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Fire Base Birmingham |
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| FSB Birmingham was a popular staging area for Combat Assaults, air and ground recons, LRRP insertions, and other activities because of it's location in a valley of the "front range" of the western mountains...good access to points west but close to adequate support from Phu Bai, Camp Eagle, and if need be...DaNang."
Hannibal, I have a number of images of B'ham from my time as a scout with D Troop, 2/17th Air Cav, 101st Abn. I'll attach a couple and you should look around under "Places & Bases" at the excellent www.vhpamuseum.org website, at which I am a frequent contributor...make you readership aware of this site as there is a lot of related interest items for your guys there. I was based at Camp Eagle myself for a lot of '71, and some time at Phu Bai and later, down south in III Corps.
The attached images are my own and you may use if properly credited.
Birmback.jpg : Views of North side of Birmingham from low pad, looking south. Song Huu river is on the other side. Gunjeeps on lowpad are D Troop, 2/17th Cav.
64468x.jpg: Composite satellite view of Birminham overlain on another satellite shot, with insert from 1:250,000 JOG map.
Bham81x.jpg: Contact on north side of B'ham, looking north. 81mm mortar impact smoke is visible as is small arms fire.
175impacts.jpg: 175mm rifle impacts visible in two distinct areas about 10 clicks out from B'ham...view is to the east, I think. Two aircraft can be seen in the general impact area on left side of picture.
Welcome Home!
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The documents are from the USMC historical center (Spot Report) and the National Archives (the rest).
They apply to my late brother, 1lt Dennis R. Carr, B 1/327, and the bombing of Fire Support Base Birmingham on 16 March 1968. Please contact me if anyone has questions. jultim_99@yahoo.com
All of the material is unclassified and are public records. There is no copyright.
Thanks, Tim Carr
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click on these four images to enlarge
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| "Here is a section of 1:50,000 map overlain with recent satellite image. The numbers correspond to the previous photos. FSB Birmingham: Coordinates YD 704101; recall the rule for reading these, find the appropriate section, in this case...YD, then right and up to the most precise fraction of a square you can estimate...usually 6 digits...three in each dimension with no divider between the Right-Up sections, shown in red boxes/digits in my modified map. I don't know all the arty units that operated here, but at least one was 1st Bn., 83rd Arty, 15th FA...they have a nice website with some pics, including the 175mm rifles that operated here...in my pics the rifles are lowered and thus not visible. Some good pictures were taken by a Steve Nirk, an engineer, I believe, and should be viewable at www.vietvet.org/bmgham.htm. |
click on images to enlarge
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Thanks Doug Kibbey, 11D20, D Troop, 2/17th Cav., 101 Abn. '71, AIRBORNE!
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These last two photos were taken and sent in by Wayne Smith. They were taken right before the Lam Son 719 operation, where the entire 1/327th was gathered and placed around Birmingham. I think this temporary staging area was called "Buddha" or something like that. It was sort of like a fire base surrounding Birmingham.
Martens is Lt. Martens. Was Wayne Smith's platoon leader
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