During the predawn hours of 30 January 1968, the Vietnam War took on a new dimension – and the thin line between life and death became all too real for Specialist Five Dwight W Birdwell. Launching attacks in 13 major cities across
South Vietnam, communist forces including regulars of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and guerrillas of the Viet Cong (VC) shattered the stillness of the ceasefire enacted in observance of Tet, the national holiday marking the Vietnamese lunar new year. The communist offensive spread like wildfire, quickly engulfing 35 major population centres and then more than 100 villages across the countryside. American and South Vietnamese military installations also came under attack.
Within hours of the first violent shock, the fighting reached sprawling Tan Son Nhut Air Base, where three battalions of VC guerrillas struck the western perimeter of the base on the outskirts of Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital. When the alarm was raised at the Cu Chi Base Camp northeast of Saigon, Birdwell and the rest of Troop C, 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division had already heard the explosions of enemy rockets and grenades, as well as the clatter of small-arms fire.
Moving towards the sound of the fighting, the cavalrymen aboard their tanks and armoured personnel carriers (APCs) were guided by the eerie light of flares dropped by helicopters overhead. As they approached the west gate of the air base, the leading elements of the American column, roughly 100 troopers and their tanks and APCs, abruptly came under heavy enemy fire along both sides of the road. Within seconds, they were engaged by an enemy force estimated at tentimes their own strength.
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NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
