Meanwhile, at the FSCC at Nui Dat, Major Peter Tedder, who had already spent 11 months in Vietnam, was still talking to Captain Ian Darlington as the messages began to come in. He knew that something big was developing – the Viet Cong were attacking and preparing to fight it out. He said so to Darlington, who looked at him, not completely appreciating the gravity of the situation. Tedder soon left for 105 Battery, convinced a major battle was brewing.6
By now 6 Section, on the left flank, was out of action: most were either dead or fatally wounded. Commanding this section, Corporal Robbins was still trying to come to terms with the fact that his section had been shattered by enemy fire. The attack against his men continued to develop; it was initially led by a platoon-size unit that could be seen rushing out of the foliage. He recalled starting to say the Lord’s Prayer but ‘only got halfway through it and something else’d start and I’d have to start again. I couldn’t remember where I was, at the end of it or the beginning. I was just saying it in my mind. I thought, Christ, I don’t think we’re gonna get out of this. It was just bloody ferocious, the rattling of machine guns, the mortars, the explosions.’7
Close by, Private Jim Richmond saw some Viet Cong jumping up and down and waving their arms about, yelling above the sound of battle. He thought they were shouting orders, but because they were drawing so much attention to themselves, they didn’t last long. Others were darting from tree to tree, while still others started bellying along the ground towards Richmond’s position. He had no cover, and quickly pulled his pack off and put it in front to provide some protection from the hail of fire that was tearing into 6 Section’s position from the left.8
Sergeant Buick was surprised as he had never considered that they would be attacked. The general feeling was that the Australians would be the aggressors – the Viet Cong up until now had tended to shoot and scoot. Buick had seen no movement or any fire coming from 6 Section, and feared the worst. Then the monsoon broke: rain poured down and blanketed the area, reducing visibility to just 50 metres and turning the ground into red mud. All around trees were being shattered by RPG fire, leaves and branches were falling among the men and streams of latex sap seeped down the shattered tree trunks onto the ground. While it was still broad daylight, the monsoon and surviving canopy significantly reduced the available light.9
Robbins and his few survivors of 6 Section tried to hang on as best they could, firing into the oncoming enemy troops. The young corporal recalled that as he fired into the enemy and some went down, he was never really sure if they had been hit. He said it wasn’t like shooting a kangaroo, which only went down when it was hit; with the Viet Cong you were never really sure that a man was even hit, let alone killed. It was extremely intense and it was about then that the rain came. The corporal was aware that his section had just about had it.10
Close by, Private Jim Richmond heard his mates, privates Douglas Salveron and David J. Thomas, yelling out, ‘wanting to know who was on our left, so I yelled out up the line, and got a return answer that there were no friendly troops in that area . . . the fire coming in from there was really horrendous’.11 Thomas shouted that he had been hit, but he continued to return fire at the advancing enemy troops to his front. Richmond then yelled out to Salveron, but Thomas shouted back that the 20-year-old student and national serviceman was dead. In the next moment Thomas, aged 21 and from the regular army, was himself killed with a burst of automatic fire.12 It was also then that their machine gunner was killed, and 21-year-old clerk and national serviceman Private Warren Mitchell, 2IC on the gun, took over. Robbins crawled over to Mitchell to keep feeding the ammunition belt into the gun, but had no sooner taken up the position than he was wounded and Mitchell was killed. Robbins was shot in the right arm and lay there thinking, ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna do here. There was no one around. I couldn’t use my right arm.’13
Meanwhile, a few hundred metres north and to the rear, Lieutenant Geoff Kendall, commander of 10 Platoon, had ordered his men to dump their packs and ‘shake out into a loose assault formation. Knowing Smithy, my immediate thought was that if there was an [enemy] platoon there we’d be doing a quick company attack, and I was certainly in a perfect position to hit from the left, so I assumed I would get the job of being assault platoon while Sharpie supplied fire support.’14 Smith confirmed Kendall’s request to advance towards 11 Platoon, but just as the platoon begun to wheel around, two-up in extended line towards the sound of battle, the increasing fire made it obvious that there were more than just a couple of enemy platoons out there. Nonetheless, they pushed forward, very determined and steady despite the sound of the bugles that blew intermittently. Kendall recalled that just then it began to rain: ‘And when I say rain . . . it rained like it rains in Vietnam in the afternoon. It absolutely started to pour monsoonal rain.’15
Lieutenant Gordon Sharp radioed Smith requesting artillery support, telling his OC of the increasing attacks along his front and flanks. He yelled into the radio above the hail of fire, ‘It’s bigger than I thought it was. They’re going to attack us!’16 At 4.15 p.m., Smith radioed battalion headquarters that other enemy troops, estimated at platoon strength, were now also firing from position 487674 – the southern slopes of Nui Dat 2; Smith requested artillery support against the position. The company commander ordered 11 Platoon to fall back towards the rest of the company, but this was impossible.17 Smith told Sharp to withdraw towards his position, but Sharp was not prepared to do this, as it would mean leaving wounded behind at the mercy of the enemy. Instead, he asked for more artillery fire.18
Meanwhile, Major Noel Ford, commanding B Company, on first hearing the fire coming from the plantation halted his platoon and reported his position to battalion headquarters as 458665, expecting to get orders to return. Smith recalled radioing Townsend asking for urgent reinforcements and moments later making radio contact with Ford, about 2 km west of his position, and asking him to return to the plantation to support his company.19 However, Townsend ordered Ford to hold his current position and await further orders.20 For the next hour or so, Ford and his men were apparently forgotten about. B Company section commander Lance Corporal Phil Buttigieg recalled hearing a ‘massive volume of fire. The radios told us D Company had chased a fleeing standing patrol, but now it sounded like they had been sucked into an ambush . . . We smoked and listened to the battle develop, anticipating a return to D Company to help. In fact the volume of fire was so massive I could not understand why we were not already on our way.’21
All in B Company could hear the battle. Private David A. Thomas recalled hearing a ‘crescendo of rifle fire. We turned around and went back to another position where we were standing in a banana patch.’22 Lieutenant John O’Halloran was listening to D Company radio traffic: ‘I heard my mate Gordon Sharp say, “They are going to attack us!” I could tell by his voice that the platoon was in trouble.’23 He and his men stood around waiting for the order to head back to the plantation, listening to the firing and the traffic on the radio net. They could not understand why they had not been ordered back to assist D Company.24
At 1 ATF base, Sergeant Jim King of 105 Field Artillery Battery had just finished replenishing the front-line ammunition as a result of the previous night’s firing missions. As he started to relax, he heard the gunners of 161 New Zealand Artillery Battery open fire towards targets somewhere east of the Task Force. ‘We guessed from the rate of fire they were on to something and then, when “Fire Mission Regiment”* came over the tannoy system we knew it was bigger than normal.’25 This mass of firepower alerted those in the base that somewhere just beyond them someone was in real trouble.
Lieutenant Adrian Roberts of 3 APC Troop was in his tent putting on a clean uniform after his shower when a soldier arrived looking for him. He was to report immediately to his senior officer, Major Bob Hagerty, and bring his maps. He hurriedly dressed and ran over to squadron headquarters.26 Close by, Little Pattie was still on stage. She recalled that things were heating up: of
ficers were being whisked away and the former relaxed and laid-back atmosphere had changed. She and the other entertainers realised that they were, indeed, in the middle of a war. She recalled: ‘Suddenly things were changing, quite suddenly actually, during that second show. And I could hear more artillery in the background. And in an increasing way.’27
Meanwhile, Brigadier David Jackson had moved from the operational centre to the FSCC, which had better signals equipment and provided better conditions for conducting and coordinating operations.28 He found that RAAF Group Captain Peter Raw was also there. They discussed the situation and Raw assured Jackson that air-force support could be called for if necessary. Indeed, at Nui Dat there were already the two RAAF Hueys commanded by flight lieutenants Dohle and Riley, who had earlier transported the concert party to the Task Force base. In the operation room at 9 Squadron at Vung Tau, Flight Lieutenant Phil Cooke was the duty pilot. At that point all he knew was that an Australian Army group was in contact with the enemy in the Long Tan rubber plantation. Soon word started to reach him that it was becoming increasingly precarious and the Australians had come across a much larger enemy force than expected.29
Located between 1 ATF base and Vung Tau was Australian captain Mike Wells, the adviser to the South Vietnamese Army based at Baria. The people there could clearly hear the barrage of booming shells being fired from Nui Dat and knew that something big was up – this volume of battery fire had never been heard before. Wells soon became aware of nervous looks being sent in his direction: if the Australians were in trouble, they were likely to be next. Wells flicked the frequency of his radio to the Task Force and listened as the battle unfolded, piecing together items of information using his knowledge of Australian Army lingo to help read between the lines, while trying to look unconcerned and show no alarm. The more he heard, the more concerned he became, but he kept it very much to himself.30
* ‘Fire Mission Regiment’ is the call for all 18 guns of the three batteries of the regiment to fire.
15
‘. . . give me every gun they have’
1620–1640 hours
The rain continued to pour down and the enemy continued to push their advantage in numbers. At 4.22 p.m., Captain Morrie Stanley called in corrections for the artillery: they were to fire a moving barrage of high explosives back and forth over a 200-metre area at position 487669. Stanley recalled that the initial salvos had to be directed some distance from 11 Platoon’s known position, walking the fire to around 200–300 metres of its position.
However, Stanley was out of visual contact with 11 Platoon and was completely reliant on Lieutenant Sharp using the radio to provide him with up-to-date information of where the shells were falling relative to their position. Stanley would then use his waterproof map to provide updated firing orders to the batteries, while wiping away the splashing mud and rain from it. He was calling on every ounce of his experience and training to ensure accuracy in the turmoil of battle; his M16 rifle was lying next to him in the accumulating puddles of water despite the repeated reminders by his radio operator, Lance Corporal William Walker, to keep it in his hand. The other member of his team, Bombardier Murray Broomhall, recalled that if you lay on the ground the enemy could not see you; however, conversely you could not see the enemy. He stood up to help direct artillery fire to Stanley and a few seconds later some of the branches above him started to disappear, so he quickly gave up that idea and lay down next to his officer.1
Major Smith’s signaller, Private Robin ‘Pom’ Rencher, was responsible for the critical and stressful role of passing information from all platoons to Smith and Stanley. He recalled that as the noise of battle and the rain made communication difficult, many times he had to ask ‘Say again, over’ because he couldn’t hear the grid references easily – and one wrong numeral could result in disaster. He started to get worked up and began shouting into the handset. ‘I remember,’ recalled Rencher, ‘starting to get panicky, until a quiet voice came over the net and said, “Calm down, Pom”. The near-hysteria burst like a pricked balloon and I carried on with the war. I have searched memory and heart, and can say it was caused by frustration and fear of letting the platoons down, rather than fear for myself.’ He looked around and saw his OC like a ‘rock, always cool and collected; but the calmest man in CHQ was Maurice “Morrie” Stanley, calmly working out fire orders as if he was on exercise back home’.2
The men of D Company heard the distinctive ‘pop’ of enemy mortars from the south followed closely by the exploding bombs. Smith ordered CHQ and 10 and 12 platoons to move further north to avoid the fire, which pushed them further away from 11 Platoon – as recalled by regimental signaller Corporal Graham Smith: ‘As company headquarters and 12 and 10 platoons were following up [to 11 Platoon] there were some 60mm mortars fired which were coming very close to us, so we picked up our pace and detoured slightly to avoid those.’3 Private Terry Burstall of 12 Platoon recalled moving up a small slope with the firing quickly escalating. They did not know what was going on but kept going, and when they crossed a road running north–south they came under mortar fire to their right.4 The first bomb exploded about 50 metres from Burstall, quickly followed by half a dozen other rounds. The platoon moved to the left, but as they ran through the rows of rubber trees, the mortar bombs continued to explode around them. Sergeant James Todd recalled that they had hardly moved 12 Platoon ‘when the greatest firepower you’ve ever heard went . . . Mortars started falling.’5 Corporal Kevin Miller, commanding 8 Section of 12 Platoon, recalled Lieutenant Sabben telling his platoon to ‘run to the left [north]; the mortars were walking right on to us. We ran over to the left and they went right by us, and then I think our artillery must have knocked them out because they stopped.’6
Indeed, Stanley conferred with Smith and confirmed the revised positions of the dispersed company on his map. At 4.26 p.m., Smith radioed to Lieutenant Colonel Townsend that they were being mortared. Stanley and Smith’s mortar fire controller, Sergeant Don Thompson, took a compass bearing of the mortar location, and Smith requested that all available artillery be brought to bear against it.7 Smith informed his CO that he wanted ‘the whole [artillery] regiment – give me every gun they have’. Townsend, however, replied: ‘Leave the artillery fire to the gunners.’ Even so, within minutes Stanley informed Smith: ‘We’ve got the guns of the whole regiment.’8
Back at the Task Force base, in FSCC, Captain Ian Darlington, on receiving Stanley’s coordinates for the location of the enemy mortars, plotted the position on his map and immediately recognised it as a place he had previously identified as a good position for the enemy to place mortars, defined by a thick cluster of trees near the road junction at Long Tan. The coordinates were immediately relayed to Captain Glen Eure’s US battery of 155mm guns, assigned to the Task Force. They quickly fired into the position, using overwhelming firepower, and the mortaring from this position at least ceased.9 Still at the FSCC was FOO Captain Alan Hutchinson, who sat listening to the excited transmissions coming from the radios on the various nets (including those being managed by ‘Pom’ Rencher and Graham Smith in the thick of battle) while the tropical monsoon storm raged all around. An endless stream of fire orders were coming across the artillery net, while the frantic transmissions on the infantry net were listened to by all.10
Moments earlier, a runner from Townsend’s headquarters had arrived at the officers’ bar, where Lieutenant Gordon Steinbrook and his mates were still enjoying their beer. They were informed that D Company had ‘just made a really big contact in the rubber to the east of us,’ recalled Steinbrook. ‘All of us to a man scrambled out of there and ran to our assigned areas for future orders. I tagged along to the TOC [Tactical Operations Centre] with the 6 RAR commander and my boss, the 161 Battery commander. Inside the TOC everyone was working at fever pitch. They were in radio contact with D Company, the sounds of the battle faintly audible as they transmitted to one another.’11
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Rob Rich was waiti
ng at the helicopter pad when intelligence officer Captain Bryan Wickens came rushing towards him with his maps. Within minutes they were airborne, sweeping their way towards the east of the base. Wickens pointed towards Nui Dat 2, indicating that it was their destination. ‘So away I went,’ recalled Rich. ‘[The officer was still] organising his radios and maps. I was orbiting this hill and became aware of a tremendous amount of enemy ground fire. In a helicopter, this is quite noisy. These tracer bullets were coming up past the helicopter, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Are you sure this is the right place?” He then looked out and saw all this stuff coming up, and said, “No, no, no, that’s them, that’s them [Viet Cong]. We’re over there somewhere.” So we flew away from that hill.’12
Earlier, army chaplain Les Thompson had been visiting the men of C Company, 6 RAR in their area of the base when the intense counter-battery fire alerted him and battalion medical officer Captain Vic Bampton that something big was on. Both rushed to Townsend’s headquarters and stood aside, trying to stay out of the way. They and others listened as the sound of battle and the urgent requests being made by Smith and Stanley were brought to them via the crackling airwaves of D Company’s CHQ radio. All knew that ‘Harry the Rat’ and D Company were in serious trouble. Undoubtedly the chaplain would have been praying for the safety of the men.13 Also present was Private Ken Tronc, D Company, 11 Platoon. He had been forced to stay behind that morning due to an injury to his foot. At the time he hadn’t expected to be missing out on much – just another hard slog through the scrub. Now he was listening in distress as his mates of 11 Platoon were taking casualties: ‘I think for the first time since I went to Vietnam I cried my eyes out. I prayed for mates I had, as I didn’t know who had been killed and who wounded. But I prayed. I’ve never prayed so much in my life.’14
The Battle of Long Tan Page 13
