Firebase Checkmate (also known as Hill 342) is a former U.S. Army and

Army of the Republic of Vietnam The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN; ; ) composed the ground forces of the Republic of Vietnam Military Forces, South Vietnamese military from its inception in 1955 to the Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. Its predecessor was the ground forc ...

(ARVN)

firebase Firebase was a company that developed backend software. It was founded in San Francisco in 2011 and was incorporated in Delaware. In 2014, Firebase was bought by Google. Its name continues as a set of backend cloud computing services and ...

southwest of

Huế Huế (formerly Thừa Thiên Huế province) is the southernmost coastal Municipalities of Vietnam, city in the North Central Coast region, the Central Vietnam, Central of Vietnam, approximately in the center of the country. It borders Quảng ...

in central

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

History

The base was established along Route 547 15 km southwest of

. The base was first established by the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry. During the

Easter Offensive The Easter Offensive, also known as the 1972 spring–summer offensive (') by North Vietnam, or the Red Fiery Summer (') as romanticized in South Vietnamese literature, was a military campaign conducted by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN, t ...

in April 1972 as part of their attack on Huế, the

People's Army of Vietnam The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), officially the Vietnam People's Army (VPA; , , ), also recognized as the Vietnamese Army (), the People's Army () or colloquially the Troops ( ), is the national Military, military force of the Vietnam, S ...

(PAVN) attacked the base. The ARVN abandoned the base on the night of 28 April, shortly after Firebase Bastogne fell to a PAVN assault. The base was recaptured by the ARVN in mid-May. On 6 July 1972 a PAVN assault captured the base with more than 120 PAVN reported killed.

Current use

The base has reverted to jungle.

References

{{reflist Installations of the United States Army in South Vietnam Installations of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Buildings and structures in Huế