In addition to the 3 main squadrons, other RAAF personnel provided critical logistics, aeromedical evacuations and airfield construction. Forward air controllers coordinated allied strikes, while Air Defence Guards secured strategic bases. Despite extreme hazards, these contributions were vital for operational success and the repatriation of over 3,100 troops.
Other RAAF personnel flew in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), carrying out logistics tasks and aeromedical evacuations using Hercules aircraft based at Richmond, New South Wales.
No 5 Airfield Construction Squadron worked on the airfields at both Vung Tau and Phan Rang. The RAAF also provided Air Defence Guards for both air bases.
RAAF personnel also flew as forward air controllers, calling in and guiding artillery strikes, as well as carrying out reconnaissance operations within the United States (US) Tactical Air Control System. Working with all the allied air forces, their role was to:
- call in and control artillery and air strikes against enemy ground forces
- carry out visual reconnaissance.
Six RAAF personnel also flew F-4D Phantom II multi-role fighter aircraft with the US Air Force.
Medical evacuation
Patients lie on litters inside a C-130E Hercules transport aircraft. These wounded men were awaiting their return to Australia from Vung Tau; beside them sit 2 RAAF aircrew.
Patients on these flights were cared for by members of the RAAF Nursing Service, over 100 of whom served during the Vietnam War.
Preparations for aeromedical evacuation flights included survival training in case the aircraft had to ditch in the sea. But the nurse's main concern was always for the patients whose survival depended on the skill and dedication of the RAAF's medical personnel.
By the time Australia's involvement in the war ended, more than 3,100 Australian and New Zealand soldiers had come home on aeromedical evacuation flight.
Airfield construction
Members of No 5 Airfield Construction Squadron (5ACS) begin work on a hangar at Vung Tau in June 1966.
These men are likely to be members of Detachment A, the first members of 5ACS to work at Vung Tau. The hangar for which they are preparing the site dated back to World War II. It was dismantled and brought to South Vietnam from an airfield in Parkes, New South Wales.
By late June, Detachment A numbered 15 personnel. Their labour was supplemented by Vietnamese workers who helped with concrete laying. The hangar was completed in early October 1966.
Forward air controllers
The view from a Cessna O-1 'Bird Dog' forward air controller aircraft as smoke rises from one of its target marking rockets next to a canal in South Vietnam.
Australian Forward Air Controllers worked with a range of allied forces in South Vietnam, including the Vietnamese Air Force, the US Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps, the Korean Army and No 2 Squadron RAAF.
Thirty-six Australian pilots flew as Forward Air Controllers before the last of them left South Vietnam. Between them they received 15 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 2 Distinguished Service Orders and 6 mentions in dispatches.
Anthony Powell
Wing Commander Anthony Powell at the controls of a Cessna O-1 'Bird Dog' in 1967. Powell was one of the first Australians to serve as a Forward Air Controller in Vietnam, and for several months he flew in support of the Republic of Korea's 9th Infantry Division in the Nha Trang area. His tour ended in late 1967, by which time he had logged some 700 hours of operational flying, often at low altitude in light aircraft. For this, for his having controlled some 170 air strikes and for the many other command duties that he performed, Powell was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Sadly, before he received this decoration, Powell was killed in a car accident near Williamtown, New South Wales.
Vance Drummond
Wing Commander Vance Drummond flew on combat operations in Korea before being taken prisoner in 1951. Awarded the Air Force Cross in January 1965, by December that year he was once more at war, this time as a forward air controller with the US 19th Tactical Air Support Squadron at Bien Hoa in South Vietnam. On 24 July 1966, during a series of sorties over a fierce action between Vietcong and a surrounded company of allied troops, Drummond and his American pilot spent some 11 hours in the air braving intense ground fire to drop illumination flares and mark targets for fighter bombers. For this action he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC).
The following October he flew the operation for which he was awarded the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star. Drummond was killed in a flying accident off the New South Wales coast the following year, shortly before his award of the DFC was announced. The operations for which he was awarded these decorations and the many others on which Drummond flew were typical of those flown by Australian Forward Air Controllers in Vietnam.
Flying with US forces
An F-4D Phantom in flight over Vietnam in 1971.
Distinguished by the rondels of the RAAF and the US Air Force, this aircraft was flown by an RAAF pilot, Flight Lieutenant Lindsay Naylor, who was attached to the US 389th Tactical Fighter Squadron.
Only 6 Australians flew operations in US aircraft of this type during the war, some of them over Laos and North Vietnam, even though Australian personnel were not authorised to operate outside South Vietnam.
The war was winding down by the time Naylor began operational flying with US forces, but he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in a hazardous ground-support mission over a fire support base outside Pleiku in April 1971.
Airfield defence
Members of No 2 Squadron's Australian Airfield Defence Guard (ADG) prepare to fire on suspicious movement while on patrol outside the perimeter of the base at Phan Rang in 1969.
ADGs were posted to the Australian base at Vung Tau, but members were also sent to Nui Dat to participate in patrols around the Australian base's perimeter while others were given the opportunity to serve as door gunners in No 9 Squadron helicopters.
Australian ADGs began to serve at the large US base at Phan Rang in 1967. They were initially deployed to defend the base's domestic area and the Australian flight lines.
Later in the war, their duties expanded to include patrols outside the base. At times these patrols resulted in contacts with enemy forces.
By the time Australia's commitment to Vietnam ended, the ADGs had been awarded an MBE, a Military Medal, 8 mentions in dispatches and 4 Distinguished Flying Medals.