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Week of
May 3 |
The battle of An Loc during the spring of 1972 lasted for more than two months. As part of the North Vietnamese Army’s April “Easter Offensive,” Hanoi leaders launched a massive multi-pronged attack into South Vietnam using roughly 100,000 troops equipped ... |
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Week of
April 26 |
The Richard M. Nixon administration authorized the Cambodian Incursion on April 28, 1970. Involving approximately 30,000 U.S. troops and 50,000 South Vietnamese troops, it was one of the most significant operations of the war, and the largest since 1967. The incursion’s ... |
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Week of
April 19 |
Sauer’s patrol mission was the morning of the first day of the 1967 battle of Khe Sanh. While Khe Sanh was technically the Huong Hoa district town, the name also became shorthand for a nearby series of high hills and narrow valleys in far northwestern South Vietnam. ... |
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Week of
April 12 |
Operation TOAN THANG III was part of a string of operations with that name that began in 1968 and continued until the end of 1970. Translating as “Total Victory,” the operations utilized both U.S. Army and South Vietnamese Army troops, whose mission was to pursue ... |
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Week of
April 5 |
On March 30, 1972, the North Vietnamese launched their Nguyen Hue Campaign, known to Americans as the “Easter Offensive.” It was a multipronged attack across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and the Laotian and Cambodian borders into multiple regions of South ... |
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Week of
March 30 |
Women Vietnam War veterans are not always remembered as frequently as their male counterparts, but approximately 11,500 women served in Southeast Asia between 1963 and 1975. Women were barred from serving in combat, but thousands of women performed crucial medical ... |
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Week of
March 23 |
The Rung Sat Mangrove Swamp was a desolate place. While a handful of Vietnamese fishing villages existed there, its 400-square-miles of brackish waterways and marshland could not support farming nor a large local population. However, the Long Tau River flowed through ... |
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Week of
March 16 |
Company D of the 3d Battalion, 187th Infantry had an early reputation as a “ragtag” group. It was made up partly of leftover servicemen in need of a unit assignment and soldiers who, according to company commander Captain Paul W. Bucha, “had trouble passing” basic training. But once ... |
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Week of
March 9 |
In 1968, Richard Etchberger was 35 years old and one of only a few men to reach the E9 ranking in the United States Air Force. Etchberger grew up in Hamburg, Pennsylvania with his parents and younger brother. He attended Hamburg High School, where he was a standout on the ... |
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Week of
March 2 |
In March 1968, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63) was on Yankee Station, the U.S. 7th Fleet’s northern patrol location in the Gulf of Tonkin. From there, its complement of aircraft flew missions primarily over North Vietnam, especially against military targets around ... |
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Week of
February 23 |
One of these North Vietnamese attacks came early in the morning on February 23 against a Marine Corps base just west of Da Nang, in Quang Nam Province. Private First Class Oscar Austin and his buddy Lance Corporal Douglas Payne were among those on duty at an observation ... |
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Week of
February 16 |
Operation BARREL ROLL was a covert aerial interdiction and close air support campaign in Laos conducted jointly by the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy between mid-December 1964 and late-March 1973. Initially, American military planners intended the operation to ... |
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Week of
February 16 |
Operation BARREL ROLL was a covert aerial interdiction and close air support campaign in Laos conducted jointly by the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy between mid-December 1964 and late-March 1973. Initially, American military planners intended the operation to ... |
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Week of
February 9 |
The February 10 bomb exploded at about 10:00 PM. Of the 44 men who were asleep in their beds or downstairs in the enlisted men’s club, 23 were killed and 21 were wounded. Seven South Vietnamese civilians were also killed by the blast. The vast majority of the ... |
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Week of
February 2 |
In the immediate wake of the Viet Cong attack at Pleiku’s Camp Holloway on February 7, President Johnson received a report submitted by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy regarding Bundy’s recent trip to South Vietnam. Bundy’s report noted that ... |
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Week of
January 26 |
Robert W. Moinester was born in July, 1943 in Brooklyn, New York. His mother and father, a New York City firefighter, raised him in the Catholic church, and Moinester attended St. Agnes Boys High School in Manhattan before moving on to St. John’s University in Queens, ... |
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Week of
January 19 |
In January 1970, the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 199th Infantry Brigade was operating from Fire Support Base Nancy, located in northern Long Khanh Province next to the village of Dinh Quan. on January 21, 1970, the mortar platoon from Company C, 4th ... |
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Week of
January 12 |
Dwight Hal Johnson was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1947. He grew up in public housing, where he was raised along with his brother by a single mother. As a child, he somehow got the nickname “Skip,” which stuck with him for the rest of his life ... |
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Week of
January 5 |
Participants in Operation CRIMP included elements of the U.S. Army 173d Airborne Brigade, the 28th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, and the 1st Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment: in all, about 8,000 men. These ground forces were also amply ... |
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Week of
December 29 |
Operation KITTY HAWK was a security and escort mission initiated in the provinces of Long Khanh and Phuoc Tuy in III Corps “to secure the Blackhorse Base Camp and the Gia Ray rock quarry, to escort convoys, and to conduct local reconnaissance in force.” The regimental ... |
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Week of
December 22 |
Operation TOAN THANG II ("Complete Victory") commenced June 1, 1968. It was a continuation and expansion of Operation TOAN THANG, the counteroffensive designed to interdict enemy infiltration, and to find and destroy all enemy presence in III Corps. ... |
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Week of
December 15 |
On November 14, 1965, the 4th ACS arrived at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam with 16 operational aircraft plus four more "advanced attrition" planes. It was the first squadron of AC-47B (attack/cargo) aircraft deployed ... |
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Week of
December 8 |
On December 5, 1966, the U.S. Air Force conducted an Arc Light B-52 bombing mission in the Tien Phuoc District, Quang Tin Province in southern I Corps. That same day, Company K, 3/5 Marines arrived at the target area by CH-46 helicopters to assess bomb damage and ... |
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Week of
December 1 |
The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division initiated Operation SHERIDAN SABRE on November 7, 1968 as part of a larger II Field Force/Army of the Republic of Vietnam security operation called Operation TOAN THANG II, which commenced June 1, 1968 in III Corps. ... |
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Week of
November 24 |
On August 30, 1967, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff approved a top-secret MACV-SOG sabotage project dubbed Project Eldest Son. The project was devised by Colonel John K. “Jack” Singlaub, MACV-SOG commander in Vietnam, 1966-1968. He had served with the ... |
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Week of
November 17 |
By 1965 it seemed clear that the Communists would likely overrun South Vietnam if the U.S. did not arrive in force. In March, 3,500 U.S. Marines landed in-country. By summertime, the U.S. Army began sending elements of the Big Red One, the 1st Infantry Division, and ... |
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Week of
November 10 |
Early in the morning on November 11, 1918, in a train parked in a forest near Compiègne, France, the Allied nations and Germany signed an armistice effectively ending the Great War, now known as World War One. The cessation of hostilities in Europe went into ... |
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Week of
November 3 |
The 1970 typhoon season in the western Pacific, and especially the South China Sea, was unusually intense. During the months of September, October, and November, typhoons and tropical storms lashed the coast of South Vietnam from Chu Lai in II Corps up to ... |
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Week of
October 27 |
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) was involved in Southeast Asia beginning in 1961. By 1965, with the massive buildup of American forces in South Vietnam, the USAF mission to train, equip, and otherwise “support” the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) was rapidly expanding ... |
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Week of
October 20 |
U.S. Army Special Forces were first sent to South Vietnam in 1957 to train, advise, and assist members of the Vietnamese Army in their struggle against the Vietnamese Communist (Viet Cong) insurgency. On September 21, 1961, the U.S. Army activated 5th Special Forces ... |
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Week of
October 13 |
Over time, the shoot down of that USAF F-4C Phantom on October 18, 1965 over North Vietnam, and the imprisonment and torture of its pilots, have had a lasting impact on how the military treats returning servicemembers, and especially POWs. After surviving horrendous ... |
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Week of
October 8 |
The U.S. Air Force activated the 1st Air Commando Squadron at Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon in June 1963, ostensibly to train RVNAF pilots. The squadron was made up of seasoned pilots, many of whom were veterans of the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron and ... |
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Week of
September 29 |
Early in 1966, the chiefs of staff of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force agreed that the Air Force would take over Army Caribou operations in Vietnam. By January 1, 1967, all of the Army C-7A Caribous had been successfully transferred to the Air Force and six Caribou squadrons ... |
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Week of
September 22 |
By early 1967, the small port at the mouth of the Cua Viet River, just six miles south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), was vital to the U.S. Marine command in Vietnam. Operations PRAIRIE and DECKHOUSE IV in the months prior, and the expansion of Marine forces and ... |
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Week of
September 15 |
By September 1970, U.S. combat involvement in Vietnam was winding down. The Marines had turned over control of I Corps to the Army in March 1970. As troop withdrawals continued through the year, large U.S. operations gave way to pacification and security missions. ... |
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Week of
September 8 |
On September 8, 1965, at the beginning of the rice harvest, the U.S. Marines 3d Division commenced Operations GOLDEN FLEECE and RICE STRAW in the Da Nang tactical area of responsibility (TAOR). The purpose of the operations, coordinated with South Vietnamese ... |
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Week of
September 1 |
Psychological operations (psyops) have a storied place in the history of American warfare. Vietnam was in some ways a testing ground—and in other ways a playground—for American psyops warriors. From the beginnings of U.S. involvement in Vietnam it was apparent that ... |
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Week of
August 25 |
On July 12, 1970, the 196th Infantry Brigade commenced Operation ELK CANYON by securing the abandoned Kham Duc airfield in the mountains of western Quang Tin Province. The operation was designed to interdict the enemy's lines of communication and ... |
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Week of
August 18 |
The Geneva agreement on the neutrality of Laos was signed in 1962. The terms were ignored by the Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese Army, and subsequently by the Americans (and others) in response. The U.S. government did try at least to maintain the fiction of a ... |
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Week of
August 11 |
The airfield at Soc Trang in the southeastern Mekong Delta was built by the French, used by the Japanese during World War Two, and then used by the Americans from 1962 until the South Vietnamese military took full possession in 1970 as part of President Richard Nixon’s ... |
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Week of
August 4 |
Every year on August 7, beginning in 2014, we observe Purple Heart Day, on which we honor and remember the brave current and former service members who were wounded or killed in action while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. The Purple Heart is the first and oldest ... |
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Week of
July 28 |
By the summer of 1967, the war in the Mekong Delta was in full swing. Two helicopter assault companies—the U.S. Army 114th Assault Helicopter Company (AHC) "Knights of the Air," 13th Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Brigade, which had arrived in Vietnam in ... |
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Week of
July 21 |
During Operation FRANCIS MARION, which was designed to protect the Central Highlands from NVA incursions out of Cambodia, the 3/8 Infantry established a fire support base (FSB) near Plei Ya Bo. Battalion headquarters stayed on the base, as did A Company, both ... |
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Week of
July 14 |
In March 1950, the French asked the United States for military supplies, matériel, and equipment to help fight the spread of international communism in Indochina. The Cold War was underway, and tensions in Korea were reaching a boiling point. The threat of ... |
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Week of
July 7 |
The U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division, initially augmented by the 25th Infantry Division’s 3d Brigade and later by the 173d Airborne Brigade, commenced Operation FRANCIS MARION on April 6, 1967. The operation’s primary mission, like its predecessor Operation ... |
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Week of
June 30 |
An old French fort at Nam Dong in south central Thua Thien Province in I Corps was strategically situated along South Vietnam’s border with Laos. In 1964, a 12-man U.S. Army Special Forces A-Team occupied the camp, augmented by a lone Australian from the ... |
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Week of
June 23 |
By mid-1972, foreign involvement in the war was on the decline. American, Australian, New Zealand, and Thai combat troops were being sent home. American aircrews were relied upon to continue their air support to remaining advisors and ground forces ... |
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Week of
June 16 |
By mid-1972, foreign involvement in the war was on the decline. American, Australian, New Zealand, and Thai combat troops were being sent home. American aircrews were relied upon to continue their air support to remaining advisors and ground forces ... |
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Week of
June 9 |
In July 1966, U.S. Army 5th Special Forces (SF) Group (Airborne) created Projects Omega and Sigma to expand its unconventional operations capability in South Vietnam. These new “Greek-letter” projects “increased the long-range reconnaissance and ... |
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Week of
June 2 |
On March 2, 1965, the U.S. Navy launched the first missions of Operation ROLLING THUNDER, a joint bombing campaign conceived to deter North Vietnam’s support of the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam. Over time, the mission expanded, but initially ... |
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Week of
May 26 |
Vietnamization, the “unilateral withdrawal of American combat troops combined with a major effort to strengthen Saigon’s armed forces,” was one of President Richard M. Nixon’s top priorities when he took office in January 1969. Handing over military operations to ... |
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Week of
May 19 |
Many people, particularly U.S. Airmen, regard the Vietnam War as the “first tanker war” because air refuelers provided direct support to combat aircraft throughout the war as a matter of course. U.S. aircraft regularly traveled vast distances to and from targets in Southeast ... |
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Week of
May 12 |
On Mother’s Day, May 12, 1968, 18 American Soldiers defending the U.S. Special Forces (A-105) and South Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) camp at Kham Duc near the South Vietnamese border with Laos in Quang Tin Province went missing in action ... |
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Week of
May 5 |
On March 18, 1970, communist-leaning Cambodian Chief of State Prince Norodom Sihanouk was deposed by a coup d'état. General Lon Nol assumed emergency powers, demanded that North Vietnam withdraw all troops from Cambodian territory, including along the ... |
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Week of
April 28 |
On May 1, 1966, elements of 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (“Screaming Eagles”) including 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment (“Above the Rest”), 2d Battalion, 502 Infantry Regiment (“O Deuce Widow Makers Strike Force”), 2nd Battalion, 320th ... |
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Week of
April 21 |
On March 1, 1971, the Americal Division, headquartered at Chu Lai along the coast in southern I Corps, commenced Operation FINNEY HILL, a mission “to locate and destroy the Viet Cong (VC) Quang Ngai Provincial Headquarters and the 21st North Vietnamese Army ... |
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Week of
April 14 |
Malaria is a dangerous, often deadly, disease transmitted to humans by the bite of certain mosquitoes infected with Plasmodium parasites, primarily in the tropics and subtropics. While the infection does not spread person to person, it has nevertheless been the scourge of ... |
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Week of
April 7 |
In December 1965, the U.S. Navy established the River Patrol Force (Task Force (TF) 116), designated Operation GAME WARDEN, to patrol the waterways of the Mekong Delta, disrupt Viet Cong activities and supply lines, and protect trade and commerce, especially on the ... |
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Week of
March 31 |
On January 27, 1967, the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines kicked off Operation DESOTO. The battalion’s primary mission was to take over the defense of the Duc Pho District in southern I Corps to free up the 4th Battalion, 4th Regiment, 2d Army of the Republic of (South) ... |
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Week of
March 24 |
Early in March 1966, political divisions in South Vietnam reached a crisis point. Premier Ky’s military regime in Saigon was losing popularity in northern South Vietnam, especially in Da Nang and in the ancient capital of Hue. Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam ... |
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Week of
March 17 |
Prince Norodom Sihanouk, sometime king, prime minister, and chief of state of Cambodia, had a complicated relationship with the United States. In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. government provided substantial military support to Cambodia, ... |
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Week of
March 10 |
Operation SILVER CITY, characterized by battalion-sized search and destrop missions just 30 miles northeast of Saigon, commenced on March 7, 1966. The U.S. Army's 1st Brigade and 173d Airborne Brigade joined forces with 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1 RAR) ... |
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Week of
March 3 |
On May 2, 1964, VC swimmers/sappers mined and sank aircraft ferry USNS Card (T-AKV-40) in the Port of Saigon. From this incident, the Navy learned its ships were highly vulnerable and it needed increased security patrols ashore and in the waters of South ... |
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Week of
February 25 |
The Tet Offensive, a coordinated set of North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong attacks on approximately 100 South Vietnamese cities, towns, and villages, and U.S. military installations, commenced on January 30, 1968 and was not finally suppressed until ... |
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Week of
February 18 |
In 1965, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War escalated considerably. In January that year there were just over 25,000 Americans deployed in South Vietnam. By November 1965, 100,000 American Soldiers and Marines were in country, and several major engagements with the ... |
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Week of
February 11 |
Leaflet distribution has a long and illustrious history in the annals of psychological warfare. Aerial dispersion methods reached new heights during the Vietnam War. On January 6, 1961, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev spoke to the Communist Party Congress in Moscow ... |
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Week of
February 4 |
By the end of 1964, the 52nd Battalion based at Camp Halloway jst outside Pleiku in II Corps was one of three major aviation battalions flying in South Vietnam. It supported the American Army in both I and II Corps, The battalion consisted of two Bell UH-1 Iroquois "Huey" ... |
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Week of
January 28 |
By early 1970, the U.S. Marine Corps mission and experience in I Corps was changing. Troop withdrawals combined with shifting priorities set up a new wartime paradigm. Pacification programs and Vietnamization efforts took on a larger role, and for many ... |
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Week of
January 21 |
In October 1966, U.S. forces in Vietnam began taking the offensive. The rapid buildup of military power had reached the point at which the commanding general of U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) believed success was on the horizon. The South ... |
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Week of
January 14 |
South Vietnamese Communists, employing skill and expertise gained in their fight against the French in the First Indochina War, engaged in highly effective water mine warfare throughout the Vietnam War. Often using homemade devices, they were able to disrupt ... |
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Week of
January 7 |
Beginning in the fall of 1967, the U.S. Army began operations to dislodge the North Vietnamese Army’s (NVA) 2d Division from the vicinity of the Que Son Basin. The relatively populous basin, which straddled the border of the coastal Quang Nam and Quang Tin ... |
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Week of
December 31 |
President Richard M. Nixon’s policy of Vietnamization, which Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird described as a program intended to “expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily ... |
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Week of
December 24 |
On December 26, 1967, the 3/1 Marines initiated Operation BADGER TOOTH with an unopposed amphibious landing over Green Beach just east of the “Street Without Joy” near the southern border of the northernmost province of I Corps. ... |
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Week of
December 17 |
The Laotian Question was settled in July 1962 at an international conference in Geneva. The agreement reached there declared Laos a neutral country in the fight for Vietnamese independence, and all 14 signatories agreed to respect Laotian neutrality. ... |
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Week of
December 10 |
The "The Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" (a.k.a., the Paris Peace Accords) was signed at the end of January 1973 by the United States of America, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam ... |
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Week of
December 3 |
Shortly after his inauguration, President John F. Kennedy was persuaded that American counterinsurgency assistance efforts were necessary to protect South Vietnam from the rising communist threat. With National Security Action Memorandum Number 2 (NSAM-2), ... |
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Week of
November 26 |
By late 1970, the Americal Division almost exclusively supported pacification in Quang Tin and Quang Ngai Provinces in I Corps. The 11th Light Infantry Brigade (LIB), attached to Americal, operated primarily in Quang Ngai Province in I Corps. The 11th Light Infantry ... |
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Week of
November 19 |
The first South Korean combat troops arrived in South Vietnam a few months after the first American divisions arrived. Following almost a year of non-combatant participation that was partly a response to President Lyndon Johnson’s “More Flags” campaign, the South ... |
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Week of
November 12 |
In the early summer of 1957, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) (1st FSG (A)) was activated on Okinawa. By the end of that year, they had sent the first Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) team—otherwise known as an A-team, the primary fighting force ... |
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Week of
November 5 |
Australia provided advisers to the South Vietnamese military beginning in 1962. They later sent an aviation detachment, and a civic action team to support the beleaguered South Vietnamese government, but there were not more than 50 Australians assisting ... |
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Week of
October 29 |
By early 1962, the South Vietnamese Communists, or Viet Cong (VC), were stepping up their terrorism campaign in populated areas, and were conducting large, multibattalion military operations against South Vietnamese government forces. The United States responded ... |
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Week of
October 22 |
Elements of the 3d, 4th, 9th, and 26th Marines conducted Operation KINGFISHER in the western part of what became known as Leatherneck Square—the area between Con Thien, Cam Lo, Dong Ha, and Gio Linh along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in northern ... |
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Week of
October 15 |
President Richard Nixon announced in October 1970 that an additional 40,000 American troops would be brought home from Vietnam by the end of the year. At the same time, elements of the 25th Infantry Division, along with a host of other American military ... |
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Week of
October 8 |
On September 2, 1966, the 25th Infantry Division, headquartered at Cu Chi in III Corps, launched Operation SUNSET BEACH to secure their area of operations. The division’s 2d Brigade, along with 1st Infantry Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment (Mechanized), and 1st and 2d ... |
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Week of
October 1 |
American involvement in Vietnam increased significantly in 1967. Several changes were made in the United States force structure to cope with the expanded effort. First, all the American field intelligence and advisory elements, along with the combined ... |
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Week of
September 24 |
In March 1970, while Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk was resting on the French Riviera before heading for a visit to the Soviet Union, the Cambodian parliament unanimously withdrew its confidence from the prince. This was in part because the prince ... |
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Week of
September 17 |
The United States Army’s 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division launched Operation HIGHLAND on August 22, 1965. The objective of the operation was to ensure the safe arrival in country of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). This required uncontested ... |
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Week of
September 10 |
By September 1966, the United States Marines in southeastern I Corps were primarily engaged in pacification efforts, protecting villages and hamlets, and disrupting Viet Cong (VC) guerrilla operations. 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine ... |
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Week of
September 3 |
In August 1965, the first elements of the United States 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) arrived in II Corps at An Khe in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. The advance liaison detachment was charged with site selection for the 1st Cav’s future base camp. The team ... |
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Week of
August 27 |
In 1965, the United States dramatically increased its military presence and combat readiness in South Vietnam. By the end of the year, the U.S. Army had deployed two full divisions (the 1st Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)), along with ... |
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Week of
August 20 |
By May of 1968, United States Marines in I Corps had their hands full with energized enemy forces. Although they had successfully driven the enemy from the old imperial city of Hue, Marines were still besieged at Khe Sanh, and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) was ... |
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Week of
August 13 |
In 1967, General William C. Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), believed that the decisive action of the war in Vietnam was imminent, and would take place in northern I Corps along the DMZ. In April that year, he created a ... |
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Week of
August 6 |
Beginning in 1965, 26 United States Coast Guard (USCG) 82-foot cutters deployed to the South China Sea to assist with Operation MARKET TIME, the U.S., South Vietnamese, and Australian Navies’ joint effort to thwart North Vietnamese infiltration of men and ... |
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Week of
July 30 |
The first South Korean combat troops arrived in Vietnam in the fall of 1965, not long after the first American combat troops arrived in country. Initially, the Republic of Korea (ROK) sent an army division and a marine brigade as part of the Free World alliance ... |
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Week of
July 23 |
The Rhade tribesmen of the Central Highlands in South Vietnam played a significant role in the Vietnam War. The Rhade were the largest and considered the most socially advanced of the major indigenous Montagnard tribes in South Vietnam. ... |
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Week of
July 16 |
The cessation of Operation ROLLING THUNDER in November 1968 shifted American air power priorities mostly away from North Vietnam—except around Vinh, just north of the demilitarized zone—primarily to South Vietnam and Laos. Navy aircraft continued to ... |
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Week of
July 9 |
By the spring of 1971, both President Richard Nixon’s Vietnamization policy and the withdrawal of American troops from combat zones in South Vietnam were making excellent headway. Hope was high that the South Vietnamese would soon be ... |
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Week of
July 2 |
Less than two weeks after President Richard Nixon’s inauguration, Communist leadership hatched a plan to test the resolve of the new administration and the American people. The Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) issued a directive to the North Vietnamese ... |
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Week of
June 25 |
The first elements of the United States Army’s 1099th Transportation Company (Boat), arrived in Vietnam in May 1965 and it was at full strength by the middle of the summer. The Army’s experience with amphibious operations during World War Two ... |
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Week of
June 18 |
In 1970, B Troop, 2d Squadron (Airmobile), 17th Cavalry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (B 2/17th Cav), a helicopter cavalry unit, was supporting the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Eagle in I Corps.
B Troop provided direct support to the division’s 1st Brigade, ... |
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Week of
June 11 |
In the middle of the night on June 14, 1969, after extensive reconnaissance and surveillance, North Vietnamese Army (NVA) sappers attacked elements of the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) at Fire Support Base (FSB) Berchtesgaden using rocket propelled ... |
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Week of
June 4 |
Just before midnight on the nearly moonless night of June 5, 1972, a four-man United States Navy special operations team jumped from a helicopter to rendezvous with submarine USS Grayback (LPSS-574) just off the coast of North Vietnam. The team was continuing ... |
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Week of
May 28 |
On May 28, 1965, two U.S. Army UH-1B Huey helicopters, tail numbers 63-08592 and 63-08594, collided midair about 75 feet over the III Corps soccer field at Bien Hoa Air Base. The first was apparently performing an autorotation exercise when the collision ... |
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Week of
May 21 |
On May 23, 1968, Viet Cong guerillas near Trang Bang attacked 2d Platoon, C Company, 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division (C/2-12) with rocket-propelled grenades (RPG), small arms, and automatic weapons fire. A tracker dog team from ... |
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Week of
May 14 |
On May 18, 1970, Company C, 2d Battalion (Mechanized), 22d Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division engaged an unknown number of enemy combatants about five miles northwest of Krek in Cambodia. The firefight commenced just before dark that evening ... |
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Week of
May 7 |
Just after midnight on May 12, 1969, the explosion of mortar rounds shattered the nighttime quiet inside Fire Support Base (FSB) Gela. A force of North Vietnamese soldiers was attacking, beginning with artillery and followed by a ground assault. As the artillerymen of FSB ... |
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Week of
April 30 |
Late April in 1970, two United States Army advisers —First Lieutenant Richard H. Davis and Sergeant First Class Vernel Collins—accompanied elements of the South Vietnamese 28th Regional Forces on a search-and-clear operation in Kien Phong Province ... |
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Week of
April 23 |
In the early morning darkness of April 23, 1965, a seven-man Marine Force Reconnaissance team disembarked a landing craft and waded ashore not far from Da Nang, in Quang Nam Province. Their mission was to probe for contact with Communist insurgents and scout ... |
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Week of
April 16 |
In the spring of 1969, the United States Marine Corps and the South Vietnamese Army collaborated in Operation OKLAHOMA HILLS, a three-month initiative to locate and clear North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units from central Quang Nam Province in I Corps. They ... |
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Week of
April 9 |
From April 11-12, 1966, American forces from the 1st Infantry Division (“Big Red One”) engaged a main-force Viet Cong battalion directly outside its base camp. Known as the Battle of Xa Cam My, or alternatively the Battle of Courtenay Plantation, the men of ... |
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Week of
April 2 |
On April 4, 1975, the first flight of Operation BABYLIFT ended in tragedy. The flight was bringing adopted Vietnamese war orphans to their new homes in the United States and Canada. Twelve minutes after takeoff from Tan Son Nhut Air Base bound for Clark Air Base ... |
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Week of
March 26 |
On April 1, 1965, an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) Ranger team rendered an air assault into an area along the Vam Co Dong River southwest of Duc Hoa in the Hau Nghia Province and northwest of Saigon on the Cambodian border. After a full day of ... |
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Week of
March 19 |
On March 22, 1969, the 82-foot United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Point Orient (WPB 82319), U.S. Coast Guard Coastal Division Twelve (COSDIV-12), U.S. Coast Guard Squadron One, Task Force 115, U.S. Naval Forces Vietnam (USNAVFORV), was patrolling near the ... |
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Week of
March 12 |
Early in the morning on March 14, 1967, Company A, 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry Regiment, 2d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division set out on patrol in the jungle about 16 miles west of Plei Djereng airfield in the Central Highlands near the Cambodian border. They were ... |
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Week of
March 5 |
On March 10, 1963, a U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky UH-34D Seahorse helicopter from Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 162 (HMM-162), crashed attempting to rescue a downed Army OV-1C Mohawk pilot. The crash site was approximately 5,000 feet above sea level ... |
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Week of
February 26 |
Early in the morning on March 4, 1971, a Beechcraft JU-21A aircraft took off from Phu Bai Air Base on a signal intelligence collection mission over the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and southwestern North Vietnam. They were specifically looking for a newly established ... |
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Week of
February 19 |
Late in the morning of February 16, 1965, an American Dust Off pilot noticed movement on an apparent strange new outcropping from a hidden, rocky beach at a cliff base in Vung Ro Bay, and reported the sighting. It turned out to be a heavily camouflaged North ... |
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Week of
February 12 |
Just before midnight on February 14, 1968, a U.S Air Force AC-47D "Spooky" gunship from the 14th Air Commando Squadron (ACS), 14th Air Commando Wing (ACW), 7th Air Force, took off from Phan Rang Air Base in the Ninh Thuan Province of South Vietnam to ... |
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Week of
February 5 |
At 10:45 a.m. on February 7, 1968, an M-113 armored personnel carrier (APC) crested a hill several miles south of Thang Bin in Quang Tin Province while on a mission and suddenly exploded. The blast was the result of an enemy-triggered 250-pound bomb directly ... |
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Week of
January 29 |
In the early morning hours of January 31, 1968, Viet Cong sappers attacked a number of South Vietnamese and American targets in the capital city of Saigon. Snipers on Plantation Road near the Phu Tho Racetrack in the Chinese suburb of Cholon ambushed several ... |
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Week of
January 22 |
On Saturday evening, January 27, 1973, North Vietnamese artillery fired a parting barrage at An Loc in Binh Long Province, about 70 miles north of Saigon near the Cambodian border. The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) senior adviser to the ... |
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Week of
January 15 |
At 7:48 p.m. on Friday, January 19, 1968, an enemy force attacked the 25th Infantry Division base camp at Cu Chi with 82mm mortars and recoilless rifle fire. The 1st Battalion, 502d Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division was temporarily quartered on the base and ... |
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Week of
January 8 |
Early in the evening of January 8, 1968, a Marine Sikorsky CH-53A “Sea Stallion” flying in foul weather, crashed into a mountain at cruising speed, approximately 150 knots. The Sea Stallion exploded, killing all five crew members and 41 passengers instantly. The ... |
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Week of
January 1 |
On January 7, 1966, United States and Australian Army forces launched Operation CRIMP, a massive joint search-and-destroy operation in a region about 25 miles northwest of Saigon. Their objective was to locate and destroy the Viet Cong headquarters ... |
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Week of
December 25 |
A force of Communist guerrillas occupied the small South Vietnamese town of Binh Gia, in the Mekong Delta, on December 28, 1964. A battle for the town erupted the following day, as non-Communist forces tried to reclaim it. No American units engaged ... |
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Week of
December 18 |
On December 24, 1970, nine American soldiers from 2d Platoon, Company A, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 101st Infantry Division were killed and nine severely wounded. A 155mm high explosive U.S. artillery shell had landed in the ... |
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Week of
December 11 |
On December 15, 1970, a C-2A Greyhound carrier onboard delivery (COD) cargo aircraft was headed for Subic Bay, Philippines aboard USS Ranger, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier on Yankee Station approximately 70 miles off the northern coast of South ... |
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Week of
December 4 |
Sometime during the early morning hours of December 7, 1967, Viet Cong guerrillas attacked a platoon of United States Marines. The Marines were in their overnight position on routine patrol just a few miles south of the air base at Quang Tri in I Corps at the ... |
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Week of
November 27 |
On Saturday, November 27, 1965, a reinforced North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regiment attacked and destroyed the 7th Regiment, 5th Infantry Division, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) near the Michelin Rubber Plantation a few miles northeast of ... |
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Week of
November 20 |
On the morning of November 24, 1966, Viet Cong guerrillas in the Central Highlands ambushed a convoy of communications contractors and U.S. military personnel. The caravan was traveling from the mountain resort town of Da Lat to Pr` Line Mountain, ... |
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Week of
November 13 |
On November 15, 1969, Viet Cong soldiers shot down a United States Army OV-1C Mohawk flying on a visual reconnaissance mission in the Mekong Delta near the coast. Crewmembers on U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Point Grace (WPB-82323) saw the aircraft go down in ... |
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Week of
November 6 |
On November 7, 1967, Companies C and D with a Headquarters Company command group from 1st Infantry Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 3d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division (the Big Red One), were ambushed. The trap was sprung by soldiers of ... |
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Week of
October 30 |
In late October 1970, the remnants of Super Typhoon Kate crossed the South China Sea and arrived in South Vietnam as a tropical storm. It brought days of heavy rains and caused widespread flooding, especially in the Quang Nam Province south of ... |
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Week of
October 23 |
On October 23, 1966, Senior Chief Boatswain’s Mate (BMCS) Charles F. Busby, was fatally injured while serving as the chief harbor pilot at Da Nang Harbor, Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam. Busby, assigned to Port/Harbor Operations, Naval Support Activity (NSA) ... |
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Week of
October 16 |
On the evening of October 18, 1965, two aircraft supporting a clandestine reconnaissance mission in Laos, vanished after reporting visibility troubles in the darkening clouds and storms on their way home. One aircraft was a South Vietnamese Air Force ... |
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Week of
October 9 |
On the evening of October 13, 1970, Company B, 1st Battalion, 52d Infantry Regiment, 198th Infantry Brigade, Americal Division was on a search-and-clear mission. They had just moved to a night defensive position about 12 miles northwest of Quang Ngai in ... |
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Week of
October 2 |
On October 4, 1965, three American pilots were killed in action just north of Vinh Thanh Airfield near An Khe in Binh Dinh Province, II Corps, South Vietnam. U.S. Army Captain Charles F. De Amaral, Jr., pilot, and U.S. Air Force Captain John D. Musgrove, forward air ... |
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Week of
September 25 |
At approximately 10 a.m. on Sunday, September 26, 1965, two American POWs were executed on orders from the communist National Liberation Front’s (NLF) high command by the Viet Cong in South Vietnam. The NLF's clandestine "Liberation Radio" had ... |
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Week of
September 18 |
On September 20, 1965, four United States Air Force crewmen took off in their HH-43 Huskie helicopter to rescue an F-105 Thunderchief pilot shot down over North Vietnam. During the initial rescue attempt, North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces began ... |
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Week of
September 11 |
On September 17, 1967, Private First Class John C. Peel was serving as an artillery forward observer (FO) with E Company, 2d Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment during the Marine Corps search-and-destroy mission Operation BALLISTIC CHARGE in Quang Nam province. As ... |
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Week of
September 4 |
On September 7, 1970, North Vietnamese troops ambushed a convoy of four United States Army M113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) and one M551 Sheridan tank on a road near the town of Phu My, in Binh Dinh Province, South Vietnam. The attack ... |
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Week of
August 28 |
Not long before sunrise on September 1, 1967, a UH-1H “Huey” helicopter attached to Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron 3 (HAL-3, known as the “Seawolves”) lifted off from the deck of USS Garrett County (LST-786), which was anchored in the Hau Giang River ... |
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Week of
August 21 |
On August 23, 1968, during Operation TOAN THANG II, near the town of Loc Ninh, South Vietnam, D Company, 1st Battalion, 2d Infantry Regiment was acting as a rear-guard security force for the rest of the battalion. Private First Class Walter Ferguson, Jr., a ... |
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Week of
August 14 |
On August 20, 1964, four American military advisers accompanied four companies of South Vietnamese troops to a small village in Kien Hoa Province, in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam. While en route, a large contingent of Viet Cong insurgents ambushed the South ... |
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Week of
August 7 |
While patrolling the Bo De River the morning of August 11, 1970, USS Canon (PG-90) was conducting “harassment and interdiction” fires against suspected enemy positions, when Viet Cong insurgents ambushed the patrol gunboat from both sides of the river ... |
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Week of
July 31 |
On the evening of August 6, 1972, United States Navy Lieutenant James R. Lloyd was flying from the USS Saratoga (CV-60) on a routine mission, when he was hit by a surface-to-air missile (SAM), forcing him to eject 21 miles inland from the Gulf of Tonkin ... |
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Week of
July 24 |
On July 24, 1965, two decorated veteran United States Air Force pilots were shot down over North Vietnam by a surface-to-air missile (SAM). The weapons officer, Captain Roscoe H. Fobair, was killed. Roscoe’s pilot, Captain Richard P. Keirn, successfully ... |
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Week of
July 17 |
On July 18, 1969, while on patrol in a bamboo thicket, Sergeant Rodney J. Evans heard the booming crash of an explosion to his right. A hidden booby trap had detonated amid a nearby squad of soldiers, killing or maiming multiple men. At that moment, he ... |
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Week of
July 10 |
On July 10, 1967, during Operation GREELEY in Kontum Province, South Vietnam, three companies attached to 4th Battalion, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade, were on a search-and-destroy mission when A Company encountered an entrenched force of ... |
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Week of
July 3 |
On July 7, 1967, a flight of B-52 Stratofortress bombers from Strategic Air Command’s 4133 Bomb Wing’s Guam base were on their way to bomb targets in South Vietnam when the lead bomber had an equipment malfunction. As a second B-52 moved to replace ... |
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Week of
June 26 |
On June 30, 1966, elements of the 4th Cavalry Regiment and the 18th Infantry Regiment were moving along a road north of Loc Ninh, South Vietnam, when the lead cavalry troop was ambushed by a large force of Viet Cong guerrillas. The ensuing battle lasted through ... |
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Week of
June 19 |
On June 19, 1970, the men of the 984th Engineering Company, 62d Engineering Battalion, were asleep in their forward camp during the final days of the Cambodian Incursion, when they were attacked by a force of North Vietnamese troops with rockets and mortars. The ... |
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Week of
June 12 |
At about 1 a.m. on June 16, 1968, Fast Patrol Craft 19 (PCF-19), part of the U.S. Navy Task Force 115, was on a routine night patrol a few miles off shore in the South China Sea. Without warning, an unknown hovering aircraft fired three rockets. The rockets ... |
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Week of
June 5 |
Just before midnight, on June 9, 1965, approximately 1,750 Viet Cong insurgents attacked the U.S. Special Forces camp outside of the town of Dong Xoai, Phuoc Long Province, South Vietnam. The camp’s garrison of just greater than 400 men, most of them South ... |
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Week of
May 29 |
On June 1, 1971, a flight of AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters from the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division were providing air cover during the emergency extraction of an Army Ranger team in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam. After the successful rescue, the ... |
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Week of
May 22 |
On May 26, 1967, Company L, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines was in Quang Tin Province, South Vietnam, participating in Operation UNION II. After the Marines touched down at the landing zone, they received a heavy volume of machine gun and mortar fire from ... |
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Week of
May 15 |
On the morning of May 16, 1965, a 500-pound bomb attached to a B-57 Canberra bomber accidentally detonated on the tarmac at Bien Hoa Air Base, South Vietnam.The resulting explosion caused a chain reaction, as additional nearby ordnance and jet fuel exploded ... |
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Week of
May 8 |
On May 10, 1967, B Company, 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, was hit with intense small arms fire on two sides by a force of entrenched Viet Cong insurgents in the Que Son Valley, Quang Nam Province. The company of Marines maneuvered eastward, but was unable to ... |
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Week of
May 1 |
While fighting enemy forces near Ap Bac in the Mekong Delta approximately 30 miles southwest of Saigon on May 2, 1967, a machine gun team assigned to A Company, 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry, 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, left the cover of ... |
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Week of
April 24 |
On the morning of April 30, 1968, U.S. Navy Landing Craft, Utility 1477 (LCU-1477) was part of a convoy moving up the Cua Viet River in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, when suddenly a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into its gun turret from the ... |
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Week of
April 17 |
On April 19, 1966, during a U.S. attack on the vital Mu Gia Pass on the North Vietnam and Laos border, a flight of four F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers hit their target. The flight then turned their attention toward their secondary objective: aerial reconnaissance ... |
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Week of
April 10 |
On April 12, 1964, a large force of Viet Cong guerrillas infiltrated and occupied the district town of Kien Long, in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam. In response, the South Vietnamese Army arrived outside the town via CH-21 troop transport helicopters ... |
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Week of
March 27 |
On March 30, 1972, the North Vietnamese Army launched a massive invasion into South Vietnam. The invasion began with the shelling of Fire Support Base (FSB) “Sarge,” on a hill just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), where the United States and ... |
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Week of
March 20 |
On March 20, 1971, the South Vietnamese Army was approaching the conclusion of a near-catastrophic withdrawal from Laos. In an operation known as LAM SON 719, they had spent weeks attempting to end the North Vietnamese occupation of eastern Laos along the ... |
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Week of
March 13 |
In the late afternoon of March 18, 1968, the 98 men of Delta Company, 3d Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, stumbled into an entire battalion of North Vietnamese Army troops in the dense jungle outside Phuoc Vinh, South ... |
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Week of
March 6 |
On March 6, 1968, Lieutenants Richard C. Nelson and Gilbert L. Mitchell launched from the deck of USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63)in their two-seat A-6 Intruder attack jet. They were one of four A-6s from Kitty Hawk assigned to strike targets in the North ... |
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Week of
February 27 |
On March 3, 1966, Operation COCOA BEACH had its desired effect–to bring an organized Viet Cong force out from hiding so that it could be destroyed by elements of the 1st Infantry Division’s 3d Brigade. Initiated by Second Lieutenant Robert J. Hibbs in the ... |
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Week of
February 20 |
On February 24, 1967, a platoon of South Vietnamese Army rangers was ambushed by Viet Cong forces on a hillside in the Vietnamese Central Highlands. The ranger platoon, along with two accompanying American advisers, was wiped out. When the ... |
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Week of
February 13 |
On February 16, 1971, three U.S. Army servicemen from Advisory Team 55 were aboard a 13-foot “Boston Whaler” patrol boat, moving along a canal in the U-Minh Forest, deep in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam. Sergeant First Class Leslie L. Karnes operated ... |
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Week of
February 6 |
On February 8, 1971, during the first full day of the South Vietnamese invasion of Laos known as Operation LAM SON 719, a UH-1 “Huey” helicopter carrying four U.S. servicemen and six South Vietnamese soldiers was struck by antiaircraft fire over the Ho Chi Minh Trail ... |
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Week of
January 30 |
On February 3, 1968, U.S. Air Force pilots Major A. L. Lomax and First Lieutenant Wallace L. Wiggins each flew a F-102 Delta Dagger fighter-interceptor jet on an escort mission over North Vietnam. During the mission, the two pilots engaged at least two North ... |
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Week of
January 23 |
On January 29, 1967, elements of the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, landed in transport helicopters in western Quang Nam Province to set up a blocking position for 2nd Battalion as it pushed a force of North Vietnamese soldiers toward them ... |
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Week of
January 16 |
On January 21, 1966, 14 Force Reconnaissance Marines were on a patrol in western Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam, searching for signs of Viet Cong activity. While walking atop a steep ridgeline in fog and drenching rain, the Marines were attacked by ... |
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Week of
January 9 |
On January 15, 1968, four M48 tanks from Company B, 1st Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, were ambushed by a battalion of North Vietnamese Army troops near Dak To, in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. Rocket strikes disabled two of the tanks ... |
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Week of
January 2 |
Late on January 2, 1970, Second Lieutenant Robert C. “Bob” Wright was in command of an advance party of artillerymen and infantrymen who were establishing a new firebase on a hill near the South Vietnamese town of Duc Pho. Their unfinished camp came ... |
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Week of
December 19 |
As the sun came up on Christmas Day, 1968, Airman First Class Charles D. King volunteered for his 76th rescue mission in Southeast Asia. A pilot, Major Charles R. Brownlee, had been shot down in his F-105 Thunderchief during a mission over Laos the night before, ... |
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Week of
December 12 |
On December 17, 1968, a 39-vehicle convoy from the 48th Transportation Group was moving ammunition and food between Long Binh and Dau Tieng, South Vietnam when the lead vehicles were suddenly hit by mortar fire. Hidden ... |
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Week of
December 5 |
On December 9, 1965, U.S. Marine Corps Major Donald J. Reilly was the pilot of a UH-1 “Huey” helicopter during Operation HARVEST MOON in Quang Tin Province, South Vietnam. During a night fight against several Viet Cong regiments, ... |
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Week of
November 21 |
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The presidency passed to Lyndon B. Johnson, who would in the years that followed make the decision to send American combat troops to Vietnam. ... |
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Week of
November 14 |
On November 14, 1965, elements of the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) were engaged in an intense battle against North Vietnamese soldiers in the Ia Drang Valley at Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray. The cavalry troopers on the ground were receiving all the air ... |
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Week of
November 7 |
On November 10, 1968, U.S. Navy River Squadron 9, Task Force 117, was on a search-and-destroy mission along a canal that branched from the Ong Huong River in South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. The squadron consisted of troop landing craft and gunboats called ... |
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Week of
October 31 |
At approximately 3:30 am on November 1, 1968, 800 North Vietnamese soldiers launched a surprise attack on U.S. Army Fire Support Base (FSB) Rita, in the “Fishhook” area straddling the Cambodia border with South Vietnam. ... |
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Week of
October 24 |
October 26, 1966, Petty Officer 2d Class Terrence “Terry” J. Freund was a machine gunner aboard “Patrol Boat, River” (PBR) 40, River Division 51, Task Force 116. Together with the crew of PBR 34, the four-man crew of PBR 40 was patrolling the Bassac River in the ... |
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Week of
October 17 |
On October 17, 1968, during the waning days of Operation NAPOLEON/SALINE in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, (then) Staff Sergeant John C. Yates was serving as Communications Chief for a column of Marine Corps amphibious tracked personnel ... |
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Week of
October 10 |
On October 12, 1967, more than 150 Viet Cong insurgents attacked a South Vietnamese Army outpost in Long An Province, northwest of Saigon, South Vietnam. The outpost was defended by elements of the South Vietnamese 25th Infantry Division. ... |
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Week of
October 3 |
On October 8, 1967, Staff Sergeant Thomas Witherspoon, Jr., was behind the wheel of a jeep, driving his commanding officer between Hai Lang and Quang Tri City, South Vietnam, when the two men were ambushed by Viet Cong insurgents along the ... |
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Week of
September 26 |
In 1969, Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. Novosel was 47 years old, one of the oldest active pilots in Vietnam. He had recently been diagnosed with glaucoma and needed to get a waiver from the Army to keep flying. ... |
![An example of a Vietnam-era blood chit. Searchers located Cook’s blood chit near the wreckage of his F-4 Phantom. (courtesy of Lapeer [Michigan] County Historical Society)](/assets/1/7/MainFCKEditorDimension/Blood_chit_REV1.PNG) |
Week of
September 19 |
On September 21, 1972, U.S. Air Force Major Roger W. Carroll, Jr., and First Lieutenant Dwight W. Cook flew their F-4 Phantom II fighter/bomber for an attack run on an enemy target near the Plain of Jars, in Laos. As they made a low pass and released their ... |
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Week of
September 12 |
On September 17, 1966, during Operation PRAIRIE in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, Lance Corporals Claiborne L. Shaw and Mark A. Ferguson volunteered to retrieve the bodies of their fallen fellow Marines after they had been ambushed by North ... |
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Week of
September 5 |
Operation KENTUCKY COUGAR was an interdiction operation conducted by elements of the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division supporting Operation TOAN THANG III (“Complete Victory”) – a combined military operation designed to keep pressure on enemy ... |
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Week of
August 29 |
On September 4, 1968, U.S. Army Warrant Officer James G. Zeimet was piloting a UH-1 “Huey” air ambulance in Kontum Province, South Vietnam, during Operation MACARTHUR. He and his copilot had already retrieved seven wounded soldiers off of a battlefield ... |
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Week of
August 22 |
On August 24, 1965, a U.S. Marine Corps C-130 Hercules taxied along the runway at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport, preparing to fly to Da Nang, South Vietnam. On board the Hercules were 71 Marines, including a crew of five, returning to the war zone after two weeks ... |
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Week of
August 15 |
On August 19, 1969, during a rare post-Tet North Vietnamese offensive in the Hiep Duc Valley, the command and control helicopter for the 3d Battalion of the 21st Infantry Regiment circled the battlefield above the River Chang, taking heavy small-arms ... |
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Week of
August 8 |
In the early morning darkness of August 8, 1970, Lance Corporal Peter Charlie and three other U.S. Marines from 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, were waiting along a trail in Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam, poised to spring an ambush on some North Vietnamese ... |
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Week of
August 1 |
On August 7, 1965, Lieutenant Commander Harold E. Gray, Jr., took off from the aircraft carrier USS (CVA 41) in his A-1H Skyraider for another ROLLING THUNDER strike sortie over North Vietnam. It would be his final mission. As Gray pulled up after hitting his ... |
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Week of
July 25 |
4,000 soldiers from the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division touched down at Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam on July 29, 1965. It was the first combat deployment for the 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles” in Southeast Asia, and just the third U.S. Army combat ... |
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Week of
July 18 |
On July 21, 1967, Company M, 3d Battalion of the 26th Marine Regiment, was on a patrol mission in the vicinity of Khe Sanh, South Vietnam, when the company’s lead element engaged a reinforced platoon of North Vietnamese soldiers. Within minutes, the ... |
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Week of
July 11 |
On the evening of July 11, 1965, a squad of Marines was dispatched to provide security while a disabled truck received repairs south of Da Nang, South Vietnam. Corporal Brian J. Gauthier led the squad off the road into the trees to set up an ambush position ... |
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Week of
July 4 |
On July 4, 1969, Colonel Patrick M. Fallon and his wingman took off from Thailand’s Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Base, for a secret mission over northern Laos. Their job was to conduct armed reconnaissance against the Communist insurgent group known ... |
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Week of
June 27 |
On June 26, 1972, the guided missile destroyer USS Stoddert (DDG-22) was supporting South Vietnamese troops onshore with its five-inch guns during their attempts to defeat the Communist “Easter Offensive.” In the middle of the bombardment, a live shell ... |
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Week of
June 20 |
On June 21, 1967, two U.S. Army soldiers displayed truly remarkable acts of valor within minutes of each other in Binh Dinh Province, South Vietnam. Their platoon had moved to secure the site of a crashed helicopter when they were attacked from ... |
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Week of
June 13 |
On June 19, 1964, three U.S. Army Green Berets accompanied 103 South Vietnamese militia fighters on a planned two-day reconnaissance patrol in Tay Ninh Province, approximately 60 miles northeast of Saigon. On the afternoon of the ... |
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Week of
June 6 |
On June 10, 1965, the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) arrived in South Vietnam. They represented the first Australian Army combat forces to fight in the Vietnam War. Australia had long been one of the United States’ most important ... |
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Week of
May 30 |
On June 2, 1969, Specialist 4 Joseph “Guy” LaPointe, Jr., a medic and conscientious objector, ran forward alone into a hail of small-arms fire for the second time in three weeks. North Vietnamese soldiers had just ambushed his platoon. Two of the men up front ... |
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Week of
May 23 |
On May 28, 1970, the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, also legally known as the National League of POW/MIA Families, was formally incorporated. The League’s early efforts helped focus greater public attention on ... |
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Week of
May 16 |
On May 17, 1972, during the bombing campaign known as Operation LINEBACKER, an F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber returning to Korat Royal Thai Air Base touched down on the runway and its landing gear collapsed. The mechanical failure sent ... |
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Week of
May 9 |
Just after midnight on May 12, 1969, the explosion of mortar rounds shattered the nighttime quiet inside Fire Support Base (FSB) Gela. A force of North Vietnamese soldiers was attacking, beginning with artillery and followed by a ground assault. As the artillerymen of ... |
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Week of
May 2 |
On May 3, 1972, a U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules transport aircraft had just air-dropped supplies to the besieged South Vietnamese Army troops in the small city of An Loc, when North Vietnamese anti-aircraft fire ripped into the plane’s wing and engines. ... |
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Week of
April 25 |
On April 27, 1967, Company A, 2d Battalion of the 28th Infantry Regiment, had just infiltrated a Viet Cong base area, which was seemingly abandoned, when an enemy-occupied bunker engaged them at close range. The company’s point man was wounded in ... |
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Week of
April 18 |
In the spring of 1969, the U.S. Marines and Vietnamese Army collaborated in Operation OKLAHOMA HILLS, a three-month initiative to locate and clear North Vietnamese Army units from central Quang Nam Province in I Corps. They concentrated their ... |
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Week of
April 11 |
On April 13, 1969, in Operation TOAN THANG III, approximately 40 miles north of Saigon, Sergeant Joseph A. “Tony” Oreto and Specialist 4 Kenneth V. Jensen were walking point for their aero rifle platoon when North Vietnamese machine gun fire and ... |
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Week of
April 4 |
On April 7, 1972, a U.S. Air Force OV-10 Bronco, flown in support of a search-and-rescue mission, was shot down by a North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile. The two men aboard, Marine Corps 1st Lieutenant Larry Potts and Air Force 1st Lieutenant Bruce Walker ... |
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Week of
March 28 |
On March 30, 1967, I Company, 3d Battalion of the 9th Marines, was digging in for the night on the top of Hill 70, two miles south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Quang Tri Province. There were about 200 Marines up on the hill, and ... |
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Week of
March 21 |
On March 26, 1964, U.S. Air Force Captain Richard L. Whitesides and U.S. Army Captain Floyd J. “Jim” Thompson took off in a small single-engine O-1 “Birddog” for a reconnaissance mission northwest of Khe Sanh, near the Laos border. While investigating ... |
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Week of
March 14 |
All seemed quiet on March 14, 1969—finally. On the southern fringes of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Vietnam, a company of Marines had just retaken Landing Zone SIERRA after a day of hard fighting and high casualties. A Marine ... |
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Week ofMarch 7 |
On March 9, 1966, two regiments of North Vietnamese soldiers and a contingent of Viet Cong insurgents attacked a small U.S. Special Forces camp in South Vietnam’s A Shau Valley, near the Laos border. The two-day battle and siege that followed became the setting for ... |
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Week of
February 28 |
On February 28, 1969, two companies of U.S. Army troops engaged Communist Vietnamese forces in a firefight near the villages of Duyen Phuoc and Minh Khanh, on the north bank of the Tra Khuc River, Quang Ngai Province. It was the first day of Operation ... |
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Week of
February 21 |
On the morning of February 27, 1968, during the waning days of the Tet Offensive, as many as 1,000 North Vietnamese soldiers launched an attack on a U.S. Army firebase in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands, near ... |
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Week of
February 14 |
On February 19, 1965 a large U.S. Air Force strike force attacked the Ban Ken Bridge in Laos as both a show of force to dissuade communist aggression in the region and to cripple the flow of supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail ... |
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Week of
February 7 |
On February 12, 1971, as the triple-canopied jungles of Quang Tin Province fell into a late-afternoon twilight, North Vietnamese troops ambushed a U.S. Army platoon from both sides of a narrow trail near the Laos border ... |
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Week of
January 31 |
On the morning of January 31, 1968, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade Robert W. Moinester was the Officer in Charge of the Hue boat ramp, the primary military port in the old Vietnamese city of Hue As he and a detail of men drove a vehicle convoy through the city ... |
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Week of
January 24 |
On January 28, 1967, during Operation DESOTO, a company of U.S. Marines advanced on the hamlet of Tan Tu, in eastern Quang Ngai Province. A large force of Viet Cong fighters occupied the small collection of houses, and as the Marines approached ... |
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Week of
January 17 |
On the morning of January 22, 1966, the four crewmen aboard a U.S. Navy S-2 Tracker antisubmarine aircraft had nearly completed their routine surveillance mission over the Gulf of Tonkin when the pilot, Lieutenant William S. Forman, ... |
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Week of
January 10 |
On January 15, 1969, elements of the 26th Marine Regiment were patrolling on the Batangan Peninsula, Quang Ngai Province, searching for signs of Viet Cong occupation. Company H, 2d Battalion had just walked into a small clearing ... |
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Week ofJanuary 3 |
On January 3, 1965, Sergeant First Class George C. Bigley, a Green Beret and American military adviser to the South Vietnamese 35th Ranger Battalion, was accompanying his unit on the return trek from a convoy escort mission. While working their way ... |
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Week of
December 20 |
On December 23, 1969, four experienced artillery soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division were towing a trailer in an open-top jeep on their way back to their battery. While driving down a rural forest road, roughly two dozen men suddenly ... |
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Week of
December 6 |
The Battle of An Lao was initiated by offensive actions conducted jointly by North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces and Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas when they captured the An Lao district headquarters in the coastal Binh Dinh province ... |
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Week of
November 29 |
Operation MEADE RIVER was a combined search and destroy operation supporting a South Vietnamese country-wide “Accelerated Pacification Campaign” known as Le Loi. The 1st Marine Division tasked its units to neutralize ... |
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Week of
November 22 |
Private First Class Jimmie Ray Green was a rifleman in the 4th Battalion, 3d Infantry Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade of the Americal Division. Green’s company was on a search-and-destroy operation in coastal Quang Ngai Province ... |
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Week of
November 15 |
Between November 14 and 17, 1965, elements of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) conducted the first large-scale airmobile assault in the history of warfare when they engaged North Vietnamese Army ... |
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Week of
November 1 |
On November 1, 1968, in the deep still of night in the vast Mekong Delta, a cacophonous explosion tore through the darkness. At about 3:20 am, two Viet Cong mines attached to the hull of the Tank Landing Ship (LST) USS ... |
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Week of
October 25 |
On the afternoon of October 27, 1968, U.S. Air Force 1st Lieutenant Robert C. Edmunds, Jr., lifted off the tarmac at Korat Royal Thai Air Base in his F-105D Thunderchief and headed northeast toward North Vietnam. He never ... |
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Week of
October 18 |
On October 22, 1969, Marine Corps platoon leader Ken Kubik was on his first reconnaissance patrol as a newly minted 2d Lieutenant. He had been back in Vietnam for five days, this time for his third tour. As he led his seven-man ... |
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Week of
October 11 |
Fifty years ago, this week, U.S. Army Specialist 4 Guy Mears, Jr., lost his life in South Vietnam while trying to save his comrades. He was a crew chief aboard a UH-1 “Huey” helicopter assigned to the 254th Medical Detachment in ... |
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Week of
October 4 |
On October 6, 1972, Operation LINEBACKER, a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam, had been raging for more than five months. That day, Lieutenant Colonel Robert D. Anderson and 1st Lieutenant George F. Latella ... |
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Week of
September 27 |
On October 3, 1966, a U.S. Army Special Forces team was dropped off by helicopter for a secret mission in Laos. The seven-man team – including three Americans and four South Vietnamese – made it only a few steps from their ... |
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Week of
September 20 |
In war, the cliché goes, even small mistakes can get people killed. On September 25, 1970, a flight of two Huey gunship helicopters, accompanied by several South Vietnamese Air Force helicopters, was on a special operations mission ... |
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Week of
September 13 |
On September 16, 1969, elements of C Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade were on a search-and-clear mission in Quang Ngai Province, approximately 100 miles southwest of Da Nang ... |
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Week of
September 6 |
Sergeant First Class Dwaine U. McGriff sat in his armored bulldozer on September 7, 1970, filling out paperwork after finishing up for the day. He and the U.S. Army 984th Engineering Battalion had just finished clearing land for a ... |
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Week of
August 30 |
During Operation SWIFT on September 4, 1967, Company M, Third Battalion of the Fifth Marines was on a mission in Quang Tin Province, South Vietnam, when they walked into a concealed North Vietnamese Army unit. As machine ... |
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Week of
August 16 |
On August 19, 1967, Captain Stephen W. Pless and his three crewmates were on an escort mission aboard a UH-1E “Huey” helicopter when they received a distress call. Nearby, a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook had just been shot down ... |
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Week of
August 9 |
On August 9, 1967, elements of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) flew into Landing Zone Pat in the Song Re Valley as part of Operation PERSHING. The valley was a Viet Cong and suspected North Vietnamese base area in ... |
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Week of
August 2 |
During the first week of August 1970, five helicopters from the 135th assault helicopter company (AHC) – a combined U.S. Army and Royal Australian Navy helicopter squadron – conducted a joint operation with a U.S. Navy Sea, Air, ... |
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Week ofJuly 26 |
Working with South Vietnamese forces, the U.S. Mobile Riverine Force launched Operation CORONADO II in late July 1967 to shut down Viet Cong strongholds. It was the second of eleven consecutive operations conducted in the ... |
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Week of
July 19 |
On July 24, 1966, Lance Corporal Richard Allan Pittman was a squad leader in the rear element of a U.S. Marine Corps patrol near the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) during Operation HASTINGS. As he and his fellow ... |
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Week of
July 12 |
On July 15, 1966, during Operation HASTINGS, elements of two battalions of U.S. Marines began an assault into the Song Ngan Valley, a river valley in Quang Tri Province, just south of the Demilitarized Zone dividing North and ... |
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Week of
July 5 |
On July 6, 1966, American prisoners of war in North Vietnam were awoken early by their captors, ordered to shave, and told to hand over their prison-issued pajamas. Something was up, through the POWs did not yet know what ... |
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Week of
June 28 |
When Major Charles L. Kelly took off from Soc Trang on July 1, 1964, it was for yet another medical evacuation mission – just one among literally hundreds he had flown in the six months spent as commander of the U.S. Army 57th ... |
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Week of
June 21 |
On a warm Friday evening in Saigon, June 25, 1965, several dozen people were enjoying dinner at the My Canh, a popular floating restaurant on the shore of the Saigon River. The restaurant was in the heart of Saigon’s busy ... |
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Week of
June 14 |
Just after midight on June 19, 1968, the search-and-rescue helicopter crew assigned to the USS Preble (DDG-46) in the Gulf of Tonkin were abruptly awakened and scrambled to their UH-2 Seasprite helicopter. They had been ordered to ... |
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Week of
May 31 |
On June 6, 1964, Naval Aviator Charles F. Klusmann was flying an RF-8 Crusader fighter jet on a secret photoreconnaissance mission in Laos, over the Plain of Jars, when his aircraft was crippled by antiaircraft fire ... |
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Week of
May 24 |
On May 30, 1967, the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret new A-12 spy plane (code-named OXCART) officially became operational as part of Operation BLACK SHIELD. The aircraft made its first reconnaissance flight over North Vietnam ... |
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Week of
May 17 |
On the morning of May 21, 1969, Specialist Four Santiago Erevia, quiet and unassuming, was essentially anonymous, even within his own unit. By the evening of that same day, he had become a hero. When his unit was pinned down in ... |
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Week of
May 3 |
On May 9, 1972, Captain William (Bill) S. Reeder, Jr. and First Lieutenant John Timothy (Tim) Conry were flying an AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter as an escort for an aerial resupply mission during the battle of Kontum. As they maneuvered ... |
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Week of
April 26 |
On April 30, 1970, two American military advisers – U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Vernel Collins and First Lieutenant Richard Davis – accompanied elements of the South Vietnamese 28th Regional Forces on a search-and-clear ... |
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Week of
April 22 |
On April 24, 1967, U.S. Marine Corps 1st Lt. Philip H. Sauer sacrificed his life in an attempt to save four other Marines under his command. During the first major battle of Khe Sanh, Sauer led a five-man patrol slowly up Hill 861 on ... |
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Week of
April 15 |
On April 12, 1967, General William C. Westmoreland officially activated Task Force OREGON. It was a conglomerate of several disparate Army units, brought together to reinforce the U.S. Marine Corps in “I Corps,” the far northern ... |
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Week of
April 8 |
United States Strategic Air Command finalized a decision on April 10, 1967, that at the time had seemed inevitable, but in retrospect became a potent symbol of the escalation of the air war in Vietnam. On that day, B-52 ... |
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Week of
March 25 |
On March 26, 1966, the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy launched Operation JACKSTAY, a largescale amphibious operation in the Rung Sat Swamp, southeast of Saigon. The operation lasted for nine days. During that time, the ... |
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Week of
March 11 |
On March 11, 1968, at about 3:00 AM, a group of North Vietnamese commandos attached a top-secret American radar facility on top of a sheer mountainside in Laos. The station and its personnel—19 Americans and a few dozen ... |
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Week of
March 4 |
In the early morning darkness of March 1, 1971, the seemingly unthinkable happened. In the restroom in the Senate wing of the United States Capitol building, a bomb exploded, sending wood, stone, glass, and metal shrapnel ... |
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Week of
February 26 |
On February 27, 1968, a U.S. Navy OP-2E Neptune reconnaissance aircraft carried its nine crewmen over the South Vietnamese border into Laos airspace. Their crew’s mission was to surveil the Ho Chi Minh Trail and drop ... |
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Week of
February 19 |
On February 19, 1968, a nine-man team comprised of U.S. Special Forces and indigenous Montagnard troops was on a mission four miles across the South Vietnamese border, in Laos, when they became pinched between at least ... |
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Week of
February 13 |
In response to the concerns of civil rights leaders and activists, in mid-1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared his intention to address allegations that the American Selective Service System had built-in, systemic racial and ... |
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Week of
February 6 |
On February 8, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson authoruzed the bombing of North Vietnam for the first time. Fearing that the loss of South Vietnam to a Communist regime was imminent, Johnson ordered airstrikes against ... |
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Week of
January 30 |
On January 30–31, 1968, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces launched what became known as the Tet offensive. A staggering 84,000 Communist forces launched coordinated guerilla-style attacks on population centers and allied ... |
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Week of
January 23 |
On January 20, 1968, a group of North Vietnamese soldiers attached a U.S. Marine Corps platoon near the Marine combat base at Khe Sanh. The ambushing forces attacked from entrenched machine gun nests at the base of a ... |
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Week of
January 16 |
On January 12, 1968, a platoon attached to C Company, 5th Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division, was ambushed by a well-entrenched force of North Vietnamese soldiers. The enemy fire was ... |
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Week of
January 9 |
On January 7, 1966, U.S. and Australian Army forces launched Operation CRIMP, a massive joint search-and-destroy operation in a region about 25 miles north and west of Saigon. Their objective was to locate and destroy the Viet ... |
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Week of
January 2 |
On January 2, 1963, South Vietnamese Army forces, accompanied by American advisers, engaged a smaller force of Viet Cong insurgents outside the village of Ap Bac, in the Mekong Delta. Though the South Vietnamese troops ... |
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Week of
December 26 |
A force of Communist guerrillas occupied the small South Vietnamese town of Binh Gia, in the Mekong Delta, on December 28, 1964. A battle for the town erupted on December 29, 1964, as non-Communist forces tried to reclaim ... |
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Week of
December 19 |
On December 19, 1971, First Lieutenant Peter Forame and Warrant Officer Thomas Skiles flew their small scout helicopter low over the tree line among the Ho Chi Minh Trail, in Cambodia. Their mission was to reconnoiter a region ... |
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Week of
December 12 |
On December 9, 1972, a flight of three U.S. Air Force RF-4C Phantom reconnaissance aircraft were on a mission over North Vietnam when alarms, warning of the approach of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), began blaring inside their ... |
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Week of
December 5 |
Somehow, through all the noise of battle, Private First Class Lewis Albanese heard the shots of a lone rifle. His platoon had just been ambushed by a large number of Viet Cong forces to their front. But the sound of the lone rifle ... |
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Week of
November 21 |
On November 21, 1970, a joint team of 92 U.S. Air Force Special Operations troops and 56 Army Special Force personnel conducted one of the most daring and dramatic missions of the Vietnam War when they raided a ... |
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Week of
November 14 |
Early in the morning of November 11, 1969, soldiers of the U.S. Army 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, suddenly came under mortar and rocket attack at Fire Support Base Jerri, in Phuoc Long Province, South Vietnam ... |
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Week of
November 7 |
On November 8, 1965, elements of 1st Battalion, 503d Infantry Regiment, 173d Airborne Brigade were on a search-and-clear operation in the infamous Iron Triangle region, northeast of Saigon, when they stumbled ... |
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Week of
October 31 |
On the evening of October 29, 1967, U.S. Army soldiers assigned to A Company, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division—leading a contingent of Montagnard local forces—worked to secure a helicopter landing zone ... |
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Week of
October 24 |
October in Southeast Asia is the middle of typhoon season, and on October 20, 1968, two intense typhoons were churning off the coast of the South Vietnamese Central Highlands. The resulting high winds, sheets of rain, and ... |
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Week of
October 17 |
On October 17, 1967, elements of the U.S. Army 2d Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division engaged a large force of Viet Cong fighters along a small stream named the Ong Thanh. Two understrength American ... |
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Week of
October 10 |
On October 8, 1969, Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Williams O. Jackson heard of a unit of Marines at a remote outpost near the Laos border in dire need of ammunition and supplies. The convoy assigned to deliver them, however, ... |
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Week of
October 3 |
On October 2, 1964, U.S. Air Force Captain Kenneth E. Walker and his South Vietnamese copilot were flying an air support mission in an A-1 Skyraider for South Vietnamese ground forces near the coast of Vinh Binh Province ... |
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Week of
September 26 |
On September 24, 1971, Warrant Officer Steven Hanson was piloting his OH-6 Cayuse scout helicopter on a mission over Quang Tri, South Vietnam. As he and his two crewmen made a low pass over a target, their OH-6 was hit by ... |
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Week of
September 19 |
On September 17, 1965, Captain Dean Klenda took off in his F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber to attack targets in Son La Province, North Vietnam. His mission was part of the ongoing Operation ROLLING THUNDER, a major ... |
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Week of
September 12 |
On September 14, 1969, Sergeant Donald Skidgel was helping provide security for a U.S. Army convoy on Highway 311 outside Song Be, South Vietnam, when his unit was ambushed by two North Vietnamese Army companies. Through ... |
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Week of
September 5 |
On September 4, 1967, the U.S. Marine Corps began Operation SWIFT in the Que Son Valley of Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam. In the first hours of the operation, elements of Company B, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, ... |
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Week of
August 29 |
On August 27, 1965, Private First Class George Kilbuck was with A company, 2d Battalion, 502d Infantry Regiment, of the 101st Airborne Division on a search-and-clear operation in South Vietnam. When his company reached a ... |
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Week of
August 22 |
American Special Forces suffered more Green Berets killed and wounded in a single attack on August 23, 1968, than any other day in history. More than 100 sappers infiltrated the Special Forces camp situated on the southern coast ... |
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Week of
August 15 |
In the early morning darkness of August 11, 1969, just west of Dong Ha, in Quang Tri Province, a series of explosions jarred awake the men of the U.S. Army artillery base at Thon Vinh Dai. A small number of Viet Cong insurgents ... |
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Week of
August 8 |
On August 5, 1964, Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJG) Richard Sather, a 26-year-old U.S. Navy aviator, boarded his A-1 Skyraider and launched off the deck of the USS Constellation. He and a handful of other flyers pointed their ... |
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Week of
August 1 |
July 29th, 1967, was one of the deadliest days of the Vietnam War for American service people. Nearly 200 U.S. troops were killed on that single day. 134 of them died at sea, in the Gulf of Tonkin, aboard the aircraft carrier USS ... |
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Week of
July 25 |
On July 24, 1965, two decorated veteran U.S. Air Force pilots were shot down over North Vietnam by a surface-to-air missile (SAM). The weapons officer, Captain Roscoe H. Fobair, was killed. Roscoe's pilot, Captain Richard ... |
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Week of
July 18 |
From July 1 to July 23, 1970, several hundred American soldiers of the 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, defended a hilltop firebase against a North Vietnamese Army division intent on destroying them. The battle took place ... |
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Week of
July 11 |
The first two American service people listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., are Major Dale Buis and Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand. Both were killed in Bien Hoa on July 8, 1959, at a time when most ...
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Week of
July 4 |
In the first hours of July 4, 1967, between 200 and 300 North Vietnamese Army troops broke into the nighttime silence with a surprise attack on elements of the 2d Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, who were defending a night position on ...
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Week of
June 27 |
On June 28, 1968, I Company, 3d Battalion of the 27th Marines, 1st Marine Division, was on a patrol in Quang Nam Province. Walking fourth and fifth in line with their platoon were Private First Class Oscar Juarez and Petty Officer ... |
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Week of
June 20 |
On June 20, 1970, the men of a reconnaissance platoon from the 198th Infantry Brigade, Americal Division of the U.S. Army, were on a night patrol in Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam, searching for signs of Communist forces. As ... |
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Week of
June 13 |
On June 10, 1971, four UH-1 “Huey” helicopters—two transports and two gunship escorts—were flying cover for a ground mission near Pleiku, South Vietnam. As the helicopters flew low over the thick jungle canopy, one of them ... |
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Week of
June 6 |
During the first week of June 1969, the month-long Operation APACHE SNOW came to a close. The operation involved primarily elements of the 101st Airborne Division, as well as parts of the 9th Marine Regiment and South Vietnamese ... |
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Week of
May 30 |
This Memorial Day week, exactly 50 years ago, two men earned the Medal of Honor on the same day in South Vietnam. In Binh Duong Province, Sergeant Charles C. Fleek was in command of a squad that was ordered to take part in an ... |
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Week of
May 23
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In the mid-morning sunlight of May 21, 1967, a column of U.S. Army armored personnel carriers (APCs) moved out from the small village of Soui Cat, in Long Khanh Province, South Vietnam. The column was on a routine supply mission, ... |
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Week of
May 16 |
Less than two weeks after the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces, and less than a month after the Khmer Rouge captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, Cambodian Communist troops forcibly seized an American ... |
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Week of
May 9 |
On May 7, 1970, in Thua Thien Province, South Vietnam, Private First Class Kenneth Kays earned the Medal of Honor for heroism in combat. He did so by saving the lives of three fellow soldiers during a North Vietnamese night attack ... |
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Week of
May 2 |
On April 29, 1975, American leaders initiated Operation FREQUENT WIND, the final American evacuation of Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Army was at last closing in on Saigon, and United States Embassy personnel and a number ... |
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Week of
April 25 |
In the early morning darkness of April 23, 1965, a seven-man Marine Force Reconnaissance team disembarked a landing craft and waded ashore not far from Da Nang, in Quang Nam Province. Their mission was to probe for ... |
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Week of
April 18 |
On the morning of April 15, 1966, a Navy UH-2 helicopter piloted by Lieutenant JG Michael Zerbe slowly lifted off the flight deck of the USS Kitty Hawk, somewhere in the South China Sea. He and two other crewmen were putting the ... |
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Week of
April 11 |
On April 7, 1972, the North Vietnamese Army launched an attack on the South Vietnamese city of An Loc as part of their ongoing “Easter Offensive” then raging across the country. The Communist battalion that moved toward An Loc ... |
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Week of
April 4 |
Between April 3 and 4, 1965, during the early days of Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the United States Air Force sent over 100 fighter-bombers against a single bridge over the Song Ma, a river in North Vietnam. The Thanh Hoa ... |
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Week of
March 28 |
On March 30, 1965, CIA officer Barbara A. Robbins was killed when a Viet Cong car bomb exploded outside the U.S. embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam. At least 20 others were killed in the blast. Just over three years later, on ... |
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Week of
March 21 |
On March 18, 1967, U.S. Marine Master Sergeant Barbara J. Dulinsky arrived at Bien Hoa Air Force Base, just outside of Saigon, after an 18-hour flight. She became the first woman Marine in history to be assigned to a combat zone ... |
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Week of
March 14 |
This week we take a moment to honor the service and sacrifice of a group of crucial U.S. allies during the Vietnam War: the Hmong. An indigenous group from Laos and traditionally anti-Communist, the Hmong were recruited by the CIA ... |
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Week of
March 7 |
On March 4, 1966, in the Tuy Hoa Valley of Phu Yen Province, two U.S. Army companies from the 101st Airborne Division engaged in a firefight with North Vietnamese forces in the village of My Phu. The day of fighting resulted in ... |
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Week of
February 28 |
The battle of Khe Sanh is one of the most well-known battles of the Vietnam War. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, as many as 30,000 Communist Vietnamese forces surrounded roughly 6,000 U.S. marines defending a combat base on .... |
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Week of
February 21 |
On February 23, 1969, North Vietnamese forces attempted to mount a second “general offensive” similar to the massive Tet Offensive of 1968. In what came to be known as “Tet 1969,” or sometimes ... |
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Week of
February 14 |
In early 1965, it seemed likely that the United States was hurtling toward a full-scale war in Vietnam. However, as of February of that year, American men and women were officially in Vietnam only as advisers to the South ... |
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Week of
February 7 |
In the early morning darkness of February 7, 1968, the men based at the Special Forces camp near Lang Vei, South Vietnam, were on alert. The massive nationwide Tet Offensive of the previous weeks was beginning to subside, but ... |
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Week of
January 31 |
By the early 1970s, few people in the United States wanted to focus on the divisive Vietnam War anymore. President Richard M. Nixon had promised that Vietnamization—the term he used for the process of turning over responsibility ... |
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Week of
January 21 |
On January 22, 1969, The United States Coast Guard (USCG) Cutter Point Banks, on patrol south of Cam Rahn Bay, received a call for help from a nine-man South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) detachment trapped by two Viet Cong ... |
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Week of
January 14 |
Throughout the war, one of the most intractable problems for United States troops in Vietnam was the ability of Viet Cong insurgents to hide among the civilian population. Especially in isolated areas such as rural valleys and peninsulas, ... |
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Week of
January 7 |
On January 7, 1966, U.S. and Australian Army forces launched Operation CRIMP, a massive, joint search and destroy operation in a region about 25 miles northwest of Saigon. Their objective was to locate and destroy the Viet Cong ... |
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Week of
December 24 |
From December 16–19, 1966, elements of the Army’s 9th Infantry Division began arriving in Vietnam. General William C. Westmoreland intended to use the division to increase U.S. presence around the Mekong Delta to improve security ... |
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Week of
December 17 |
In December 1965 the U.S. Marine Corps fought its second large-scale engagement against a main force Viet Cong unit: Operation HARVEST MOON. By mid-November, the 1st Viet Cong Regiment had recovered from the losses it ... |
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Week of
December 10 |
On December 6, 1968, the U.S. Navy launched Operation GIANT SLINGSHOT, with the goal of eliminating Communist infiltration of South Vietnam along the Vam Co Dong and Vam Co Tay rivers, near the Cambodian ... |
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Week of
December 3 |
On December 2, 1965, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) became the first nuclear-powered carrier in history to engage in combat operations when the ship, at Dixie Station off the coast of southern South ... |
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Week of
November 26 |
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald shot Kennedy from the Texas schoolbook depository, along the presidential motorcade's route through ... |
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Week of
November 19 |
During the 1965 Pleiku Campaign in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, the men of the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division dropped into the Ia Drang Valley on November 14, 1965. At the first landing zone, ... |
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Week of
November 12 |
On November 12, 1965, U.S. Army forces began searching for the North Vietnamese Army troops who were operating in South Vietnam's rugged Central Highlands. Following a Communist attack on a Special ... |
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Week of
November 5 |
On November 4, 1965, photojournalist Dickey Chapelle, one of the few woman journalists in Southeast Asia, accompanied a U.S. Marine platoon on a search-and-destroy patrol near. .. |
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Week of
October 29 |
On October 26, 1966, on Yankee Station, a sailor aboard the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany (CVA 34) accidentally ignited a magnesium parachute flare inside the flare locker of Hanger Bay 1, just below the flight deck ... |
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Week of
October 22 |
On October 23, 1972, after five months of intensive bombing, President Richard M. Nixon ordered an end to the air campaign over North Vietnam known as Operation ... |
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Week of
October 15 |
Paul Hellstrom Foster was born in April 1939 in San Mateo, California. He joined the Marine Corps in San Francisco at the age of 22, in November 1961. Foster deployed to Vietnam at the end of 1966 and eventually was. .. |
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Week of
October 8 |
During the first two weeks of October 1967, some of the heaviest fighting of Operation WHEELER took place in I Corps, as elements of the 23d Infantry Division (Americal) ... |
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Week of
October 1 |
On October 1, 1965—exactly 50 years ago, this week—the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) became operational in South Vietnam. The 1st Cavalry Division was the first ... |
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Week of
September 24 |
On September 21, 1971, nearly 200 U.S. Air Force fighter and fighter-bomber aircraft launched an airstrike against three gasoline storage facilities just south of Dong Hoi, North ... |
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Week of
September 17 |
In late 1969, 27-year-old Staff Sergeant Melvin Morris was commanding a Mobile Strike Force team from the U.S. Army 5th Special Forces near Chi Lang, in southern South Vietnam ... |
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Week of
September 10 |
Between September 4 and September 12, 1967, multiple North Vietnamese Army regiments laid siege to the vital U.S. Marine Corps base on Con Thien, a hill just two miles. .. |
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Week of
September 3 |
On September 5, 1961, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara informed the service secretaries that he planned to establish a new command, under the Military Assistance ... |
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Week of
August 27 |
On August 23, 1966, the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division launched Operation AMARILLO, a search-and-destroy and road security operation in III Corps, covering parts ... |
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Week of
August 20 |
On August 18, 1966, near the Australian army base at Nui Dat, southeast of Saigon, 108 Australians from Company D of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR) ... |
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Week of
August 13 |
Between August 9 and 11, 1968, U.S. Army Sergeant Robert Woods and his team of "tunnel rats" from the 1st Infantry Division achieved one of the most important successes ... |
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Week of
August 6 |
In August of 1966 Naval aviators of Helicopter Combat Support Squadron One (HC-1)began flying UH-1 “Huey” helicopters in III Corps and IV Corps over the twisting waterways of the. .. |
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Week of
July 30 |
On July 29, 1967 the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal (CV-59) was on Yankee Station in the South China Sea off the coast of North Vietnam. Her crew was preparing a second ... |
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Week of
July 23 |
On July 24, 1965, F-105 Thunderchiefs were attacking an explosives factory in North Vietnam. A flight of four F-4C Phantoms provided air cover while and EB-66 Destroyer ... |
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Week of
July 16 |
The area around Da Nang, especially military installations, was subject to rocket attacks since that February. The area the rockets were fired from was called the "Rocket Belt"... |
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Week of
July 9 |
As units from the 1st Infantry Division continued to hunt the Viet Cong in the Binh Long province of the III Corps Tactical Zone, General William E. DePuy gave Colonel Sidney B. Berry of the 1st Infantry Brigade ... |
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Week of
July 2 |
Operation Thor, the joint mission to attack and destroy North Vietnamese long-range artillery facing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), coast artillery batteries, antiaircraft positions, and staging areas for infiltration, ... |
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Week of
June 25 |
In 1967 this was the first full week of Operation GREELEY in the Central Highlands of II Corps. Two battalions of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 503rd Infantry Regiment, ... |
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Week of
June 18 |
On June 18, 1965, the first ARC LIGHT Mission was flown by 30 U.S Air Force B-52 Bombers. It was flown against Viet Cong targets near Ben Cat north of Saigon. ARC LIGHT missions were distinguished ... |
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Week of
June 11 |
On June 9, 1965, at 11:30P.M. elements of the Viet Cong 762nd and 763rd Regiments totaling at least 1,500 men attacked a Special Forces camp of the 5th Special Forces Group at Dong Xoai, ... |
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Week of
June 4 |
On June 1, 1967, Task Force 117, the Mobile Riverine Force, became operational. It was a joint U.S. Army-Navy task force whose goal was to search out and eliminate Viet Cong elements in the waterways ... |
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Week of
May 28 |
On May 26, 1967, Operation UNION II began in the Que Son Basin in southern I Corps. The 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 5th Marine Regiments were initially supported by South Vietnamese Rangers ... |
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Week of
May 21 |
On May 22, 1964, the CIA-run airline known as Air America officially began to support search-and-rescue missions for downed American aviators in Laos and North Vietnam. Air America pilots flew piston-engine ... |
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Week of
May 14 |
On May 10, 1969, U.S. and allied forces launched Operation APACHE SNOW, an effort to dislodge the North Vietnamese army from the A Sau Valley. The valley, adjacent to Laos ... |
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Week of
April 30 |
In April 1975, South Vietnam was on the verge of collapse as the North Vietnamese army closed in around Saigon. With almost all U.S. troops having left Vietnam in 1973, the few ... |
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Week of
April 23 |
On April 24, 1950, President Harry S. Truman approved the contents of National Security Council Report (NSC) 64. The memorandum was drafted by the State Department and the ... |
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Week of
April 16 |
On April 17, 1956, three U.S. Army women nurses arrived in Saigon as part of a medical training team assigned to the U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam ... |
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Week of
April 9 |
At the end of 1964, with direct U.S. participation in combat operations poised to begin, there were about 23,000 U.S. forces in Vietnam. In less than five years, by the first. .. |
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Week of
April 2 |
By the end of March 1972, there were fewer than 70,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam (after peaking in 1969 at over 540,000). Following President Richard Nixon's "Vietnamization" ... |
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Week of
March 26 |
On March 26, 1964, Air Force Captain Richard L. Whitesides and Army Special Forces Captain Floyd J. Thompson were conducting a reconnaissance mission aboard a small ... |
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Week of
March 19 |
In late February 1965, a U.S. helicopter pilot spotted a 130-foot North Vietnamese vessel anchored in South Vietnam's Vung Ro Bay. Investigators discovered the ship was carrying ... |
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Week of
March 12 |
As the United States commenced a bombing campaign against North Vietnam, American leaders grew concerned about the possibility of Communist retaliation against U.S ... |
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Week of
March 5 |
On March 2, 1965, U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft commenced the bombing of military, industrial, and infrastructure targets in North Vietnam. Called ... |
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Week of
February 12 |
On February 12, 1973, a group of American prisoners of war (POWs) lifted off from Hanoi's Gia Lam Airport, in North Vietnam, aboard a U.S. Air Force C-141 Starlifter. These men ... |