DANGER CLOSE: SACRIFICING HISTORICAL TRUTH ON THE ALTAR OF VAINGLORY
‘Danger Close’, directed by Kriv Stenders, is an extremely well-made movie about a relatively minor, but very contentious, Australian battle from the Vietnam War — the battle of Long Tan.
Unfortunately, like many Australian war movies, it does it’s very best to maintain the ethos of the Anzac legend, albeit it does so at the expense of historical truth and military integrity.
I say relatively a minor battle because it was not on the scale of the battles fought by other Australian units at Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral, or by US forces virtually on a weekly basis.
And I say contentious because it was a hollow ‘victory’ — a series of incompetent actions and incompetent leadership that resulted in the loss of 17 Australian infantrymen. Those aspects have always been glossed over by the military high command and armchair historians on the public purse which is prone to making ‘victories’ out of defeats to placate anxious civilian populations.
Nevertheless, Danger Close is realism at its very best and a great credit to Kriv Stenders who has followed on from where Mel Gibson left off with Hacksaw Ridge. It is a movie that shows the savagery of jungle warfare in brutal detail, taking the viewer right into the killing field to experience the drama and traumas of infantry action.
The story involves Delta Company of the 6th Battalion, led by the hubristic Major Harry Smith (played more than capably by Travis Fimmel of Vikings fame.) Smith (known as ‘The Rat’ by his peers, though this is altered in Danger Close to the more appealing ‘ratcatcher’) boasts that he is a superior leader of men who maintains that he has trained his Company to elite SAS standard.
Interestingly though, we soon learn that Smith’s boast is somewhat hollow, because it becomes apparent that he has soldiers under his command who are hardly in elite class of warrior. They drink alcohol on picquet duty; are openly insubordinate; have accidental discharges (that go unpunished); a platoon commander (LT Gordon Sharp) who epitomises the larrikin leader who would rather play cards than go into battle; and a sergeant (Bob Buick, played adequately by Luke Bracey) who is not only insubordinate but a recognised bully whose men don’t trust him.
But we soon learn that Smith too, is flawed. He not only comes into conflict with his superiors at battalion and Task Force level, demanding a transfer to a more robust unit, but physically assaults a subordinate, contrary to accepted military practice. Surprisingly for a man who espouses military discipline and professionalism, Smith’s refusal to obey orders to break contact with the enemy force when it becomes apparent his Company is in serious difficulty, amounted to insubordination.
It is no wonder then that such an undisciplined ‘leader’ like Smith leads his company into a battle for survival when he gives permission to the suddenly zealous, but incompetent, platoon commander — LT Gordon Sharp — to pursue a fleeing enemy force, straight into an ambush.
Those matters aside, Danger Close is quality movie-making, but like in all movies, there are moments when one must suspend belief.
For instance, the moment when Major Smith gives a stirring King Henry V-like speech during an apparent lull in the rain and the battle, is incongruous and contrived. ‘Remember, you’re Delta company!’ he bellows, somewhat unconvincingly to his small headquarters group.
It is a cringe-worthy, unconvincing attempt at shoring up moral — if it really happened (and those who know Smith personally, doubt it).
And when the surviving members of the group who appear to be protecting Smith and the Company HQ all run out of their last bullet at precisely the same moment and take out bayonets (but fail to attach them to their weapons) is both silly and demonstrably inconsistent with Australian military tactics.
As too, the actions of a maverick soldier (Private Large) who goes AWOL from one platoon and manages to find a way to Smith’s position where they engage in doubtful banter about future wedding plans is improbable, given the grave predicament the Company was in. (One suspects this conversation, cliched and all, serves only to give Smith some measure of humanity).
That Harry Smith (pictured) was used as an ‘advisor’ on the movie will rankle many veterans who have personally researched the battle and not been taken in by the Smith hyperbole over the years. He is an unreliable source, keen to exaggerate the action (and his own role in it), culminating in having him performing heroics at various points that are laughably untrue. The scene where he allegedly engages in hand-to-hand combat with an enemy soldier and kills him with a pistol shot to the head (which splatters him with the soldier’s blood) is a laughable plot development that other veterans will mock.
(Though one must remember that one of Smith’s boasts is that he once put an unarmed, wounded enemy out of his misery in a previous conflict — a precursor to the actions of his sergeant Bob Buick who did the same thing the day after the battle of Long Tan.)
Why laugh? Because anecdotal evidence is that Smith was never at the heart of the battle, and is rumoured not to have even fired a shot in anger.
That he was eventually awarded a Star of Gallantry almost 50 years after the battle by badgering governments made an absolute farce of Australian military decorations, with all recipients under a cloud.
The role of Bob Buick (played by Like Bracey) is excruciating knowing what we know about his role in the battle. He shares what may be construed as an almost homosexual relationship with Smith on-screen that might raise eyebrows, although they have remained close ever since, united against naysayers.
While Danger Close depicts Buick as a tough soldier who leads from the front, in reality Buick, like Smith, was also a blemished character. He is insubordinate when he challenges LT Sharp about the officer’s inaction to an earlier mortar attack, yet is depicted as a hero who takes out a mobile enemy machine-gun singlehandedly. Not likely.
The integrity of the film (and indeed of the Anzac legend) takes a battering when Buick supposedly instructs his men to retreat, and they do so in what seems like an orderly manner. In fact, Buick admits that he deserted his position and his men, including the wounded, and ran for his life — a fact attested to by surviving member of his 11 Platoon.
One of them (PTE Jim Richmond) who was wounded badly and watched Buick bolt from the battlefield, followed by the remnants of his platoon, refuses to even utter Buick’s name to this day.
Although a mouthpiece for the battle in the decades that have elapsed, Buick’s role is somewhat diminished in Danger Close, and that is as it should be because he is a contentious character in the veteran community.
(In 2011, Buick boldly declared that he would ‘confront’ this author at one of my author talks about my memoir, The War Within — but brought along a dozen mates to support him if it got a bit rough.)
This is most probably because his actions during and after the battle which includes claims that he murdered an unarmed, wounded enemy soldier, were never addressed in the movie, or in fact, by Major Smith or the high command, and have caused consternation with veterans and detracted from the 6th Battalion’s honour and reputation.
There is more irony in that despite Major Smith belief that his Delta Company is the battalion’s premier fighting unit, it is the arrival of Captain Charles Mollison’s Alpha Company on APCs that saved Delta company from certain annihilation.
That Mollison and Alpha Company receive little attention in Danger Close is disappointing.
In my opinion, given Smith’s ‘advisory’ capacity, he was unwilling to acknowledge Charles Mollison’s rescue of his men because it tarnished his own faulty leadership, and meant Mollison and his men would have received a share of the military gallantry awards that Smith garnered for himself and his favourites.
The roles of Lieutenants Sabben and Kendall whose platoons played peripheral roles in the battle are somewhat understated despite both men receiving gallantry awards. So too, the role of Sgt Major Jock Kirby whose bravery was never questioned (there are those who suggest he should have been awarded a Victoria Cross) and that is a failure of the film.
To highlight a coward’s role, and understate a real hero is lamentable.
As a veteran of the same war, with similar experiences to those on show in Danger Close, including being wounded in action, I applaud the film, and like all those who watched it in the same theatre, was moved to quiet reflection for quite a while afterwards.
I must say that I found it disappointing though that the film portrayed men who are now deceased, in an unfavourable light. I refer to the Task Force commander Brigadier Jackson, the Battalion Commander, Townsend, and Lt Gordon Sharp. Dead men can’t defend themselves.
Ultimately, it is to Major Harry Smith’s dishonour that he has brokered a version of history that best serves his own legacy, at the expense of his superiors and the historical truth.
Nevertheless, as a veteran and avid movie-goer, I gave Danger Close 5 stars, and suggest it should be viewed by every veteran, and especially those who fought at the coalface.
