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At 2245 hours (10:45 PM), a team of Viet Cong sappers, tried to crawl through the wire of Long Binh Post at Gate #11. It appears their target was the POL (Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricant) storage tanks just beyond the gate to the east.

Several mortar rounds were also launched at the area during the attack. They set off a trip flare and the bunker guards opened fire catching several of them in the perimeter wire. There was a brief exchange of fire before the VC retreated into the darkness.

That night the bunker guards found one VC body in the wire and what appeared to be several blood trails. B Company Ambush Squad #76 conducted a search at first light with negative results.

Reflections We (Ambush Team #76) were working a night recon patrol of An Hoa Hung Village and we could hear a fire fight erupt off to our east in the area of Gate #11. Word came over the radio that a team of VC sappers, tried to crawl through the wire of Long Binh Post at the gate. It appears that their target was the fuel storage tanks in the area east of the gate.

The VC set off a trip flare and the bunker guards opened fire catching several of them in the perimeter wire. There was a brief exchange of small arms fire before the VC retreated back into the darkness. Tactical Operations Command (TOC) notified me that we were to be picked up by truck at first light by 2LT Chavis and taken to Gate #11 to search the area.

1 October We met the truck and the LT on highway 317 in front of An Hoa Hung. With the peremeter bunker guards being jumpy I made sure that we waited until it was light enough for them to identify us as friendlies before we walked out from the village to await the truck. With what happened at Gare #11 during the night I didn’t want to chance an accidental friendly fire incident.

2LT Chavis informed us that the bunker guards observed one VC body in the wire and what appeared to be several blood trails. Within minutes the truck dropped us off at Gate #11 and I asked the bunker guards to notify their other perimeter guards of our presence.

The area we were to search is actually just across Highway QL-15 west of the boundary of our Tactical Area Of Operation (TAOR). We formed on line and made a sweep east from Highway QL-15 along the southern perimeter of the post.

The fuel storage tank farm was off in the distance to our left. We discovered several fresh trails in the brush and grass and ordinance damage to the north side of some trees caused by outgoing small arms fire from the perimeter bunkers, but no weapons or bodies.

We then turned south and made a sweep of the trails we located. They went from the perimeter wire south to a dry creek bed that runs east and west and eventually connects with the Buong River on the east side of Highway 15.

The direction of the trails indicates that once again the VC came out of the area south of our TAOR across the Buong River.

The Journal of CPL Thomas T. Watson, B Company, 720th MP Battalion, March 1968 to March 1969.