Army - The Soldiers' Newspaper

D Coy’s day
Volume 11, No. 51, September 07, 2006
By Cpl Mike McSweeney

Reflections: A Long Tan veteran places a hat on an upturned SLR.
Photo by LAC Rodney Welch.

Same beat: Chap Kerry Larwill carries the 6RAR Battalion Colours to the Drumheads during the United Drumhead Service (right).
Photo by LAC Rodney Welch.

The Battle of Long Tan was one of the most remarkable actions in Australian military history, the reviewing officer told about 250 soldiers and thousands of guests commemorating the battle’s 40th anniversary in Brisbane.

Land Commander Maj-Gen Mark Kelly reviewed the parade conducted by 6RAR near their Long Tan lines on August 18.

“To withstand continual assaults by a numerically superior enemy force over several hours in horrendous conditions, and be victorious at the end of the day, is a significant military feat,” Maj-Gen Kelly said.

He commended the officers and soldiers of 6RAR for their excellent turn out and performance on a lengthy but superbly executed parade.

“Your performance today is a fitting tribute to the veterans … and those men we lost during this significant battle,” he said.

“In every sense it is a most appropriate way to honour their memory and to honour their sacrifice.”

Like the battle involving 6RAR in Vietnam 40 years ago, the parade started about 3.30pm and finished as night fell. The soldiers of Long Tan once again stood-to as the commemoration began with a mortar barrage and machine-gun fire.

The parade included an Iroquois helicopter flypast, a United Drumhead Service and the firing of 1 Fd Regt howitzers.

Long Tan veterans were heavily involved with the ceremony, including marching through the ranks before laying hats on 18 upturned SLRs as the honour roll was read.
Veteran DJ Collins recognised the lengths that the current members of 6RAR and supporting elements went to.

“You feel honoured that the guys put in all the effort,” he said.

“We can remember what it was like ourselves [to be on parade]. You think it’s never going to end and, as it was, tonight it ended for them in darkness.

“The support that the battalion has given us for the last 35 years or more since we actually got an association going has been wonderful and today’s no exception with that effort.

“The whole celebration of today starting with breakfast in the city hall, the honour to lead the parade through the city of Brisbane was a fantastic thing for us, and it’s culminated in a wonderful parade.
“I don’t think as Long Tan veterans we can wish for anything more. It was fantastic.”

Capital’s tribute to Vietnam vets
By Barry Rollings

Choppers: Hueys fly over the assembly at the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial in Canberra.
Photo by LS Phillip Cullinan

Pipes: Cpl Karl Engstrom and Cfn Duncan Clement, 3/4 Cav Regt, prepare to play at a Battle of Long Tan remembrance service in Dili.
Photo by Cpl Bernard Pearson.

The first of the Long Tan fallen remembered was 2Lt Gordon Sharp, a former school mate who lived little more than half a block from me in Tamworth, NSW.

That in itself was enough to make the August 18 commemoration of the battle at the Vietnam Veterans’ Day Memorial Service in Canberra personally moving.

2Lt Sharp was a year ahead of me at Christian Brothers’ College Tamworth. A television cameraman in civilian life, 2Lt Sharp was a graduate of Scheyville, the first of its graduates killed in Vietnam. He was the only officer among the 18 who paid the supreme sacrifice when 108 Australian soldiers were outnumbered 25 to one that wet afternoon in a rubber plantation south-east of Saigon.

I had watched him compete with distinction as a school athlete. I had watched his funeral procession – from the roof of my then newspaper – making its way from church to cemetery. It might have been me but for the randomness of the National Service ballot.

Then there were reminiscences of two members of the Federal Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans’ Motor Cycle Club who admitted “it still gets to you” while blinking back tears as memories of long-ago in foreign climes remained as fresh in their minds as yesterday.

At the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial in Anzac Parade, the Long Tan Honour Roll was read, wreaths were laid, prayers and psalms said and speeches made against the backdrop of the Australian Federation Guard, two APCs and AAB-Sydney, as a simulated field fire mission reverberated from artillery guns on the nearby shores of Lake Burley Griffin by the AFG and a detachment from the contemporary 161 Battery RNZA (also engaged at Long Tan).

It was a morning when the ponytailed in bikers’ garb stood side by side with their more formally dressed and equally be-ribboned mates.

It was a morning of sombre reflection made more meaningful when two Iroquois made their way in from the east to hover in front of the memorial. The familiar “tocka, tocka, tocka” of whirling blades and rotors caused many a moist eye in the upturned faces of the several thousand in attendance, including more than 100 Long Tan veterans or their next of kin, before the Hueys dipped their noses in salute and flew off.

In a moving address Prime Minister John Howard thanked all Vietnam veterans “on behalf of a grateful nation which perhaps certainly was not as grateful and respectful as it should have been 40 years ago”.

“As you leave Canberra and go to your homes all around the country, your nation honours you,” he said.

“It respects you and thanks you for your courage and commitment and the way in which you did your duty as asked of you by your nation, and the way in which you upheld the finest traditions of military service of which Australians are so proud. “It was a war that placed an enormous psychological strain on those who participated and we are very conscious of the lingering impact of that psychological strain.”

Ron Sheargold, president of the Federal Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans’ Motor Cycle Club, and his vice-president, Bill White, were about to give a personal perspective on the Vietnam War just as the two Hueys flew overhead again, prompting an emotional pause in proceedings.

“It’s hard, I tell you; it still cracks you up,” Mr Sheargold said before continuing. “I think it’s not just Vietnam – and Long Tan is certainly significant – but I think today people have a greater understanding of what in so many conflicts this country has put on their military; the sacrifices made around the world.”

Mr Pete Ryan, president of the Vietnam Veterans’ Association of Australia (ACT branch), said the feedback on the extra effort with the helicopters, artillery and armoured vehicles to mark the 40th anniversary was excellent.

“The quintessential sound of the Vietnam War was the Iroquois,” Mr Ryan said. “If you saw the guys all turn around and look at those choppers and giving them the thumbs up ‘friendly here’ sign, you would know the significance of that to a Vietnam vet.”

Coincidentally, Mr Ryan was the engineer who commissioned one of the helicopters that took part in the observance, A2-773, into service in July 1968.

Saddest war of them all
By Peter Meehan

Gray day: Battle of Long Tan commemorations at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne.
Photo by Cpl Belinda Mepham

EMOTIONAL wounds were evident among the 3000 Vietnam veterans at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance on August 18.

They answered the call to pay tribute to those who fell during the Battle of Long Tan 40 years to the day.

A replica of the cross erected at Long Tan in 1969 was positioned before the Shrine’s imposing structure.

In his address, Maj-Gen David McLachlan (retd) said Vietnam was “the saddest and longest war of them all”. It underscored the healing process that still burns deeply within the hearts and minds of many Vietnam vets.

A crowd of 5000 heard WO1 Peter Zajac, WO ceremonial Victoria, read the names of 18 6RAR D Coy soldiers killed in the bloody 1966 rubber plantation fire fight.

Accompanied by AAB-Melbourne, 1960s entertainers Denise Drysdale and Marcie Jones sang Lonely Heroes, an original song written by Jones for the Melbourne ceremony.

During the performance, Drysdale who entertained the troops in South Vietnam during the late 60s, was moved to tears. She was not alone.

Battle retold
By Cpl Mike McSweeney

Hallowed ground: 6RAR soldiers parade in honour of the Vietnam veterans.
Photo by Cpl Neil Reeves

Honour: A veteran pays his respects to the fallen during the Long Tan Honour Roll. Photo by LAC Rodney Welch

The 108 men of D Coy 6RAR had drawn the short straw. In the afternoon of August 18, 1966, the Australian task force was looking forward to a concert at their Nui Dat base, featuring Little Pattie and Col Joy.

But there would be no concert for D Coy. Someone had to relieve B Coy, which was out looking for the enemy’s mortar base plates used in the shelling of the base the night before. 11 Pl rifleman John Heslewood said he and his mates were pretty disappointed.

“We were warned before lunch to get rations and ammunition,” Mr Heslewood said.

“We weren’t far out of the camp and you could hear the band kick up and we thought ‘this is bloody lovely. First time they’ve been over here and we’re going for a walk’. That’s life.”

Unknown to 6RAR, which had only formed the year before, a force of about 2500 Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army troops had formed up near Australia’s first fire base in Vietnam.
The base defences were not quite complete, and with no one in their way they would almost certainly crush the Australian force.

After rendezvousing with B Coy and exchanging information, D Coy patrolled into the rubber plantation at Long Tan unaware of what lay ahead of them.

“Shortly afterwards we encountered a small force of enemy,” Mr Heslewood said.

“We fired upon them, one was wounded and left blood trails. They shot through and we were told to follow them up.

“It was just an accident. They didn’t expect to run into us. They were heading for the task force for sure, and we didn’t expect to run into them.

“So we followed them up into the rubber in extended line for about 200-300m and then we just came under this huge amount of small arms machine-gun fire. They just opened up and it just kept getting worse and worse.”

Several 11 Pl soldiers were killed almost instantly, including troop commander 2Lt Gordon Sharp.

“We were sort of pinned down. 10 Pl came up one side to try and get to us. They ran into enemy forces who were trying to get around behind us.”

10 Pl withdrew and 12 Pl attempted to move up the other side of 11 Pl.

“They also ran into an enemy force trying to outflank us the other way,” Mr Heslewood said.

Caught without any real cover, a timely torrential downpour favoured the diggers by lowering visibility. Grossly outnumbered, D Coy held on with the help of New Zealand and Australian artillery support.

“By that stage we’d taken pretty heavy casualties and the only thing that was keeping us there was the artillery. It was landing within 30-50m of our position – pretty close.

“You could see them [the Vietnamese] lining up in the background and marching towards us at a sort of half run. It seemed like every time we looked like being overrun a huge barrage of artillery would fall on them.”
Knowing they couldn’t hold the enemy back indefinitely, 11 Pl withdrew.

“We made our way back as best we could to the company position. The CSM grabbed us as we came in, a few at a time and gave us more ammunition.

“Then most of us were put out the back of the company position, which at that stage was unguarded. As it turned out that was where the enemy were forming up to come and have a chop at the back of us.”
By then D Coy had been fighting desperately for three hours when reinforcements finally arrived in the fading light.

“With the heavy rain and the noise the enemy didn’t hear the APCs arriving apparently. The APCs ran them over and that was basically the end of it, The APCs broke the back of it,” Mr Heslewood said.

“The enemy stopped firing at us and they started taking out their own dead and wounded. We collected ours and moved back 500-odd metres to an open area where we called the choppers in to take out the wounded. Then we harboured up there for the night with the APCs.”

At the end of the battle, Australia had suffered 18 dead and 24 wounded, whereas the enemy lost hundreds. For their gallant stand, D Coy was awarded the US Presidential Unit Citation from Lyndon B. Johnson.

Forty years later Mr Heslewood and his mates banded together once again to commemorate the battle and honour their fallen mates at a ceremony held by 6RAR near Brisbane. After the parade diggers both new and old had a chance to catch up over a beer while being entertained by a concert hosted by the real Adrian Cronauer. At last, the members of D Coy got to see their concert with Col Joy.