About 2:30 am on Jan 25, 1969 the 57th NVA Regiment attacked Bao Loc main camp, hitting from the north and south west at the same time. They came across the east end of the airport, up the little valley between the ARVN training base (we were
just to the south of that, along the north side of the airport).
They blew up the 3/503's main bunker on the road that went east into the
center of the base camp. They really tore up the place with mortars and a
lot of intruders were throwing chi-com grenades all over the place. The
north side was hit with RPG rounds at every bunker. They came up our side,
hitting our wire all along the east side. I was in the southeast corner
bunker with an M-60 and 4 cans of mini-gun rounds with a dozen LAWS on the
side. Sure does help when you run the ammo dump! We shot the place up
pretty well and kept them down at least 50 feet below the berm.
The 92nd's Sidekicks took off as soon as they could, went east and got a
game plan put together, then came back and shot up the NVA pretty well. The
one slide of aerial flares was taken that night. About an hour into the
fight an AC47 and a flare ship came over and started chewing them up and
spitting them out.
The next day we were busy picking up the pieces. A lot of the 3/503
vehicles were badly damaged, the maintenance tent was destroyed, too. There
were unexploded grenades all over the place. I sure am glad the quality
control was pretty low on those things. I got a few fragments when one went
off near by. Some of them are still in my arms and hands as they are quite
painful to remove and I told the doc to leave them in if wouldn't hurt
anything.
