-to-talk button stuck in the transmit position, no one could use the radio. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! On that fateful night, explosions began at the bomb dump, I immediately responded to CSC as the SP's . But no one would be leaving the country that day. I was the DistrictSenior Advisor (Army) in Vinh Kim, Long Dinh District, right across the canal from Dong Tam in 1968-1969. Following that fight, the 2-47 was ordered south of the 9th Divisions base camp. Sugar Bear Dames, as he was called by his many friends, walked down a side alley toward the highway. Well, the piece of shrapnel 1.19 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. In addition we detained more than 20 probable VC fighters dressed in civilian clothes. SAIGON, South Vietnam, June 1 (Reuters)Explosions ripped through a huge ammu nition dump near here today, killing one soldier and wound ing 13. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. 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 in the pre-dawn gloom, with small-arms fire cracking overhead, I was amazed to see young girls carrying bottles of Coca-Cola, trying to sell them to the troops. night on alert at the Birdcage, I was awakened (trying to sleep had defended the Long Binh ammo dump and had helped in the Widow's Village fight. 3 Merge Long Binh Jail into Long Binh. As I remember this night, around 12 or 12:30 a.m. the sirens 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. 3. https://www.historynet.com/tet-offensive-the-battles-of-bien-hoa-and-long-binh/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. while we were gone. That night, no one slept, but instead scanned the jungles with Starlight scopes, seeing nothing. All of these placements were made with the wrongful assumption that the VC would attack from the jungles outside the base. This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army Center of Military History. Bill Langan, aka "Sparky" was on duty in the 573rd hanger at the Bird Cage and took the slide photo. We had returned from a After all had left for the probably one of the best deals I had been Used for because the Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then charged in shooting. I told the platoon leaders to prepare to dismount and to take all the ammunition and grenades they could carry. Dong Ha vietnam 1968 | Dong Ha ammo dump explosion from NVA artillery fire. the wrecker operator had to know how to weld. Photo Index As we cleared the ambush, the column suddenly came to a halt because of some kind of block in the road; simultaneously, someone keyed the company net. After I received the coordinates of our objective, I yelled, Crank em up! into the radio handset, and we moved out. I explained to the colonel that this was not a police action, and that we werent searching houses, we were in combat. yelling Kortuem! It was As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. The colonel explained that since we were infantry soldiers and did not know the proper method of searching a house, he and his crew had come to teach us. Each APC could carry almost as much ammunition as a dismounted rifle company, and in a fight, the company had 22 .50-caliber machine guns, a 106mm and several 90mm recoilless rifles, and more radios and M-60 machine guns than a walking company could ever carry. The bus ride to 90th Replacement was relatively short and everyone seemed exhausted from the long flight. During this fighting, both platoon leaders were wounded, Lieutenant Casper in the leg and Lieutenant Jones in the foot. 0.59 biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. The battle was significant, since Alphas leadership was seriously depleted during the days immediately prior to Tet. These photos were taken from December 9, 1967 to February 1968. FAQs - How to Order | Back view of jeep with open doors. with no lights waiting for the attack to lift so we could get One A-37 and 1 F-100 were destroyed while a further 17 aircraft were damaged. In a few moments, the huge dump became a fireball, the shock of the explosion echoing over an area of 50 miles. 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 . USAF McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II bomber aircraft drop two Mk.84 HD bombs. Views of a number of huts, in the hamlet, that have not been destroyed. When the Tet cease-fire period began on January 28, the battalion was called back to the vicinity of Bear Cat, a base camp near Long Thanh. About a month earlier I had been loaned out to weld the razor Although initially surprised, U.S. forces had reacted quickly. Despite the confusion and wounds, our troops returned fire. Toggle the table of contents Talk: Long Bnh, Bin Ha. We all knew these moves were more than precautionary. The North Vietnamese Army had circled Love was so startled, he didnt fire. Bin Ha Air Base: Memories of Bin Ha, TET 1969, by Larry - VSPA During this time, the battalion made only sporadic contact and suffered few casualties. The Commo track, C-007, nicknamed Abdula and the Rug Merchants, with Pfc (current Vietnam editor) David Zabecki behind the .50-caliber, brought up the rear. Dressed as travelers returning to ancestral homes for the Tet holiday, the guerrillas had quietly drifted into their urban assembly areas and put together their weapons. Refine Your Search Long Binh Vietnam 1968 stock footage and images - Showing 1 to 6 of 5537 results Sort by: All All Search Results Decade 1890 - 1899 (3) 1900 - 1909 (18) 1910 - 1919 (136) 1920 - 1929 (83) more Location Aalen Germany (1) Aberdeen Proving Ground Maryland USA (1) Afghanistan (2) Africa (3) more Akron Ohio USA (3) After much frequency changing, I finally got the commander of the bunker guards on the radio. I called III Corps to report that we had detained all of these people, and was told to wait for the Vietnamese National Police to take charge. Lt. Col. John E. Gross Recalls the Tet Battles of Bien Hoa and Long Binh the bunker. As the Hueys rockets smashed the VC strongpoint, the scouts fought their way out of the encirclement and evacuated their dead and wounded. He retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel. View of surrounding areas. His action probably saved the lives of everyone on my track. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. However, Charlie Company slammed into the VC before they could organize their attack. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the biggest ordnance storage areas in the country. I had no way of knowing who it was with no light in the By the evening the 2/47th Infantry withdrew into the Long Binh perimeter. 13. raffia 12th combat aviation group - sites.google.com When I arrived at 9th Division in June, I was shocked to learn that I was going to a mechanized battalion. Fires were burning late into the afternoon. Artillery bodies across the road began to bloat into a grotesque scene. It then dawned on us that the VC were throwing down their weapons, changing clothes and slipping away. only be entered from off the Bien Hoa Air base and thru the gate [2]:349, At dawn several AH1 Cobra gunships from the 334th Assault Helicopter Company joined the defense spraying the VC with rockets and machine gun fire which started fires causing the VC assault to lose its impetus. The 1st Platoon of Bravo Company was made the II Field Force reaction force and was placed in the PX parking lot at Long Binh. At about 0600, Lt. Col. John Tower, the new battalion commander, called with orders. After telling them to stop shooting Riflemen staying close behind. All rights reserved. Unfortunately for them, the hapless VC had no weapons other than the RPG launcher, and Dames dispatched them with a burst from his M-16. In the early morning hours on 31 January, insurgent forces launched Ly's grandfather was a soldier stationed in Quang Binh during the war. Contact Us | We had run through the rear of the 274th VC Regiment, which was attacking the airfield. The colonel explained that since we were infantry soldiers and did not know the proper method of searching a house, he and his crew had come to teach us. The two of them refused evacuation and neither reported his wound. When we arrived, we found the churchyard packed with thousands of civilians. 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. PAVN/VC losses were 137 killed and 25 captured. Long Binh ammo dump was one of the Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. As he fell, a burst of automatic weapons fire stitched the wall right where he would have been had he not fallen. (Casper, one of the bravest of the brave, died during the May offensive in Saigon, leading from the front.). OK. Long Binh Ammo Dump - '67 & '68 | Facebook 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. Charlie Companys 3rd Platoon was also detached for a security mission inside the base. I realize now that the track was high enough that the rounds would have passed over the troops in front of the vehicle, Love recalls. The Long Binh ammo dump had exploded. Since I was in an airborne unit, I was sure I would go to the 173rd Airborne Brigade or the 101st Airborne Division. Long Binh Ammo Dump Explosion, Tet, 1968 - YouTube This article was written by John E. Gross and originally published in the February 2008 issue of Vietnam Magazine. This article was originally published in the February 2006 issue of Vietnam Magazine. When the shooting started it Several soldiers gathered in front of the track to help the wounded, and Love climbed up to man the .50-caliber. Another VC battalion infiltrated near the area of the 3rd Ordnance (Long Binh) ammunition dump [and] in a few moments, the huge dump became a fireball. [2]:347, The ARVN 53rd Regional Force Battalion was responsible for security in the countryside around Bin Ha. (Vietnam War period). went off and all hell broke lose. Chu Lai and LZ Baldy Photos. (National Archives), On February 2, 12968, an APC passes buildings damaged by the Americans in the course of flushing out enemy troops from their hiding places in Bien Hoa. [2]:348, As the rockets hit Bien Hoa AB, 2 battalions of the VC 274th Regiment emerged from a rubber plantation 500m east of the eastern perimeter of Bien Hoa AB. This site requires JavaScript. As we made the turn eastward on Highway 1, the lead platoon was ambushed. was a point where the Ho Chi Min Trail came close to the countrys West Tet Offensive I had returned to Long Binh Post. He wanted to borrow one of our tracks. We were ordered to go to that church and detain every male between the ages of 16 and 80. It had been over two days and many of us had no sleep. Dressed as travelers returning to ancestral homes for the Tet holiday, the guerrillas had quietly drifted into their urban assembly areas and put together their weapons. Tower sent the battalion S3, Major Jones, to take command, and once Alpha got moving, it did a magnificent job. Of course you never Get under! After what seemed like The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Sand bags near barbed wire fence. About two days later one the huge fuel bags next Troops opened their attacks with volleys of grenades, then went in shooting.