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LONG ROAD HOME
In 1965 two young Australians were left behind on a battlefield in Vietnam. Their mates never forgot them. Sgt Damian Griffin writes of the operation to find them and bring them home.
Edition 1169, June 28, 2007 |
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| The map shows the approximate location near Hill 82 that LCpl Parker and Pte Gillson were found. |
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The site: Brian Manns (bush hat) during the excavation. The background shows the terrain today.
Photo provided by Brian Manns |
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Handled with care: Brian Manns holds Pte Gillson’s dog tags moments after they were removed from the burial site.
Photo by Brian Manns |
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Only 19: Pte Peter Gillson stands proudly in his slouch hat and greens.He was 19 when he deployed to Vietnam.
Photo provided by The Australian |
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| On the trail: Jim Bourke during a recent search for LCpl John Gillespie. |
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| Jungle green: A smiling LCpl Richard Parker with his SLR slung over his shoulder. |
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Honoured to guard: 7RAR soldiers provide an honour guard at RAAF Base Darwin.
Photo by Rachel Ingram |
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Painstaking search: Maj Jack Thurgar, AHU, and Cmdr Matt Blenkin sieve for evidence at the burial site.
Photo by Brian Manns |
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| The map shows this location in Vietnam. |
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As it was: The winch-out point near Hill 82 that A Coy 1RAR used to extract their wounded on November 9, 1965.
Photo by Gordon Peterson |
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AT 2057h on June 4, the wheels of a 37 Sqn Hercules lifted off the tarmac of Hanoi international airport and began a nine-hour flight to Darwin. At that moment, as if by some silent signal, every passenger on board stopped trying to get comfortable in the cargo-netted seats, forgot the discomfort of the hearing protection that muffled the engines’ roar, and glanced toward the precious cargo secured at the rear of the plane – the flag-draped coffins of LCpl Richard Parker and Pte Peter Gillson.
Each knew they were privileged to be taking part in this special flight. After almost 42 years missing in action in Vietnam, LCpl Parker and Pte Gillson were coming home.
For 2Lt Robert Gillson it was the opportunity to share an adventure with the father he never met. For four 1RAR veterans on board it was a moment they’d hoped, prayed and worked towards for many years.
Jim Bourke, a platoon commander in D Coy, was joined by three A Coy members. From 3 Pl, Pte Gillson’s platoon commander, Clive Williams, and from 1 Pl, Gordon Peterson and Trevor Hagan – the acting platoon commander and acting platoon sergeant the day LCpl Parker was killed.
Jim, the founding member of Operation Aussies Home (OAH), recalled the feeling in 1RAR after LCpl Parker and Pte Gillson were killed on November 8, 1965, during Operation Hump.
“The battalion was very depressed after that. A big black cloud came down over A Coy – over the whole battalion – they’d left two blokes behind,” he says.
Following their loss, a plan was drawn up by 1RAR to return to Hill 82 on November 15 to destroy the enemy and reclaim their mates’ bodies. But this was abandoned because of a lack of air resources and 1RAR was sent on another operation on November 20.
Ever since, A Coy members have gathered on November 8 for a few beers and to remember the two they’d left behind.
“They’ve just felt really guilty about it, and it’s been niggling at them a lot,” says Jim.
For Jim, the search for MIAs in Vietnam began in 1997 when he started searching for another lost mate. A US special forces soldier, Sgt 1st Class Anastacio Montez, who he’d worked alongside during his second tour of Vietnam with AATT-V.
Jim conducted a determined search which, although unsuccessful, provided him contacts in the US Joint POW MIA Accounting Command.
In 2002, they approached him for assistance in gaining Mitochondrial DNA from the families of the six Australian MIAs, to exclude the possibility their remains were already held by the US.
This piqued his interest in the Australian MIA cases, and he began to investigate. Before long, he began campaigning for funding and support, all the while continuing to work on the cases of LCpl Parker and Pte Gillson and also that of LCpl John Gillespie, who was killed on April 17, 1971, when the helicopter he was on crashed in the Long Hai Hills of Phuc Tuy Provence.
In November 2005, Jim returned to Vietnam with Trevor Hagan and Gordon Peterson where they met with a Vietnamese man who had knowledge of the November 8 battle. He put Jim in contact with Mr Nguyen Van Bao, the commander of 1RAR’s opposing force in 1965.
Mr Bao was able to describe the battle in detail and told Jim that the bodies of LCpl Parker and Pte Gillson had been buried after the battle in a pit. However, his estimation of where the battle took place later proved to be 1400m further south than where it actually occurred.
Australia’s officially recorded location for the battle was also incorrect, which Hagan and Peterson realised immediately when they arrived.
This can be explained by the fact that the maps used in 1965 were National Geographic maps based on aerial photography from 1961, and the terrain was primary jungle with a dense canopy and undergrowth.
“The maps were absolutely inaccurate; they bore no resemblance to the ground – except for the grid lines,” Jim says.
The team walked the ground toward the east for 400m until both Hagan and Peterson decided on a likely position. A search was conducted, but nothing was found.
In May 2006 the team returned with Clive Williams. He confirmed the site chosen by Hagan and Peterson and picked the ridge that he’d followed in his attempt at a flanking attack 40 years earlier.
Using mine detectors, they searched for any produce, but only located post-1965 ammunition cartridges.
Jim says the team logged about 20 potential points they considered could have been weapon pits or burial sites before they returned to Australia.
“We had the right location, I was 99 per cent certain. But how the bloody hell do we find them?”
Jim then had another battle to face. Upon return to Australian he underwent five months of chemotherapy from May 2006 to combat lymphoma.
Determined not to return without him, the team postponed their return until Jim’s recovery.
Armed with ground-penetrating radar provided by the Australian National University (ANU), which can detect differences in soil density to a depth of 2m, and joined by forensic excavation expert David Thomas, the team returned from January to February 2007.
Unfortunately, problems with gaining approvals to use the radar meant the team wasted the month in Bien Hoa.
Disappointed and out of pocket, the team returned to Australia. Shortly afterward, Bruce Billson, Minister Assisting the Defence Minister, reimbursed the cost of the mission and contributed a grant of $37,500.
A Queensland businessman, Paul Darrouzet, also provided a further $40,000 for the operation to continue.
With Mr Billson ensuring the approvals were met to deploy the ground-penetrating radar, the team returned to Vietnam accompanied by ANU staff.
However, the usefulness of the radar was hampered by the soil’s high levels of iron, so with the assistance of local labourers and an excavator, the team spent two weeks digging any likely pits. With only four days left, Jim remembers that morale was starting to lag as the prospect of another unsuccessful search loomed.
“This Saturday night, we were really ticked off with one another and the whole thing. Hardest man management job I’ve had in my life.”
David Thomas suggested searching some of the sites that they’d already dismissed. The next day the team went out to take another look.
In the afternoon of the Sunday, on the sixth pit they’d dug that day, the team finally found the remains of their friends.
“Out the side of the hole popped a boot – it was Parker’s boot,” Jim recalled.
At 190cm, LCpl Parker must have had trouble fitting into issued boots, as they didn’t appear to be Australian. Soon, they found what was eventually identified as Parker’s other boot, before another set of boots were found – these were Australian-issue GP boots.
With Thomas supervising, the dig continued the next day and femur bones were unearthed. But Jim says it wasn’t until the Wednesday that the grave revealed it most telling evidence so far – an almost perfect condition talc-covered map of the AO for Operation Hump. “Covered with contact on both sides. You could see the boundaries marked.”
On finding the remains, Jim says there was a degree of luck, and perhaps, “a little help from the man upstairs”.
When they’d been buried more than 41 years earlier, the area they were in was thick jungle. Since then, heavy machinery had cleared it for cultivation. This dramatically changed the ground and left depressions from stump holes, which had led to several false searches.
The pit containing LCpl Parker and Pte Gillson also had a large rock on top that Jim assumes machinery must have pushed there when the jungle was cleared.
“We’d actually identified that area in May. We’d probed it, but obviously we’d hit something hard and the reason was there was a couple of rocks in the pit.”
After finding the map on April 17, Jim called the Defence Attache in Hanoi who alerted Brian Manns at the Army History Unit. Well aware of OAH’s mission, Brian had been hoping for the call.
“I briefed the DCA at 0800 on Wednesday, and by 0830 walked out of his office with a task order to get a team and get over as quickly as possible,” Brian says.
Tasked with formally identifying and repatriating the two, the team included AHU’s Maj Jack Thurgar, archaeologist Tony Lowe, physical anthropologist Denise Donlon and forensic dentists Cmdr Matt Blenkin and Russell Lain.
On their arrival in Vietnam, Jim handed over to Brian and his team. On Anzac Day, Brian’s team accessed the site and began the slow process of carefully excavating with trowels and brushes. It wasn’t long before they found some exciting evidence.
“We discovered a set of dog tags. When we got the dog tags out, they were still wrapped in tape, but they were rusted to buggery – you couldn’t read them at all,” recalls Brian.
Attempts to remove the tape began to damage the discs, so the suggestion was made to x-ray them using the dentist’s x-ray equipment.
“When we x-rayed the discs, we could clearly read Gillson’s service number, and then from another angle, we could clearly read GILLSON.”
By the Friday, LCpl Parker and Pte Gillson’s remains were removed from the burial site, but the dig wasn’t complete until the archeologist reached the undisturbed soil at the bottom of the pit.
“When we did that, we came across a second set of dog tags that were Parker’s. They’re stainless steel and in perfect condition.”
Amazingly, LCpl Parker’s stainless steel dog tags only needed the tape removed and the mud rubbed off to return them to perfect condition. The remains were then given further dental and forensic examination and positive identification was made. Their coffins touched down at RAAF Base Darwin on the morning of June 5.
Home at last – 15,153 days after they were killed.
Both Brian and Jim say the high-level of cooperation they received from their contacts in the Vietnamese government means there’s an improved chance of accessing information and sites where the other four Australian MIAs may be located.
Jim is now continuing to attempt to locate LCpl Gillespie. He believes he’s located the crash site after finding scrap Huey parts. His dogged determination in continuing the search is perhaps best summed up in his own words when I wished him luck.
“You can sit around crying into your beer, but you’ve got to get on to the hill, the right hill, and dig a hole, then you’ve got a chance to find them. Unless you do those things, forget it – you’re never going to have luck.”
For further information on Operation Aussies Home, Operation Hump or the other four MIA cases, visit http://austmia.com/
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