Hill 317
So during the operation, battle of Maryong-San I was the Intelligence Officer and I went with the CO everywhere and the battalion operation was very, very successful and in the middle of it the CO decided to go to 317 which had been captured by C Company the day before. No, two days before. So, he wanted to go up there and control the extension of the battle to the west towards a feature called the Hinge. So, we were up there all day on top of 317.
The Chinese didn't like that so they started to retaliate with all their artillery and mortars so we were very lucky, I think, to survive that because the top of the hill wasn't actually hit although I expected it to at any minute. I think we were very lucky to get off there alive. Anyway, the battalion was relieved the next day because they'd been fighting for six days and on the march carrying all their equipment and suffering a lot of casualties. I think by then we'd suffered twenty killed and over a hundred wounded. So luckily we were relieved and we went into, I think the western, no, the eastern flank to protect the brigade and battalion, the British battalion that was on 355, 317 and a couple of weeks later the Chinese attacked and recaptured 317 which was a bit of a demoralising factor after what we had been through and all the casualties we'd suffered but the CO was called to divisional headquarters and awarded an immediate Distinguished Service Order which we were all very thrilled about because he eventually became the chief of the defence force as General Sir Frank Francis Hassett. Frank Hassett. Great man. Everybody loved him.
The Lozenge Operation Commando
When I joined it they were on a feature called the Lozenge feature which they had been on for some weeks because the trenches were all dug and there were numerous rows of concertina and barbed wire out in front and out in front of that were mines and these had all been laid by the time I got there and then there was the river and it was a pretty swift river too, the Imjin River.
We did do a battalion reconnaissance in force across the river on one occasion and it started to rain so it was raining so hard that (a) we were standing to in our slit trenches that were full of water and also the decision was to return to the south side of the river before it flooded and we were very lucky to get back in one piece, in fact, I think we lost three soldiers in the water that time, in the river. If it wasn't that time it was around about that time.
Then, from where we were on the Lozenge feature then virtually the plans for the United Nations to move forward to straighten the line and that was when Operation Commando was conceived and executed and then for the rest of the war we really stayed around that line.
Anti tank platoon
Well as the anti-tank platoon I was just in a static position. The whole battalion was in a static position. What I did, it had been used as a rifle platoon during Operation Commando, the battle of Maryong-san and a very good result, too, but I decided, with the CO's permission, I would get up the anti-tank guns. They were 17 pounders, anti-tank guns. I thought 'Well, we may as well bring them up'.
What we used to do was we used to snipe at the Chinese dugouts and that stirred up a hornets' nest as well and all the reciprocal artillery from the Chinese went to the rest of the battalion, it didn't come to me so I stirred it up but I didn't feel any result from it so, I think, I didn't do that very often, but they were very, very accurate weapons.
Differences between helicopter evacuation in Vietnam and Korea
I've written a chapter on the difference between Korea and Vietnam and the big difference was the use of helicopters in Vietnam. I was giving a talk at the South Australian museum just about ten days ago and one of the things that I explained was that during Maryong-san we had a lot of casualties and one in particular required some immediate treatment and it took us awhile but eventually we got a helicopter to evacuate him to one of the hospitals and that, to my mind, was the first time that that had happened to an Australian but the big difference was in Vietnam. If you was wounded within thirty minutes you were in the hospital down in Vang Tau so there was a lot of confidence in the fact that you would survive and be picked up and evacuated by helicopter. Also, we had what was called a little Sioux helicopter, like a little bubble, and there was the pilot and he took one other passenger.
Well I had one of those at my disposal every day and so whenever a contact occurred, I'd hop in the helicopter and go out to where the contact had occurred to see whether I could help or at least be a little bit of a morale booster in what they might be involved with. I did get too involved on a few occasions which I was reprimanded for by the company commander and rightly so because I used to switch on to the company wireless net and hear what was going on and add my little bit which, I think, quite rightly they felt I was interfering. So, in the end I gave it away.
