Op Ivanhoe: the last battle

WO2 Warren Dowell retired after 20 years in the infantry. Photo by Cpl Cameron Jamieson, Army newspaper

A map shows the engagement of the Australians and New Zealanders with the NVA.

Cpl Warren Dowell in 1972 post-Vietnam.

Cpl Dowell (centre) marches through Townsville to HMAS Sydney, immediately behind him is Pte Ralph Niblett who died of wounds only weeks short of returning to Australia.

WO2 Warren Dowell recalls the final battle in Vietnam as Cpl Cameron Jameison reports.

In 1969 there weren’t too many delays once you decided to join the Army.

The need for soldiers was so great that you were off to recruit training almost as soon as you had signed on the dotted line.

Warren Dowell was a 17 year-old lad, not long out of high school, when he marched into Kapooka in January that year.

After his recruit and infantry training he found himself posted to 4RAR, and in May 1971 Cpl Dowell marched through the streets of Townsville with the men of D Coy 4RAR to board HMAS Sydney for the trip to Vietnam.

On August 18, 1971 the Australian Government announced that the 1st Australian Task Force would be withdrawn by late December, with logistics units to follow soon after.

Exactly one month later 4RAR, with an attached company of New Zealand infantry, began Operation Ivanhoe, which was designed to destroy the enemy who were moving south back into the Phuoc Tuy province from the Long Khanh province.

Unfortunately for the diggers of 4RAR/NZ, a command decision had been made to withdraw the Centurion tanks of C Sqn 1 Armd Regt from Vietnam prior to the cessation of the task force’s field operations, so the infantry were left to carry on without support from their armoured comrades.

Into battle

Op Ivanhoe was only a day old when the enemy showed they were looking for a fight.

On the night of September 19, North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops fired rockets and mortars against a South Vietnamese Regional Force outpost located at Cam My on Route 2, which connected the Australian base with the Americans at Black Horse camp.

A relief force of Australian APCs was ambushed as it approached the outpost, by a strong force of enemy firing RPGs and small arms.

The next day, the men of 11 Pl from D Coy 4RAR/NZ contacted an enemy platoon, which resulted in four dead enemy soldiers being left on the battlefield. Inspection of their dress and equipment, coupled with the tactics used by the enemy soldiers, indicated they were from a well-trained and supplied NVA unit.

On the morning of September 21, following the discovery of well-worn tracks that indicated the presence of hundreds of enemy soldiers, the OC D Coy made the decision to draw the company’s platoons together to prevent them from being overrun should they run into a superior number of enemy troops.

But while 12 and 10 platoons moved towards 11 Pl, an enemy force of more than 60 soldiers tried their best to eliminate 11 Pl.

Twelve Platoon were still about two kilometers away when they ran into an enemy bunker system. The opening bursts of fire left the lead Australian scout dead and several of his mates wounded.

The Battle of Nui Le had begun – the last major battle for Australian troops in the Vietnam War.

Bunker battle

The bunker system was hammered by airpower and artillery for a number of hours before the Forward Air Controller reported the enemy was pulling out and moving north.

A decision was made for 4RAR/NZ to enter the system and clear it before nightfall, and D Coy was to take the lead. Their hopes of finding no one at home were shattered as a wall of small-arms fire burst on them, and more Australians fell.

At the time of the battle, Warren Dowell was attached to Company Headquarters’ (CHQ) support section. His ability to move around the battlefield gave him a good opportunity to observe the flow of the battle and the mayhem that ensued as the Australians fought for their lives against the 2nd Battalion of the NVA’s 33 Regt.

“At about 3pm, the company moved off again, back into the bunker system and that’s when things really started to hot up,” recalls Dowell.

“We had thought the enemy had withdrawn, at least that’s what we were led to believe by the aircraft overhead, but no – they’d stayed to fight and within minutes 11 Pl had suffered four losses and a number wounded. That’s when I found myself with 11 Pl, acting as a section commander at different times, trying to do what I could.

“Relaying orders around the place was a big problem because there was so much noise, it was very hard for anybody to actually hear orders above the sounds of battle.”

Extraction nightmare

The fight lasted for several hours and the light was fading, so the company commander made the decision to break contact and move back 300 metres to form a secure company harbour position for the night.

“Ten Pl was given the task of moving first,” remembers Dowell.

“They hadn’t gone too far when they ran straight into another bunker system where the RHQ of the 33 NVA Regt was located.

“So while they were fighting to the company’s rear, 11 Pl and 12 Pl were trying to extract themselves from the system.

“We had them all around us, but we did get back into a semblance of all-round defence.

“It wasn’t the classical all-round defence, but certainly we were linked-up, which was excellent because our spirits lifted once we were all together.

“We were in contact all the way around and the NVA from RHQ had observation posts in the trees, which were directing fire into us.

“In the end we didn’t extract ourselves – we had to stay because it was last light and we couldn’t move.”

“Then, at around about midnight, enemy activity seemed to slacken off and things started to go quiet.

“We dropped the artillery back and we put in a very, very long night.

“There were wounded within our position that had to stay there because they couldn’t get them out.

“As it started to get a bit darker and a bit quieter, it became a bit spooky as well.

“At that stage we didn’t think the enemy had pulled back, as they’d shown during the day that they’d wanted to have a go.

“The thought in my mind was that the enemy wanted to knock us over to prove they’d pushed the Australians out.

“During the night, as the adrenalin started to wear off, that’s when your thoughts start to wander.

“You think ‘maybe I should have done something different years ago,’ and ‘am I going to get through this?’”

Personal reflections

Warren remembers how his training took over from the natural instinct to flee.

“While you were scared, I don’t think there was anybody so scared that they couldn’t perform their tasks.”

“You also didn’t want to let your mates down,” he says.

But the determination of the enemy to close with the Australians was unnerving.

Dowell remembers how it put the men on edge because there was no indication during the day that the enemy would give up.

“We knew we were up against a determined, courageous enemy, so you started to think ‘have I got it what it takes?’, but again I had confidence in my training and especially in my mates around me.

“Another thing that comes vividly to mind was when I realised that one of my friends, a national serviceman named Private Ralph Niblett, had been shot.

“Ralph was the heart of the platoon – the joker – and when he got shot that really brought it home to me.

“I was in the process of losing a good mate, and that was just the way things were.”

Ralph Niblett, who had marched behind Dowell through Townsville to board HMAS Sydney, died after he was loaded onto a medical evacuation helicopter at Nui Le.

He was due to return to Australia in a few weeks time.

Searching for the dead

“The hardest thing I had to do was to go back in to the system with members of the company and the Kiwis to retrieve the dead.

“We had to leave the bodies there during the battle, we would have taken more casualties if we had tried to get them out.

“As you can appreciate, in a hot tropical environment bodies tend to decompose quickly, but we had to get our fellows out so we went back and got them.”

Retirement

WO2 Warren Dowell retired from the Army in 1990, ending a twenty-year career as an infantryman.

His last posting was to the School of Infantry, the school that had taught him the basic skills he needed to survive on the battlefield in Vietnam.

He still keeps in touch with friends in the Army, and is pleased to see that the Army’s infantry training is still world-class.