Archival footage from November 1967 – Battalion firebases on Hills 530 & 1030
On October 1st, 2024, I sent an email to the Moving Image and Sound Branch of the National Archives in College Park Maryland. Good afternoon I am trying to locate any film or audio recordings taken of soldiers/activities from the 3-12 Infantry, 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. The unit served in the II Corps sector […]
History Blog Post #7 – March 1967 – Part 1 – the 101st Airborne at Hill 86, a prelude to March 9th, 1967
1967 – MARCH From September of 1966 to February of 1967, the Braves of the 3-12 had become acclimated to this new style of guerrilla warfare. Hard lessons had been learned. The M-113 incident in February caused a stand down at the 10th Cav, and all drivers and commanders received retraining on the proper use […]
History Blog Post #6 – 1967 – January & February – The Pond.
1967 – JANUARY & FEBRUARY 1967 started for the battalion much as 1966 had ended. Operation Adams continued, moving into the fifth and final phase of the operation, dubbed “Operation Rice Bowl”. The mission was simple, secure the rice paddies in the lowland coastal basin and let the civilian farmers harvest the crops free of […]
History Blog Post #5 – Phu Yen Province – December 1966
The soldiers of the 3-12 Infantry were also encountering an enemy that was the master of the booby trap. Punji stake traps, filled with wooden stakes sharpened and smeared with human excrement were common, and landmines and explosive devices littered the battlefield. But for Bravo Company, 3-12, and one soldier in particular, a peculiar and […]
History Blog Post #4 – A probe on an NDP – December 1st thru December 7th, 1966
As the tropical winter months of 1966 continued, the Braves soon found out that enemy grenades could be just as deadly as friendly ones. On December 1st, in the northwest corner of Phu Yen Province, Charlie Company established a night defensive position (NDP) near Hill 268. A group of dwellings and rice fields roughly a […]
History Blog Post #3 – Arrival to Vietnam – Tuy Hoa – September thru November 1966
ARRIVAL – TUY HOA – A SEASON OF FIRSTS As the Gordon pulled into port in Nha Trang on Wednesday, October 5th, the men aboard began to get their first glimpse of the lush green landscape that would be their battleground. Quickly moved off the ship, they experienced their first convoy of the war, and […]
History Blog Post #2 – U.S.N.S General W.H. Gordon – September 15th, 1966 to October 5th, 1966
The USS General W.H. Gordon was a 622’ General John Pope-class transport that had already made several trips across the Pacific, moving American men and material from the U.S. west coast to various ports in South Vietnam. At a top speed of just over 20 kts, it would take the fully laden vessel several weeks […]
History Blog Post #1 – Ft. Lewis, Washington – December 1965 to September 1966
FORMATION, TRAINING AND DEPLOYMENT In 1965, the conflict in Vietnam, once limited in scope, involving mainly United States military advisors to the military of the Republic of South Vietnam, blossomed into a full scale ground war. US Marine and US Army combat divisions arrived, oriented themselves to this strange new conflict, and began conducting offensive […]