The Battle of Long Tan

by David W. Cameron

  There has also been much ink spilled regarding the Viet Cong forces making an attempt to attack the Task Force base itself. The base at Nui Dat has been described as far from secure, with normally just two infantry companies (around 200 frontline troops) thinly spread around a long perimeter, itself defined by minimal wire and few if any minefields.26 Even though the base would seem to have been a realistic tactical option, the history of the 5th VC Infantry Division makes no mention of it being attacked; nor is there any suggestion that 274 VC Regiment would be involved in any operations, including as a blocking force north of the base or elsewhere.27 All available evidence indicates that the intent of the Vietnamese force was to conduct a mobile ambush against an Australian force in the Long Tan plantation. A common tactic of the Viet Cong was to also set up an accompanying ambush for any relief force. This could result in the destruction of two Australian companies at least, if not a whole battalion. Indeed, Nguyen Nam Hung has stated that their intent was to draw out an Australian patrol in force so that it could be ambushed and annihilated in the Long Tan plantation.28

  However, before this ambush could be set up, the Viet Cong forces would collide with an Australian rifle company numbering 108 men in the Long Tan plantation on 18 August 1966. The Viet Cong force consisted of troops from 275 VC Regiment and D445 VC Battalion, amounting to around 2000 ‘rifles’ (including at least one heavy-weapons company) – impossible odds at 20:1.

  8

  ‘. . . it was the one grain of gold amongst all the crap’

  Since mid-June, 5 RAR and 6 RAR had been conducting ongoing day and night patrol and ambush operations in Phuoc Tuy. The first serious encounter with the Viet Cong by the Task Force was during Operation Hobart in late July, in a five-day ‘search and destroy’ operation that was to be conducted north-east of Nui Dat. In what can best be considered a foretaste of the Battle of Long Tan – which would be fought less than a month later – 6 RAR with three platoons from 5 RAR took on a strong force of Viet Cong from D445 VC Battalion, unexpectedly colliding close to Long Tan village. An intense firefight developed and Australian and New Zealand artillery support was called in, with the enemy replying with mortar fire. The sound of bugles could be heard close by as the Viet Cong units tried to signal each other. This sent a chill into the heart of every Australian – the Viet Cong were obviously out there in numbers.1

  One shell exploded in the centre of B Company, 6 Platoon’s position. As reported by Australian journalist Patrick Burgess at the time:

  One Australian machine-gun changed hands four times during the action as soldiers took over from their dying and badly wounded mates. On an M60 machine-gun [Private] Bob Vikukus, 20, of Townsville, took a bullet through the shoulder. His No.2 on the gun, 19-year-old [Private] Johnny Stevens, of Melbourne, began putting field dressings on his mate. Blond, happy-go-lucky Lance Corporal Col Jacket, of Brisbane, ran in and took over the gun; then he gave it back to Stevens and begun firing his own weapon. Stevens was hit in the legs and Jacket sprang back onto the gun. Then [Private] John Burns of East Perth moved in, too. Although the fire was intense, the soldiers, even those badly wounded, joked aloud. Bob Vikukus said when he was hit the first time: ‘It’s true, you know, you don’t feel the bullet that hits you.’ Then he was hit with a grenade.2

  The engagement lasted for over an hour, with 6 RAR suffering its first killed: a national serviceman, a 21-year-old bulldozer driver from Mansfield in Victoria, Private Anthony Purcell, and an army regular, 26-year-old from Cairns in Queensland, Corporal John Norris. Fourteen others were wounded, among them two New Zealand forward artillery observers, including a forward observation officer (FOO) for B Company, 6 RAR, Captain Pat Murphy. One of the Australian wounded, 21-year-old sapper Leslie Prowse from Goomeri, Queensland, with 1 Field Squadron, Royal Australian Engineers, would die from his wounds on 27 July 1966. Corporal Boyd Rutherford, B Company, 6 RAR, was later awarded the Military Medal for disregarding his safety in rallying his men, who were heavily outnumbered, and continuing to distribute ammunition and move about attending the wounded while under fire.3

  Major Noel Ford, commanding B Company, was impressed with the abilities of the enemy, commenting that ‘the VC force encountered was very quick in reacting and deployed when the contact was made. Their fire and movement were good and the soldiers brave and determined. Their fire power was impressive and virtually every man appeared to have an automatic weapon of some kind. Their 60-mm mortars were accurate and searched the company position thoroughly.’4

  Lieutenant Colonel Colin Townsend, commander of 6 RAR, had good reason to be proud of his men: they had only been in country for two months; this was their first serious, prolonged engagement with a major enemy force; and they acquitted themselves well. In his after-action report he wrote that the company ‘conducted itself well during this action and commanders at all levels handled the situation competently and calmly. The enemy force was C1/D445 Battalion and it fought well [its political officer, To Dung, was killed in the engagement.5] It is to B Coy’s credit that it was successful in this action, the first in which it had ever been involved, against an experienced and well-trained battle-wise enemy.’6

  Operation Hobart was the introduction to the Australian way of doing things for US Lieutenant Steinbrook and his battery of 155mm guns assigned to 1 ATF. They arrived at Nui Dat just as the battle started and could hear the action from there. He wrote that day to Frances: ‘Not too far away a big battle is raging, and it keeps us jumping. Believe me, this area is not quite as secure as Bien Hoa.’7 A few days later he wrote to his parents: ‘as a whole so far, the Australian and New Zealand officers seem much better than ours. They’re all so darn professional. They really impress us.’8

  Lieutenant Colonel John Warr recalled that by August, ‘we were just pushed to the limit to both defend the base area and to carry out the patrolling that we were required [to do] to clear the province’.9 He and his men were exhausted. When platoons and companies returned to base, they were assigned to work details – there was no choice, as preparing the base for defence was a top priority. However, given that 1 ATF was already below strength, rotating the men through leave added greater stress on those left behind who had to perform increased duties, which further reduced capabilities. The only solution was more men, but that was not going to happen in a hurry, if at all. Even so, ongoing patrolling and intelligence collection throughout August had indicated that there was no credible information of any enemy force in strength being close to the Task Force base. While some low-grade human intelligence alleged that enemy activity was taking place to the east, including within the vicinity of Long Tan, vigorous patrolling within supporting artillery range of Nui Dat by 6 RAR indicated that this was not the case.

  That said, there was some signals intelligence that indicated ‘increasing enemy interest to the EAST of the Task Force base area which resulted in our attention being directed towards this area in order to locate any sizeable enemy force’.10 Given the sensitivity of this source information, it was only made available to Major Richard Hannigan (operations officer); the two intelligence officers at Task Force headquarters, Captain Bob Keep and Major John Rowe; and Brigadier David Jackson.11 While battalion commanders could be told of the content of the intelligence, they were not told its source, making it difficult to assess its overall credibility and/or significance. Clearly the battalion and company commanders at the very least should have been informed of the source of information supplied so they could make a meaningful assessment when planning operations; however, the policy from Canberra was clear – only indoctrinated officers were to have access to signals intelligence. That said, as noted by Major Harry Smith years later, ‘one would think Jackson would have whispered it into our CO’s ear, and suggest we be very careful’.12

  While 6 RAR had boots on the ground patrolling the area, the battalion commanders were not informed of the ongoing signals radio direction-finding intelligence that indicated increased enemy activity to the
east of 1 ATF base. Signals intelligence from the Australian 547 Signal Troop – which at the time was reliant on US Air Force C-47 aircraft for direction-finding fixes on VC radio transmissions – indicated that an enemy detachment had begun to move towards Nui Dat.13 The signallers of this small unit, commanded by Captain Richards, had become so adept at differentiating between Viet Cong radio sets that they had fixed the sets belonging to 274 VC Regiment just north-west of its sister unit, the 275 VC Regiment east of the Song Rai River, just north of Xuyen Moc, 22 kilometres east of Nui Dat.

  In July both Viet Cong regiments were assessed to be resting and conducting training, but it was noted in August that signals activity of 275 VC Regiment had increased in traffic and duration. Additional intelligence indicated that this regiment was receiving reinforcements from North Vietnam.14 As noted earlier, in May 1966 following the heavy casualties that were inflicted on the regiment during the second battle of Vo Xu (Binh Tuy Province), 275 VC Regiment’s 2nd and 3rd battalions were forced to combine to make up the 2nd Battalion, and soon troops from the NVA (D605 Battalion) would arrive in the province and be assigned to 275 VC Regiment as its 3rd Battalion.15

  With this increased activity, Richards was concerned that something was brewing and passed the information on to intelligence officer Captain Keep, who was subordinate to the chief of intelligence, Major Rowe. Neither Rowe nor Brigadier Jackson appeared to have much confidence in the radio-direction abilities and seemed to dismiss it. Indeed, Major Rowe is reported as telling Richards to ‘disappear into 103 Sig Sqn and keep out of the way as he – the intelligence major – knew what he was doing and we (547) were not part of it’. Richards was also not invited to participate in Task Force operations or intelligence briefings.16 However, Keep was aware of its potential significance and went behind Rowe’s back to provide the latest information to Jackson – at the same time not providing it to his own superior, Rowe.17

  Both Richards and Keep tried to assess the importance of the intelligence, not just from signals but from a number of other sources, not all of which were credible. They set about trying to sort the ‘wheat from the chaff’. Even so, Richards knew that his men had provided ‘hard’ intelligence that should be given priority. He knew his signallers could identify and locate enemy radios. Keep later stated: ‘You knew . . . it wasn’t a ten-man foot patrol and it had to be – the least it could be – regimental if it was North Vietnamese. If it was Viet Cong . . . it was something equivalent or perhaps a bit less but certainly it wasn’t a ten-man foot patrol and you’d better take notice of it.’18 They became even more concerned when the signals intelligence indicated that a radio set associated with 275 VC Regiment began to move slowly west (around 1 kilo­metre a day) towards Nui Dat. Richards kept passing the information to Captain Keep, who in turn passed it on to Jackson – bypassing Hannigan and Rowe.

  Rowe and Hannigan became aware of Keep’s disloyalty when Jackson called a conference to discuss the latest signals intelligence. Neither major had any idea of the intelligence being discussed. After the meeting Rowe ‘gave a rocket’ to Keep and reprimanded him ‘in the strongest terms for not having kept Hannigan and myself informed of these SIGINT [signals intelligence] developments, which were of the utmost importance’.19 Even so, the problem now for Rowe was that he was reviewing not only the radio direction-finding intelligence, but a mass of human source information, captured documents, US and South Vietnamese intelligence, and enemy radio traffic intercepted by other non-Australian signal units. Unfortunately the signals intelligence from 547 unit got ‘lost’ within the mass of intelligence being collected – regardless, Rowe did not put much faith in Richards’ radio-fixing intelligence anyway.20

  The Australian historian of the Signal Corps later wrote: ‘It was thought that the enemy force was much smaller than it actually turned out to be. The problem was that the enemy regiment’s headquarters travelled with a battalion as protection and therefore did not need radio communications with them and the second battalion was close enough to have the use of a runner. The third battalion in the regiment was the only radio link discovered and as a result no network could be pieced together from the radio intercept. Jackson thought that it was only a part of the third battalion but [Richards informed] him that it was in fact a regiment.’21

  However, on 13 August, 1 ATF notified the AFV based in Saigon that signals and recent human intelligence indicated that an enemy force, probably at company strength, was active in the area to the east of the base, close to Nui Dat 2 and the Long Tan rubber plantation. The next day, Captain Richards informed Brigadier Jackson and Australian liaison officer Major Alex Piper at US II Field Force Vietnam that his signallers had also identified enemy radio traffic from 275 VC Regiment just 5 kilometres east of the base. He made it clear he was merely tracking the position of the radio and was unable to provide any context to the messages being sent or received. While he acknowledged that he could provide only the position of one of 275 VC Regiment’s radios and that it could be a ploy of the Viet Cong, he argued that ‘it was the one grain of gold amongst all the crap’ and strongly indicated the presence of the regiment, or at the very least an advance party, in the vicinity of the Long Tan plantation.22

  Major Rowe, who had previously served as a liaison intelligence officer with the US 173rd Airborne, had learnt to be suspicious of radio fixes as he’d had numerous experiences of enemy regimental radio sets being located close by but rarely if ever resulting in an attack.23 Rowe knew that boots on the ground were required to assess the significance of any intelligence gathered by radio tracking. This was a time for Jackson to insert an SAS patrol a few kilometres east of the Long Tan plantation to provide an update of potential enemy movements, but for whatever reason, and through no fault of the SAS, no such patrol was conducted.

  Even so, Jackson recalled that by mid-August ‘it had become pretty obvious – there were certainly growing real indications – that the 5th VC Infantry Division intended, as we had always expected, to try and destroy the Australian force at Nui Dat. There was every indication that we could look forward to a major attack from the East against the base.’24 Jackson now increased patrols, with the specific intention of seeking out 275 VC Regiment to the east. Accepting that a large enemy force might be approaching their tactical area of responsibility, a ‘company was the minimum sized patrol that could safely take on this sort of task – even though we had enormous artillery support of course and enormous air support with it. So we went out looking for 275 Regiment somewhere to our East or North East.’25

  On 15 August – two days before the mortar attack – D Company, 6 RAR, which within days would find itself fighting for its very existence against overwhelming enemy forces in the plantation at Long Tan, was sent out to the hilly area just north of Long Tan plantation known as Nui Dat 2. From there they were to sweep back through Long Tan plantation to the Task Force base. They did so and came across nothing of significance.

  The following day, A Company, 6 RAR, under the command of Captain Charles Mollison, was sent out on a three-day patrol in the area of Nui Dat 2 and along the ridge to the north-west. The company was to send out a number of patrols, each of which was to be at least a platoon in strength. Any sizeable enemy force in the area should be picked up. The first day of the patrol was largely uneventful until 3.20 p.m., when machine-gun fire from Mollison’s 3 Platoon broke the silence. They had spotted a small group of enemy troops in army greens, not the typical ‘black pyjamas’ of the Viet Cong – indicating that these Vietnamese might belong to members of the regular NVA. The enemy returned fire, then disappeared.26

  Just as Mollison finished his report to 1 ATF via radio, additional fire broke out from 1 Platoon on another enemy party. Lieutenant Trevor Gardiner, commanding the platoon, and his men were preparing to move out after a brief rest when the section facing south alerted them with a hand signal: ‘Enemy!’

  We hit the deck and there soon appeared two soldiers wearing green uniforms. My first r
eaction, since we had not expected contact with any enemy regular forces up to that stage, was almost to stand up and say ‘Bloody 3 Platoon, lost again’. But the next figure to appear was dressed in black pyjamas. This was an enemy patrol that had walked into our position. The Section opened fire . . . The enemy reacted quickly with automatic fire and grenades to cover their withdrawal south. I conducted a sweep with one Section but we only located one enemy wounded and a blood trail. I reported two enemy wounded one of whom had been captured. I also reported that the enemy were wearing green uniforms and that they had withdrawn south.27

  Soon another small enemy party arrived and, while most escaped, platoon marksman Private Johnny Needs shot and captured what turned out to be an officer; on searching his pockets the men found a notebook. With the help of their Vietnamese interpreter, the platoon determined that the notes were about the positioning and firing of mortars. Lieutenant Gardiner tried to interrogate the captured prisoner without success, and the prisoner died from his wounds an hour later. The young lieutenant reported all of this, again stating that the enemy were in army greens, indicating the Australians had possibly encountered troops from a main force and not just local Viet Cong insurgents from D445 Battalion.

  Just before dusk, Mollison and a small reconnaissance party made their way onto the northernmost knoll of Nui Dat 2 and soon heard someone moving around close by, even though the thick undergrowth muffled much of the sound. The small party stood motionless, as the captain recalled, ‘the whole of our being straining to hear, straining to see; our mud-stained uniforms blending with the scrub. Only our eyes moved – staring out from blackened faces. Now that we had stopped, I could feel the blood trickling down my leg from the leeches dispatched earlier when I had detected their blood-sucking presence. The sounds came again – closer this time. And there! A branch cracking . . . THUMP! . . . All around us! Monkeys! A bloody great family of monkeys! They bounded off, chattering and screeching into the undergrowth.’28