In the late 1960s the base had become a bustling center of intensive training for crews flying Lockheed C-130 Hercules and de Havilland DHC-7 Caribou transport planes. Trained as a specialist in police security after enlisting in the Air Force in September 1966, I was first assigned to Sewart Air Force Base near Nashville, Tennessee, in 1967. Air Force’s overall security force in Southeast Asia. I had arrived at Bien Hoa early in January and was assigned to the 3rd Security Police Squadron, part of the U.S. That rocket attack, however, was nothing compared to the life-and-death struggle I would face over the next 36 hours. The unguided Chinese-made rockets (105mm and 122mm) had a limited range but caused serious damage wherever they landed. More missiles struck randomly across the base. Seconds later, the air-raid siren let everyone know Bien Hoa was under attack. Only minutes after the team had driven away to check the next post, an enemy rocket suddenly screamed over me and struck a nearby hangar, severely damaging the structure and the aircraft inside. If the teams detected any attempted penetration of the barbed-wire fence around the base’s perimeter, they would greet the Viet Cong with slugs from an M60 machine gun and M16 rifles, as well as rounds from a 40mm grenade launcher. In addition to checking on sentries, security teams patrolled their designated area. and that Bien Hoa, about 60 miles north of Saigon, might be on the enemy’s hit list. I observed the sight from my post at a fuel dump and hoped the remainder of the night would be quiet.Īs the hours dragged into January 30, one of our squadron’s three-man security alert teams pulled up in a vehicle and told me that the bases at Da Nang and Pleiku had been attacked at 3:30 a.m. The flares, accompanied by the occasional rattle of mixed rifle and machine gun fire, marked a celebration of Tet, Vietnam’s lunar New Year. Large numbers of flares shot high into the air and burst into brilliant light, illuminating the landscape before slowly descending to earth. On January 29, 1968, the night sky above the sprawling Bien Hoa Air Base, where I was on sentry patrol, appeared to be on fire. air base gets caught in the crossfire during a Viet Cong attack. ![]() 'Big Ears Three' and the Battle of Bien Hoa CloseĪ 19-year-old sentry assigned to a listening post at a U.S.
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