The Battle of Long Tan

by David W. Cameron

  Not all were as fortunate, as recalled by Lance Corporal Phil Buttigieg. Alpha Company came in from the north mounted in APCs and mistook his group for assaulting Viet Cong and began firing into them. The section beside his took casualties – luckily most were slight and all remained on duty. However, Private Carey Johnson, who was a machine gunner, was struck three times with bullets.53 O’Halloran recalled that Johnson was extremely reluctant to leave his weapon when he was placed in the carrier that was also carrying A Company’s medic, Corporal Peter Short. As the battle continued to rage, Johnson was heard to say in frustration, ‘I’ve carried this bloody gun for months. I’m not going to give it up now, just when I need it.’54 The very lucky O’Halloran, the boyhood friend of the now-dead Lieutenant Gordon Sharp, moved up towards D Company’s position in extended line.

  Private David A. Thomas remembered that he was still on the left flank and was not sure how far D Company was extended when two men appeared out of a pile of shattered trees and branches. Thankfully he did not blaze away at them: they were men from D Company. The look of stunned relief on their faces was something he would never forget.55 He also remembered that it was then that the enemy ‘were running . . . they were doing the bolt. They’d had enough. They weren’t worried about us. But in the rain we couldn’t tell friend from foe. We got back in there before A Company on the APCs.’56

  Realising for the first time that his troop section was on its own, Richards and his carriers now did a 360 to rejoin his troop, moving again through the Anzac barrage to do so. One hit on an APC would blow it apart. Rankin and others were concerned to see the carriers disappear. He could hear them to his right rear, and he also heard their .50-calibre machine guns chattering away. It wasn’t long before he saw their headlights, and his heart was ‘really thumping at that stage and I was almost crying with relief. A couple of minutes later I saw them turning away just as another assault started towards us, and I lost sight of them, which gave me a hell of a fright.’57 The medic, Corporal Short, recalled racing ahead through the artillery barrage but losing sight of the carrier to their left. They went through the flank of D Company before turning round to go back and pick up a ‘lad from Bravo Company [Johnson] who had been wounded in the arm’.58

  Dinham, who was in one of Richards’ carriers as it moved back through the Anzac barrage, could see rubber trees on either side of him disintegrating from the exploding shells – most were being blown apart from the resulting air bursts. Just south of D Company, Roberts and the remaining carriers of his troop were advancing towards that company’s position. Richards and Roberts joined up just south of the artillery zone, about 300 metres south-west of D Company’s position, and it was then that the troop section, commanded by Lieutenant Savage and carrying the battalion CO, Lieutenant Colonel Townsend, also arrived. The troop was finally together – minus the one carrier that had been ordered back to Nui Dat – all now moved forward through the ongoing Anzac artillery barrage. It was approaching 6.55 p.m. and darkness had just about truly set in.

  Lieutenant Robert Toyer, A Company, 3 Platoon was travelling with the battalion commander and recalled pushing through the enemy with the Anzac artillery exploding all around them. He could hear shrapnel and small-arms fire pinging off the side of the APC.59 Sergeant Myles, who was now commanding 1 Platoon after the evacuation of the carrier carrying the mortally wounded Clements (and 1 Platoon headquarters), recalled moving through the artillery barrage with the hatches open and the carrier commanders completely exposed as they directed their drivers through the fire. The machine guns were firing as the drivers advanced through the artillery barrage with shells exploding among them – shrapnel from the artillery was hitting the sides of the APCs.60 In the same carrier, Private David Hede recalled that ‘we were jammed in the APC like sardines in a can and I could hear all this stuff hitting the sides. Our section gunner was firing his M60 machine gun from the top hatch and the gun kept jamming on every fifth round that was a tracer. We were scrambling around extracting the tracer and passing these belts of ammunition back up to the guys at the hatch . . . Sergeant Myles told us we would soon be disembarking from the APC, that we were to fix bayonets . . . I don’t mind telling you that sent a chill up my spine.’61

  Back at Nui Dat, Captain George Bindley of 103 Battery recalled that there was still no let-up in the fire missions needed to support 6 RAR in the battle taking place in Long Tan Plantation. He noted how each of his guns ‘seemed to slip into another dimension like some great engine of the Industrial Revolution, roaring and flaring in great billowing clouds of smoke and steam. The fierce downpour gave an eerie shine to the guns, reflecting the muzzle-flashes against the gathering smog, which cloaked the movement of men toiling with ammunition, their shadows showing only in the glare, while the roar of the guns, with “fire for effect” in force, created a bedlam. It was our El Alamein, but a little damper.’62

  Just moments earlier, the North Vietnamese commander, Lieutenant Colonel Tran Minh Tam, had called off the attack – as told to Long Tan veteran Terry Burstall in the mid-1980s by operation officer Nguyen Thanh Hong – Tran’s 2IC:

  When we could not destroy you in the required time frame we decided to withdraw. The artillery was hitting us hard and we knew reinforcements would be arriving and we did not have the strength to stop them. We were disappointed we could not overrun your troops but the weather was a factor which created problems with our communications. We were hoping you would follow us out to Ap Suoi Cat, out of gun range, but this did not happen. Much of the cleaning up, weapons and badly wounded were removed during the battle, and were carried to the Nui May Tao mountains.63

  However, most of the attacking Viet Cong commanders had yet to receive this order, and those to the north-east had not seen Richards’ APC Troop and continued to advance towards Major Smith’s position, with renewed concentrated fire. Smith’s men were not out of the woods yet.

  Private Len Vine at this point was, like all the others, in the thick of it. He recalled ‘lying on the ground and [feeling] this massive whack down the bottom of my left foot, down near the ankle, and I thought, Shit I’ve lost me frigging leg . . . . it was like being hit with a massive piece of clay or something. I really wasn’t game to look down . . . but when it was all over a piece of shrapnel had taken the side out of my boot, made a massive hole in me sock and I didn’t even have a scratch. How bloody lucky is that?’64 Esler was close by and on hearing his mate had been hit he crawled over to him, looked down and told Vine his leg was still there. He examined it and recalled seeing a bit of shrapnel had ‘cut through his boot, the ridge around the sole-edge, the laces and the top and even put a hole in his sock – that’s how lucky he was. He must have thought his leg was gone.’65

  On reaching the tapper’s hut, Roberts and his APCs changed direction to reach Major Smith’s position. However, Townsend ordered Roberts to attack the enemy formations to the east, having already disrupted the enemy force that was attempting to block the line of retreat from the south and west. Roberts’ 3 Troop was now directly taking on the human waves of 275 VC Regiment that had for hours been trying to overrun D Company’s position from the north, south and east. With four carriers up front and three behind they advanced towards the enemy’s position, passing D Company’s perimeter immediately south of the enemy’s line of attack.

  The attack was almost over before it started, but even so, it was intense. ‘All I can remember,’ recalled Roberts, ‘was that the tracer seemed to weave . . . at you in a way that you felt you could sway backwards and forwards and [dodge] it.’66 Lieutenant Savage, Roberts’ 2IC, was in the rear troop section and recalled seeing a mass of enemy firing and moving. He tried to fire his .50-calibre machine gun but in most cases couldn’t depress it far enough to have any impact; he recalled that it was ‘most frustrating seeing these fellows firing at you and trying to dodge the tracer. It seemed to be coming towards us in slow curves, but it was like ducking tennis balls.’67

  Enemy fir
e tore into the advancing carriers from the front and flanks, while the Anzac artillery fire continued to fall to their right. Alcorta saw wounded Vietnamese unable to move out of the way being crushed as the APCs run over them. Not far behind, Savage was finally able to use his .50-calibre as he fired between Roberts’ APC and another next to it – but ‘Adrian got pretty dirty towards me as I was firing pretty close to his vehicle, so I eased off on my firing and concentrated on backing him’.68 Roberts recalled that the fire that hit them was ‘absolutely enormous: small-arms and machine-gun fire, from the front. I think that we survived because we kept coming on and they were firing high. I put my tin hat on, as an instinctive reaction.’69

  They continued to push back the enemy force for about 500 metres until Townsend called off the attack and ordered them to return to Major Smith’s beleaguered survivors.

  26

  ‘I’m a Yank! I’m a Yank!’

  1900–1930 hours

  By now, word had got out in Saigon that the Australians were in trouble. Australian Red Cross volunteer and former journalist from Adelaide Jean Debelle had arrived in Vietnam just months before. Only male journalists were allowed to cover the war, so Debelle had volunteered with the Red Cross, hoping to cover aspects of the conflict in her spare time. That was not to be – what spare time?

  That night she arrived with some US nurses at the Pacific Hotel for the usual ‘bland offerings’.1 However, this night was different: everyone seemed to be talking about a major battle the Australians were having with a significant enemy force about 70 kilometres away in a place called Long Tan, in Phuoc Tuy Province.

  ‘Why is everyone talking about the Aussies?’ I innocently asked an American. ‘Ma’am, they’re in serious trouble. They’re fighting for their lives’. . . I remember shivering despite the hot, humid air. I had to find out more, but making a phone call was not easy. The Vietnamese system, for all practical purposes, was non-existent. Military phones were not plentiful. While sending jumbled prayers skyward . . . I raced back to the Villa to use the field phone there. I was switched through to the American signals system and then heard an answer at ALSG [Australian Logistic Support Group] in the familiar Aussie accent: ‘Emu.’ I knew enough about the army by then to ask for the duty officer. That night he was Major [Athol] Nat Salter. ‘Are the Aussies in trouble?’ In the gentlest voice imaginable, Nat said: ‘Yes Jean, they are.’ ‘Are they being brought into the 36th Evac?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied.’2

  Back in the plantation, the wounded Lance Corporal John Robbins was still lying in a small depression among the other wounded in the centre of the perimeter and remembered hearing the sound of the carriers as they came in. He couldn’t see them, but he could certainly hear them, and the wounded who were conscious in the muddy little ditch that went for an aid post got pretty excited, even in their shocked and confused state.3 He recalled that it was ‘the most beautiful sound you’d ever hear, the roar of these APCs and these big .50-cal machine guns up on the top, blasting away.’4

  Moments earlier, Private David Beahan of 12 Platoon with his mates was manning the perimeter and anxiously awaiting the arrival of the carriers that were said to be coming to their rescue. He was asking himself, as were likely many others, ‘Where the f–– are they?’5 Nearby, Private Peter Doyle of 10 Platoon was ‘lying in the mud, using my elbows, my knees and my bloody chin, trying to dig a hole in the mud, and I heard the rise and fall of a diesel engine as it revved and dropped and revved and dropped, and I thought, F––k, it’s a carrier. All the artillery was still dropping down. The next thing I saw was this big grey shape coming through the rubber.’6

  Even as 3 Troop arrived back at Major Smith’s position, a Viet Cong force from the north-east was continuing its attack, but within minutes the enemy troops broke contact and headed back the way they had come. In the near distance, even with darkness setting in, some Australians saw enemy troops rising from the ground, firing off a few rounds and withdrawing, receding into the rubber. Sergeant Bob Buick recalled that the Viet Cong had had enough and stopped their attacks – the battlefield suddenly went totally quiet. He saw the carriers coming through the line of rubber trees, or what was left of them, towards their position7 and recalled how the Viet Cong started to get up in dribs and drabs right across their front. He couldn’t believe how many of them had obviously been lying out there among their dead and seriously wounded, waiting for the next human-wave assault to come in. They just individually or in small numbers got up and trotted away to the north-east.8

  A very relieved Major Smith, looking across to his right just before 7 p.m. recalled how ‘all of a sudden amongst the noise of the machine guns and artillery there appeared the noise of diesel engines and here were these armoured personnel carriers coming though the gloom, guns firing, and some of my forward soldiers got up, because . . . as soon as these tanks arrived the enemy just turned and left.’9

  Moments earlier, Lance Corporal Phil Buttigieg’s section of B Company had become separated from Major Noel Ford’s other two sections. Approaching the rear of D Company, the noise and poor visibility made knowing which way to go impossible. Enemy bodies were strewn throughout the rubber as some fading light got through large holes in the rubber canopy, caused by the artillery air bursts. Buttigieg and his men advanced towards where they hoped their OC might have gone. At one point he thought they might have to get through the night as a lone section, but then he heard his name being called to his left. They were soon picked up by some carriers just north of D Company’s position, and were reunited with Ford and the rest of his ‘platoon’.10

  Ford and the men were now moving into the heart of D Company’s position and radioed Task Force headquarters at Nui Dat: ‘493671 – Regimental target from CO. Now with C/S 1 [A Company] in C/S 4 [D Company] loc. D Coy is now non effective – estimates 25 KIA and 40 WIA. Planning to get A Coy to cover front [EAST] and south of D Coy whilst reorganising. Not ready for dust-off at this stage.’11 Corporal Robin Jones came directly into D Company’s position and was shocked by the scene of utter destruction that greeted him. He and the others realised that this had been a real-life Custer’s Last Stand in a very small, circular, deadly space.12 One of the first he came across was Sergeant Major Kirby, who was walking around giving orders and encouragement; Kirby’s actions during the whole battle had placed his life at great risk, and he was still potentially exposed to fire. Jones recalled thinking to himself: ‘Get down, you big bastard.’13

  Jones noticed how the wounded had been collected in a small depression just off to the side of the command position, and reckoned there were around 20 of the ‘poor bastards, with all sorts of pretty horrible wounds. Some were unconscious and others were doped up with morphine. The whole company, wounded or not, was definitely all shell-shocked, as everyone just looked at us blank-eyed and tried to say things without much success. It was a pretty devastating sight to see those guys in that condition, filthy, wet, shocked and exhausted, and to realise it could be any one of us the next time.’14 It was sometime just after 7 p.m.15

  Smith and his men were now able to stand for the first time in relative safety, even though intermittent fire continued from just beyond the Australian perimeter. Smith apprised Ford of the situation and their position as they walked the perimeter, and asked him to place his men to defend to the south-west to western area as they had earlier seen Viet Cong trying to get around their position from there.16 These were the troops from D445 VC Battalion whose advance had been shattered moments earlier by the APCs. The sound of battle had ceased and had been replaced by the noises of ‘moaning wounded out to the front’, recalled Smith, ‘and then the jubilant talking among the company at having survived.’17

  The APCs had circled around the position and the rear hatches came down. The men of A Company, going to ground between, were facing the enemy. On leaving the carriers they had no idea that the firing had mostly stopped, having been trapped in their noisy confines, but as the last of the men slid into p
osition a silence fell on the plantation – the Anzac guns finally fell silent. It was only broken by the now-gentle rain and the clicks of the APC engines as they began to cool down.18 ‘I think a lot of my soldiers,’ recalled Major Smith, ‘thought that they were never going to arrive and that we would never get out of it, and a lot of them stood up and went over and gave the carriers a gentle pat on the side and certainly shook the hand of the armoured corps guys and probably some of the A Company guys that came out of the carriers. We were certainly very pleased to see them, to say the least.’19

  Private Peter Bennett of A Company, likely still with his cold hamburgers in his pouch, was probably among the first to be thanked as he walked into D Company’s position. He held his fire as he approached the general location – the last thing he wanted to do was hit one of the survivors from D Company.

  Captain Charles Mollison, with his 9mm pistol in hand, came across Captain Morrie Stanley, who had for hours been calling in artillery strikes against the Vietnamese human waves. His men had suffered from mortar and heavy machine-gun fire, had seen napalm drops against Nui Dat 2 and had experienced ongoing fire from RPGs and RCLs, and looking at Mollison, with his seemingly toy-like pistol, Stanley almost broke into laughter – until he realised that Mollison was part of the infantry relief force. They had finally arrived.20 Stanley was not the only one who was amused by Mollison’s pistol in the circumstances. Lieutenant Geoff Kendall recalled smirking to himself and being a bit bemused that Mollison was carrying this pistol.21

  Lieutenant Peter Dinham recalled seeing the New Zealand officer ‘calmly calling down the fire from a crouched position behind a tree’. Within seconds the Anzac artillery fire ceased and ‘all was very quiet’.22 In all, the Anzac and US batteries had fired a total of 3440 rounds in just four hours, some as close as 30 metres from D Company’s perimeter.23 Bombardier Murray Broomhall recalled that ‘the sudden silence was nearly as deafening as the thunder of the guns . . . No tree was unmarked. Most of them looked as if someone had hit them with a giant flail – there were no leaves, no twigs, shattered stumps, fallen branches and whole trees toppled over.’24