Long Tan fog clears
Volume 11, No. 50, August 24, 2006
By Michael Brooke

Harry Smith.

THE fog of war that for decades clouded the enemy intent at Long Tan has finally cleared on the 40th anniversary of the battle that wrote a new chapter in the proud legend of Anzac.

Harry Smith, the OC of D Coy 6RAR that fought the North Vietnamese forces to a bloody standstill on August 18, 1966, said Vietnamese officials recently admitted that Long Tan was not an ambush but an encounter battle that ended in victory for the Australians.

Lt-Col Smith (retd) told members of 1 Cdo Regt at a screening of the documentary The Battle of Long Tan at HMAS Penguin that the Vietnamese revealed that their force of 2500 soldiers were moving to attack the ATF at Nui Dat when they encountered D Coy.

“I never thought Long Tan was an ambush because it occurred within the range of our artillery, which is the main reason why we were able to defeat such a numerically superior force,” he said.

Lt-Col Smith told the commandos he was surprised that the battle occupied such an important place in Australian military history.

“Long Tan was nowhere near the scale of Kapyong, Tobruk or the Somme, but it is the most significant battle of the Vietnam War and therefore stands as my generation’s proud contribution to the legend of Anzac,” he said.

Lt-Col Smith, a former officer at 2 Coy and later OC of 1 Coy who retired from the Army in 1976, said he enjoyed the documentary that was conceived by media producer Mr Martin Walsh, also a former member of 2 Coy.