Phuoc Tuy Province
The first Australians deployed to Vietnam were members of the Australian Army Training Team who were dispersed throughout the country. They were followed by members of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) who served in Bien Hoa Province with the United States 173 Airborne Brigade. However, Australia's Chief of Army, Lieutenant General John Wilton, was keen both to field a force that could operate independently of United States forces, and to provide additional troops in support of the fight against the Vietcong.
Wilton believed that deploying an Australian task force would achieve both these aims as well as allowing Australian soldiers to fight the war according to their own doctrine and techniques. The Government agreed and the expansion of Australian forces in Vietnam to a task force was approved on 8 March 1966.
Phuoc Tuy province was selected as the site of the task force base. Lying on South Vietnam's southern coast, three quarters of Phuoc Tuy, in 1966, was covered with rainforest and grassland. There were hilly and mountainous areas but much of the province was flat. Those areas under farmland were mainly used to cultivate rice, Phuoc Tuy's main industry, along with rubber. From a military point of view, the province was a suitable size for task force operations and it had access to the sea through the port of Vung Tau, which could serve as a logistics base.
The South Vietnamese Government's authority over Phuoc Tuy was limited almost entirely to the provincial capital Ba Ria. In the countryside, the Vietcong had built up an extensive cadre and political organisation that reached into every town and village. The province's roads were dangerous, subject to ambush and passable only with heavy escort. The Vietcong had established bases in Phuoc Tuy's mountains and jungles. Military estimates placed the number of communist troops in the province at about 5,000. These troops relied on the support of many of Phuoc Tuy's villages.
'Perfect terrain for guerilla warfare'. Lance Corporal Robert Slater of Holsworthy, NSW searches vehicle loads for weapons or explosives at a road block check opposite the base area of 5RAR. By 1966, when Australian troops moved into Phuoc Tuy Province, the area was controlled by the Viet Cong. The Australians' role involved setting up check points, clearing villages and controlling the transport of food, weapons and medical support to Viet Cong forces as well as their involvement in patrols and combat operations. [AWM COL/67/0082/VN]
1st Australian Task Force base
Once Phuoc Tuy had been selected as the provincial site for Australia's task force, a location for its base had to be chosen. There were 3 possibilities:
- Ba Ria, Phuoc Tuy's capital
- the port of Vung Tau
- an area in the province's central region known as Nui Dat, Vietnamese for 'small hill'.
Removed from population centres but close to Vietcong base areas, Nui Dat was considered ideal for the type of counter-insurgency warfare that Australians waged in Phuoc Tuy. Its location in the centre of the province meant that Nui Dat was in the middle of Vietcong territory. Therefore, security was of prime importance.
The villages nearest Nui Dat – Long Tan and Long Phuoc – were both considered Vietcong strongholds. The Australian task force's first commander, Brigadier O.D. Jackson, with the agreement of the Province Chief, had the people and livestock of the 2 villages forcibly resettled. The removal of the local people from the vicinity meant that the chances of the Vietcong gathering information about the base and the movement of Australian troops were significantly reduced.
However, attempts to win the support of Phuoc Tuy's people were compromised by the decision to remove people from their homes without compensation.
The base was established by members of the United States 173rd Airborne, the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) and the newly arrived 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (5RAR).
The first soldiers to occupy it lived in tents and worked to establish defences. Every soldier at Nui Dat had a fighting pit. Elevated bunkers, guarded 24 hours a day, were constructed around the base's perimeter, which was further defended by wire obstacles and belts of anti-personnel mines.
Vegetation was cleared from a 500 m strip outside the wire to provide fields of fire and a clear view of approaching Vietcong.
At its peak, the Nui Dat base was home to some 5,000 Australian personnel. For much of the time, most of them were deployed on operations outside the base.
Settling in
Nui Dat ('small hill') was an ideal location for the new Australian Task Force base. It was on a main highway, Route 2, about 30 km from the port of Vung Tau, the new Australian logistic support base. Nui Dat was some distance from Phuoc Tuy's provincial capital, Ba Ria, and was sufficiently isolated to enable the Australians to manage their own operations.
However, the area around Nui Dat had been a well-known Vietcong stronghold and many of the residents in nearby villages had family members in the Vietcong.
The first reinforcement battalion to arrive at the new base in April 1966 was 5RAR, which included the first draft of National Service conscripts.
The newly arrived troops erected their tents, dug foxholes and worked to set up base defences. A 12 km barbed-wire fence defended by claymore mines surrounded the new base, and the perimeter was cleared of jungle, rubber and forest to deprive the Vietcong of cover for attacks.
Fundamental to the security of the new base was the removal of all the civilian residents from within a 4 km buffer zone to an imaginary line - Line Alpha.
Together with the US 173rd Brigade and 1RAR, 5RAR conducted its first operation, Operation Hardihood, removing the villagers, their livestock and their possessions from Long Phuoc and Long Tan and relocating them at nearby Hoa Long, Dat Do and Long Dien.
During Operation Hardiwood, Private Errol Noack, a 21-year-old national serviceman from Port Lincoln in South Australia, was accidentally killed by 'friendly fire'. He had been in South Vietnam for 12 days.
Arrival of 6RAR
In June 1966, 1RAR finished its 12-month tour of duty and boarded HMAS Sydney to return home. The troops were replaced by 6RAR, most of whom had just disembarked from the Sydney. The newly arrived 6RAR troops were transported to Nui Dat where they found conditions were still very basic.
After two weeks sleeping on the ground, we got Second World War tents; they all had holes in them. We got some floor boards and we all dug drains to get rid of the water round the tents. We had stretchers to sleep on … Things start to get a bit tense with some people, living in these conditions, living out of ration packs because there is no kitchen set up. Water everywhere, red mud everywhere and it starts to test a few people; people start to do their block a bit
[John Robbins, 6RAR in Michael Caulfield, The Vietnam Years, Hachette Australia, 2007, p 159.]
There was a network of Vietcong tunnels and bunkers underneath the area around the village of Long Phuoc. This enabled the guerrillas to remain after the villagers had been removed.
When mortar attacks against the task force area continued, 3 companies of 6RAR were ordered to search, clear and destroy the deserted village. The mission, Operation Enoggera, began on 21 June and continued until 5 July.
When Operation Enoggera ended, only Long Phuoc's pagodas and churches remained.
It was obviously a rich village in the days when that part of the country was at peace … The buildings were well constructed and sound, filled with furniture, the place just reeked of a pretty rich productive area. Not a dirty hamlet with shacks falling down or anything like that. We knew we had to do it and we bloody well did it quite successfully, but we did not like it.
[Colonel Colin Townsend, 6RAR in Ian McNeill, To Long Tan, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, p 255.]
Most Australian units and individual soldiers served in Vietnam for a 12-month tour of duty, but most combat soldiers saw little of Nui Dat. The Australian style of counter-insurgency operations kept troops away from the base for extended periods, and many men returned only for a few days between 'ops'.
After 10 years of war, every Australian infantry battalion except 9RAR had served 2 tours of duty in South Vietnam. Most had been based at Nui Dat. By the time the base closed in November 1971, it had developed into a military town with buildings, roads and street signs, a field hospital, an airfield and helicopter pad.