ANTI-HEROES: ODD FACTS ABOUT AUSTRALIA’S INVOLVEMENT IN THE VIETNAM WAR

© Don Tate

In reviewing many resources for an upcoming book about heroism by Australian servicemen during the Vietnam War, I came across many interesting facts that were the antithesis of what I was looking for, and don’t necessarily fit the narrative of the bronzed Anzac Australians are so familiar with.

Heroic: Infantrymen of the 2nd D&E Platoon in Vietnam, May 1969

These following facts could only be regarded as less than ‘heroic’, to be more precise…

• 6th May 1968: A RAAF helicopter pilot requested, and was granted permission, to machine gun six cows he believed belonged to the Viet Cong. The Duty Officer in Nui Dat — Captain John Bullen — was hesitant to kill the animals, and prevaricated. Major Ian McLean — the Ops Officer gave permission for the pilot to proceed with the kill. The RAAF later recorded ‘the successful slaying of two cattle, KIA’. Apparently, four of them escaped. (SOURCE: Captain Bullen’s War, Bullen)
• 22nd July 1968: The CO of 4 RAR/NZ — LT/COL ‘Lee’ Greville —planned and mounted a full battalion attack against a Viet Cong bunker system, accompanied by C Company of 1RAR. The attack was preceded by an air strike, an artillery bombardment from two Australian field batteries and a battery of U.S. artillery, and then, a second air strike. The nett result was just a bag of rice. (SOURCE: Vietnam: The Australian War, Ham)
• 27th November 1967: A number of soldiers were killed and badly wounded by mine explosions during a number of operations in Operation Forrest during November — a legacy of the failed minefield laid out by Brigadier S. Graham AO, DSO, OBE. Hundreds were terribly maimed for life. But displaying the complete insensitivity common to most senior officers not actually physically in theatre to experience the reality of warfare, LT/General Tom Daly KBE, CB, DSO — Chief of the General Staff, Canberra — insensitively commented on the blood being spilt, ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.’ (SOURCE: On the Offensive, McNeill and Ekins)
• Undated, February 1966: Major Peter Tedder of the Royal Australian Artillery was sent to court-martial for ordering Gunner Peter O’Neill — recognised as ‘insolent’ and a ‘renegade’ — to be ‘restrained’ (handcuffed) to a star picket in a weapon pit for seven days. This anachronistic punishment created outrage in Australia. O’Neill had gone AWOL to visit brothels, and when charged with that offence and found guilty, subsequently refused to appear at field punishment parades. Apparently, the punishment imposed on O’Neill by Major Tedder was legal under Military Law. The charges against Tedder were subsequently dropped. (SOURCE: The Canberra Times, 8th July 1966)

• 3rd January 1966: At midnight, Sergeant J. Morton of C Company 1 RAR called in white marker phosphorus rounds from a New Zealand Battery on a suspected enemy position in Bay Trai. Unfortunately, Morton had incorrectly sent through the wrong coordinates and the rounds landed on his own position instead. Morton along with another Australian soldier were killed and several others wounded. (SOURCE: First to Fight, Breen)
• August 17th 1966: In an astonishing coincidence, two soldiers of 6 RAR who died in the ambush at Long Tan both had the surname of McCormack. Albert McCormack came from Launceston; Dennis McCormack came from Adelaide. They were unrelated. Both enlisted in Brisbane (QLD) — and had consecutive service numbers.

• 26th October 1968: Trooper Anthony Berry of A Squadron 3 Cavalry Regiment watched a contact between Australian infantrymen and Viet Cong from the relative safety of his tank, 200m away from the action, at FSB Nelson. Berry commented in his diary that the ‘Grunts were very frightened — stayed out all night.’ Such comments did not endear the Armoured Corps to the Infantry Corps. Six weeks later, on the 10th December 1968, Berry saw one of the tanks in his squadron blown up by an anti-tank mine in which two troopers were hurt, and recorded this comment in his diary: ‘I cried when I saw it…Everyone is depressed. I am now 13A! (which meant he was now the lead tank and more likely to be wounded or killed)’. (SOURCE: Fighting to the Finish, Ekins)
• 10th April 1967: Trooper R. Copeman was the only SAS soldier to be killed in Vietnam as a result of enemy fire. He was badly wounded in a clash with an enemy unit some three months earlier, and died on this day after being evacuated to an Australian hospital. Interestingly, his mother was flown to Vietnam to visit her son under the Australians Dangerously Ill Scheme (AUSDIL) as was his father — Major J. Copeman. who was a military observer with the United Nations. Ordinary soldiers who were wounded weren’t so privileged. (SOURCE: RSL Virtual Memorial Website)

Defending FSB Coral

• 16th May 1968: On the morning of the last day of the chaotic battles at FSPB Coral, Brigadier Hughes CBE, DSO— the Commanding Officer of the Australian Task Force — crawled out of his hiding place between the wheels of an American vehicle, and dusted himself off. He then rushed off to Singapore for a week of rest and recuperation. No one knew why he was at the fire support base, or what part (if any) he played in the chaotic four-day battle. (SOURCE: Vietnam: The Australian War, Ham)
• 20th July 1969: Australian singer — Catherine Anne Warnes — performing for American troops in Da Nang was shot through the heart by a .22 bullet and killed. An American sergeant was charged with murder and found guilty, but two years later was cleared of the charge and released from jail. The shooter has never been identified. (SOURCE: Sit Rep — newsletter of the National Vietnam Veterans Museum, Ed. 13, 2017)

• 9th March 1969: On Operation Quintus, D Company of 5 RAR was part of a major operation near the hamlet of Hoa Long, south of Nui Dat when 2 LT Brian Walker led 10 Platoon into the Company position just after midnight, and came across a barbed-wire fence surrounding a Regional Force outpost. It was surrounded by a minefield and booby traps laid by an American adviser. Although it was about midnight, and two section-commanders tried to discourage him, and not bothering to communicate his position to the Company commander, Walker simply cut through the wire and entered the minefield. Again, he was confronted with other wire fence — a six-strand cattle fence, and again, cut through it. Moving on, he came to a third fence, and again he cut through it, and his platoon was now fully meshed in the minefield. Suddenly, Walker heard a metallic click, assumed a firing position, and opened up in the direction of the sound. The Vietnamese soldiers at the outpost, believing Viet Cong soldiers had infiltrated the wire, retaliated with rifle fire and grenades. The Australians retaliated, but Walker was killed and two other men wounded. Sergeant Bernard Smith assumed command of the platoon along with a section-commander, Corporal George Gilbert. The two attempted a rescue of the trapped men. Unfortunately, one of them tripped a wire and detonated two more mines. Both Smith and Gilbert were killed instantly. During the next four hours, platoon members battled to get the dead and wounded out, aided by mortar flares and illumination from helicopter landing lights. Sapper Raymond Ryan of 1Field Squadron made three trips into the minefield using a torch to guide him, but was also wounded by another mine explosion. Sapper Ryan was awarded the Military Medal for bravery. An investigation into the incident by Brigadier C. Pearson MC — the Task Force commander— concluded that Lt Walker was primarily responsible. He had cut through three fences — some of which were marked with the skull and crossbones insignia — and forced his way into a minefield known to surround the friendly outpost. Having missed some battalion training prior to going to Vietnam because of a sports-related injury was not enough excuse for what was a terrible series of errors by the officer that left many men killed and wounded, and their families torn apart. (SOURCE: Fighting to the Finish, Ekins)

• 30th May 1969: Following a successful ambush at Thua Tich a day earlier, Major David Chinn — the OPS Officer of 1ATF — ordered the bodies of the Viet Cong to be transported to the village of Xuyen Moc for ‘propaganda purposes’. At least five bodies were strapped upside down to the backs of APCs commanded by Captain Tom Arrowsmith (including his own) while the remaining bodies were blown up with explosives by engineers and burned in a bomb crater, contrary to the Geneva Convention of 1949. Following these actions (which had been photographed by army and civilian photographers) the Army was outraged, and an enquiry into the disposal of the bodies was ordered by Brigadier C. Pearson, and carried out by Major Rex Rowe — an enquiry subsequently ‘lost’ within Department of Defence files until 2011 when journalist Frank Walker found it. After that initial enquiry, specific instructions were given to all unit commanders, at all levels, by Brigadier Pearson that dead enemy soldiers were to be ‘treated with respect due to a human being’, and even more significantly, that all photographs from that point on were to be vetted before their release. A second enquiry, conducted by a Major G. Pound in 1975, was also ‘lost’ according to Defence sources, until it too, was remarkably ‘found’ in 2011. (SOURCES: Before I Die, Stanton; Anzacs Betrayed, Tate)

he official war record of Lt Peter Cosgrove

• October 1969: Lieutenant Peter Cosgrove was awarded a Military Cross — ostensibly for three actions with B Company 9RAR during this month. Strangely, Cosgrove was not even a member of 9RAR when those actions occurred. According to the Nominal Roll of Vietnam Veterans, Cosgrove’s stint with the 9th Battalion ended on the 28th September of that year (after just 39 days) and in the month when he was supposedly earning a medal for gallantry, he was actually leading the generic D&E Platoon out of Nui Dat. Interestingly, and amusingly to fellow veterans, General Peter Cosgrove AK, CVO, MC has never seen fit to correct or explain the anomaly in his records.
• Mid-May 1968: LT/Colonel Peter Gration AC, OBE, FTSE — former commanding officer of the 1st Australian Civil Affairs Unit in Vietnam — wrote an essay which won the Oswald-Watt Memorial Prize. His central theme was at odds with the prevailing opinions of how the war was going. ‘We are losing the war,’ he wrote. He opined that despite an overwhelming advantage of superior technology and armour, despite defoliants and precise bombing, the allied forces in Vietnam could not defeat the patriotic fervour of the enemy who sought to throw out the invaders and overthrow the ‘feudal class’. He wrote the essay anonymously — knowing that if he put his name to it, his career would be over. He went on to become Chief of the Army — the highest professional rank, and be awarded Australian and Imperial honours. He only put his name to the essay when his career was over — in 2005. (SOURCE: An essay, Missing in Action from the Griffith Review, McKernan)

Private John Walker, one of those wounded in action 19th July 1969

• 19th July 1969: When 7 Platoon C Company of 9 RAR was ambushed in a Viet Cong bunker complex in the Long Khanh hills, the battalion’s heaviest contact on that operation, one soldier was killed (Private Ray Kermode) and nine others wounded. This action was made more remarkable by the fact that Australian dustoff helicopters refused to evacuate the wounded after the contact because it was ‘too hot’ for them. A passing U.S. helicopter crew eventually extracted the four worst wounded men (including Private John Walker (pictured), Corporal Andrew Ochiltree MM, and this author). Secondly, and regarded as an act of sheer bastardy by the men who were genuinely wounded, the acting Company Commander — Lieutenant Guy Bagot — phoned through the names of the men wounded in action to Battalion HQ and added his own name to the list for a ‘wound’ believed to be nothing more than a slight scratch from bamboo. Bagot had not been involved in the actual battle at any point. (SOURCES: The War Within, Tate; Fighting to the Finish, Ekins)

• August 1968: Captain John Bullen of the Army’s Topographical Survey Group recorded a ‘most spectacular case of homosexuality’ in the canteen of the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (RAEME) in Vung Tau — after which three soldiers were court-martialled. (SOURCE: Captain Bullen’s War, Bullen)
• Precise date unknown: December 1969: While waiting for the court-martial of Private Peter Allen (who had ‘fragged’ Lieutenant Bob Convery in 1969) Captain G. Dugdale went to see some American friends. He took with him a lady from the Red Cross and the Court Martial Prosecuting Officer. They went to the Din Co monastery which had recently been secured but which was still in an operational area and dangerous. (Don’t know how they managed to get there!) Some days later, he was informed that Brigadier Weir — the new 1 ATF Commander — had said that if he had gotten hold of Dugdale he would have ‘booted his arse all the way back to Australia’ for irresponsibly taking non-combatants on a tourist visit. Dugdale promptly hosted a regimental dinner for the good Brigadier, and smoothed the waters. As to the protocol of a court martial Prosecuting Officer fraternising with the defendant’s own company commander in a murder case, it does raise eyebrows.
• 18th February 1970: After four years of searching that had cost many Australians their lives, D445 Battalion was finally trapped in a valley in the Long Hais — steep cliffs on three sides, with B and D Companies of 8 RAR blocking the flanks and C Company of 8 RAR reedy to assault. But the area was also strewn with mines, bunker systems, and tunnels.The Task Force commander — Brigadier Weir — hesitated, demanding an American air strike before he ordered the assault. It wasn’t forthcoming, so Weir decided to go on R&R and leave the decision to his deputy commander, Colonel P. Falkland. When the air strike was finally approved, C Company was forced to drop back 3000m to allow it (as usually applied), the APCs went back to Nui Dat, the tanks withdrew to FSB Isa, the other two rifle companies pulled back, and the local villagers were warned of the impending air strike.Two days later, the air strike was finally delivered, but the enemy battalion had been given too much advance warning, and had escaped — right through where B Company of 8RAR had blocked their exit. A later analysis came with the comment by senior intelligence officer Major Paul de Cure that Brigadier Weir ‘panicked under pressure and raved and screamed and lost control…’ Weir died of a heart attack less than six months later, before he could be ‘questioned rigorously’ about his command for the official history. (SOURCE: Fighting to the Finish, Ekins)
• 15th January- 26th January 1970: In a 240km sweep named Operation Matilda (which took a fortnight to complete) Centurion tanks, APCs and an infantry unit from B Company 6 RAR swept around the Australian area of responsibility from Xuyen Moc, to Ham Tan, north into Long Khanh, then skirted the May Tao mountains. It was the biggest Australian armoured operation since 1945. The Armoured Corps history regarded it as the ‘one of the best examples of independent armoured action in Vietnam’. But the national historian — Ashley Ekins — later described it as ‘achieving nothing’. Major J. Chapman — commander of A Squadron 1 Armoured Regiment — recorded that the force ‘…was never really tested in combat…’. The Operation resulted run the death of just 2VC, one of which was the result of supporting naval gunfire. (SOURCE: Fighting to the Finish, Ekins)
• 22nd March 1970: After falling asleep with an M16 grenade in his pocket, T/Bombadier Ross Anton of 4 Fd Regiment was accidentally killed when it exploded. (SOURCE: The Find a Grave website)

• 18th February 1970: 11 Platoon of D Company 8 RAR came under friendly fire from the APCs of 2 Troop who fired 6000 rounds at them. Ten Australian soldiers were badly wounded. It was later regarded by Task Force deputy commander, Colonel Peter Falkland (who hadn’t been on the receiving end) as just the ‘fortunes of war’. No enquiry was conducted.

Interesting stuff, eh? And that’s just for starters!

(Don Tate is the author of The War Within; and Anzacs Betrayed — both available from Amazon Books, and his newest work: CRUCIBLE: The Australians in Action in Vietnam, available by email to : warvet_69@yahoo.com, or via Paypal at:

https://www.paypal.com/instantcommerce/checkout/FK6SW6MJQJZKS)