10 Main Force Operations Vietnam, 1968–69
Rick Haines and Bob Breen
In July 1967, the North Vietnamese Politburo decided to launch a large offensive in the south during the 1968 Tet holiday period, normally a truce period and a time for community and family gatherings. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the architect of the victory of Dien Bien Phu, informed by a strategic concept developed by General Nguyen Chi Thanh, called ‘General Offensive-General Uprising’, planned an attack intended to be ‘a single massive blow’ that would lead to negotiations and an end to the war.1 He believed that the South Vietnamese–American alliance ‘was inherently unstable’, and that the United States was overextended and could not increase its commitment significantly. Giap’s aim was to spur uprisings throughout the south and begin a new strategy of fighting hard and negotiating at the same time.2
At midnight on 30 January 1968, South Vietnamese forces began a 36-hour ceasefire to celebrate the arrival of the new Year of the Monkey and in response to a communist announcement of a seven-day ceasefire. In reality, the South Vietnamese government directed their commanders only to allow 50 per cent of their soldiers to go on leave. American and allied forces remained on full alert. By this time, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong had ‘secretly moved 85,000–100,000 soldiers and vast quantities of munitions and equipment into position for their planned all-out offensive’.3 Within 48 hours, these forces ‘emerged to attack 36 of 44 provincial capitals, 5 of 6 autonomous cities, and 72 of 245 district towns [throughout the country] in addition to numerous military headquarters, airfields and combat bases’.4 General Westmoreland was not completely surprised, but there were failures in the intelligence system that led most allied units throughout South Vietnam to be caught unprepared.5 General Giap targeted the Saigon Capital Military Zone with 35 main force battalions supported by 4000 to 5000 local force guerillas in order to impede American and South Vietnamese capacity to react and to maximise political embarrassment for the Americans around the world.6 One of his strike divisions would be the Viet Cong 5th Division , leading with its two regiments, the 274th and 275th, whose elements had fought the Australians in Phuoc Tuy on a number of occasions, most notably at Long Tan on 18 August 1966. Concerned about enemy activity around Saigon, Lieutenant General Frederick C. Weyand, Commander III Corps Tactical Zone, had persuaded Westmoreland to redeploy fifteen American battalions back to the outskirts of the capital in early January.7 Before then, General Giap had cleverly lured American forces away from coastal population centres by stepping up the tempo of his operations in the northern Demilitarised Zone, the Central Highlands and the ‘Fishhook’, near the Cambodian border. Around this time, Lieutenant General Weyand warned Major General Vincent, Commander Australian Force Vietnam, that he wanted to employ the Australians outside Phuoc Tuy province to defend large American bases in the Long Binh–Bien Hoa area.8 Vincent agreed, but General Wilton, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in Canberra, only concurred after insisting that one Australian battalion would remain at Nui Dat.9 On 24 January 1968, Brigadier Ron Hughes flew with his headquarters and 2 RAR and 7 RAR into an area of operations on the border between Bien Hoa and Long Khanh provinces east of Bien Hoa, some 55 kilometres to the north-west of Nui Dat.10 This was the same area that a battalion of the 173rd Airborne Brigade and A Company, 1 RAR had struck a stubborn resistance in the bunker complexes designed to protect enemy supply routes in November 1965. Hughes’s mission was to relieve the US 199th Infantry Brigade and shield the large allied complexes at Bien Hoa and Long Binh from enemy rocket attack.11 On arrival, the Australians were soon fighting with enemy groups, varying from ten to 30 members, located in bunker complexes waiting to attack American bases, or on the move to do so.
There were some substantial firefights. On 26 January Major Peter White’s B Company, 2 RAR fought a two-hour action through bunkers occupied by what he thought to be about 25 Viet Cong. The same day 9 Platoon, C Company, 2 RAR, assaulted and occupied a dug-in camp of similar strength after being reinforced by the remainder of the company. Within a few days the tempo and the size of enemy forces increased. On 29 January Major Don Paterson’s D Company, 7 RAR contacted a battalion concentrating in bunkers and a two and half hour firefight ensued. In total, the Australians lost six killed and 25 wounded in these and other fleeting engagements, and a number of officers and men were decorated for bravery.12 The Australians were interrupting and disrupting General Giap’s careful and secret pre-positioning of forces on one of the main approaches to Saigon by discovering base camps, assaulting some and bombarding others with artillery fire and air strikes. However, they were too late to interfere seriously. In the early hours of 31 January, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces assaulted American and South Vietnamese bases in Bien Hoa and Long Binh, supported by mortar and rocket attacks. Back in Phuoc Tuy province, Viet Cong elements simultaneously attacked main provincial towns. General Wilton’s fears about the employment of Australian forces outside Phuoc Tuy province were being realised. Colonel Don Dunstan, Brigadier Hughes’s deputy commander, now had to send out a force from the Nui Dat base to confront a reinforced 600-strong D 455th Provincial Battalion that had occupied Ba Ria, the provincial capital, before first light on 1 February.
The Tet offensive had begun and several Australian rifle companies were about to find themselves in savage close quarter combat with well-armed, well-trained and determined enemy forces. In Phuoc Tuy province, the contest began when Dunstan despatched a reaction force in armoured personnel carriers consisting of A Company, 3 RAR, commanded by Major Brian ‘Horrie’ Howard, to reinforce government forces counterattacking D 455th Provincial Battalion in Ba Ria.13 Howard and his men fought from street to street in a series of close quarter firefights among densely packed buildings, killing over 40 enemy soldiers to help South Vietnamese forces to regain control of the town.14 On 3 February Dunstan rushed Major Peter Phillips’s D Company, 3 RAR to assist South Vietnamese Rangers to clear a village just outside Ba Ria. After an unsuccessful attempt that evening to reach the marketplace in the centre of the village, the Australians cleared the marketplace the next day with several platoon assaults.15 While American and South Vietnamese forces fought from their bases at Bien Hoa and Long Binh against the enemy assault, the Australian task force was in the field astride one of the main enemy routes in and out of the Saigon area. They patrolled quietly in company and platoon strength, and had numerous fleeting contacts with enemy forces that wanted to avoid engagements that would expose them to artillery and air attack. However, this did not stop the Australians directing artillery, mortar, helicopter gunships and jet bombers onto large groups of enemy soldiers withdrawing after having assaulted American and South Vietnamese bases.
Lieutenant Colonel Smith, commanding 7 RAR, commented later that an entire enemy division had passed around the battalion’s company positions.16 The division Smith observed was the Viet Cong 5th Division. Once again, the Australians’ old adversaries, the 274th and the 275th Regiments, moved out of harm’s way adroitly.
After a busy week, 3 RAR relieved 7 RAR on 9 February and 2 RAR withdrew to Nui Dat on 14 February, leaving an Australian and a New Zealand company under Lieutenant Colonel Shelton’s command. General Westmoreland was pleased with Australian efforts, noting that they had freed the US 199th Infantry Brigade to defend Saigon and ‘had accounted for 186 enemy killed (by body count with a further 37 estimated), 25 captured and 126 weapons seized, at a cost of five Australian soldiers killed and 54 wounded’.17 After arrival in the area of operations, Lieutenant Colonel Shelton and his 3 RAR group established Fire Support Patrol Base (FSPB) Andersen about a thousand metres to the north of the village of Trang Bom on Route 1, astride a well-known enemy route. This action ‘was to prove sufficiently aggravating to the Viet Cong to warrant three attempts to remove it’.18 The first of these attacks occurred on the night of 17–18 February. What was estimated to be a Viet Cong company, supported by mortar, rocket-propelled grenade and light machine-gun fire, attacked and killed seven Australian soldiers and wounded 22 more before withdrawing. There were further attacks on 19 February and 28 February, but no further Australian casualties. Shelton and his men held firm, ensuring that artillery and mortar units located in their fire support base would continue to support search and destroy operations.
While 3 RAR protected its fire support base, 2 RAR and 7 RAR were active in Phuoc Tuy province conducting cordon and search operations.19 The Viet Cong had operated in and around the village of Hoa Long during the Tet offensive and contacts confirmed that enemy groups were still moving between Hoa Long and the Nui Dinh hills to the west.20 The village contained many families of the D 445th Battalion, and possibly harboured a number of wounded Viet Cong soldiers from the Tet offensive. 7 RAR placed a cordon around the village on the evening of 15 February and the next morning 2 RAR, with the assistance of three companies from 7 RAR, conducted a search through the village. Although little was found during the day, late in the afternoon a group of Viet Cong fired rockets at Major Bill Carter’s B Company, 2 RAR on the western edge of the village. Carter and his men responded quickly and had a number of contacts through the night, killing nine Viet Cong soldiers, wounding one and capturing four. Screening by South Vietnamese authorities inside the village during this cordon and search operation resulted in the detention of 25 Viet Cong agents, 41 suspects and a dozen South Vietnamese draft evaders. 2 RAR followed up quickly with a cordon and search of the nearby the village of Long Dien on 20 February. 7 RAR, on its last operation, conducted the search. The operation finished the next day, netting 30 Viet Cong suspects and 45 draft evaders.
On 9 April 1 RAR, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Bennett, and incorporating 130 veterans who had served during the battalion’s first tour in 1965–66, relieved 7 RAR. During its twelve-month tour of duty, 7 RAR had taken part in 26 battalion-sized or larger operations and lost sixteen members killed and 124 wounded. Over 1180 men had served in the battalion in Vietnam because of the turnover of national servicemen completing their two years’ service.21 The unit had come a long way since the army had raised it from scratch in 1965 at Puckapunyal in Victoria from contingents of national servicemen and a group of regulars, and the soldiers had adopted the farmyard pig as the battalion’s mascot. 7 RAR had performed with distinction in Vietnam and many of its regular officers and soldiers would go on to train and serve with following battalions. Like returning battalions before it, 7 RAR marched through an Australian capital city to a warm reception from a large crowd. The crowd in Sydney would probably not have known that hundreds of national servicemen were not there to receive their ‘welcome home’ on that day. Most had returned to Australia on a ten-hour flight and the army had quickly discharged them shortly afterwards.
Four weeks before 7 RAR departed, Brigadier Hughes had turned his attention to the Australians’ provincial adversary, D 445th Battalion. He had decided to strike at this unit’s home base, located in a sanctuary known as the Minh Dam Secret Zone in the Long Hai hills south of Long Dien and Dat Do, fourteen kilometres from Nui Dat. He ordered ‘a task force sweep into the Long Hai mountain complex in order to capture the VC installations that are established there’.22 Australians were about to return to the same area that 5 RAR had entered in February 1967 and sustained a number of casualties from mines. This time they would take tanks and announce their arrival with concentrated B–52 strikes. Operation Pinnaroo would—in the opinion of Brigadier Hughes—prove to be ‘one of the most hazardous and intensive undertaken by the task force’.23 Hughes began the operation on 27 February by positioning forces to cordon off the entire Long Hai hills area. The cordon consisted of rifle companies patrolling and probing towards the foothills, protecting land-clearing operations, and ambushing by night. These ambushes were successful in stopping a number of enemy groups trying to escape through the cordon. On 8 March elements of both 2 RAR and 3 RAR spread out in a wide circle around the hills and patrolled towards them to tighten their cordon and prevent enemy escape. A massive and sustained B–52 heavy bomber and artillery bombardment of the hills area followed the next day. Then a combined 3 RAR infantry–armour force advanced onto the foothills of the Hon Vung feature. After this foray, Lieutenant Colonel Shelton deployed companies to clear minefields and destroy enemy bases.
In concert with Centurion tanks and APCs, D Company, 3 RAR moves across open paddy fields before entering the jungle at the foot of the Long Hai hills during Operation Pinnaroo in March 1968. This was one of the few occasions in Vietnam when troops of the regiment went into action wearing steel helmets and flack jackets, a precaution taken due to the threat of mines in the Long Hai hills (AWM photo no. BRN/68/261/VN).
The Viet Cong commander had built his main base, comprising an armoury, a headquarters, propaganda distribution centres and storage areas for ammunition and explosives, in a large and deep cave system that had been used by the Viet Minh in the First Indo-Chinese War in the 1950s. Australian engineers needed many tonnes of explosive ordnance and plenty of ‘know-how’ to destroy these underground facilities squirrelled away deep in granite. As each company finished combing its area and destroying enemy infrastructure, Hughes withdrew it back to Nui Dat—the last company returning on 15 April. Mines claimed ten Australian lives and 36 more casualties. The Viet Cong had lifted most of them from the Australian barrier minefield running from the Horseshoe to the sea. For their part, the Australians killed 21 Viet Cong, wounded fourteen others and captured over 40 suspects. They had also destroyed 57 camps and bunker systems, and seized or destroyed large quantities of weapons, munitions and other supplies.24 Overall, the Australian official history assessed that the task force’s return to the Long Hais was a success. The official Vietnamese history recorded a victory for Viet Cong perseverance, but acknowledged that the Australians had hindered their operations for some time. Disappointingly for the Australians, the South Vietnamese armed forces did not occupy the Long Hais or maintain control of the area after they had paid such a high price in casualties, materiel and stress to wrest the area from the Viet Cong. D 445th Battalion returned to their headquarters in camps in the Long Hais after ejecting a South Vietnamese regional force company a few months after the Australians left.25
In late February General Wheeler, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Saigon and on his return reported to President Johnson that ‘despite 40,000 killed, at least 3000 captured and perhaps 5000 disabled or dead of wounds, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong now had the initiative’ after the recent Tet offensive.26 The offensive had been devastating for the Viet Cong, costing them about half their strength in the south. These were losses that could not be quickly replaced with new recruits from South Vietnam.27 However, help was at hand. General Giap quickly infiltrated more of his North Vietnamese army units and thousands of reinforcements into the south. By early May, about 15,000 North Vietnamese soldiers were serving in Viet Cong units. In an effort to put pressure on the first session of peace negotiations in Paris, the Viet Cong were able to launch 119 attacks against provincial and district capitals, allied military installations and major cities in May. On 13 May they were again creating powerful and embarrassing images for the Americans in the international media as they again penetrated into Saigon.28
General Westmoreland had not adopted a defensive posture before this second wave of Viet Cong attacks. He had sent out allied units in large-scale unit sweeps in April that involved over 70,000 South Vietnamese, American, Australian, New Zealand and Thai troops to find and fight North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units in an operation named Toan Thang, meaning ‘complete victory’. However, thirteen Viet Cong battalions succeeded in penetrating Saigon’s defences to begin the second Battle of Saigon.
The Australian task force participated in Operation Toan Thang, both within and outside of Phuoc Tuy province. In reality, this operation was a re-run of the defence of Saigon during the Tet offensive, with some differences in where Australians fought.
3 RAR began the contest on 21 April in the Hat Dich Zone near the north-western border of Phuoc Tuy province. However, the enemy remained elusive. The main deployment of the Australian task force began on Anzac Day (25 April). 2 RAR moved from Nui Dat and 3 RAR from the Hat Dich Zone to the Bien Hoa–Long Khanh border area to the east of the huge American base complex at Long Binh.
The mission was to patrol and ambush tracks and possible rocket-launching sites along approaches towards Saigon and the Bien Hoa–Long Binh logistics complex and air base to disrupt the coming enemy attack. After several successful ambushes, 2 RAR consolidated in a fire support base. Hughes returned 3 RAR to Nui Dat on 3 May, and redeployed 1 RAR from there to join 2 RAR in a sweeping operation.
In response to attacks on Saigon, the Australian task force, comprising 1 and 2 RAR, returned on 5 May to the vicinity of where the task force had fought during the Tet offensive, once again relieving the US 199th Infantry Brigade. Companies from both battalions quickly deployed to ambush suspected Viet Cong infiltration routes. Five days later, 3 RAR relieved 2 RAR, as the battalion completed its last major operation before returning to Australia. On 13 June 2 RAR would arrive back in Australia having participated in seventeen operations. The battalion had lost 27 soldiers killed in action, including four New Zealanders. 4 RAR, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Lee Greville, relieved Lieutenant Colonel Charlesworth and his men on 1 June and took V3 and Wl Companies under command to become 4 RAR/NZ (ANZAC).
Meanwhile, the Australians waited for 274th Regiment to make its move. Once again, this regiment proved to be elusive, though by 10 May the Australians had managed to kill six Viet Cong and wound one. However, this was not much to offer after 21 days on operations in what should have been a target-rich environment.
Having missed the regiments of the 5th Division and their North Vietnamese colleagues on the way into Saigon, it now remained to be seen whether the Australians could obstruct the withdrawal of these forces from Saigon after they had caused mayhem in the city.
The concentration of the Australian task force astride Route 16 on 12 May in the middle of one of the major north–south supply routes to and from Saigon set the scene for a major military contest. Commanders of the North Vietnamese 7th Division and the Viet Cong 5th Division had to pull out their regiments from Saigon and regroup in this area. They would brook no opposition. These formations did not plan to be caught in the open and expose themselves to American firepower. The Australian government backed the judgement of General Wilton, at the strategic level of command, and his operational commander in Vietnam, Major General A.L. McDonald, that the best use of the Australian task force would be against regular North Vietnamese and Viet Cong formations, and not holding elements of D 445th Battalion at bay in Phuoc Tuy province.29 Major General McDonald was spoiling for a fight for the Australian task force, and now he was about to get one.
The preparedness of the task force for battle was inhibited by the failure of the intelligence system to inform Lieutenant Colonels Bennett and Shelton that they might encounter regular North Vietnamese and Viet Cong regiments staging through the area and withdrawing north. Thus, Bennett and Shelton were alert, but not alarmed. The task force was not well practised in flying in and setting up a large fire support base. A poorly coordinated, prolonged and scattered fly-in to a fire support base called Coral resulted in the task force taking some time to get on the ground and units being in some disarray.30 The headquarters of the North Vietnamese 7th Division was located nine kilometres to the east of FSB Coral. The divisional commander despatched reconnaissance elements quickly to observe the arrival.31 Commanders of these experienced North Vietnamese reconnaissance units saw an opportunity to attack an exposed Australian field gun battery on the first night (12–13 May) to give the Australians a bloody welcome.
The North Vietnamese interest in FSB Coral and their reconnaissance of the position had not gone unnoticed or uncontested, but no one suspected that a major assault on FSB Coral was imminent.32 D Company, 1 RAR, commanded by Major Tony Hammett, contacted a small group of North Vietnamese while moving into ambush positions some 2500 metres to the north of Coral late that afternoon. The enemy fired rocket-propelled grenades into the trees above the Australians and quickly withdrew leaving one dead behind. B Company, commanded by Major Bob Hennessy, then had another contact to the east, and Major Colin Adamson’s A Company reported red flares to the north-east of the base. Both A and D Companies then contacted a number of other groups moving to the south or south-west. About midnight Hammett’s men were again in contact and the enemy once more fired grenades into the trees, but this time with much greater effect, killing two Australians and wounding eleven.
After careful reconnaissance, reinforcement and a forced march under the cover of darkness, the North Vietnamese regulars rushed towards 102nd Field Battery, RAA and the 1 RAR Mortar Platoon at about 3.30 am, immediately after a rocket and mortar bombardment.33 Initially, the mortar platoon took the brunt of the assault that was intended to capture the field guns. The first wave of North Vietnamese overran them, killing five and wounding eight mortar men. Fortunately, the gunners had laid the muzzles of their field guns in a different direction since the North Vietnamese had conducted their reconnaissance. Usefully and coincidentally the barrels now pointed directly at the waves of assaulting troops. Thousands of metal darts, exploding from the splintex ammunition, ripped through the ranks of the attackers. When splintex rounds ran out, the Australian gunners depressed their guns to fire shells at the ground, some 40 to 50 metres in front of their guns. The result was rounds ricocheting and exploding in the air close to the ground and over the heads of the enemy.34 The defenders of this part of the haphazard perimeter of FSB Coral, 1 RAR Battalion Headquarters, the Mortar Platoon, the Anti-tank Platoon, the Assault Pioneer Platoon, Headquarters 12th Field Regiment, RAA and the guns and crews of 102nd Field Battery fought hard for their survival against the North Vietnamese 141st Regiment reinforced by 275th and 269th Infiltration Groups. Attackers penetrated the Australian gun position and were using satchel charges in an attempt to destroy a field gun and were also trying unsuccessfully to use one of the captured Australian mortars to support their attack. A combination of infantrymen and gunners holding ground, direct fire from 105 mm field guns over open sights, fire from neighbouring artillery batteries and aerial strafing from helicopter gunships, supported by continuous illumination from flares, turned the battle in the Australians’ favour after about an hour of intense fighting and firing. Forward observers brought artillery fire in as close as twenty metres from the edge of the Australian gun position. Helicopter gunships and C–47 aircraft armed with mini-guns, nicknamed ‘Spooky’, strafed the attackers, who were visible under the light of Spooky’s flares, with thousands upon thousands of rounds throughout the period of the assault.
At about 4.30 am the North Vietnamese withdrew from FSB Coral under continuing artillery fire and aerial bombardment. Nine Australians lay dead and 28 more were wounded. Possibly to cover the withdrawal of the main body of troops carrying scores of dead and wounded, the North Vietnamese attacked again at 5.00 am. The battle was all over by 6.10 am. Clearing patrols discovered 52 North Vietnamese bodies around the perimeter and evidence that the attackers had dragged away many more bodies and wounded soldiers. The Australian official history observed that the Australians had won the battle ‘convincingly’, but that it ‘could so easily have ended in catastrophe, both militarily and politically’.35
While Lieutenant Colonel Bennett and his men cleaned up after a busy night, Lieutenant Colonel Shelton’s men from 3 RAR moved to the west of Route 16 to establish FSB Coogee, located four kilometres west of FSB Coral, and rifle companies patrolled into their respective areas. That afternoon, ambush patrols went out for their first night’s work. Subsequently, 3 RAR patrols discovered and destroyed enemy camps by day, and ambushed enemy groups by night.
From 13 to 15 May, 1 RAR consolidated the defences of FSB Coral, integrating infantry with armoured personnel carriers. Bennett sited his rifle companies in all-round defence and made Major John ‘Blue’ Keldie, OC A Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment, responsible for the defence of the fire support base. This was timely because on 15 May the North Vietnamese divisional commander decided to attack again with 141st Regiment. From about 8.00 pm onwards, North Vietnamese flashlights, flares, rockets and incoming tracer fire warned the defenders in Coral that the North Viet nam-ese were coming again. At 2.30 am on 16 May, the commander of 141st Regiment began his assault with ‘a furious barrage of mortars and rocket propelled grenades’.36 He directed most of this fire against the eastern and south-eastern sectors of the perimeter, defended by Major Colin Adamson’s A Company and Major Bob Hennessy’s B Company, and followed with a battalion-sized ground assault. Although other parts of the perimeter also came under attack, the main North Vietnamese thrust continued in this area and attackers partially overran a position occupied by Second Lieutenant Neil Weekes’s 3 Platoon, killing two Australians and wounding three more. Defenders held the attack on the remainder of the perimeter and Weekes and his men counterattacked later and recaptured lost ground and the bodies of their mates. Attackers began withdrawing at about 3.40 am, having been caught between the small arms fire from the perimeter and the impact of rounds fired from an estimated 60 American and Australian guns from field and heavy artillery batteries and nine mortars, as well as helicopter gunship fire, bombs and napalm.37 By 5.00 am the main attack was over.
A secondary attack began at about 5.15 am between Adamson’s A Company and Major Ian ‘Digger’ Campbell’s C Company, located on the northern edge of the base. Defenders beat off this attack and one more. In one final attempt to crack the Australian perimeter, a large force assaulted Major Tony Hammett’s D Company on the western edge of the perimeter; however, the North Vietnamese were running out of steam and options. Hammett and his men repelled this attack at about 6.45 am and the enemy broke contact and withdrew under artillery and air strikes.
The second defensive battle of FSB Coral became another outstanding Australian feat of arms. Five Australians lay dead and nineteen were wounded. While clearing patrols only discovered 34 North Vietnamese bodies around the perimeter at dawn, later intelligence indicated that only about a hundred of the 790 North Vietnamese who took part in the attack escaped death or wounds.38 During the next week, Australian patrols encountered groups of North Vietnamese moving through the area, many of them from the North Vietnamese 165th Regiment as it withdrew into War Zone D after attacking Tan Son Nhut air base near Saigon.39 On 18 May Major General MacDonald permitted Brigadier Hughes to go on a long-planned period of leave in Singapore, and appointed his deputy, Colonel Don Dunstan, to take command of the task force. Soon after his arrival at FSB Coral, Dunstan called for the tanks to redeploy from Nui Dat 120 kilometres away to bolster defences and also provide increased offensive capabilities. The Australian official history described Dunstan’s decision as both ‘courageous and innovative . . . this was the first time since the Pacific campaign in the Second World War that Australian tanks would be employed in close support of infantry’. The journey from Nui Dat to FSB Coral would not be without its dangers and risks.40 The tanks of C Squadron, under the command of Major Peter Badman, arrived at 2.30 pm on 23 May. This was a fortuitous reinforcement, as the North Vietnamese had not finished with the Australian task force yet.
After assessing that 3 RAR was not positioned to interfere with enemy movements, Major General MacDonald convinced Colonel Dunstan to move the battalion and its guns to a new fire support base that would be called Balmoral, located five kilometres due north of FSB Coral, ‘bang under the noses’ of a North Vietnamese regiment.41 Lieutenant Colonel Shelton applied the lessons identified after the first attack on FSB Coral for the occupation of FSB Balmoral. He sent two companies with armoured support to occupy the area first to establish ‘a foot on the ground’ before following with the remainder of his force. This two-phase occupation meant that the North Vietnamese did not have time to mount a night attack after observing the massive fly-in during the day.
It did not take long for the units of the North Vietnamese 7th Division to shift their attention away from FSB Coral to this new intrusion into their area and across their lines of communication. FSB Balmoral was only 1500 metres to the east of the mauled 141st NVA Regiment and the transit camp of the newly arrived 165th Regiment. The Australians knew that they were ‘thumbing their noses’ at the North Vietnamese and patiently waited for the inevitable attack patiently after sending out a few patrols to get ‘a feel for the ground’ from the enemy’s point of view. The North Vietnamese divisional commander decided to send 165th Regiment against the Australians to see whether they could achieve the victory that had eluded the decimated 141st Regiment.
From about 8.00 pm on 25 May, tracer rounds, shots and lights alerted the defenders of FSB Balmoral that a night attack was coming. At 3.45 am the North Vietnamese commander of 165th Regiment began with mortar fire followed by a feint against Major Howard’s A Company on the western sector of the perimeter. The main assault, with support from mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns, went in against Major Peter Phillips’s D Company. Small arms fire, canister and machine-gun fire from the tanks, as well as artillery and mortar fire, stopped the assault under helpful illumination from flares and raking fire from helicopter gunships and the C–47 ‘Spooky’ aircraft. The North Vietnamese subjected Balmoral to sporadic mortar, rocket and small arms fire for another hour or so before the attackers withdrew to the north-east at about 5.30 am. Although they removed most of their dead and wounded, clearing patrols discovered six bodies after first light.
The day before the attack on Balmoral, Colonel Dunstan had decided to conduct what the Australian official history described as a ‘reconnaissance-in-force’ with Major Tony Hammett’s D Company, 1 RAR, supported by tanks, into an area that had been the scene of a firefight the day before when Major Bob Hennessy’s B Company had been escorting a troop of tanks from FSB Coral to FSB Balmoral. At 6.00 am Hammett’s force left FSB Coral and, after pausing to direct an air strike into the area, patrolled into a concealed enemy bunker system in close country. A three-hour firefight and bunker-busting battle ensued.42 Hammett employed tanks and flamethrowers with devastating effect against a system of interconnecting bunkers. However, his mission was to conduct a reconnaissance. His force was too small to destroy and occupy the entire system. He withdrew his force to FSB Coral under the cover of close artillery support without suffering any casualties.43 Two days later, at about 2.30 am on 28 May, the North Vietnamese attacked FSB Balmoral again. Once again, the North Vietnamese commander began with a mortar and rocket barrage followed by a feint against the southern end of Howard’s A Company. The main assault developed once again against Phillips’s D Company on the northern side of the base. This attack lasted for about two hours and was finally defeated with tank, artillery, mortar and air support. The North Vietnamese left 42 bodies on the battlefield, and one Australian lay dead within the perimeter.
There were no more attacks on FSB Coral or FSB Balmoral, but the companies of both battalions were involved in a number of fierce patrol clashes with units of 7th Division between 28 May and 5 June. On 30 May Major Ian Campbell’s C Company, 1 RAR patrolled into a bunker system three kilometres east of FSB Coral and began a firefight with its North Vietnamese defenders.44 Dunstan sent tanks from Coral to help. Once again infantry and armour cleared several bunkers, for a cost of one killed and seven wounded, before breaking contact and moving away. Possibly fearing further assaults, the North Vietnamese also withdrew, carrying over 40 dead and many more wounded, under continuing artillery fire and air strikes.
Operation Toan Thang concluded on 6 June and 1 RAR and 3 RAR returned to Nui Dat after handing their area operations over to the US 1st Infantry Division. The Australian task force had killed 238 North Vietnamese soldiers and 38 Viet Cong by body count, and claimed a further 69 enemy kills. Twenty-five Australians lost their lives, and just over 100 were wounded. General Westmoreland was pleased with the increased Australian work rate, though ‘the Australian contribution was still relatively slight, however, in comparison with that of the ARVN [South Vietnamese Army] and US Army’.45 However, the Australians had inflicted punishing losses on the enemy, and forced the 7th Division to postpone a further attack on Saigon. For their actions, 1 and 3 RAR, 1 Armoured Regiment and 3 Cavalry Regiment ‘were awarded one of the five battle honours approved for the Vietnam War: the honour was titled ‘Coral-Balmoral’.
1 RAR and 3 RAR returned to find that 4 RAR/NZ (ANZAC), under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Leon ‘Lee’ Greville, had replaced 2 RAR/NZ (ANZAC). 2 RAR returned to Australia a week later, after serving exactly twelve months in Vietnam, and participating in 22 major operations of battalion size or larger, amounting to a total duration of 266 days in the field. By the standards of Australian participation in the attrition of the war in Vietnam at the time, 2 RAR had done well, killing 187, wounding 60 and capturing twelve for a loss of 28 soldiers, including four New Zealanders, and 122 wounded.46 Like their predecessors, the citizens of Brisbane turned out to give 2 RAR a ticker-tape welcome after arrival.
It did not take long before the Australians returned to shield the bases at Long Binh and Bien Hoa from rocket attacks.47 1 RAR deployed into an area to the north and east of Bien Hoa on 13 June. On 23 June, 4 RAR joined 1 RAR in the field under the command of Colonel Don Dunstan for what was later described as ‘a tedious and uneventful operation’.48 On 3 July 1968, General Creighton W. Abrams replaced General Westmoreland and announced changes. He would direct the main allied effort at protecting the population centres, rather than searching for and attempting to destroy North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units, and handing over the conduct of a war to the South Vietnamese government and its armed forces. With hindsight, Abrams was foreshadowing America’s defeat.49 This new emphasis left the Australians to return to focusing their efforts on the pacification of Phuoc Tuy province. Operations outside the province had been expensive. Of the total of 228 Australian soldiers killed and almost 1200 who had been wounded by 30 June 1968, almost two-thirds (147) had been killed since January 1967, with 62 fatalities and 310 wounded occurring in the first six months of 1968.50 From July 1968 to April 1969 the Australian task force concentrated on the Hat Dich Zone in the north of the province that contained base and transit camps as well as training and logistic installations.51 This area and its infrastructure provided the enemy a movement corridor from the east, across the top of Phuoc Tuy province, towards the Long Binh and Bien Hoa complexes, and ultimately into Saigon.52 Once again, the Australians went after their old adversaries, 274th Regiment, and D 440th, and D 445th Provincial Battalions. 3 RAR and 4 RAR/NZ combined to begin the contest in July using the tactics of flying in, establishing fire support bases and then patrolling out, seeking contact and opportunities to destroy infrastructure and supplies. 1 RAR joined them in the field in late July, but overall, these operations did not result in significant engagements or the destruction of substantial infrastructure or quantities of supplies.53
By the third week of August, communist forces had reinforced, resupplied and regrouped. They began a third general offensive by bombarding dozens of towns and military outposts throughout South Vietnam, including parts of Saigon, with rockets and mortars.54 Once again the Australians found themselves defending the provincial capital, Ba Ria, and the nearby village of Long Dien. On 23 August companies from 1 RAR with tank support moved into Long Dien to assist South Vietnamese forces to reject a company-sized Viet Cong force, killing at least seventeen members of this group.55 For the next three weeks, 1 RAR, 3 RAR and 4 RAR/NZ deployed and redeployed in search of their elusive opponents. However, the so-called third offensive ‘hardly matched the intensity of the earlier drives’. The Americans both inflicted and suffered heavy casualties once again, but were resolved ‘to prolong the fighting until the South Vietnamese could assume the burden of defending their country’.56 The military strategic objective was now to keep North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units off balance in their own base areas in order to nip further enemy operations in the bud and interfere with resupply and reinforcement until the South Vietnamese could prosecute the war alone.
Keeping the VC Main Force Off Balance
The new emphasis suited Brigadier Hughes, who preferred to leave the province chief and South Vietnamese security forces to concentrate on population centres while the task force went after the Viet Cong in their base areas. His successor, Brigadier C.M.I ‘Sandy’ Pearson, who would take over in October 1968, felt the same way.57 Thus, the Australian infantry were back in the jungle conducting two-battalion reconnaissance-in-force operations while a third battalion protected the Nui Dat base. The tactics involved company-sized patrols sweeping through known and suspected enemy base areas, established blocking positions and ambushing enemy routes. The task force conducted these operations during the wet season. Contact with the enemy was reasonably consistent, but only fleeting. Close contact with the environment on the other hand was constant and debilitating. A 7 RAR report from late 1967 was still accurate in late 1968:
In many instances, troops were rained on, required to cross water obstacles and occupy ambush positions in lice and vermin infested enemy camps. Sometimes soldiers have torn clothing for 2 or 3 days until new clothing can be resupplied; in the daily task of digging weapon pits, dirt gets between the clothing and the skin and leeches, ticks and thorns open the skin to infection . . . mosquitoes bite through clothing. This continues to be the case and is even more so with the new issue clothing used for the first time.58
Brigadier Hughes employed familiar conventional tactics of ‘hammer and anvil’.
On 12 September, 4 RAR/NZ flew to a new area to the east of Route 2 on the western edge of the Thua Tich area in the north of the province. At the same time, 1 RAR flew in further to the east. 4 RAR/NZ’s mission was to establish blocking positions for 1 RAR as the battalion swept back towards them. With the exception of one platoon action on 13 September, there was only passing enemy contact. In this action, 7 Platoon, C Company, under the command of Second Lieutenant Gary Reidy, patrolled into an enemy force concealed in bunkers. The platoon suffered ten casualties, including two killed and one who died of his wounds. Both Reidy and his platoon sergeant, Sergeant Michael Carroll, were wounded. Hughes redeployed the bulk of 4 RAR/NZ to the north-west on 15 September.
During the following week one platoon action punctuated a largely fruitless search for Viet Cong units. On 20 September 10 Platoon, D Company, 1 RAR, under command of Second Lieutenant John Salter, located an occupied bunker system. Undetected, Salter skilfully manoeuvred his platoon into communications trenches and achieved surprise. He and his men inflicted heavy casualties on the Viet Cong before Lieutenant Colonel Bennett, possibly fearing a counterattack, ordered Salter to pull back so that the bunker system could be shelled, mortared and bombed.
In October 1968, the colonel commandant of the regiment, Lieutenant General Sir Reginald Pollard, spoke to hundreds of officers, NCOs and soldiers during his four-day visit to Phuoc Tuy province. General Pollard (right) accompanied by the commanding officer of 3 RAR, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Shelton, is pictured speaking to Lieutenant Mal Meadows (left) at Fire Support Base Dampier in the Hat Dich area on the first day of Operation Windsor (AWM photo no. BUL/68/920/VN).
1 RAR and 4 RAR/NZ flew back to Nui Dat on 24 September. Despite 4 RAR/ NZ’s losses in the 7 Platoon action, the battalion history nominated this operation as one of its most successful.59 Indeed, by the standards of the time, the previous two weeks had been ‘good hunting’. In exchange for a handful of Australian casualties, 4 RAR/NZ had accounted for 25 enemy killed, five wounded and one captured.
Hughes launched another two-battalion foray into the central Hat Dich Zone on 28 September with an airmobile assault by a 3 RAR company group to seize FSB Cedar, followed by the remainder of the battalion and the seizure of a landing zone to the west to prepare for the fly-in of the leading elements of 1 RAR. On the next day, 3 RAR tactical headquarters moved to FSB Kwinana, where engineers and assault pioneers had developed a dual headquarters area for both battalions. From this fire support base, 1 RAR and 3 RAR successfully cut enemy routes during the next two weeks by patrolling by day and ambushing at night. 3 RAR killed fourteen Viet Cong during eight separate engagements. One example of courage and skill producing good results occurred at 3.15 am on 10 October. A 3 RAR platoon ambushed the first twenty members of an 80-strong enemy group moving along a well-used track, killing at least two and possibly as many as eleven more.60 The operation finished on 12 October when 3 RAR flew back to the Thua Tich area east of Route 2 to begin the third major operation of this series. This area contained occupied enemy camps, caches of weapons and supplies, and areas of cultivation. The Australians expected the Viet Cong to react aggressively to their intrusion. Brigadier Pearson decided to take the risk of involving all three battalions operating in the field for over four weeks. His aim was to interrupt Viet Cong supply routes and provoke them into responding. Once again, the Viet Cong decided to wait out the Australians, who they knew would leave after a few weeks.
The Australians suffered one killed and five wounded on 19 October when a Viet Cong company counterattacked 2 Platoon, 3 RAR, commanded by Second Lieutenant Peter Fraser, after the platoon had sprung an ambush, killing one enemy soldier. Fraser’s men were able to stymie this attack after reinforcement from 1 Platoon and calling in artillery fire and helicopter gunships. The Viet Cong company withdrew, leaving the bodies of seven comrades behind.
The time had come again for another battalion rotation. On 5 November, 9 RAR’s advance party arrived in Nui Dat to take over from 3 RAR. The remainder of 9 RAR, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Alan Morrison, arrived on 20 November and 3 RAR departed the same day in HMAS Sydney. During the year’s fighting ‘Old Faithful’ had taken part in thirteen battalion operations and about the same number of company-sized operations, losing 24 killed and 93 wounded. The battalion disembarked at Outer Harbour, Adelaide on 2 December, and marched through the city to a warm welcome home.
On 11 December 1968, 9 RAR began its account with a cordon and search of An Nhut, a village between Long Dien and Dat Do, killing one enemy soldier and protecting South Vietnamese authorities while they screened 1150 persons and netted nineteen Viet Cong. After this successful result, the battalion patrolled along the western side of Route 2 for two weeks. After this shakedown operation, Morrison and his men were ready to join 1 RAR and 4 RAR/NZ in whatever Brigadier Pearson had in store for them.
The prospects of another Tet offensive in 1969 similar to the one in 1968 were high. Enemy forces had been building up steadily towards the end of 1968 in the III Corps area. The North Vietnamese established a new organisation, Headquarters Military Region 7, to coordinate operations in the area to the east and north-east of Saigon. Four North Vietnamese divisions infiltrated back into the III Corps area from their sanctuaries in Cambodia to join seventy main force and local force battalions already located there.
The North Vietnamese also bolstered forces in Phuoc Tuy province.
Reinforcements flowed into 3rd Battalion, 274th VC Regiment, located in the Hat Dich Zone. More generally, the North Vietnamese Army topped up 274th Regiment, the Thu Due Regiment, 74th Artillery Regiment (armed with rockets), D 67th Engineer Battalion, D 1st, D 2nd and D 6th Engineer Reconnaissance Battalions and D 440th and D 445th Provincial Battalions. The Americans expected another offensive against Bien Hoa and Long Binh, and possibly even Saigon.61 Commander II Field Force directed Brigadier Pearson to strike into the Hat Dich Zone and go after 274th Regiment and its supporting units. Pearson planned to employ his three Australian battalions, supported by tanks and armoured personnel carriers as well as his field artillery regiment. Pearson received American artillery and infantry units under command, as well as Vietnamese infantry and marine battalions.
In all, his force approached a divisional strength of about 10,000 troops.
The operation began on 3 December with 1 RAR deploying into the west of the Hat Dich Zone near Route 15. The Viet Cong attempted to avoid contact and moved north away from the area. However, 1 RAR, supported by armour, gave chase and maintained daily contact with enemy groups of up to platoon strength who led them to extensive battalion-sized bunker systems, guarded by caretaker groups of local Viet Cong. These bunker systems also concealed rice and weapons caches. The Australians were in the midst of an extensive enemy resupply system and staging area.
Pearson reinforced his operation with 4 RAR/NZ on 11 December to take advantage of these circumstances. The 4 RAR/NZ unit history records that ‘Company operations carried out in APCs to the west of Route 15 resulted in several small contacts’ and patrols and ambushes to the east of Route 15 ‘all had their measure of success’.62 On 27 December Pearson deployed 4 RAR/NZ further north to the border between Long Khanh and Bien Hoa provinces. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were nowhere to be found and 4 RAR/NZ moved back into Nui Dat on 13 January.
Meanwhile, Pearson had moved 9 RAR from Nui Dat to join the operation on 1 January 1969, relieving 1 RAR in the Long Thanh district of Bien Hoa province. Operation Goodwood became ‘a cat and mouse’ game. Pearson’s forces manoeuvred in hope of engaging their enemies, destroying their bases and restricting their movement. For their parts, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units attempted to bypass Pearson’s forces to maintain their resupply system, disperse and only consolidate for operations when opportunities arose.
During January 1969, patrols from 9 RAR engaged small enemy parties daily and encountered enemy groups moving in groups of about 30 and sometimes 100 personnel. They also discovered similar numbers in bunker complexes and camps.
Soon after arriving in December 1968, 9 RAR took part in Operation Goodwood and, except for a short break, was on operations continuously for three months. During the operation the Commander United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam, General Creighton Abrams, visited the battalion. He is seen here (second from right) at Fire Support Base Diggers Rest, talking to Sergeant Stuart Keys, the mortar platoon sergeant of 9 RAR. In the centre is Major Dom Anstey and on the right is the commanding officer of 9 RAR, Lieutenant Colonel Alan Morrison (AWM photo no. COM/69/26/VN).
Sometimes the firefights in these complexes and camps were fierce and prolonged. In a series of incidents on the morning of 19 January, all of 9 RAR’s four rifle companies and Support Company engaged enemy groups at the same time. The guns of the 16th New Zealand Field Regiment just had time to change their supporting fire from one target to another while the 9 RAR mortar platoon fired in twos in order to hit dispersed targets.
Intelligence reports advised 9 RAR that an enemy regiment was attempting to move from south to north through the battalion’s area of operations but was being held up by Australian patrols. Pearson left 9 RAR in the field to continue frustrating this regiment’s movement plans. The battalion continued its successful blocking operations until 16 February. In all, 9 RAR killed 64 enemy soldiers, wounded 22 more and captured five soldiers before Pearson redeployed them to an area where they were to shield the American bases at Long Binh and Bien Hoa against a possible Tet offensive.
Meanwhile, Pearson redeployed 4 RAR/NZ further to the north-west along Route 15 on 7 February to engage two battalions of the Thu Due Regiment reported to be in the area. All companies conducted successful ambushes and daytime patrols that found several large weapons caches. On the day prior to another Tet truce, Major Bill Reynolds’s B Company and a New Zealand company patrolled up to an occupied enemy position. The Viet Cong opened fire from concealed bunkers, inflicting a number of casualties. Reynolds withdrew and directed air strikes onto the position.
The truce forced the cancellation of any follow-up attack the next day. Pearson warned Lieutenant Colonel Greville and his men to be prepared to move further north on 19 February. The battalion had accounted for 37 enemy killed and nineteen wounded since the beginning of Operation Goodwood. Overall, this operation had seriously disrupted North Vietnamese and Viet Cong preparations in the Hat Dich Zone before Tet.
Operation Goodwood was 1 RAR’s last major operation before returning home.
5 RAR, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Colin Kahn, relieved 1 RAR on 15 February 1969. The battalion returned home to Sydney, arriving back on 28 February and Lieutenant Colonel Bennett led his men on a march through the city streets as their predecessors had done in June 1966 after the first tour. During its second tour, 1 RAR had killed 276 Viet Cong and destroyed a large number of bunkers, camps and caches. The battalion had distinguished itself during the defence of FSB Coral, which would earn the regiment a battle honour on the regimental colours. The sacrifice for this tour had been high: 31 killed and 165 wounded.
Lieutenant Colonel Kahn and 5 RAR had returned to South Vietnam with 121 Vietnam veterans—91 of whom had served with 5 RAR during its first tour in 1966–67. These seasoned troops were invaluable as the battalion joined the task force just before the next Tet offensive. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units struck again throughout Vietnam, not so much for a knockout military blow but to achieve political objectives in Paris where peace talks dragged on.
Once again the task force had to assist with the defence of Phuoc Tuy as well as deploy for the defence of American bases further north. The province chief called on Pearson to help clear a large force that had attacked an army compound in Ba Ria. Major Ted Chitham’s B Company, 9 RAR took up the cudgels on 23 February and cleared Ba Ria and its environs as his colleagues, ‘Horrie’ Howard and Peter Phillips, had done in 1968.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the task force was once again shielding American bases in Long Binh and Bien Hoa. The Australians were occupying part of an allied defensive ring around the Saigon, Bien Hoa and Long Binh areas. This time they found themselves east of Long Binh astride Route 1. The US 1st Division was to the north-west and Thai Army units were located south. Once again the Viet Cong 5th Division advanced on the Long Binh and Bien Hoa complexes. The Australian task force’s role was to deny 5th Division units the use of its area of operations to fire rockets and mortars at the bases and as an assembly area for ground attacks.
9 RAR opened the contest on 17 February by deploying to an area astride Route 1, some twenty kilometres east of Bien Hoa. Two days later 4 RAR/NZ flew in south of 9 RAR. An exhausting cycle of patrolling and ambushing began. There was little to show after three weeks. 5 RAR relieved 9 RAR on 10 March. Despite a high tempo patrolling program, 5 RAR had not made contact with the enemy by 27 March. Pearson moved them into a new area ‘to deny the enemy the use of extensive bunker systems known to be in the area and to disrupt with as many casualties as possible, the functioning of HQ T7 (MR 7)’. On 4 April a 5 RAR platoon found the Military Region 7 Headquarters comprised of ‘one large command post, a hospital bunker and twenty-eight fighting bunkers which had been used for a long time’.63 The North Vietnamese defended their headquarters with heavy small arms, machine-gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire while evacuating staff and wounded. One platoon was not enough to penetrate the position. Another platoon which rushed to help their comrades also came under fire and was pinned down. Both platoons later withdrew with their casualties under cover of machine-gun fire from the remainder of their parent company and helicopter gunship fire. Kahn later ordered a company attack on the bunkers with tank support but the headquarters complex had been abandoned. 5 RAR returned to Nui Dat on 8 April.
Meanwhile on 2 April, 9 RAR moved further south into Long Khanh province. They discovered more bunker complexes and 4 RAR/NZ joined them on 8 April in an adjacent area of operations to destroy the bunkers and any defenders they found. Both battalions had some successes with ambushes, but the most important outcome of their operations was the destruction of a number of bunker systems and caches.
On 17 April, 4 RAR/NZ flew straight from the Hat Dich area to a location near the Binh Ba rubber plantation on Route 2. This was 4 RAR/NZ’s last operation.
The battalion returned to Nui Dat on 1 May and began handing over to 6 RAR.
On 21 May 1969, 6 RAR, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel David Butler, changed its title to 6 RAR/NZ (ANZAC). 4 RAR sailed for Australia on 19 May, having conducted eleven major and five minor operations during its tour of duty.
The battalion lost nineteen members killed, including four from the New Zealand companies.
The Last VC Main Force Offensive
On 16 April 1969, Lieutenant General Ewell, Commanding General II Field Force Vietnam, issued a new directive to Brigadier Pearson changing his operational priorities. Henceforth, the task force’s first priority was to be pacification, the second priority was to be the upgrading of South Vietnamese forces in Phuoc Tuy province, and the third priority was to be search and destroy operations, subject to Saigon being secured at all times. Ewell wanted the Australians to concentrate on reducing the presence and influence of the Viet Cong over the populated areas of the province. Once again the Australians sought to destroy the D 445th Battalion.
On 31 May 1969, 6 RAR/NZ established FSB Virginia to the west of Route 2 and began a daytime patrolling and night-time ambushing program. The battalion’s mission was to stop enemy movement between the Hat Dich and Thua Tich areas.
During the first two weeks of June companies encountered more Viet Cong groups than had been expected. On 4 June Major Peter Belt’s A Company moved into a night harbour position in the late afternoon. Belt sent out a small party to establish a protective night ambush. They heard voices from a Viet Cong camp and reported back. Belt deployed his company hastily to attack the position before nightfall. His troops moved forward in assault lines and finished up inside a large bunker system under heavy fire. Belt ordered his men back to the original harbour position for the night. He achieved this as a fighting withdrawal, killing six Viet Cong soldiers on the way back. Next morning the company patrolled cautiously back to the bunker positions and discovered that the defenders had left.64 On the night of 5–6 June, a combined enemy force comprising one company of 1st Battalion, North Vietnamese 33rd Regiment, elements of D 440th Local Force Battalion, the Binh Ba and Ngai Giao Guerilla Squads and the Chau Due District Company occupied the village of Binh Ba in 6 RAR/NZ’s area of operations to the north of Nui Dat on Route 2. The province chief deployed South Vietnamese regional force troops from Duc Thanh to clear this large enemy from the village, miscalculating its strength as being just one platoon. The district commander asked Brigadier Pearson for assistance to clear the enemy platoon from the village.
Pearson decided to employ his task force ready reaction force, comprised of Major Murray Blake’s D Company, 5 RAR, a troop of tanks and a troop of APCs. Blake’s force reached an assembly area just to the south of the village at 10.30 am. By this time, the district chief had begun moving the civilians out of the village and deploying his regional force troops into blocking positions in anticipation of Blake’s attack. Once these blocking forces were in place, Blake began to advance towards Binh Ba from east to west with the tanks leading, supported by infantry riding in armoured personnel carriers.
The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fired on Blake’s force as it reached the village at about 11.20 am. One platoon dismounted to protect the rear of the armoured advance. After the ground assault began, an RAAF helicopter light fire team reported a group of about 60 enemy soldiers moving to the south and west of the village. This news was followed by heavy rocket-propelled grenade and machine-gun fire, confirming that Blake and his men were not just facing a foolhardy platoon that had occupied Binh Ba, but a battalion-sized North Vietnamese-led force of several hundred troops eager for a fight.
Blake changed the axis of his assault and the attack swung to the south with the aim of clearing to the southern edge of the village and then moving to the western side to cut off the remaining enemy. As Blake’s force moved into the rubber to the west of Binh Ba, it fired on an enemy company forming up to counterattack into the village and inflicted heavy casualties. By this time, Lieutenant Colonel Kahn had despatched Major Rein Harring’s B Company, 5 RAR to the Binh Ba area to help out. Harring moved his company into blocking positions to the south and east of the village. Kahn and his tactical headquarters group were also on the move. He flew into Due Thanh District Headquarters to the north of Binh Ba and took command of what was now a major engagement: one Australian battalion about to engage a composite battalion-sized force of North Vietnamese regulars and main force and local force Viet Cong guerrillas.
Blake assumed command of the operation inside Binh Ba and his force formed up by 2.00 pm to sweep through the village from west to east with the infantry leading and the armoured fighting vehicles supporting them. The advance was slow because each house had to be cleared before the force could move on. Tanks blew holes in houses occupied by the enemy. The infantry then entered and cleared each house room by room. The fighting lasted all afternoon, but the mission had not been accomplished. The enemy force still occupied parts of Binh Ba. The Australians, the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong comrades occupied defensive positions and rested overnight.
At 6.00 am on 7 June, Harring’s B Company contacted an enemy company moving into the village from the south and forced it to withdraw. This began another hectic day. The main effort swung to a rubber factory and the hamlet of Duc Trung just to the north of Binh Ba. Lieutenant Colonel Kahn moved both the Assault Pioneer Platoon and B Company to support Regional and Popular Force troops in that area. Blake’s D Company, with a platoon of Harring’s B Company under command, then began advancing through the rest of Binh Ba. The enemy did not resist, offering only a few parting shots. The Australians cleared the entire village by late afternoon and moved into blocking positions around it. They had killed at least 91 enemy soldiers and taken eleven prisoners during two days of fierce close-quarter combat. Tank fire had destroyed many dwellings and buildings. The cost to NVA 33rd Regiment was so great that it withdrew from Phuoc Tuy into Long Khanh province.65 The battle at Binh Ba appeared to have deterred the North Vietnamese from sending their army units into Phuoc Tuy province.
On 6 June 1969, D Company, 5 RAR, commanded by Major Murray Blake and supported by tanks of B Squadron, 1st Armoured Regiment, swept towards the edge of a rubber plantation at Binh Ba. The Australians inflicted heavy casualties on a strong force of North Vietnamese soldiers in the last major action against enemy main force troops in 1969 (AWM photo no. BEL/69/382/VN).
The period of the regiment’s participation in the Vietnam War covered by this chapter ends with the battle of Binh Ba. From early 1968 until July 1969 eight battalions of the regiment had fought elements of the Viet Cong 5th Division, mainly units from 274th and 275th Regiments, and two regiments and supporting elements from the North Vietnamese 7th Division. At the same time, the Australian task force was in a continuous contest with D 440th and D 445th Provincial Battalions in the Viet Cong’s political network and logistic system in Phuoc Tuy province.
The period was important in the regiment’s history in a number of ways. At FSB Coral and FSB Balmoral 1 RAR and 3 RAR had been involved in the biggest defensive battles since the Battle of Kapyong in Korea in April 1951 and the Battle of Long Tan in August 1966. These battles had many of the attributes of conventional warfare. For the first time since the Second World War, the Australian Army deployed and sustained an independent brigade-sized task force overseas: quite a challenge for a 20-year-old under-strength regular army, more conditioned to providing one or two light infantry battalions and some small supporting arms contingents to serve with allied formations.
It was the first time since the Bougainville campaign in 1944 and 1945 that Australian infantrymen worked closely with Australian tanks against enemy forces concealed in bunkers. Despite their relatively small scale, the operations mounted to clear the provincial capital of Ba Ria and the villages of Long Dien and Binh Ba introduced Australian infantry to the challenges of urban operations. The Australian government approved four battle honours to the Royal Australian Regiment during this period: Bien Hoa, Coral-Balmoral, Hat Dich and Binh Ba.
By mid-1969 two Tet offensives had inflicted irreparable political damage on the American strategy in Vietnam. The unstoppable North Vietnamese reinforcement of the Viet Cong and a steady infiltration of North Vietnamese army units into South Vietnam heralded the end of the American military campaign. The American people had had enough and their government, under the guise of turning the prosecution of the war over to the South Vietnamese government, began bringing their young men home. The Australian coalition government received another mandate from the Australian people to support the Americans in Vietnam after winning an election in 1969. The soldiers of the battalions of the Royal Australian Regiment were destined to serve in the lost campaign in South Vietnam for another two and a half years.