VIETNAM: LONG BINH, ONCE THE LARGEST U.S. ARMY BASE OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES IS FORMALLY HANDED OVER TO SOUTH VIETNAMESE FORCES.

Record ID: 647393

  • Title: VIETNAM: LONG BINH, ONCE THE LARGEST U.S. ARMY BASE OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES IS FORMALLY HANDED OVER TO SOUTH VIETNAMESE FORCES.
  • Date: 12th November 1972
  • Summary: 1. SV Weber & Khang sign handover 0.18 2. SV Weber hands key to Khang 0.30 3. SV US Flag lowered from mast 0.56 4. SV Viet flag raised (Band playing) 1.10 5. SV Vietnamese officer salutes (2 shots) 1.18 6. SV US Officers congratulates new commander 1.31 SOF IN: "The key to Long Binh, this will allow you to get onto post without any difficulty whatever ... thankyou very much". Initials ESP/0127 ESP/0147 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 27th November 1972 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONG BINH, SOUTH VIETNAM
  • Country: Vietnam
  • Reuters ID: LVAB4J944YHVIXZ5W1SOKL4JB1AP
  • Story Text: Long Binh, once the largest U.S. army base outside the United States, has been formally handed over to the South Vietnamese forces. The handing over ceremony was held on Saturday (11 November), although the official date for the end of American occupation at Long Binh is December the 1st.

    At the height of American involvement in Vietnam, more than thirty thousand U.S. troops lived and worked in Long Binh ... now only 700 remain and they too will be gone in a fortnight.

    In a simple ceremony, the United States Commanding Officer, Colonel Edwin Weber, handed over a symbolic giant key, representing the 127-million dollar base, to his South Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Tran Quou Khang.

    SYNOPSIS: The United States Commanding Officer at Long Binh, has hand over the camp to his South Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Tran Quoc Khang. Once thirty thousand U.S. troops lived at Long Binh ... now only seven hundred remain ... and they'll be gone in a fortnight.

    The official date for the end of American occupation at Long Binh is December the first, but after that about seventy military policemen will stay on to guard about fifty prisoners still in the jail there. The Long Binh base cost the United States an estimated one hundred and twenty-seven million dollars from the day they cleared a rubber plantation in 1965 to build it.

    Among the buildings handed over was a one-year-old, million dollar department store ... but the Vietnamese bar hostesses have had to go ... Colonel Khang says "We simply can't afford to pay them."
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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