All The Way: Our Vietnam War

Narrator: On April 5th, 1968, Staff Sergeant Peter Gollagher is on his first operation in Vietnam, a search-and-destroy mission through the Long Hai hills. Across the dateline in Memphis, Tennessee. Martin Luther King Junior readies himself to venture out for dinner. At 32, Gollagher is a little older than most of the men in his unit. He has a wife and 4 children back home. While on patrol, his unit discovers a tunnel complex built by opposing forces. As Sergeant Gollagher descends underground, Martin Luther King steps onto the balcony of his room. Both men are fatally shot. King's murder is a tragedy felt around the world. Symbolic of the escalating turmoil of the 1960s. Peter Gollagher is just one more casualty of war, leaving behind another devastated family.

Title screen: Our Vietnam War. Episode 2: All the Way.

Archival audio: Now is the time to really break loose from the oldies.

Professor Michelle Arrow, historian, Macquarie University: Australia in the mid to late 1960s was becoming a more questioning, more culturally challenging place. We're seeing the emergence of a growing set of social critiques. Activism on issues around Indigenous rights. Australians becoming a little less inward-looking and more globally focused, and more willing to question the norms of their parent's generation.

Corporal Graham Smith (retired), Regimental Signaller, D Company, 6RAR: Well I can remember, we flew over to Vietnam in 707s. They do quite a rapid descent into Tan Son Nhut airport, and I didn't realise just how big that airport was.

Sapper John (Jethro) Thompson (retired), 1st Troop, 1st Field Squadron, Royal Australian Engineers: We arrived at the airport in Saigon. Very hot, noisy, crowded, busy. Military vehicles everywhere. Armoured Jeeps with machine-gun belts. We knew we were in a war zone.

Dr Mark Dalpin, author of Australia's Vietnam: Myths vs History: There were 2 Australian bases in Vietnam. The forward base in Nui Dat, where the infantry were stationed, and support troops were based in Vung Tau.

Ashley Elkins, historian: The logistics base was set up Vung Tau, virtually in the sand hills. It grows to be a hideous monster. It was the hub of activity. Night and day.

Dr Dot Angell OAM, who served as Staff Nurse, Australian Civilian Surgical Team, Alfred Hospital: Nothing prepared any of us for the conditions that we had to work and live in. Nothing.

Lieutenant Colleen (Mealy) Thurgar AM (retired), Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps: We turned up to a Nissan hut with no running water, no air conditioning.

Dot Angell: We had practically no equipment. We were able to improvise.

Archival news reporter: In South Vietnam, the Australians' responsibility is the province of Phuoc Tuy, only half an hour by plane from Saigon.

Private Kevin Borger OAM (retired), 5th Platoon, B Company, 5RAR: We needed to have an advanced camp, and that was Nui Dat, which became the main base.

Lieutenant Colonel Gary McKay MC OAM (retired), Platoon Commander, 11th Platoon, Delta Company, 4RAR: Nui Dat. It was allegedly our home. But I probably only spent, in the 6 or 7 months we were there, I think I would have been lucky to spend 4 weeks in Nui Dat.

Private Mick 'Bing' Crosbie (retired), Fire Assault Support Company, 7RAR: A daily life was spent outside the wire by most infantry troops. Outside the camp perimeter on patrol. Some of those might last up to 6 weeks.

Sergeant Chris 'Simmo' Simpson (retired), Rifleman, 5th Platoon, B Company, 7RAR: When we were patrolling, there was always somebody that was attacking us. Green ants were the top of the list. Miserable little mongrels that used to give us a terribly hard time.

Private Barry Vassella, 12th Platoon, Delta Company, 6RAR: Especially if you were carrying a radio because you brush against these trees with your antenna, and you'd get a load of ants down your back, and they used to bite. You'd try and squash them against a tree and you couldn't get the gear off. You just had to let them bite.

Chris Simpson: In the jungle, there's just a sea of leeches. If you sit down for more than a few minutes, they're on you, and they were huge these, you know.

Gary McKay: I once had a leech that inserted itself with one foot on the head of my penis and the other foot down the urethra tube, which was quite unpleasant and prompted some rather nasty ribald comments from my diggers who saw me bleeding from the groin.

Narrator: Along with leeches, bugs and beasties, the list of things trying to kill the Australians included the Viet Cong.

Ashley Elkins: The enemy would have known that the base defences had still not been completed in the couple of months that they'd had since setting up the bases.

Narrator: The Viet Cong quickly took advantage of this vulnerability.

Ashley Elkins: And on the 17th of August 1966,very early in the morning, enemy forces fired mortars and rockets into the Task Force Base. Explosions detonating in the base. A number of men wounded. When daylight broke, D Company was sent out to begin searching for the locations the enemy had been in.

Corporal Laurie 'Drinky' Drinkwater (retired), SEC Commander, 12 Platoon Delta Company, 6RAR: We got the word that we would be going out. The mood was, 'We'll just go for a little walk into the bush and nothing will happen'.

Graham Smith: We set out with 2 platoons forward, spread out over a fair area, and then a platoon in the rear, and it wasn't too long before 11 Platoon, they were fired on. 11 Platoon were able to become separated. They had put on a couple of hundred metres between the rest of the company and themselves. The other 2 platoons at this stage we're trying to link up with 11 Platoon.

Ashley Elkins: The position that the platoons of the company found themselves in was right on the edge of a disused rubber plantation. A very difficult place to search for an enemy.

Laurie Drinkwater: When the enemy first opened up, it was horrendous.

Graham Smith: Reports initially that we might have been facing a platoon, and then it was company strength, and then higher than that.

Lieutenant Colonel Harry Smith SG MC (retired), Officer Commanding, Delta Company, 6RAR: There was a lot of enemy in the area. About 2,000. So developed the Battle of Long Tan.

Ashley Elkins: D company had really gone into this, what was now, an extended firefight at a perfect range for the artillery back at Nui Dat at the base to bring in its force.

Bombadier John Burns (retired), 103 Field Battery, 1 Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery: D Company guys, they knew that if they called on an Australian artillery, they got them where they wanted them. You yell, we shell.

Harry Smith: The artillery shelled from behind us, over. the top of our heads to about 50 metres in front of our soldiers into the rubber plantation where the enemy were.

John Burns: Gradually, it was ordered. Danger close. That means we're just about dropping it on top of our troops. They could be killed. Not long after we started firing, the heavens opened.

Graham Smith: As the rain hit the ground, it did raise this mist of mud, about 30 centimetres. It might have silhouetted the enemy if they were close enough. But it also hid us.

Laurie Drinkwater: So 11 Battalion were being attacked on at least 3 sides at that time. Eventually we did get the survivors of 11 Battalion back to us. We went into – all around the fence – so bullets were flying thick and fast. You'd be firing at them, and you'd see 'em drop, and you'd think, 'Oh, you've got'. After a while, another assault would come in, and then they'd jump up and join that wave. They were reinforcing themselves on their way in.

Graham Smith: They had trumpets They were blowing trumpets and that put the fear of God into us. It was tenuous at that point.

Laurie Drinkwater: When I heard the bugle, I thought, 'There is a lot'. You're running out of rounds and we're not running out of enemy. I'd done a couple of laps around the rosary beads.

Graham Smith: We realised that we needed ammunition resupply. The battalion headquarters started to prepare. How it was going to get out there was on helicopters. However, the officer that was at Nui Dat said, 'This breaches our flying rules so they can't go'.

Flight Lieutenant Bob Grandin, Helicopter Pilot, No 9 Squadron, RAAF: Delta Company was surrounded by many, many enemy. They had the sense that we're going to be overrun. The task force was about to be attacked.

Narrator: Bob's captain was Flight Lieutenant [Francis Patrick] Frank Riley.

Bob Grandin: Frank, just being that very gung-ho guy, just said, 'Well, I don't care, I'm going. My helicopter up going'. I said, 'What the hell are you doing, Frank? This is suicide.' As we lifted up out of the helicopter pad, there was this huge thunderstorm. It was over the top of Long Tan. It was a time of apprehension. My image was we would be shot out of the sky.

Laurie Drinkwater: While the actual battle's on, you're scared, but you're still getting on with what you have to do, or it's all over, Red Rover.

Bob Grandin: We couldn't move very quickly. The windscreen wipers on the front of the helicopter were going flat out but you couldn't see anything through them. However, there's a perspex panel beneath the feet of the pilot, and so I could look down between my feet and navigate.

Laurie Drinkwater: You throw smoke for the helicopters. The helicopters see the smoke, and then they drop.

Graham Smith: I was talking to Frank Riley's aircraft on my radio. Then he flew in, momentarily, and dropped the ammunition in through the rubber canopy. And I said, 'You bloody beauty. Right on target'.

Ashley Elkins: In the meantime, a relief company had been sent out from the base, mounted in armoured personnel carriers.

Laurie Drinkwater: When the armoured personnel carriers arrived, the firing stopped and it was completely quiet. There wasn't a shot fired after that. This was right on dusk.

Graham Smith: I can remember coming back to Nui Dat afterwards, when it was all over, and Harry says, 'Well, I was gonna get rid of you, Smithy, but now you're welcome to stay'. And the reason he was going to get rid of me was because I was a bit prickly myself at times. A bit free with my fists.

Bob Grandin: As the battle died down, each helicopter had gone out and picked up the wounded and taken them straight back to the Vung Tau hospital.

Ashley Elkins: One individual, having survived the night on this devastating battlefield, had been there all night as the fire was coming in, said to Australian mates, 'You took your fucking time'. Two men survived on the battlefield overnight.

Graham Smith: I know now, the task force commander, Brigadier [Oliver David] Jackson, had been given intelligence from 2 Australian sources that there was a large enemy force working its way towards Nui Dat.

Laurie Drinkwater: Well, the brigadier knew, and he only sent a company out. Not a very good idea, I don't think, but we didn't know that.

Graham Smith: Yeah, we were babes in the woods. Other than the training that we'd been given, we would have perished. No doubt about it.

Harry Smith: It was the way in which my soldiers fought the enemy. They were young. They did a wonderful job.

Barry Vassella: Harry has always been a professional soldier. He seemed to know how fit we needed to be. He trained us, like, a level above what the rest of the battalion had been trained at. People were just disciplined, and they did their jobs and they looked after their mates. I'm just very proud of the – how the company worked that day. Very proud of them. They did what they were supposed to do and they did it well.

Ashley Elkins: The Long Tan cross became an emblem that veterans would always visit. They still do today. Coming back from operations, it's customary for Australians to sit around and consume beers and share stories. Needing to set the tone down a bit, to go over the emotional distress of the losses on operations.

Gary McKay: We wouldn't have our big barbecue until the second or third night back. You'd been off alcohol. Your stomach had shrunk because, you know, you're eating hard rations. Honestly, you drink 2 beers, and you'll be as silly as a 2-bob watch. The bulk of the guys are 20. They're not taking any prisoners. They go for it.

Michelle Arrow: There were a lot of Australian and American entertainers who did go to entertain troops in Vietnam. They thought that the troops deserved the right to have some entertainment. To have some downtime.

Do Angell: There was pathos. There were happy times, and we'd party. Singing and dancing and what have you. If you didn't do that, then I don't think we would have survived.

Narrator: The Australian command recognised the importance of maintaining troop morale, and no one was more aware of this than Prime Minister Harold Holt.

Archival news reporter: I've just returned from Vung Tau, some 40 miles away from Saigon, where the Australian prime minister, Mr Holt, has been visiting the RAAF Caribou squadron serving in Vietnam.

Emeritus Professor Rodney Tiffen, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney: Harold Holt, he visits the troops in Vietnam, and they mob him. One of his recipes for success was to, in a way, embody the American Alliance and to embody the vigorous youthful nation he wanted Australia to be.

Narrator: But Holt's unwavering support for the American strategy would soon make him an outlier.

Archival news reporter: In the skies over North Vietnam, a new struggle began: Operation Rolling Thunder. The bombing of the north saw American power being heavily committed in the hope of forcing Hanoi to capitulate.

Dr Peter Edwards, historian of Australia's Vietnam War: By '66, people all around the world were criticising the Americans for what they were doing. The bombing campaign was particularly widely criticised, including by Britain.

Professor James Curran, historian, Universty of Sydney: America's prestige and credibility is on the line. And for the Americans, it's important to remember that their national prestige and credibility is treated like virginity. Once it's given up, it can never be recovered.

Archival news reporter: A vital factor for President Johnson is to gain more public support for his Vietnam policy. Recent public opinion polls show that his popularity is the lowest for any president in 15 years.

Peter Edwards: It was planned that Holt would visit Washington. It was not planned as a high-profile event. Then Holt came and said, 'Well, we actually support what you are doing. We see no fault in American policy'. [President] Johnson then elevated what had been a low-key visit into a full-scale official visit.

Archival US news reporter: Throughout the morning, news of the bombings had brought the expected cries of escalation. Against this background of criticism and uncertain developments, Prime Minister Holt gave vent to the feelings of his country.

Archival speech of Harold Holt: In the lonelier and perhaps even more disheartening moments, which come to any national leader, I hope there will be a corner of your mind and heart which takes cheer from the fact that you have an admiring friend, a staunch friend, that will be all the way with LBJ.

James Curran: Obviously, Harold Holt's visit to Washington in 1966 is most remembered for his statement that Australia would be 'all the way with LBJ'.

Peter Edwards: That, of course, has gone down in Australian history as sycophantic. Our policy was not to be all the way with LBJ. We were giving sufficient support to the Americans to maintain our credibility, but no more than that. So Holt's enthusiasm for the commitment seemed excessive to many of those who were involved.

Rodney Tiffen: LBJ comes to Australia 6 weeks before the 1966 election. Just before the campaign begins. I think, the first sitting American president to visit Australia.

Michelle Arrow: Australians, they turn out in huge numbers to save him. Almost like a royal tour.

Dr Mia Martin Hobbs, Research Fellow, Deakin University: We wanted to come and have this president visit us. It really reflected a very strong sense of identity and affiliation.

Michelle Arrow: You know, it's a shift, I think, between Australia's allegiance to Britain, sort of marking a shift towards American leadership and the American Alliance in that period.

Mia Martin Hobbs: But, although there were massive crowds turning out to support him, there was the small but growing anti-war movement.

Archival news reporter: As the motorcade loomed into sight, scuffling broke out between demonstrators and police.

Michelle Arrow: We start to see small numbers of young people protesting LBJ's presence, protesting the war. It's a much more confrontational kind of protest – aggressive, dangerous kind of protests – that happened during that tour.

Biff Ward, anti-war activist and author of The Third Chopstick: Famously, a group of people over the other side of the road from where I was, laid down on the road in front of the car. They got flung out of the way, of course, and arrested.

Archival news reporter: The clash was brief. The police bundled the demonstrators back into the crowd with a little ceremony, and the motorcade moved on.

Mia Martin Hobbs: There was a real sense of polarity between some of the anti-war protesters versus the much bigger majority that was supportive of the US Alliance, supportive of the war in Vietnam.

Archival news reporter: The shouts of the demonstrators was drowned by walls of cheering from the crowd.

Emeritus Professor Michael Hamel-Green, former draft resister and anti-war activist: We were determined to show that the Australian people were not overly united behind this war. We were planning to have sit-downs in front of the cavalcade.

Michelle Arrow: And the New South Wales premier, Robert Askin, just says to his driver, 'Run over the bastards'. At that point, there is still not a long tradition of kind of radical protest. You know, the idea that people would lay down on a road was sort of seen as a bit embarrassing too, I think. You know? How do they do this when the leader of the free world here. So, not popular. Really unpopular amongst most Australians.

Ashley Elkins: In 1966, publicly, the big issue was Vietnam. And we call it the 'Vietnam Election'.

Peter Edwards: It's very unusual for Australia to fight general elections on foreign and defence policy.

Archival news reporter: Fist fights broke out over the hall. Sir Wilfrid Kent Hughes ripped anti-conscription signs from the hands of ...

Peter Edwards: Holt fought the 1966 election on the policies of conscription. By doing so, he won a bigger majority than any previous government had won in Australia's electoral history up to that time.

James Curran: The reaction of the Australian people was very much a cultural impulse stirred by having a culturally related great power here protecting Australia from the Asian threat.

Archival audio of Harold Holt: An alternative government might weaken our alliances abroad, particularly with the United States, which means so much to the continuing security of our nation and our people.

Major Graham Walker AM MID SVCG (retired), Officer Commanding, A Company, 8RAR: Australia back then was still suffering from this idea of the Asian hordes in the north. I mean, Australia had the White Australia policy, for goodness sake.

Peter Edwards: By this time, we'd increased the initial commitment to 2 battalions, but there was a lot of internal debate about the war. Holt, by 1967, his attitude had totally changed. He, too, couldn't see a way out. There was a lot of pressure from the Americans to raise it to a third battalion. Holt agreed to the third battalion, but he said to the Americans, we cannot do anything more than this. This is the absolute limit.

Narrator: A cap on our military commitment wasn't enough for a growing number of Australians who didn't want anything to do with the war.

Rob Wilton, teacher and former draft resister: When I was a young man in our family, we were brought up to think for ourselves. Anything could be discussed without rancour. I felt deeply disturbed about the nature of the war in Vietnam.

Jean McLean AM OTL, anti-war activist and former Victorian MP: It was very obvious that the war was wrong if you had taken an interest, and I had.

Rob Wilton: One reason why I started protesting in 1969 was because bombing in civilian areas and the use of napalm. How could this possibly be helping in the war against communism?

Jean McLean: I was shocked that our government had agreed to become involved. But the thing that moved me quickest was the conscription.

Dr Rowan Cahill, historian and anti-war activist: Conscription. If it was good for the nation, then bung on for everybody. But the hope, one in 12. Who decided to, cynically, to target those group of people: 19, 20, without the right to vote, right? And to think that you could palm that off onto the Australian population, unquestioned. Come on, Hell's bells! Look, you got kids at school, final year of school, and you think they're gonna sit on their bums and take that quietly.

Michael Hamel-Green: We felt an absolute urgency to stop the war, the urgency of doing something and the urgency of getting mass support.

Michelle Arrow: Australians were overwhelmingly still in support of the war. It left a lot of dissenting voices, disillusioned with political solutions to this issue of how does Australia get out of the war. And it kind of I think led to the radicalisation of protest and push push a lot of people further to the left. We're going to have to think about you know, reaching people another way.

Michael Hamel-Green: I think younger people, obviously at the '66 election, they were trusting the Government. It's just the trust was misplaced. It was a totally wrong and unjust war.

Archival news reporter: It's been a long haul now for the anti-conscription movement. Ever since the Harold Holt victory in 1966, there's been turmoil in the streets.

Michael Hamel-Green: It was inspired by the civil disobedience in the civil rights movement in America, that Martin Luther King's use of civil disobedience citizens. That kind of thing.

Rob Wilton: By 1969, there was a very active draft resistance movement. We led quite a small demonstration to Parliament House, where I burned my draft papers. I got some letters in the mail, telling me that I was despicable, and who criticised me more in terms of how painful this was going to be for my father. Because my father was running the war, he'd organised the movement to Phuoc Tuy province. He was the head of the army. [General Sir John Wilton.]

Michael Hamel-Green: I see there's a few photos here of me. I was burning my draft card, and it was a very important symbolic act. Many of us did it at the time. Conscription itself is the the tool by which governments can, in fact, wage unpopular or unjust wars.

Jean McLean: Many returned soldiers told me how horrific the war was. Bombs and helicopters and 'horrendous', they told me.

Mick Crosbie: That is B Company 7RAR, and we were just off to the left here [in the photo] for the next chopper lift out.

Gary McKay: There's an old Italian proverb that goes, 'Generals die in bed, it's the young men that perish on the battlefield'.

Jean McLean: A group of women started an anti-conscription group in Melbourne and called it 'Save Our Sons'. This is just one of many small demonstrations with our banner. Conscription was the driving force. I would never support conscription. We were handing out leaflets at the Commonwealth offices where you had to go and register. We were arrested, and we had to go to court. The magistrate said, 'obviously the government takes this very, very seriously. It's straight to jail.' And this was a bit of a shock. Just the city was covered in, 'Let these women go'. We had 2 weeks jail, and we were there for 10 days. Demonstrations work. And I just think it was necessary at the time.

Archival news reporter: Police believe they could control the demonstrations.

Jean McLean: We were incredibly successful because it was a movement from no protest, to getting what we did get accepted.

Archival footage of reporters and protesters: Do you think this is a student riot? I think this is what they want ... The students at the Australian National University have been demonstrating week on end ... Well, what are you prepared to do here today? Anything. Well, what have you done so far? Nothing?

Michelle Arrow: I imagine that some of the women who were part of SOS may well have ended up embracing a version of feminism because I think being part of a social movement is that it educates you on how to be a protester, how to agitate, how to push for change. But there was also this kind of cross-fertilisation and kind of radicalisation happening in different spheres of politics.

Archival news reporter: This last week, Aboriginal leaders from all over Australia have been meeting in Canberra.

Archival news interviewer: Do you think that Aborigines are becoming more militant?

Archival footage of Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins AO: I think they are, but not as militant as they could possibly become.

Unknown speaker: I can see Charles [Perkins] giving a speech outside the Walgett RSL Club. An Aborigine was denied entry.

Michelle Arrow: The freedom riots with Charles Perkins, exposing the kind of de facto apartheid system within Australian country towns. Things like, Aboriginal people couldn't go the RSL club. They couldn't go to local swimming pools.

Victor Bartley: I'm a part of this nation - this great Australia. For me personally and my family, it was very hard because when we were going to school, we were not learning anything about Australia, about Australian Aboriginals.

Archival footage: Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Faith Bandler.

Archival footage of Faith Bandler, Australian civil rights activist and NSW campaign director for 1967 Referendum: The referendum is on Saturday. And it's important that we should have the maximum vote because the eyes of the world are on Australia.

John Burns: Aboriginal people, for centuries, they haven't been living their own lives, sort of thing. There was someone from another country telling them what they can and can't do.

Archival footage of Faith Bandler: What will it mean if the referendum is passed? It will be of tremendous advantage to the Indigenous Australian.

John Burns: We've been here for 60,000 years and this is our country.

Archival footage of protester: ... agree to a foreign policy, which is not only wrong and unjust.

Narrator: Before the 1967 referendum, Indigenous men were actively excluded from conscription.

Victor Bartley: I don't think it'll be ever fully known how many Aboriginal people served in Vietnam because a lot of those who signed up, they didn't say they were Aboriginal.

John Burns: In the Army, we all wore the green skin. We were all there for each other. It doesn't matter who you are, or what colour or whatever, when you've been in the Navy, Army or Air Force, you feel you're part of a family. As long as you do the right thing, Australians will do the right thing by you. For me, that was one of the main motivations to get over there. In Vung Tau, I met a few Americans. Americans don't know much about Australia. 'Hey, hey man. What's Australia like?' They were a different sort of soldier than what we were. They were out on patrol with the rifles over their shoulders, chewing gum and smoking, and I thought, 'No wonder they're getting killed'.

Dr Bob Hall, Platoon Commander (retired) and Adjunct Lecturer, UNSW Canberra: Every now and then, when you're on operations and you'd be out in a jungle, you'd hear these, what sounded like monstrous firefight. And it turned out that these were what the Americans called 'mad minutes'.

Dr Greg Lockhart, Captain, Australian Army Training Team (retired) and historian: They'd fire every weapon around a platoon perimeter. Just let it rip for, you know, 5 minutes or something.

Bob Hall: Australians generally thought that was rubbish. Any Viet Cong would simply lie down, and the bullets would go whistling overhead. It was a waste of time and probably gave the Americans a sense of security that wasn't deserved.

Chris Simpson: They did everything with gusto. They were the noisiest. But we didn't want to be within coo-ee of them.

Ashley Elkins: The Americans were there to fight and destroy. The Australians were there to control and suppress.

Narrator: Their work in the tunnels showed just how different the Australians' approach was to their American counterparts.

Ashley Elkins: The Australians didn't follow the usual American practice of simply destroying the tunnels. The Australians explored them in detail. Mapped them, as they worked out what an immense network it was.

John Burns: You know, the tunnel systems that they dug were amazing. Tunnels going everywhere. Hospitals built underground.

Ashley Elkins: The Australians also came to appreciate the Viet Cong's ingenuity and their perseverance. Their will to win and win at all costs is something everybody underestimated.

Narrator: This vast tunnel network was a defining characteristic of the Viet Cong's approach, giving them an enormous tactical advantage that needed to be neutralised.

Ashley Elkins: There's the sappers and engineers, who were sent down into these tunnels. It's terribly confusing to work your way through in the dark. You're never knowing whether you'll encounter an enemy, or perhaps a trap door with Punji stakes. There were many encounters with Viet Cong underground. Quite a few Australians lost their lives as well. The commander of sappers and engineers later said that he was just surprised that these men who'd received no formal training rose to the challenge.

Narrator: With only a small task force available, Australian command needed to mitigate insufficient troop numbers to keep opposing forces at bay.

Greg Lockhart: In 1967, the second task force commander comes, Brigadier Stuart Graham. He is faced with this problem that there is this vast area out into the west, which he doesn't have the troops to cover properly. And so he wants to extend the barrier function of the base by establishing a minefield, which is 11 kilometres long with about 20,000 M16 mines.

Private Graham Edwards AM (retired), Pioneer Platoon Support Company, 7RAR: I understand he did this against best advice of senior engineers who knew a lot about minefields.

John Thompson: Minelaying is one of the many tasks that sappers would have to do. We would work as a section. Collectively, we're putting about 400 lines in each day. Five clusters. Everything's done so slowly. You tiptoe around. You're very careful about putting it in, taking out the pins. When we had completed our 5, we stepped out to the safe tape and then the powers to be decided we weren't laying enough mines. He was giving me a hard time, and I was starting to get a bit agitated, and I spotted my partner over there, so I just walked to him. All of a sudden there was this great movement. A rush of air. And I feel I'm up in the air. Thump! On the ground. My hands were just – blood pouring out. I was mesmerised by the flutter, like confetti, coming down over me. The mine had a killing radius of about 25 metres. And I knew nothing about the deaths until my sister told me in the hospital that they were people that I knew. That's when the rot set in with me. Aggression. Moody. I copped it all. But then, this middle-aged couple, they walked in, 'This is John Thompson?', 'Yes.'. They said, 'We're Mr and Mrs Brooks, Dennis's parents'. Well, did I sink under the bedclothes then? I thought, 'They've come the tear strips off me for killing their son?' Ray Books, Mr Brooks, said, 'We know it was an accident. You did not do it on purpose.' And after that, I started to lift again. I know I was not well-trained for that role. But at the end of the day, it was my fault. I'm responsible for these 2 deaths. And I decided that the only thing I can do is whatever I do, it'll be good. I'll do something good for the people who've looked after me. And I've never forgotten that moment. And I like to think I still live by that value.

Greg Lockhart: Before they finished laying the minefield, one of the troop commanders, he saw 45 holes that started to appear in the ground with no mines in them. So they'd been taken.

Bob Hall: One of the crucial bits of information in relation to minefields is that they must be covered by observation and fire, and that was the failing in Vietnam.

Graham Edwards: The Viet Cong, sneaking in of a night, plundered the mines as quickly as they were being laid.

John Thompson: The bravery of the people. I believe they lost in the vicinity of 30 to 40 people trying to work out how to remove them. But once they worked out, then it was a free-for-fall. They took hundreds of them out and put them everywhere.

Greg Lockhart: Now, what the Vietnamese did, was to plant them ahead of and use them something like artillery, which they didn't have. An offensive use of mines, which is almost almost unheard of, for Australians in Vietnam.

Ashley Elkins: They learned to lay them in patterns, knowing that if you laid one mine, you only kill the Australian who detonated that, but if you laid several, when one went off, the others would rush to his aid, and of course, you'd kill more. It was devastating to the morale of the men, but there was no way of striking back against the people who had done it.

Graham Edwards: It had a great psychological effect. This fear was at the back of your head all the time. Was my next step going to be my last? Blokes were really deadset scared of them. When we were patrolling one day out of a base called the horseshoe, our CO was flying overhead in a chopper, directing us. We were all aware that we were entering an area that contained indiscriminately laid moments. I felt pretty good, because on top of an APC, and there's a lot of metal between me and the ground. The CO, however, he ordered us off the APC. I wasn't too happy about that, I can tell, nor were any of my mates. As I jumped off and start to walk off, there was just this incredible bang, and dust when everywhere. My ears were ringing with the noise. I collapsed on the ground. Felt an incredible sense of peace and tranquillity, and I just started to drift off up into the blue sky. It was just so peaceful. Within milliseconds, I think, that feeling evaporated, and these incredibly powerful waves of pain just started to break over me and rack through my body. My legs were shattered. There was blood pouring everywhere. One of my mates started to rush towards me. And I heard everyone calling out to him. Stop! Stop! So, eventually they got to me, and they gave me the first aid. Pretty soon, I think the most comforting sound I've ever heard was that whop, whop, whop. That sound overpowered the sound of the CO flying overhead. And I felt intense, powerful anger towards him being up there in the safety and not being down there sharing the danger of the blokes on the ground that he'd ordered into this minefield.

Narrator: Between 1969 and 1970, more than half the casualties suffered by the Australian Task Force were from their own mines.

Peter Edwards: Brigadier Graham was promoted to Deputy Chief of Army. The minefields did become political, which made the war increasingly unpopular and just gave the general impression that it was being badly handled.

Archival news reporter: It is sometimes easy to forget what happens to men when a war is being fought.

Peter Edwards: Holt was trying to work out what to do but seemed an impossible dilemma.

Rodney Tiffen: Holt has been prime minister for about 18 months and he's not had such a good political year in '67, but things are still going well. For him. There's certainly no challenges in the Liberal Party to him. So I would have been 17. I saw a newsflash interrupt normal programming on television.

Archival news reporter: It is feared that the prime minister has drowned. A great search is being made for Mr Holt off Portsea in Victoria.

Archival news reporter: From camera, Mrs Holt flew to the search area, not far actually from the Holt's holiday home. Knowing the prime minister to be a keen swimmer, the nation hoped that somehow he might have survived. But with the hours, hope faded, and Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia, was never seen again.

Rodney Tiffen: This was the first prime minister to die in office since John Curtin. This created a whole sense of shock through the nation.

Narrator: The shockwaves from Holt's sudden disappearance were felt in Washington.

Archival news reporter: In Washington, where secret service men keep the president under strict surveillance, there was surprise that a prime minister could be allowed to swim without being closely watched. A White House official said the president was most upset because there was no leader in the world for whom he had more respect and affection than Mr Holt.

James Curran: I think the Australian people were genuinely flabbergasted Lyndon Johnson returned for the funeral. It did seem to indicate a real bond there. And I think that relationship between Harold Holt and Lyndon Johnson was certainly the closest that any Australian prime minister had with an American president to that time.

Archival news reporter: The president's car is pulling up outside the cathedral. The gesture, I think probably didn't go unnoticed was the fact that the president's car was flying not only the Stars and Stripes but also the Australian flag as well.

Narrator: Holt's funeral was followed by a power struggle in the Liberal Party.

Rodney Tiffen: About a month later, to everyone's surprise, John Gorton, then-Senator John Gorton, became prime minister.

James Curran: Gorton was an unknown commodity to the Americans. He was a bit more brash. He was a bit more assertive. He's a bit more of an Australian nationalist. And he was asking some pretty uncomfortable questions, I think, about the Vietnam commitment.

Archival footage of John Gorton: You, Mr President, bore the lonely weight of decision to continue to the resist force.

Dr Patrick Mullins, Visiting Fellow, National Centre for Biography, ANU: Gorton was profoundly sceptical of the Vietnam War, and he was more sceptical of the US and its rationale.

Narrator: Just months into his leadership, events in Vietnam cemented Gorton's doubts about the war.

Ashley Elkins: So, it's the annual Lunar New Year festival in Vietnam. The communist command had agreed to make this a truce with the South Vietnamese government. Military installations went into a more relaxed mode, but everywhere from Saigon to the northern demilitarised zone areas, there were attacks. In the first defensive, 10s of 1000s of North Vietnamese have been secretly transported into South Vietnam. Attacks were launched simultaneously, up to 50 installations.

Archival news reporter: Savage Viet Cong attacks gave them temporary control of much of Hue and Saigon. They even seized and held part of the American Embassy itself.

Chris Simpson: In our neck of the woods, we were fighting not only the local Viet Cong – local guerilla soldiers – but professionals from North Vietnam. They were excellent soldiers. They'd stand and fight you.

Mia Martin Hobbs: It really felt like a step back for the allied forces because they were forced into this urban fighting that they hadn't been used to, and it sort of felt like they were cornered back in.

Dr Kim Huynh, senior lecturer in Politics, ANU: The Tet Offensive in '68, was a real wake up call for a lot of urban Vietnamese. So, as much as war was present in their lives, they were a little bit insulated, but that changed in Tet '68, and it came with a realisation that even with America and Australia, that there was a chance a good chance that they weren't going to win.

Ashley Elkins: The South Vietnamese forces recovered. Fought their way back. The invading or attacking North Vietnamese and Viet Cong suffered a resounding military defeat. But the communists won something they hadn't intended. They won a resounding propaganda victory. On seeing the scenes of sheer chaos, highly trusted reporter Walter Cronkite, speaking to the American public, saying that it appears more and more likely that this war is now going to end in stalemate, not in the victory we've been promised.

Rodney Tiffen: President Johnson, watching, said that's the end. You know that if I've lost Walter Cronkite, I have lost Mr and Mrs America.

Ashley Elkins: The turning point was Tet. It led to America now seeking a long-term strategy of de-escalation.

Archival footage of Lyndon Johnson: We asked that talks again promptly. That they be serious talks on the substance of peace. We assume that during those talks, and no, I will not take advantage of our restraint.

Narrator: As peace talks commenced in Paris, North Vietnamese forces prepared to again attack Saigon.

Ashley Elkins: The Australians have established themselves in Phouc Tuy, but they've been called in to go in and occupy in an enemy-dominated area to the north of Saigon.

Narrator: The Australians were setting up artillery bases to provide fire support for ground troops ordered out of Phouc Tuy.

Graham Smith: Coral and Balmoral were 2 fire support bases. So they had moved the artillery out of Nui Dat to these new locations.

Ashley Elkins: I think there was a great deal of confusion over how the base was to be established. This straggling piecemeal fly-in brought in artillery, brought in troops. Mislocated many of them in the wrong places. This had happened under the watchful eye of the NVA divisional command. The operation should have been aborted.

Narrator: The decision to forge on had deadly consequences.

John Burns: It's something unheard of. Ground forces attacking an artillery unit. You know, normally the guns are back here. You've got the infantry up, moving forward. In this particular case, we were attacked. As soon as I heard the pop, pop, I knew what it was. Mortars are terrifying things. You can hear the hiss of the wind going through on the tail fins, and you will swear in the dark that they're right above you. The Viet Cong – I could hear them talking –they're going to come over and try to take my gun. This is the thought running through my mind: 'Please let me get one of these rounds off'.

Ashley Elkins: They then launched massive human-wave assaults. Waves of troops. Great bravery by the men on the ground to try and hold their positions.

John Burns: When I got the order to fire split hairs, little darts that are about an inch long, metal. When it comes out of the muzzle, the fuse detonates and it blows the 5,000 dots. The further they go, they spread out. If you're in front of them, you've got no chance.

Ashley Elkins: But the enemy wasn't finished. They launched another attack on Coral 2 days later. And then one on the base of Balmoral. The episode became one of the most traumatic since Long Tan. Probably as near as Australians had come from being entirely annilated. They survived simply through bravery and sheer luck. And they all knew it.

Narrator: The Battle of Coral–Balmoral was Australia's longest and bloodiest engagement in Vietnam. As the battle drew to an end, our ally, the United States, was in the grip of social and political upheaval.

Archival news reporter: Race riots rock New Jersey's largest city while fires make the space ... at least 24 persons are killed ... honoured by a national guard ... spreads to nearby suburban towns.

James Curran: There's a sense, in which in Australia, that some of the gloss, the shine, is coming off this great power, and therefore this will surely affect how Australia is going about its own commitment to Vietnam.

Greg Lockhart: 1969. Nixon comes to power early in the year. He wants to withdraw American troops.

Archival news reporter: In the previous administration, we Americanised the war in Vietnam. In this administration, we are Vietnamesing the search for peace.

Peter Edwards: For Nixon, Vietnamisation meant that he would be bringing out American troops to the extent that he could and handing over as much as possible to the South Vietnamese forces.

Greg Lockhart: So the Americans, having shunted the Australian battalions out of the province, now shunt them back in.

Narrator: And the Australians, having returned to Phuoc Tuy, discovered one local village had drastically changed.

Bob Hall: A normal routine movement of a couple of armoured vehicles drove past Binh Ba. They had no idea that the village had been occupied.

Ashley Elkins: The first hint that there was something afoot in Binh Bah was when a tank came under fire. What had been a very friendly village, was now hostile.

Archival news reporter: The Australian 5th battalion sent in 4 tanks, backed by helicopters. By the time the engagement in the rubber plantation hamlet was over, 91 Vietnamese described as Viet Cong were dead and 11d taken prisoners.

Ashley Elkins: The enemy fought to the bitter end. Operation Hammer was an excellent name for what had happened. The Australians finally left a very badly damaged village; no longer really recognisable from what it had been. The village itself, it was rebuilt mainly by the task force, and several months later, it was declared restored. It wasn't, of course. It was rebuilt in the Australian style with tin roofs, and no longer the old beautiful tiled roofs and the old Vietnamese pattern had gone, probably forever.

Narrator: As the Australians persevered with their mission to suppress the communist insurgency in Phuoc Tuy, they left an indelible mark on the province.

Bob Grandin: What we know is that the people in Phuoc Tuy province liked the Australian character. We cared for them. We weren't arrogant. And the province actually operated relatively peaceful.

Professor Nathalie Nguyen, historian, Monash University: What my father said of the Australian prisons in Vietnam, managing the province of Phuoc Tuy, they managed that very well. They were considered to be fair, and in that sense, they left a positive imprint in South Vietnam.

Narrator: While our troops left a complicated legacy in Vietnam, the war, and specifically the Battle of Long Tan, still casts a shadow over the tiny town of Coolah.

Robin Wesley, older sister of veteran Private Paul Large: We came to Coolah when I was 5, Paul was about 3 and a half, and you were only little.

Sandra Fleming, younger sister of veteran Private Paul Large: I was a baby.

Robin Wesley: He was the only boy. Very, very much loved. And he was a dear brother to all of us. He loved us all.

Sandra Fleming: Because of the conscription, his number was pulled out.

Robin Wesley: And that knocked us around somewhat. I don't think we all knew where Vietnam was, of course, in those days, you know. A little town like this. He was good. Always writing little letters and notes to us, which helped us along the way, didn't it?

Sandra Fleming: I remember one. They were out in the jungle. He was bitten by a scorpion. When the helicopter came to get him out, he yelled out, 'Thank God for the fly-in doctor'.

Robin Wesley: It was a Saturday morning.

Sandra Fleming: I remember Mum being at the kitchen sink, peeling vegetables. I was at the kitchen table. I heard a noise at the front and I just looked out and there was a policeman standing there, holding my dad up. And as I walked out, he handed me a telegram, and I knew. I didn't need to read the telegram.

Robin Wesley: Total devastation. Total devastation.

Laurie Drinkwater: Paul was the last man to die on that night at the Battle of Long Tan. Within 10, 15 minutes of the last shot being fired, he was just laying prone, firing at the enemy and, bang, right between the eyes.

Robin Wesley: The trees were planted on the day of Paul's funeral by the local Lions Club. And there's 18 of them. One for every young soldier that was killed at Long Tan.

Sandra Fleming: And so they just decided to get these beautiful, flowery gums. You know, make an avenue for the young men that gave their lives for all of us. That was a beautiful way of saying thank you especially when they're in flower. They're just lovely.

Laurie Drinkwater: His mother used to live just across the road, and she used to come and water this special one, Paul's one, every day. It's the tallest tree on the avenue. It definitely is. Enormous compared to the others.