Super Sabre Massacre - The Battle of Bien Hoa Air Base

At 3:00am on January 31, 1964, Lieutenant Fred Abrams was abruptly awakened by the deafening sound of mortar shells bursting all around him. Bien Hoa Air Base, the largest US and South Vietnam airfield in the country, was being attacked in a massive surprise attack, and thousands of Viet Cong troops were descending into the base from the rubber plantations that surrounded it in total darkness.

The offensive was part of a large-scale attack across Vietnam in which more than 100 cities and posts were assaulted by Viet Cong and North Vietnam troops to cripple the south. The onslaught would come to be known as the Tet Offensive.

Officer Fred Abrams had rehearsed for this extreme scenario, and in just a few minutes, he was on his way to the bunker carrying his flight suit, boots, and gun belt.

While US and South Vietnam troops tried frantically to organize and repel the invaders, the Viet Cong continued to advance. Abrams would recall: (QUOTE) “The attackers got to within 100 yds of our squadron before being pushed back by the security police with M-16s and large machine guns.”

The stakes were extremely high; if the Viet Cong could take control of the airbase and destroy the over 500 aircraft stationed there, US troops across Vietnam would be left without air support against the coordinated attack.

Thus, Abrams and other F-100 pilots and their crews desperately tried to clean the runways from the rubble and debris caused by the initial mortar strikes, as they needed to get in the air as soon as possible if the less than 500 soldiers hoped to stop the thousands of Viet Cong forces surrounding the base.


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