D Company Loss — 2LT Michael E. Bennett, Small Arms Fire, Binh Dinh Province, November 1, 1967
November 1, 1967 — D Company loses its platoon leader
Research page — sparse. Confirmed: 2LT Michael E. Bennett, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, was killed by small arms fire in Binh Dinh Province on 1 November 1967. The specific patrol, grid position, and contact circumstances are not yet established. The 2/8 Cav daily staff journal (NARA RG 472) is the primary source needed to locate this action.
On 1 November 1967, 2LT Michael E. Bennett — platoon leader, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry — was killed by small arms fire somewhere in Binh Dinh Province. He was 21 years old and had been in-country for 63 days. His name is on the Wall at Panel 28E, Line 107.
Where the battalion was
The 2/8 Cav had returned to LZ English at Bong Son on 14 October 1967 following a three-week attachment to the 173rd Airborne Brigade during Operation Bolling in the Song Re Valley. Back in the Pershing AO, the battalion was conducting combat operations on the Bong Son Plain when Bennett was killed — small arms contacts in the paddies, tree lines, and village complexes of Binh Dinh were a constant feature of Operation Pershing.
Two days later, around 3 November, the battalion would deploy to Dak To in Kontum Province for the November battles there before returning to Binh Dinh for the Battle of Tam Quan in December. November 1 is the last confirmed Pershing-AO date before that move; Bennett died in Binh Dinh, not Kontum, placing him at the tail end of the Bong Son phase.
2LT Michael Bennett
Michael E. Bennett was from Brentwood, New Hampshire — a Sanborn Seminary graduate, University of New Hampshire student, commissioned via Officer Candidate School in February 1967. He arrived in Vietnam on 30 August 1967 and was assigned to D Company as a platoon leader. A local newspaper reported him as the first recorded KIA from Brentwood and the 73rd from New Hampshire at the time of his death. He is buried at Calvary Cemetery, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. See his profile.
Help us complete the record
The contact on November 1, 1967 that killed 2LT Bennett has not been matched to a unit after-action report. If you served with D Company, 2/8 Cavalry in the fall of 1967, or knew Michael Bennett, please reach us through the contribute form.
2LT Michael Bennett was killed in action on November 1, 1967 in Binh Dinh Province. If you served with D Company, 2/8 Cavalry in the fall of 1967, or knew Michael Bennett at UNH or Sanborn Seminary, we'd like to hear from you.
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