Chris Roberts - Vietnam

A military background

I'm a Western Australian and I was going to school in Mount Lawley Senior High School. At 17 we didn't have cadets at our school, so I joined the CMF, which is now known as the Army Reserve, initially as a sapper in 13 Field Squadron, and then transferred to the West Australian University Regiment. When I matriculated from high school, I went to Duntroon, spent four years there, graduated in 1967 and was posted to the Special Air Service Regiment to do the, what was then called the Cadre course or the selection course … My father was in the Army, he had served in the Second World War in the 6th Division and he joined up again during the Korean War. So, we spent six years traveling around in Army postings and, I think, you have to remember, we all grew up with men of the First and Second World War around us. We knew all their stories. I was interested in the military and so I applied for Duntroon.

Vietnam?

To be honest, I didn't even know where Vietnam was … I remember as a kid looking at some stamps about 1960-61 and they were from Vietnam and that was the first I'd ever heard of the country.

The Cadre course

It was in January. I was the only officer on it. It was run by a friend, a mate called Michael Deak, now Michael von Berg. He'd served in 5RAR and had been the OC of the first reconnaissance platoon with 5RAR. Won a military cross there. So, Mick was pretty tough. So, initially we went out to Rottnest Island and we were built up in terms of our physical ability. Running each morning and building that up until we could run quite some distance, do the nine miler in 90 minutes and Mick had a technique, that if anyone mucked up, they had to carry a brick. So when you're running with a brick and a rifle, it gets rather difficult. It was a pretty tough course. From there we went on to Garden Island to do some patrolling in pretty thick scrub. It wasn't high but it was matted scrub and from there we came back to Perth and then when we got back, he said I could go to the mess for a drink and he insisted that I pull all my webbing apart and wash it and lay it out on the bed for inspection. At about nine o'clock in the evening, I decided I wanted to go to bed, but he wouldn't let me. So at about three o'clock in the morning, I finally tumbled into the bed somewhat full of the turps. At 5:30, he banged on my door, said I had 20 minutes to get up to the other ranks quarters, we're to do our nine miler. So, I don't know whether you know the old American equipment, but it's got prongs in it that can stick into your body. So, I rather put all my gear together, all my webbing together, packed it all up, got there with less than five minutes to spare. He decided I didn't have enough weight in my pack so he had a big limestone rock, about that big, which he put in the pack and I think I vomited for about the first two and a half miles doing the nine miler, but we got through it. Another thing he did is we went out along a road and there was a big cutting and I thought it was rather odd that when we stopped by the cutting, it was directly opposite the highest point of the cutting and then he had us run up the cutting to the top of the cutting directly opposite us and back again and the last ones back had to do 10 press-ups. Guess who was the last one back on each time because I had the furthest to go, although I got back a couple of times before the last fellow. But by the end of it I was absolutely knackered and from there we went down to Collie and we did a lot of patrolling. But again, we did a lot of heavy stuff. For instance, Mick would cut a tree down, Jarrah tree about that round, we'd all have to lift it on our shoulders like that and of course the fibres were all coming down into our eyes. So it was a pretty tough course. I was very lucky in the sense that when I left Duntroon, I was very fit. Duntroon prepared us pretty well but yeah, it was a long, long course, but not as difficult as the patrol course in some respects, which we did later, which was a course specifically to train us all on patrol but we'd normally get back from training about midnight. It was wet, we'd dry our clothes out, get to bed, and then we'd be up at 5:30 each morning and this went on. So we didn't get much sleep, but we still had to operate as a patrol and as an officer, of course, I understood navigation, radio procedure. So the worst thing about the patrol course was just the lack of sleep and just relentless training.

Passing the Cadre course

The figures I remember is we went in with 126 and 19 of us passed … Well, a lot fell out on the route march on Rottenest Island. We had to march all around Rottnest Island, and I don't know whether you know Western Australia in January, but it's pretty hot and this was a very hot day and fellas just kept falling out and when they fell out, they were picked up with a Land Rover, sent back, put together, and by the time we got back that afternoon, after a very gruelling route march all around the island in full kit, they'd been packed off back to the mainland and sent home … The whole thing in the selection course was, on the tough stuff, my view was I'd pick out a tree about 50 metres away and say, "I'm going to reach that" and then before you got to that tree, you'd pick something further out and you say, "I'm going to get there". So it was, you know, just keep going.

Duntroon

We went to Duntroon all eager to get there. It was a four-year course in those days and when we got there we were subjected to what was known as bastardization, that was pretty brutal and I think all of us were pretty shocked about that. So we arrived and the first day was pretty brutal in terms of people yelling at you and having you hop along on one leg and... it was quite ridiculous actually. Then we went out to Point Hut for, I think it was two or three weeks, maybe longer and then we came back into the bastardization. What surprised me was that the first three years were largely academic, we were the first course to go in that was supposed to get a university degree. I hadn't realized that. We did military training, the discipline was very tough. You'd get an extra drill for dust in the welts of your boots, if someone didn't like you or any misdemeanour. I can remember a classmate of mine walking down the corridor one morning after PT thinking all the senior classes were at class, and he made the statement that "I'm not going to get an extra drill this year" when the first-class section commander stepped out and gave him three extra drills for disturbing the peace. From there on, once you'd passed through the first year, and we had quite a high attrition rate, we lost 19 at the end of our course, and we'd lost probably five or six, maybe seven during the year. From then on, it was largely academic work, good training, and the final year it was all military work. So, by the time we got to our final year, which was first class, we knew how to operate within a section and then we went on to a whole range of subjects, tactics, military law, administration, did a lot of tactical exercises without troops, looking at tactical issues out in the field. So it was a good course.

In command for the first time

It can be a bit daunting. You've had good training in the basics and that, but you've never had to really control soldiers or lead soldiers and it can be quite daunting, but you've just got to listen to your NCOs and seek advice where you don't know something. I found the soldiers were a little bit, held you at arm's length until they got to know you, but other than that, no, it was fine.

Preparing for Vietnam

The regiment had three squadrons of which one was in Vietnam, one was training to go to Vietnam and one had come back and was really doing most of the duties around the regimental base. So I went into 3 Squadron, into L troop, and we were training all that year to go to Vietnam. After the selection course, of course, the soldiers, we all went off to do the parachute course and then they went and did a medical course or a signal course and then we did some other training. As I said, we did the patrol course and then we were basically doing training in the Perth area or Collie or other places around there, Bindoon, practicing patrolling and other activities, rappelling from helicopters and then around about, I think September, we deployed to New Guinea where we did training in the jungle up there. I think it was for about six to eight weeks. Then we came back and some of us were sent off to do a Vietnamese colloquial language course, which I did. Then we went on pre-embarkation leave and we deployed to Vietnam in February 1969 … I went in the advanced party. So we went two weeks ahead of the rest of the squadron. It was the squadron commander, the troop commanders, and I think some of the sergeants, but not all.

First parachute jump

I think the Australian army at that time trained our people very, very well. We knew the type of war we were going to and we trained for it … The parachute training was brilliant. I think it was about three weeks of solid training before our first jump. So, when you got to the door and you stepped out, everything was just automatic. I was very surprised, in my report you either got calm, nervous but controlled, or nervous but uncontrolled, which meant you failed the course and I was surprised that I got calm. So I was quite happy stepping out the door the first time and that goes down to the thorough training we were given. It was absolutely superb.

Tan Son Nhut airport

Tan Son Nhat airport was a very busy airport. I think the thing that struck me was the various types of aircraft. We went out in what was called a Baby Herc to fly into Nui Dat but what struck me about it was the various types of aircraft, you'd see a civilian Boeing 707, behind a couple of fighters ready to take off. Then there'd be a little prop jet and then there'd be a Hercules and then another civilian aircraft. It was quite unbelievable the different types of aircraft taking off. You've got civilian aircraft flying out, and then you've got military aircraft going out on missions.

SAS quarters at Nui Dat

Nui Dat centred around a hill. It was sort of a shortish, longish hill. It wasn't just a round hill, it sort of came up there and ran down and we were on the perimeter facing west and then the rest of the Task Force was around the hill, mainly to the south and to the east and SAS occupied the northern end of the hill and a company of one of the infantry battalions occupied the southern side of the hill. When I got there, I found we were accommodated in tents. Four men to a tent, two officers to a tent. I found out the flooring rotten, the tents pretty rotten. So, the first thing I did was go out on a patrol with one of the patrol commanders of the squadron we were relieving and then after that, when I came back, I determined to get better accommodation for my soldiers. So, I went around, I was able to borrow the squadron Land Rover every now and again, and I went around different units begging, borrowing, and stealing new tents and new floorboards and got them brought up to L troop. We replaced the old floorboards with new ones and the old tents with new ones. I realized that sand bagging just fell apart in that weather. So I instituted going down and getting star pickets and corrugated iron, and instead of putting sandbags around the tents, we put a sort of a barrier about that wide, star pickets, corrugated iron and then we filled that with dirt and therefore it was more permanent than having to replace sandbags all the time.

A jeep for a slouch hat

Squadron was short of vehicles and I'd met an American later on when we were up in Bien Hoa and he offered us a jeep for, I can't remember what it was, it was a slouch hat or something like that. Came back and told the squadron commander we could get a jeep for a slouch hat but he quite rightly said, "No, we won't take that up".

American uniforms

We actually wore American camouflage. We didn't wear the Australian greens or boots. We wore the American camouflage uniform and the American boots and they were superb. The camouflage uniform had big pockets on, so you could carry stuff in it. They're on the side of your leg or on your jacket and the boots were like slippers after you wore them, they were really good. They would drain water out, they had little eyelets at the bottom. They weren't all leather, they were sort of a fibrous, -y, fibrous sort of stuff, but they were excellent boots but after about nine months it was starting to fall apart. Nick Howlett and I were sent off to Bien Hoa by the squadron commander to scrounge some more American camouflage uniforms but sadly, we were unsuccessful. So by the end of the tour, I was actually sewing sweat rags into the crotch of my trousers because they'd rotted out … Most of us actually wore a sweatband tied around our head like the Viet Cong did. So, yeah, some of us would wear the hat, some would wear scarves, sweat rags around their neck. Our equipment, we'd made ourselves, the Australian equipment didn't suit us. So I had, for example, an American belt, the American yoke. I had British 44 pattern pouches, British 44 pattern water bottles. I had a little pouch to carry my rifle cleaning kit in which was an old American Second World War thing. So we sort of made up our own kit. Some guys actually went off and had it made up specially before they left Australia, so, really, we purchased our own equipment or paid to have it made but it was comfortable. It carried all that I wanted.

Never forget the infantry

Let me make it quite clear. The infantry battalions did the hard work in Vietnam. They're the ones who... I have a great respect for what the infantry battalions did, and we should not forget that.

The standard of food

You had your eggs, powdered eggs each morning. Look, it was good food, you put on weight. You'd come off patrol, you'd lost quite a few kilos after you'd come off patrol and you'd put on weight. It was pretty average food, average standard … Squadron had dedicated cooks … I don't know where they got their food from, but we'd be allocated a ration that'd come up from the ALSG at Vung Tau and the units would get their allocation of rations. They were fresh rations except for powdered eggs and things like that.

Patrolling

Orders group with the Squadron commander first thing in the morning in which we… largely administrative stuff. Then go back and brief the troop on that. We'd work on defences. I had mortar pits made. What I mean mortar pits, if we were shelled, I had new pits dug and covered over so that we had protection if we were mortared or rocketed and we were a couple of times. I can't quite remember what all the things we did were, but it was administration and things like that … 25 of us in a troop broken up into five patrols. Troop commander led one of the patrols, and then the troop sergeant another and then I had three other sergeants who led patrols … Five patrols of five men but the patrol strength would be from four. The smallest patrol I took out was myself and three, the largest I took out was myself and three patrols … I would take a patrol out roughly four men to six men. On occasions for a special job I might take two patrols with me or three patrols with me but the Squadron would always have patrols out in take two patrols with me or three patrols with me. But the Squadron would always have patrols out in the field. So you'd go out, do your patrol, come back, have a period back in base, and then you'd deploy again for another patrol … It was largely reconnaissance and surveillance. So we would go in and patrol the area, reconnoitre it, find out where tracks were. If we had a track, we would set up a observation post, we'd sit back off the track and watch and report any movement on that track or if we found a bunker system, we would sit and watch that, report on it but generally speaking, we'd patrol the area, find out where the tracks were, what the movement on the tracks were, any enemy locations. We also did harassing. We'd lay ambushes on the tracks and that was basically it. One patrol I did was to go and blow up a bridge, but basically it was reconnaissance, surveillance, and harassment … it'd be five to seven days unless you got shot out. My shortest was about a day.

Dropping into a landing zone (LZ)

You get your orders from the Squadron commander, or a warning order would come down. You'd go up, Squadron commander would tell you what your patrol area was like, the boundaries of it. You would then go down to 161 Recce Squadron and go out and do what was called a VR or a visual reconnaissance and I would go out with the pilot, tell him what I wanted to do in terms of the approach I wanted. What I was looking for was insertion landing zones and extraction landing zones, get a feel for what the area was like. I would then come back and then I'd work out which LZ I would go into. I'd have been told what my mission was in there, the patrol 2IC, normally a corporal or lance corporal would be getting the ammunition, the rations ready, that'd be distributed around the patrol, I would then give my orders and this would be over about three or four days and then we would be taken down to Kangaroo Pad to the 9 Squadron briefing room and I already would've talked to them. They would know what the LZ was and then we'd get a briefing and what would happen is we'd go out and get in the insertion helicopter, patrol would go in, I would sit on the floor with my feet hanging over the side because I'd be the first man off the chopper, or the scout might be first off. We'd get a briefing and... what would happen was the helicopters would take off, and I can't quite remember how many, but there would be what would be called albatross lead and he'd fly high, and then there'd be our helicopter and then another one coming behind and we'd fly out at tree top level, and the Albi lead would guide our helicopter to the LZ. We'd come in like that, land, we'd jump off. As we were landing, the second helicopter would go across the top and that was to drown out the fact that this helicopter was landing and then ours would take off and then they'd go and they'd circle for a while in case we got into trouble and then they would take off. We would jump off the helicopter into the jungle, prop just to check what was there and then we'd move off. So the scout would go first, I would go second, then my signaller, medic, patrol 2IC or you know, but it was always a scout first, myself second.

Contact and a hot extraction

We'd gone into this area up near the Courtenay Rubber, and as we got off the helicopter, we were just moving off when I caught a movement out of my eye to the left and I got the scout to sit down, and we all propped down and about 40 North Vietnamese went past about 10 metres in front of us. I knew they were North Vietnamese, they were dressed in green, they had pith helmets with the little red star on the top. They didn't see us so we moved across the track, went about 300 yards and propped, went into what was known as a night LUP, a lying up place. The next morning we moved on and we went on to a little rise and we're just getting the aerial out for the radio to send the message back to Nui Dat. Got to explain, we had two radio scheds a day and they were nominated at a certain hour. So you'd send a sched in the morning and a sched in the evening, and you just report on where you were and where you were about to go to and if you missed a sched that indicated... If you missed two scheds, you're in trouble. So we're just about to put the aerial out and all of a sudden there's movement, well, not all around us, but just below us and we'd walked into what was clearly a large enemy force. They had all those machine guns, I think it was a 12.2 anti-aircraft machine gun. I can't recall what the calibre was and so I decided, "Hey we'd better get out of here, they're very close and they're moving around us." So we started to move back and my 2IC said they were chasing us and we got back to the LZ and I called for an extraction and we came out. I was asked would I go back in again? I said, "Yes, but I'd go in from another LZ and from a different direction" and so we went in from the east and after about... we were patrolling along and we'd picked up information and... I'm just trying to recall, we'd gone over a ridge line and we'd found all these areas that had been, obviously where they'd been sleeping and I'd been sent in to check on an enemy position that was reported to be in a particular location. So we came down through some defoliated area and I took over the scouting, which was ... there's a ridge line like that, and we are moving along on a bearing and as I stopped, two fellows walked past on a track just above us. The second one saw me. So we turned around and we shot him and then I withdrew the patrol back a bit because I knew I was very, very close to this suspected enemy bunker system. Moved the patrol back into the defoliated area and put them down behind some mounds. Four of us there were, so we were each covering a different direction and the enemy reacted to that, we could see them moving around. They didn't come through the defoliated area because they probably didn't think we were there. I tried to get a message back through the 64 set, but we'd had the first rain about an hour before the contact and my sig said he couldn't get through, that the radio had been wet. Fortunately, I had a 77 set, which was a VHF set, and I knew that we were near the border of the next province and I knew that aircraft flying from that province into Phuoc Tuy province had to go onto a radio frequency called Nui Dat RT and so I got on the radio and I just whispered, "This is Bravo nine, sierra, four, one. Mayday, mayday, any aircraft in the area? Over." And this went on for about five or six minutes and the guys are telling me, "Hey, we've got guys all around us". Finally, a 161 Recce pilot in a Cessna came up and actually his name is Errol Driver and we'd been at school together and he picked up our distress call. I told him roughly where we were, gave him the grid reference. He came over and I lay on the back with a signalling mirror. The mirror the Americans had, was a mirror but it, in the centre of it was an open area and you could guide it like that and he picked up the flash of the mirror from the sun, so he knew exactly where we were. He then got a message back to Nui Dat to say we were in trouble and eventually, so some 9 Squadron Iroquois came out. I told them where we were. I said that I wanted rockets 20 metres to the south and 20 metres to the north. They told me that was within the safety distance. I said, "Well, I'm already within Charlie's safety distance, that's where I want them" and the gunships came in... Well, first of all, I popped a smoke in the middle of us. The gunships came in, they put the rockets either side of us but as the smoke was coming in, my sig yelled out, "Skipper they're coming down." I looked off to the left and there was an assault coming down towards us from the high ground and the rockets caught them, which was fortuitous. A very brave, 9 Squadron pilot came in, hovered, both door gunners were firing, I guess Charlie was firing. I got him to move back a bit because I didn't want the ropes ... there were a couple of trees around, I didn't want the ropes to tangle in the trees. Got to a clear point, the ropes came down. We'd already put our Swiss seats on and carabiners on. As the rope came down, got the guys on and as we pulled out, you could see the green tracer coming up, the door gunners are firing, so that really was a hot extraction. He carried us quite some distance and when we finally got to a paddy field and landed we were like cripples because the weight of the Swiss seats on our crotch was quite painful and we sort of staggered back to the aircraft, got in, and I found out that, when I got back to Nui Dat, I'd actually put my carabiner through the knot and I hadn't realized that because in Australia, when we did our practice, I'd always had trouble getting the rope through the gate of the carabiner, but just the adrenaline and in the situation we were in, I'd put the carabiner through the knot and it went in through like a hot knife through butter. Took me half an hour to get it out of the knot … The rope would come down and there'd be a bow line which we'd push the bow line through the carabiner and then we'd hang onto the rope, hook our arms around each other like that … like a cluster. So the four of us were together and then it'd pull us up and we'd be dangling off probably 20 feet below the helicopter and then it'd take us off. So that was the first hot extraction I had.

18 – Liaising with the Americans

Around October I'd had a very bad contact again up in the Courtenay Rubber and the boss, Reg Beesley decided to send me up ... We had to provide liaison officers to 18th ARVN Division up in the next province to our North, Xuan Loc, I think the province was and he said, "You're going up to be the liaison officer up there". So the Australians had to provide a liaison officer. So I was sent up to be a liaison officer with the 18th ARVN division but when I arrived there, there was already a liaison officer there. So I was then sent across in the same town to the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, which was an American independent brigade … he stayed with 18th ARVN division and I went across to 199th Light Infantry brigade … There was quite a difference between the way in which we operated and the Americans operated. You've got to realize that we would go over as formed units, certainly the infantry battalions, the artillery, SAS. The Americans had an individual replacement system, so the unit would stay in Vietnam, their soldiers and officers would come through. I don't think they're as well trained as we were, but they were very brave men. They tended to move through the jungle or stomp through the jungle. They didn't seem to have the same tactical care that we had. We would move somewhat more carefully. They would have a lot of fire power. I went out and visited one of their fire support bases and I was quite shocked to see what I saw. They had cleared the area for about 300 metres in a circle, and right in the middle of it was a circular fort with dirt mounted up to form the perimeter and it was absolutely jam-packed with units, artillery, whatever, and if it was hit by artillery or mortars, there was no way they weren't going to have casualties. Our fire support bases tended to be more tactically deployed. We didn't clear the ground around us and we would deploy as a defensive position, but not in the same way as the Americans. I found their officers ... Some of the officers, they'd had six months training and then sent off to Vietnam, but look, they did a good job and they bore the brunt of the war, but there was quite a difference between the way they operated and the way the Australians operated and the New Zealanders.

R&R to Hong Kong

I think I went to Vung Tau twice and I went to Hong Kong on R&R for five days. That was the only leave we had … I went with a mate of mine, a fellow troop commander. Paid for by the North Vietnamese army, I've got to say … My mate, Terry Nolan, we get on the plane, you see, and he actually got seated next to an American Special Forces captain Bob Costa and Bob had ambushed a paymaster and so he had quite a bit of American dollars from this paymaster he had captured and so Bob said, we'll stay together and Terry said, "Hey, we've got this American special forces captain, we'll stick with him" and he paid for our holiday … I don't know whether they paid in US dollars or whatever, but he had US dollars on him and said he'd ambushed a North Vietnamese paymaster.

Return home

We went down to Vung Tau, C-130 came in. I remember we were all sitting in the plane and everybody was sitting like this and the plane sort of revved up and took off down the airfield and as soon as the wheels lifted off the ground, I noticed all of us just went back like that. It was a sense of relief, we flew to Butterworth, had the night in Butterworth and then we flew back to Swanbourne the next day, very long flight … it was good to get home. You sort of snuck in like mongrel dogs, went through the airport, got on a bus, went to Swanbourne guys dispersed home, that was it … I think we had... got home late February '70 and I reported to 5 RAR in early April. So it was about five weeks leave … I think the nashos had a bit of a rough trot because you've got to remember the army is like a bit of a family and you build strong friendships with people and you've got that... You're all on the same page. You're all thinking alike, you've got these great bonds of friendship, you're a team, people work together, rely on each other. We still had that as regulars. The nashos never had that, they went straight back out into civvy street, into quite a different environment. People didn't want to know... I think the thing that struck me when I got home is everybody was living as if there was no war on. They were just getting on and talking, I had one incident where I was abused of being a child killer and whatever, but generally speaking we were well received but it was just the stark contrast of fighting and then within two days you're back in normal civilian life in Australia, everybody's carrying on as if there's no war going on. So there's this huge contrast of coming out of an operational zone, two days later you you're back in civvy street … I think the guys coming home on the Sydney were able to... Yeah, they had that long voyage home so it wasn't as abrupt say as those who came home by aircraft … Everybody wanted to ask me about the war and I didn't want to talk about it. So there was that tension between them asking you questions about the war and you not wanting to talk about it … but yeah, you just didn't want to discuss the war. My children have asked me to tell them about Vietnam and I said, "No, you don't need to know about it".

A bridge raid

The bridge raid, I'd been given this... we'd been told it was well outside our province, it was quite a long way out to the East and we'd been given this information that there was this bridge there that needed to be taken out, that it was used as a supply route with trucks for the enemy to build up stores in this mountainous region which was way beyond the May Taos. My squadron commander wanted me to go in short, about 3000 metres short, carry everything in and then destroy the bridge and come out. I was a bit concerned about that because that would take us at least two or three days to get to the bridge and we had engineer trails to cross, engineer trails being wide open areas that had been cleared. So I went out and did a visual reconnaissance and found that there was a circular clear area just above where the bridge was. We came back, I told the squadron commander, what I wanted to do was land the patrols directly on the open area, move down with pre-arranged charges, blow the bridge and come out again. He agreed to that, but, he said, "The patrol has to stay in". And when I asked why, he said, "Well, we have to justify the air hours", because we're being put under quite a lot of pressure from the Task Force commander that we couldn't come out after a contact unless it was absolutely necessary and therefore for us, just to go in, blow the bridge and come out wasn't acceptable which I found quite extraordinary to be honest. I pointed out, "Well, you're going to have to use air hours to come and pick us up again afterwards, that's going to be longer air hours", but that didn't wash. So we rehearsed outside the wire about six or eight times ad what we did is, one of the patrols, which was a New Zealand patrol, we got ammunition boxes, we cut a V in the bottom, put steel plate in and a bar across and filled it full of plastic explosives. We had drilled a hole in to put the detonators in, little round washers on the bottom so we could nail it to the bridge. And we went and rehearsed this and we rehearsed it and we rehearsed it. So in we went, three patrols, Freddy Roberts, one of my patrol commanders secured the near bank, I went across with my patrol to secure the far bank and the New Zealand patrol came down and they plonked these pre-prepared ammunition boxes full of explosives on the bridge, put a nail in so they wouldn't move. Another guy came along, put the detonators in, put all the cord up. When they were ready, they called my patrol back. As I came across the bridge and came up the track, I said, "Blow it Fred". Well, Fred must have had his finger on the ... and he blew it straight away ad of course we just dived over a log. The bridge went up and it was a whole series of very big logs held together with steel wire ropes. So it wasn't a bridge you'd find here in Australia. Well, we blew it to buggery. I went back through the smoke and there's bits of stuff falling down around us, but I went back through the evaporated water from the explosion, we'd blown it completely, but I'd negotiated with the squadron commander that we'd take one patrol out because on the far bank we knew there were enemy and we were overlooked and with the helicopters coming in, they would've seen us come in, but if we weren't extracted, they'd know we were still there. So I negotiated that all the helicopters would come back and one of my patrols would split up and go onto each of the helicopters and go back to make it look as if we were pulling out. Well, as luck would have it, the monsoon opened up just as we blew the bridge and the helicopters couldn't find us because the rain was just too heavy. So if you got the 77 set and held the pressel switch, the choppers could guide in on that pressel switch. So they came in in the rain, landed, the boys went out and we stayed there about another five days. Didn't do much, we sat around patrolling, observing tracks, and then we eventually came out about five days later … The boss later said to me, quite a few years later, he regretted that he'd put us in a very dangerous position because it was a very long way out. If the two patrols that were left behind had have been in trouble, we could have been in quite serious danger but that was our job. So you just did what you had to do.

Another hot extraction

I recall another patrol where we were sent in, again, looking for an enemy bunker system in the Courtenay Rubber area. We went in, we found it, we sat opposite for about three days. So I'd take the patrol forward, we'd sit and observe it, and then we'd pull back each night to have our rations. I said we weren't to cook our rations and so we ate freeze dried rations with cold water and then we'd move down again and observe the bunker system and then I decided we'd start to move around the bunker system to try and plot the tracks going into it so that a battalion coming in would know where the exit route were. As we were moving around ... we would've been, I guess, 200 metres from the bunker system. We encountered two fellas coming towards us and had to engage them. So we engaged them, we moved off. I sent off a radio sched to say we were staying in and my intention was we would go back the other way, we'd move off, hide up, and then later on we'd come back and plot the tracks in after the hullabaloo had died down. So we're moving off and we're coming down a slight slope, came across a creek line and as we came up, we hit dead fall. Now dead fall is where trees have fallen down and my scouts said, "I can't get through". And I said, "We'll have to find a way". Just then I get this bzzzt, which is enemy, and point back towards us, turn around and there coming down the slope is a large number of North Vietnamese tracking us and I knew we were in trouble and we were... I said to myself, "This is going to be a bad one". And the patrol was a six-man patrol and so there was a scout, myself, my sig, and then the other three were like that and so we waited for the inevitable. My 2IC was an ex British para called Gary Daw. Later on I said to him, "How many enemy did you think were there, Gary?" because my sig thought there were about a 100. I thought they're probably about 60. We all tend to overestimate the number of enemy, as you well know from your writing of history, but whatever it was, we were in trouble and Gary said to me afterwards, he said, "Well, I only shot the first two" and then the bush started disintegrating around us and they put in the best counter ambush drill I've ever seen. They put a fire base down and they sent a group off to the right up onto another ridge, another bit of high ground. We were taking a fair bit of fire. The noise was deafening, we were taking rocket propelled grenades coming through the trees above us and I can remember being hit in the face and I thought it was the rounds being ejected from George Franklin's Armourlite. So I turned to move away, but I was near a tree, but what it was, it was the bark flying off a tree as the machine gun bullets were flying into it and the patrol, I was waiting for the guys to get back and I said, "If I don't do something, we're all going to die" and I had a guy pinned down and he was lying there and there were rounds flying around and I can recall saying, "I've got to get him out if we’re all going to get out" and I don't know whether you've seen the film Saving Private Ryan, where all of a sudden in that film under fire, things go silent and in slow motion and I can remember going forward, and it's like those dreams you have where your feet are like lead weights and you're trying to move forward and I can remember going forward in slow motion and there were rounds ... I remember stepping over the dirt kicking up and saying, "I've got to get to him, am I going to get to him?" I grabbed him by the webbing, and as soon as I grabbed him by the webbing, all of a sudden the noise came back, it was back to noise, back to normal stuff and I pulled him back and I just yelled out to the rest of the patrol, "Follow me". And by some instinct I decided to go towards the assault coming down the hill and I'd only gone 10 metres and found the dead fall had finished. So we came round the dead fall dragging this fellow and I'm yelling, "Follow me, follow me" and Georgie Franklin came bursting out of the dead fall and you do some silly things, I'm standing there and I said, "I thought you couldn't get through the deadfall George?" And he said, "Well, I've got a damned sight more incentive now boss". So I said, "Take him, I want to count the patrol through" because I was worried about the rest of the guys and, anyway, got them through, Gary arrived and I said, "I'm glad to see you". He said, "Not as half as I am glad to see you". I said, "Take the patrol, go that way up that ridge line because we're on a spur and keep going and I'll just..." So I thought stupidly that I'd just fire a few mags at this assault coming down the hill. Anyway, after two magazines, I realized I was on a hiding to nothing. So I followed them up and I'd gone about a hundred metres and came round a ... there was a log there, so I get to the log and there they are. They'd all fallen over and they're all sitting there giggling and I said, "Come on guys, we've got to get up, let's go". And I said, "We're not going to patrol normally, we’re going to go as fast as we can". And eventually we stopped and I got the aerial out. As we're going, I'm coming up last, I've told George to take the lead and Gary to head on. Then I hear a voice behind me in English and I thought, "That's strange, I'm the last one" and it was the fella that I'd picked up, he'd gotten tangled in some vines and so I went back and pulled him out and we kept pushing on and finally I thought I'd broken contact far enough to get a message out. I said, "Look, we're not going to encode it, we're going to send it in clear, and I want immediate extraction" which we sent out and we moved on and finally my squadron commander came out in a Sioux helicopter to check whether we actually needed to come out because he's under this pressure of, you know, helicopters and he said, "What are you doing hiding under the fallen tree?" I said, "Well, I can see where you are, that's not me, because that's where I sent my radio sched from" because by this stage we're talking on the 77 set. Apparently the helicopter rose a few hundred feet when I told him that and he said, "Look, you're in trouble". He said, "They're about 400 yards behind you and I can see two groups on either flank in the creeks on either flanks trying to out flank you". And then he got the helicopters out to us. We kept moving, trying to keep ahead of them, and finally we found a little gap in the jungle. When the helicopters came, they dropped the ropes through, again we hooked up, and again, they took us out but, yeah, that was probably the worst contact I ever had. We were very lucky to get out and I can recall when they were coming down the hill and I thought it was going to be a really bad contact because we had our backs against the wall, there was quite a large number of them and I can remember looking up, It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, and I can remember looking up and saying, "Well, at least it's a nice day to die". And we didn't think we were going to get out that day and that's the day I really knew the difference between fear and being scared. And fear is something quite different. It's almost as if someone lifts the top of your head off and pours battery acid in, and this feeling runs through your body at about that speed but as soon as the firing starts that all goes away and you're back in fighting mode.

Trying to do something good

You've got to put it in the context of the Cold War. People today don't realize what that context was. There was communism versus democracy, the feeling that the communists were the, the domino theory that they were going to take one country then the next country and the next country. We didn't really think much about that at the time. I can vividly recall me saying, "Well, we're going over there to defend the South Vietnamese and give them the chance to choose democracy over communism but there wasn't any strong sense this was the right thing to do. We were soldiers and it was our job to go where our government sent us, that's what they were paying us for. So I went to Vietnam as part of that but also with a feeling we were fighting to give the South Vietnamese the right to choose democracy but, of course, that pretty naive when you look back on it. Should we have been there or not? Look, really, I don't know. You’ve got to take it in the context of the time and I don’t think people should forget that and I think we've also got to remember that after the communists took over, an awful lot of South Vietnamese fled the country. So I think we went over there to do the right thing by them and I feel quite comfortable with the fact that we tried to do something good.

A reflection on Anzac and Remembrance Days

No. I used to, but no, I don't anymore. I think it's become more a of a spectacle. You go to Anzac Day and all these dignitaries stand up and they talk, but they don't understand war, they don't understand what soldiers went through. I see Anzac Day as a commemorative day. I think it's good to commemorate those who sacrifice their lives but generally, no, I don't participate in it. I think Remembrance Day is gone really from what I grew up as a boy. As a boy, Remembrance Day was a big thing. In Perth, the bugler, the city would stop at 11 o'clock and everybody would observe one minute silence. Today, I think most Australians don't understand Remembrance Day. It's almost as if it's another day. It's completely different to what it was when I was a boy. So, no, I don't go to Remembrance Day. But look, I think we must remember the sacrifice, that people who lost their lives, we've got to remember that. It's up to each person to view Anzac Day and Remembrance Day as they see fit. I think Anzac Day has really built up a lot more. I mean, we went through that period where we were pilloried and the crowds dropped off in the seventies and eighties, but since the nineties it's grown again. nd I think if people want to remember it then they should remember it.