![]() 50-caliber machine gun mounted next to the tank commander’s hatch. As the fighting wore on, he again exposed himself to enemy fire to man the. ![]() ![]() Johnson then returned to his immobilized tank and assisted in loading the M48’s 90mm gun as he and his crew blasted enemy positions in a bid to drive off the ambushing force. Medal of Honor recipient Specialist 5 Dwight Johnson of Detroit, Michigan was the driver of an M48A3 tank in Company B, 1st Battalion of the 69th Armor Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division. While still under fire he got the injured crewman out of the turret and to the safety of an armored personnel carrier just before the tank’s ammunition exploded. He then made his way through a gauntlet of enemy fire to rescue the only surviving member of his platoon sergeant’s burning tank from the vehicle. When he had exhausted his submachine gun ammunition, he used his weapon as a club and killed an enemy soldier with the stock of the gun. He engaged the enemy at extremely close range with the weapon. Having exhausted his pistol ammunition, Johnson braved enemy machine gun and automatic rifle fire to retrieve a submachine gun from his tank with which to continue battling the North Vietnamese troops. Johnson, realizing he could do nothing more in his role as a tank driver, climbed out of the tank and engaged the enemy with his. Although Johnson’s tank did not suffer a direct hit, it threw a track and became immobilized. The grenade round could easily penetrate the side and rear armor of an M48, and even penetrate its thicker frontal armor. They fired their weapons sending the shaped-charge warheads, which were capable of piercing armor, directly at the tanks.Īs the fighting progressed, the other two tanks, including the one with his friends, suffered devastating direct hits from the shoulder-fired grenade launchers during the well-planned enemy ambush. Well-camouflaged communist troops in the forests along the road wielded the deadly anti-tank rocket propelled grenade launchers. The platoon, with just three of its four M48 Patton tanks serving in a so-called reaction force that day, quickly took fire from North Vietnamese forces armed with the deadly rocket-propelled grenades. His tank platoon moved out the following day to reinforce troops that were heavily engaged. Even so, he complied dutifully with the order. He was given no explanation for it and was reluctant to depart from the crew with which he had longed served. With just eight days to go before he returned stateside, he thought the reassignment odd. On January 14, 1967, he was serving with his unit near Dak To when he received orders to join the crew of a different tank. He had remained unscathed throughout his tour of duty in 1967 as the war expanded and Westmoreland continued to build up his forces. Other members of the unit grab a ride on the back of the tank. He arrived in country as the driver of an M48A3 tank in Company B, 1st Battalion of the 69th Armor Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division.Ī M48A3 tank belonging to the 1st Battalion, 69th Armored, 25th Infantry Division moves through a destroyed Viet Cong camp which was located South of Pleiku, RVN. Johnson, who had been an above average student in high school, an Explorer Scout, and active in his local church, was drafted in July 1966 and underwent basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Infantry Division that continued to defend the critical sector at the beginning of 1968. Specialist 5 Dwight Johnson of Detroit, Michigan, was one of the many soldiers of the 4th U.S. Although the North Vietnamese forces had been badly bloodied, they reorganized and replaced their losses inside Laos and continued to operate around Dak To. 4th Infantry Division and the elite 173rd Airborne Brigade had battled two regiments of the enemy’s corps-level B-3 Front at Dak To in Kontum Province. A running battle had occurred in November 1967 as the U.S. forces in South Vietnam, had sought throughout 1967 to carry the war to opposing communist forces by striking North Vietnamese base camps and troop concentrations along the Cambodian and Laotian borders. General William Westmoreland, the top commander of U.S. They were “spooky beyond belief,” Herr said. The Central Highlands were “are a run of erratic mountain ranges, gnarled valleys, jungled ravines and abrupt plains where Montagnard villages cluster, thin and disappear as the terrain steepens,” wrote war correspondent Michael Herr, who had visited the region during the height of the conflict. North Vietnamese forces had infiltrated into the country through various points along the Ho Chi Minh Trail since 1965, one of which was the Central Highlands comprising Kontum, Pleiku, and Darlac provinces. military had 409,000 soldiers and Marines in South Vietnam organized into approximately 100 infantry and mechanized battalions at the start of 1968.
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