The 5th Special Forces Group Detachment A-244 first established a base at Ben Het, then a hill tribe village, in the early 1960s to monitor communist infiltration along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The base was located approximately 13 km from the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia tri-border area, 15 km northwest of Đắk Tô and 53 km northwest of Kon Tum. s from the 1/69th Armored battalion, during the battle of Ben Het, March 3, 1969, Vietnam On 3 March 1969, Ben Het was attacked by the PAVN 66th Regiment, supported by armored vehicles of the 4th Battalion, 202nd Armored Regiment. One of the attacking PT-76s detonated a land mine, which alerted the camp and lit up the other PT-76s attacking the base. Flares were sent up, exposing the attacking tanks, but by sighting in on muzzle flashes, one PT-76 scored a direct hit on the turret of an M-48 of the 1st Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, killing two crewmen and wounding the other two. Another M-48, using the same technique, destroyed a PT-76 with their second shot. At daybreak, the battlefield revealed the wreckage of two PT-76s and one BTR-50armored personnel carrier. The PAVN 28th and 66th Regiments continued to besiege the base from May to June 1969. On 24 May 1969, the PAVN ambushed the 212th Company of the 1st Mobile Strike Force Battalion near Ben Het. Warrant Officer Class TwoKeith Payne of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions that day. Other units stationed at Ben Het included:
6th Battalion, 14th Artillery
1972-3
Following the departure of the U.S. forces the base was used by the ARVN 85th Border Rangers. Since January 1972 it had become clear that the North Vietnamese were building up for offensive operations in the tri-border region. ARVN forces had been deployed forward toward the border in order to slow the PAVN advance and allow the application of airpower to deplete North Vietnamese manpower and logistics. To counter the possible threat from the west, two regiments of the 22nd Division were deployed to Tân Cảnh and Đắk Tô and the 1st Squadron, 19th Armored Cavalry Regiment equipped with M41 tanks was deployed to Ben Het. On 24 April, the 2nd PAVN Division, elements of the 203rd Tank Regiment, and several independent regiments of the B-3 Front attacked Tân Cảnh and Đắk Tô rapidly overrunning both bases with their T-54 tanks. On 9 May 1972, elements of the PAVN 203rd Armored Regiment assaulted Ben Het. ARVN Rangers destroyed the first three PT-76 tanks with BGM-71 TOW missiles, thereby breaking up the attack. The Rangers spent the rest of the day stabilising the perimeter ultimately destroying 11 tanks and killing over 100 PAVN.
Current use
The base has been returned to farmland and housing.
