The Battle of Long Tan

by David W. Cameron

  The majority of the veterans from D Company sitting on and in the carriers were hoping that the bulk of the enemy force had fled, but it was possible a company of Viet Cong had been left behind to ambush the Australians to help deter them from pursuing the main force. It was around 9.20 a.m. when the men of D Company, 6 RAR reached the area of the battlefield. Private Harry Esler of 10 Platoon recalled that as soon as ‘they let that back door down we bolted out. We looked around and didn’t know what to expect. As I got down I accidentally stood on a bit of an arm – half an arm of a VC. I picked it up and said, “How would this go hanging up in the canteen?” And whoever it was nearby said, “Put that bloody thing down!”’35 Undoubtedly Doyle and many others were happy that no shots were fired as the rear doors of the carrier opened and they dismounted. Doyle recalled that the plantation was ‘absolutely shredded. It was stark, just like a giant tumultuous thing had decimated the place.’36

  Sergeant Buick was still twitchy and tense as he began to move back through the plantation on foot after leaving his carrier. His apprehension increased as he moved though the battle area, but the feeling changed as he was confronted with the devastation of the battlefield.37 He and his men had been trained to kill the enemy – that was their job – but they were not trained to go back into a battlefield the next day to witness the carnage and clean up the stinking mangled bodies. They were not prepared for ‘what you witness when you go in . . . I had no idea just what happened at Long Tan. I knew what happened in my little bloody paddock but I had no idea what happened 30 or 40 metres away behind me, 100 metres behind me and so on.’38 Lieutenant David Sabben recalled seeing as he moved towards the final company headquarters position during the battle:

  a crescent of absolutely destroyed trees, and what I can only describe as a slaughterhouse of bodies. And not many of them were full, complete, identifiable bodies either. They were just body parts and pieces of flesh. Up until then, we really had no idea of what damage we had inflicted. Because of the heavy rain, because of the necessity to survive, we hadn’t really sat back and taken stock of what was actually happening. And all the assaults that came in on Twelve Platoon’s front and Ten Platoon’s front. They were just beaten back and we got onto the next thing. We didn’t worry about what was out there. And the next morning when we got back, we found what was out there was actually row upon row of bodies . . . [that] had been churned up by the fact that we had artillery rounding twenty-five yards [23 metres] from us for the last ten minutes of the battle, so anything that had already been shot was being churned up by the artillery.39

  Somewhere nearby, Captain Bryan Wickens, the intelligence officer of 6 RAR, recalled how eerie it was going back ‘onto the battlefield, with bodies everywhere. There were an awful lot. It wasn’t raining. I was up close – in fact, right up front. You see a rifle, a man in a black uniform behind a tree, pointing at you . . . you’d fire. It’s the natural thing. I didn’t fire a shot at anyone. The riflemen alongside me would give a burst. The VC were dead already, but propped against a tree they looked alive.’40 Indeed, orders had been given, as recalled by Lieutenant Geoff Kendall, that if anybody was in a fire position and you did not know if he was alive or dead, you were to shoot him.41 Kendall recalled seeing dozens of enemy in such positions, and a number of shots rang out from Australian rifles but almost ‘invariably they were shooting dead people . . . The Viet Cong are notorious for having live guys among the dead guys and shooting people, so if you are in any doubt, put a round into them and make sure. If he puts his hands up and wants to give up, good, we’ll take him prisoner. If you can see he’s alive and he’s helpless, okay, fine, we’ll help, but don’t take any chances.’42

  At 10.20 a.m., D Company, 6 RAR asked that a bulldozer be sent to their former CHQ position to help bury at least 100 Viet Cong. In the end it never arrived as the Suoi Da Bang was still in flood. Just after 11 a.m., a total of 113 enemy bodies and two wounded enemy troops had been located and the information radioed through to Task Force HQ at Nui Dat. In some cases the enemy dead lay in heaps where an assault wave had attacked over the bodies of fallen comrades. As the hours passed the number of enemy dead increased, as did the realisation that D Company, 6 RAR had had a significant victory over a much larger enemy force.43 One of Major Smith’s radio operators, Private Robin ‘Pom’ Rencher, recalled being very ‘surprised at the number of bodies and amazed at the devastation. The first body I saw was a VC whose clothes had been stripped away by [a] blast and whose skull was half missing, and with an arm blown off. It was the first badly mutilated body I had ever seen, but it didn’t touch me. I felt nothing for it.’44

  Close by, Private Tony Stepney recalled seeing the destruction: ‘Ah, it was out of this world. We were only 21 years of age and we’d never seen anything like it in our lives . . . and I think that’s when the regulars didn’t think the nashos were so bad and were good soldiers. It brought us a lot closer together after that.’45 Hodder recalled years later that his most vivid memory was the smell of the ‘human dead. You never forget it – the sweat clawing, that’s what you remember for the rest of your life.’46 APC troop commander Short recalled the devastation as they swept through the area. Some enemy bodies were ‘lying as if ready to fight, some torn apart, some just crumpled over. The battlefield itself looked to me like a badly filled rubbish tip. Bits of webbing, rags, black plastic, hats, weapons. I couldn’t believe anyone could have lived through it. The sun was streaming through the shattered rubber trees. The latex resin running down the trees as if they were crying. As we set off to follow up the enemy, all I could think of was “At least we didn’t get burial detail”.’47

  Coming up behind on foot was Private William Reynolds of A Company, who saw an enemy soldier who had been run over by a carrier the night before. All he could see were ‘two ankles and feet sticking out of the mud. Even in that gruesome setting, wry Australian humour forced its way to the fore. Someone remarked, “Look at this keen bugger. He’s still trying to dig in.”’48

  30

  ‘The squelch sound was still coming through his handpiece’

  The men from D Company, 6 RAR approached the front-line position of 11 Platoon at around 11 a.m. Lieutenant Geoff Kendall recalled that ‘we met no opposition. Just walking through on this bright crystal morning, and seeing the absolute carnage that we’d caused the day before – it was a sight you couldn’t imagine. An area as big as two or three football fields and several hundred bodies spread all over the place. Also, as we topped the first rise, we saw old “Custard” Meller leaning against a rubber tree, weakly waving his hand. That was pretty marvellous.’1 Nearby was D Company HQ radio operator Corporal Graham Smith, who recalled: ‘We were expecting the worst, but all was relatively quiet. Then, to my utter disbelief, leaning against a rubber tree was Private Barry Meller . . . he waved and I almost burst into tears I was so happy . . . I didn’t know Meller at the time but his name was one of those on the list of “missing in action” I had radioed through a few hours earlier.’2

  Meller had left his hiding place and walked for a short distance. His mates rushed to his side on seeing him, he said, ‘You took your fuckin’ time, didn’t you!’ Lieutenant Adrian Roberts of 3 Troop was present and remembered seeing an Australian soldier ‘standing up. He was wounded, in a state of shock, had somehow contrived to walk himself to the spot.’3 As Meller was getting his wounds seen to, Private Robin ‘Pom’ Rencher walked past and said, ‘G’day, Custard.’ Meller looked up and replied, ‘G’day, you pommy bastard.’ As described by Vietnam War veteran and historian Lex McAulay, Rencher walked on with lightened spirits. He had been in Australia for only 15 months and in 6 RAR for five months. Rencher acknowledged Meller’s reply as ‘the finest acceptance speech I had ever had’.4

  The advanced battlefield area was covered with trees that had been blown apart by Anzac artillery fire and Viet Cong mortar and RPG fire. White latex covered the shattered trunks. It harked back to the Flanders fields 50 years before
, but without the trenches and devastated villages: it was shattered ‘woodland’. The dead Viet Cong lay all around and some of the Australians found their equipment, weapons and ammunition in small, hastily dug weapons pits. Lieutenant Colonel Townsend later estimated that at least 50 per cent of the Viet Cong dead had been killed by Anzac artillery fire, although this was difficult to accurately assess as those killed by small-arms fire were often also later hit by the artillery shells. Sergeant Buick recalled that ‘there were areas about a hundred metres square with all the trees smashed and broken. Latex sap poured down the trunks. There were branches and crowns blasted from trees with the impact of high-explosive shells and rocket-propelled grenades. The stench of death from the bodies wafted through the air. Weary, but alert, the diggers carefully looked around and under the smashed vegetation expecting to be fired on at any second.’5

  Lieutenant David Sabben had moved forward from the CHQ position and soon came to the spot where he and his men had tried to provide an open corridor for 11 Platoon. They found their backpacks, which ‘appeared to be intact, but we retrieved them carefully, in case of booby traps. Of note was the extraordinary quiet of the area. It was as if we were walking in an empty cathedral and everyone was constrained to talk only when they had to, then only in whispers . . . at one stage I crouched down beside a rubber tree, facing a wheeled . . . machine-gun, its crew lying dead beside it. The PR photographer snapped a few photos, the noise of the ­shutter unnaturally loud in the stillness of the place.’6 One of these ­photographs has since become perhaps the most iconic image of the Battle of Long Tan, showing the young lieutenant kneeling next to a rubber tree with the deadly heavy machine gun in the background, the scene covered in the debris of battle.

  Private Terry Burstall of Sabben’s 12 Platoon recalled coming across the same enemy machine gun as they swept through the southern parts of the plantation towards 11 Platoon’s position during the main contact. He and others in his section began to see increasing numbers of enemy dead and very quickly came across ‘almost straight ahead of me, a heavy machinegun on wheels. We went to ground; it was terrifying, with everything very quiet, very still. We stopped for a minute or two and it was about then, while everyone was really looking hard, that I started to focus on bodies. There was a body wherever I looked. Within my vision, which wasn’t all that wide, there must have been twenty bodies. I think everyone was stunned.’7 Private Alan Parr recalled that after dismounting from the carriers they started ‘moving through the trees when I heard a shot and was later told someone had shot a badly wounded VC. All through the area where the action took place was a real mess – tree branches, weapons, VC bodies.’8

  Close by, Buick came across a wounded Vietnamese soldier whose guts were spread over the ground. He took a closer look, only to see that most of the man’s head had been blown off, exposing parts of his brain. Buick couldn’t believe he was still alive – his arms and legs were twitching, while his face was in the ‘dirt with his entrails pierced by sticks. His bloodied body was covered in dirt and leaves, and digested rice was oozing out of the large shrapnel wound in his slashed stomach. Maybe his nerves were causing the twitching, the poor fucking brave bastard, his heart was still working; a quarter of his brain spilling out of his skull and most of his guts was lying over the ground. I couldn’t handle this . . . I aimed my rifle and shot him twice through the heart . . . I have never considered what I did morally right or wrong – it was something I just had to do.’9 A spontaneous act of mercy.

  Sabben had a similar experience after moving away from the enemy heavy machine gun, although this soldier was conscious and while seriously wounded had a chance of surviving his wounds:

  We heard a shallow whimper, as if a small cat was meowing. We approached carefully and found a wounded VC under . . . foliage. We covered him with our rifles and removed the branches, but he was not dangerous any more. He had a hideous wound that had opened up his entire abdomen. His gut was plainly visible, looking like plastic in the dappled sunlight. Even as we looked, we could see maggots moving around his intestines. He put two fingers to his mouth in the international appeal for a cigarette and someone obliged. We called the Doc forward, and he administered a painkiller, but the guy had already passed the pain threshold. I didn’t know if he could survive, but I called for a stretcher and we moved on.10

  All through the battle the night before, Australians recalled how brave Vietnamese soldiers would dart out and collect their wounded, dragging them away even as the Anzac shells exploded all around them. By the time the Australians re-entered the battlefield the next day, the Viet Cong had done a pretty good job of collecting their wounded comrades.

  Up front, Captain Bryan Wickens came to a halt and saw all around a mass of enemy dead. He noticed a few Australians in prone position, ready to open covering fire should the Viet Cong conduct an attack, and asked one of them if he had seen ‘any sign of movement on the left flank?’ No answer, so he asked again. Silence. He walked up to the line of dispersed men and found that the ‘platoon I thought were protecting me were all dead. I thought, “Crikey, where am I?” and looked around. Everybody else was way back!’ Many years later he recalled that ‘every soldier was still in a firing position. They’d stuck to their guns, they really had. It was the bravest thing I’d ever seen, and I’ve been in seven theatres of war.11 Indeed, this ex-British Army soldier later claimed that the experience of seeing these brave men compelled him to change his nationality to Australian.12

  It was not long before Buick came up; he had managed to keep things together until then, but was staggered and upset to see his men face down still holding their rifles, killed while firing their weapons. ‘Private Vic Grice,’ he recalled, ‘was sitting with a grin on his face and looked so peaceful. The radio on his back was still working. This showed that the VC had not been in the platoon area. The rain had washed the battlefield clean but the bodies were beginning to swell and that sweet sickly pungent smell of rotting human flesh permeated . . . the still morning air.’13

  The APCs moved forward and cut off their engines. Lieutenant Ian Savage of 3 Troop moved up on foot towards Lieutenant Gordon Sharp’s last position. He recalled it was an ‘eerie situation, because all the dead were lying there in firing positions, and they looked as if they were alive except for the pools of blood underneath them. I remember Gordon Sharp, shot running from cover to cover. His radio operator [Grice] had been shot in the chest, was sitting upright, and the squelch sound was still coming through his handpiece. This upset everybody.’14

  Rencher so far had seen it all – enemy bodies blown apart, trampled into pulp by the carriers – but had remained unmoved: ‘I came to the 11 Platoon position. My mates lying in an arc, facing outwards, with rifles still in the shoulder as if they were frozen in a drill and it only needed a touch to bring them back to life again. They hadn’t been touched by arty [artillery], thank goodness, and the rain washed off any blood. They looked very peaceful and dignified, dying in place, doing their duty. And that’s when the tears started. I don’t suppose anyone was dry-eyed. I know I wasn’t.’ He came across his dead officer, ‘the young, fun-loving National Service commander, not the most brilliant soldier in the world, but one of the nicest and most well-liked people in the company’.15 Parr recalled that ‘the most haunting part of all to see was the line of 11 Platoon soldiers, each beside a rubber tree, all facing in the same direction. It looked as though they were just resting there . . . it’s something that no one can be prepared for; you’re going on with your life and theirs had just finished at 21 years of age.’16

  However, one soldier from 6 Section was found to be alive: Private Jim Richmond, who had been shot twice through the chest. Buick recalled that among the ‘carnage there was one joyous moment for me. I heard a voice calling my name. It was Jim Richmond, a member of 6 Section, the section that had been on our left flank. Jim and John Robbins were the only two survivors from that section.’17 Buick dashed over towards his wounded soldier
, calling for a medic and assistance. The wounded private recalled earlier hearing the APCs coming towards him and some voices he didn’t recognise. They came ‘closer so I yelled out. I heard Sergeant Buick’s voice so I just put [my] hand up and yelled out to him and that’s when they found me.’ He told them of the live grenade to his front. On seeing Buick he vividly recalled thinking he’s not a ‘good-looking bloke, Bob, but I nearly could have kissed him that day! . . . They patched me up on the field there and then and called in the armoured personnel carrier. They put me in the back . . . and then they got me out to a landing zone so that the American helicopter would take me back to 36 Evac Hospital in Vung Tau.’18

  Radio operator Graham Smith was elated on hearing that Richmond had been found alive, but then to ‘see the blokes from 11 Platoon, most of whom were still in their firing positions – one bloke even had his rifle still supported on his hand and shoulder and in fact when they took the rifle from him it discharged. Most of those blokes were shot through the head or chest and they died facing the enemy.’19 Private Allen May of 11 Platoon recalled that there were yells all over the place that they had found Richmond alive although he had a serious shrapnel wound to his chest.

  The group May was with had the job of picking up the Australian dead. He remembered helping wrap up Private Doug Salveron, who was a good friend of his, and it making him pretty bitter.20 He was not the only one feeling bitter. Private Terry Burstall recalled coming across a wounded Viet Cong propped up against a tree; he was in his late teens. The wounded soldier was holding in ‘his stomach with both hands and he indicated to me he wanted a drink. When I pulled his hands from his groin his bowels started to roll out, so I let his hands go and he pushed his bowels back in and held them with the tail of his shirt. I gave him a bottle of water, but it wasn’t because I felt sorry for him. I knew water was bad for gut wounds so I let him drink as much as he liked.’21