only one aircraft lost and the squadron was then attached to the 14th Air Commando Wing at Nha Trang Air Base but it continued to fly out of Bien Hoa. 1968 Tet Offensive and subsequent attacks In the early morning of 31 January at the start of the Tet Offensive VC and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) forces hit the base with mortar and rocket fire and then attacked the eastern perimeter of the base, establishing a defensive position in an engine test stand. While the base security moved to attack this VC force, PAVN units infiltrated the perimeter in 3 different places and began firing on the base's III Corps Direct Air Support Center. An ARVN security force cornered a group of VC/PAVN in a supply shed and engaged them with recoilless rifle fire before USAF Security Police and ARVN forces finished them off with grenades and rifle fire. At dawn U.S. Army forces arrived at the base to engage the VC/PAVN. The main gate was near the active runway of the 145th Aviation Battalion, a U.S. Army helicopter unit. The battalion's pilots lived off-base at the Honour-Smith Compound, a villa on Cong Ly Street in the city of Bien Hoa, some 2 kilometers away. Some were on base or made it there before the fire got too heavy and some of the gunships took off to patrol the base perimeters. Later intelligence reported that there were three main VC units that were to attack the base; the most critical attack was to force the main gate, overwhelm the helicopter active area and prevent gunships from taking off. Other attacks were to proceed across open ground to the main Air Force bunkers and to bring mounted machine guns to sweep the base runway. Due to the battle raging at the east end of the runway F-100 fighter operations were curtailed for most of the day while USAF, RVNAF and U.S. Army forces engaged the VC. At about 16:00 two 531st TFS F-100s were launched to the east through the ground-fire with the intent of delivering ordnance on the battle raging on their own airbase. The actual strike was delayed because friendly forces were so close to the enemy forces. After about an hour of waiting the separation between forces was still small but considered adequate for the F-100s to deliver. The F-100 run-ins were from west to east releasing