The Battle of Long Tan

by David W. Cameron

  Earlier, Sergeant Jim Myles of A Company and his men had been searching the area where the dirt road ran through the middle of the rubber plantation, just north of the 11 Platoon site. He recalled seeing a mass of dead enemy troops lying everywhere. Most had been killed by artillery, as indicated by the utter carnage and body parts strewn all over the place. Myles and his men moved up through the main battle site in formation and came to where the casualties from D Company were located. He recalled a whole line lying there, all facing towards the enemy, most having taken cover next to a rubber tree.22 Private Peter Bennett, also of A Company, recalled seeing the Australian dead lying on their stomachs in prone position with their weapons at the ready, their heads along their rifles. He also remembered someone trying to remove Sharp’s weapon, but that his finger was on the trigger and it went off.’23 Private Brian Reilly remembered the incident and the burst of fire being heard all around, with many men dropping down ready to return fire before they realised it was a false alarm.

  Private Trevor Atkinson of A Company later approached the scene of 11 Platoon’s battle and stood there transfixed: ‘I can still see those 11 Platoon soldiers lying in a straight row, their weapons at the ready . . . After a while, a Delta Company officer came up and asked me what the hell I was doing. I could see he was in shock so I just quietly moved away.’24 Another from A Company, Private David Hede, remembered ‘recognising my old friend Warren Mitchell. I had spoken to him only a few days before . . . I could do nothing for him. I guess I just stood there looking at him. Sergeant Myles came over and gave me a blast. Told me to move on. I remember thinking what a prick he was but, on reflection, I guess he was just trying to hold things together.’25

  Meanwhile, Captain Alan Hutchinson, FOO for D Company, 5 RAR, who thought he had conducted his last operation and was to fly home to Australia the next day, was in the plantation and recalled: ‘I must confess that I was less than impressed . . . you become a little superstitious at doing another operation when you thought you had completed your last . . . When we arrived at the battlefield we found utter devastation. Every rubber tree, or so it seemed, had been hit by artillery and there were bodies everywhere. We even found Private “Custard” Meller . . . The VC thought Meller was dead and one had tried to remove his boots in the middle of the night but ran off when Custard cursed him.’26

  By now, Private John Heslewood was approaching the right flank where he and his mates had fought back the Viet Cong human waves. It was there that he found his friend Private Kenny Gant: ‘he was a fair way, probably about 50 metres, [to the right] from where I was positioned’.27 However, the fact that two of their mates who had been given up for dead had been found alive helped to lift the spirits of the men. Meller and Richmond were quickly evacuated to hospital, where they recovered from their wounds. A total of 13 dead Australians were retrieved on the battlefield, which meant that all the missing Australians had been accounted for.28

  Burstall recalled at about this time coming across Heslewood and asking him if he was all right. He replied, ‘OK, but bloody hungry.’ Burstall hurried to his pack and soon had a ‘tin of meat, some dog biscuits and a brew [on] for him. He was all right, but definitely shocked. I went over to Peter Dettman and Stan Hodder [of his platoon] to have a smoke and a bloody photo­grapher came around snapping pictures. I don’t know where he came from but there were all sorts of types in the area by that stage. We just carried on like zombies for the rest of the day, checking gear and bodies.’29

  Indeed, General William Westmoreland, with a large number of staff, journalists and photographers, had arrived on the scene. Private Bill Doolan of 10 Platoon was with some of his mates digging graves for the dead Viet Cong when the general walked up and said, ‘You’ve done a good job, fellows, but this is the dirty part.’ Doolan’s reply made newspaper headlines: ‘She’ll be right, mate. We can handle it.’30 Others were more edgy and increasingly upset that the battlefield and their casualties had become a scene of voyeurism for ‘every man and his dog’. Heslewood recalled (and he certainly was far from alone in his assessment):

  All the generals and the photographers and a lot of them were getting around the area. They were getting around in their nice starched greens and pointing a rifle at a dead body and their mates were taking photos for them. They would come up and talk to you and a few of the boys told them to get out. They didn’t want to talk to them. Didn’t want to talk about what happened. That upset the blokes more than anything else. All these people from Saigon and Vung Tau coming out. They came out to the battle scene so they could report to their superiors and that sort of stuff . . . to be part of it. The brigadier [Jackson] came to have a look around to say he had been there. But they brought a lot of hangers-on with them. There were hundreds of weapons and other equipment and at that stage we had it all bundled up in this big area and they were all coming up and picking up weapons, cocking them and playing with them and this sort of stuff. We were sitting around having a smoke at this stage and saying ‘Have a look at those posers.’31

  Indeed, Buick became increasingly upset with some of the recently arrived high-ranking staff, who were intruding on his men’s raw emotions less than 24 hours after the battle. He was understandably reaching boiling point as these individuals walked around the dead of 11 Platoon taking photographs and making thoughtless remarks, and ended up punching a major who made what he considered undignified and unwarranted remarks about the dead: ‘I cannot remember his words today but at the time his words caused me to explode in anger. Had it not been for RSM, WO 1 George Chinn, I would have been in deep trouble.’ Buick was also close to shooting a ‘pommy’ journalist who would not leave him alone. The last thing ‘we needed’, he recalled, ‘were the wankers from the base areas, be they officers or news journalists, coming for a stickybeak, to write a story, commenting on what they saw without any apparent empathy or compassion’.32 At this point, Sergeant Major Jack Kirby ordered Buick to move out of the immediate area and search for Viet Cong dead, giving him a chance to cool off. Buick collected Private Dettman, the machine gunner from 12 Platoon, and they headed south-east from 11 Platoon’s position, Dettman carrying his heavy machine gun ‘should an enemy lying doggo decide to have a go’.33 Shortly afterwards, the journalist was still being an insensitive bastard to all and Kirby had had enough; he hung him up in a rubber tree by the collar of his shirt and left him there, to the relief of all around.34

  Meanwhile, the recently arrived 6 RAR, D Company chaplain, Les Thompson, was distraught at seeing the dead from both sides: ‘Dead bodies everywhere. As you jumped off the chopper, they were there. There was a lot of activity. The guys from D Company were worn out, they were pretty edgy, they were sweaty-dirty, they had looks on their faces which showed quite clearly that they’d been through a horrendous ordeal and were still toey.’ As he walked among the dead enemy troops he imagined their families and could see them receiving the letter: ‘at the same time I could see our families receiving the letter about our men. And they seemed to be together, there didn’t seem to be distinction then of an enemy, and of us and them, it just seemed to be “us” in this tragedy. It was a difficult situation. I remember one burial . . . I went and stood there, and I wanted to do something, I wanted to pray for the fellow and his family, and I most certainly did.’35

  New Zealand captain Morrie Stanley and two of his men were within the battlefield area. He had no feelings when viewing the destruction that the artillery had brought to bear against the enemy – he just felt tired. He noticed how the infantrymen were collecting and burying the human wreckage all around. They silently cleared the area of enemy weapons and equipment. Kirby came up to him and asked if he had any objection to his two men helping recover the Australian dead.36

  Corporal Robin Jones of B Company was allocated to a burial detail and recalled burying about 80 bodies that afternoon and during the early hours of the next day. They didn’t get much of a grave, as the hole was shallow. Usually a shell hole was used an
d the body rolled in and a bit of dirt thrown on top. Most of the men he worked with managed to keep up a fairly ‘humorous attitude throughout the time, which was just as well under the circumstances. I remember thinking that at least the poor bastards were getting buried, and I tried to maintain some dignity. I noticed a few blokes I was with crossing themselves as they worked at shovelling dirt on to the bodies.’37

  Private Robin ‘Pom’ Rencher made his way back to CHQ’s last-stand position and had a ‘heart-stopping’ moment when he came across the rubber tree he had called home for a few hours, ‘to find, not far away, a tripod-mounted 57mm RCL, loaded and cocked, pointed right at the CHQ position, the VC dead all around it’.38 Somewhere nearby, privates Peter Doyle, Harry Esler and others from D Company, 10 Platoon were burying some enemy dead when they turned one over and beneath him they found two pearl-handled Colt .45 pistols. ‘Look at this,’ said one of the Australians. ‘This would be a good souvenir to take home.’ From behind came the voice of Major Smith. ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ said the officer. The soldier reminded the major that he had seen them first, but Smith pointed to his badges and said, ‘They’re mine’ – privileges of rank.39 Smith kept one of the pistols, which turned out not to be a Colt .45 but rather a Russian-made Tokarev.40

  Meanwhile, Savage took two of his carriers, commanded by Corporal John Carter and Corporal Paul Fottrill, back to where they had broken through the Vietnamese heavy-weapons company to the south of D Company’s CHQ – also where, the night before, Carter had conducted his own personal war against the enemy while standing on top of his APC.41 They searched the area and recovered a Viet Cong prisoner who had been wounded in the leg. He’d been hiding in long grass and only stood up when he was about to be run over by one of the carriers. Later, Sergeant Frank Alcorta took charge of the prisoner, who was a ‘terrified young fellow of about 17, who’d had the fight knocked out of him altogether. In fact, about the only thing he wanted to do was crouch and kiss my feet.’42 The troop headed south to sweep the area, but one of the carriers overturned when it accidentally drove into an old trench; Savage and his troop spent the rest of the day trying to upright it.43

  The decision by Major Harry Smith to send his veterans back into the plantation had originally upset many men from his company, but, as later stated by Private John Heslewood of 11 Platoon, being sent into the battlefield turned out to be the ‘best thing we could’ve done, because they let Eleven Platoon find our own dead. And it was sort of a closing. You picked up your own mates, rather than hearing that somebody else had found so-and-so. Plus, we knew where they were, so we just sort of wrapped them up and put them in APCs to take them back to the heli-base.’44 Graham Smith remembered vividly how their dead were eventually collected and wrapped in their groundsheets: ‘straight out in a row they were loaded into a couple of armoured personnel carriers . . . and taken back to Nui Dat and that was a pretty terrible sight’.45 Private Noel Grimes sadly remembered ‘putting our guys into body bags and loading them into the APCs’, where they were driven to the western edge of the plantation and later flown out by helicopter.46

  31

  ‘The Claw’

  Not long after midday, D Company, 5 RAR reported discovering a large bunker complex just south of the main battlefield area. Soon Lieutenant Colonel Townsend made an appearance.

  The bunker was around 500 metres south-east of 11 Platoon’s forward position and was set out in concentric circles, the outer row holding about 100 pits. In all there were about 200 pits, each one about 2 metres long and 1.5 metres deep (not unlike Australian weapons pits) and covered using wood, bamboo, dirt and stone. At each end the pit was left uncovered to allow firing positions. In all, it was estimated that this position could hold around 400 troops – about the size of D445 VC Battalion, who were later assessed to have occupied Long Tan village and the southern outer parts of Long Tan Plantation before and during the battle. The design of the system was not for an ambush, but likely for a rest and defensive position. Three Viet Cong bodies were found, along with webbing equipment, food, two machine guns, ammunition and hand grenades – all suggesting a hurried evacuation of the position. Not long after this, another similar but smaller complex consisting of around 100 pits was found to the east of the main battlefield; it was assessed to be a fallback defensive position.1

  As the first bunker system was discovered, one of the main escape routes used by the Viet Cong was found, running due east from the battle area. Narrow, at just 1 metre across, the amount of traffic had been sufficient to gouge out about 30 centimetres, making it a shallow trench. Bloodstains and muddy handprints were seen on tree trunks where wounded soldiers had staggered along, while numerous shallow fresh graves, discarded equipment, used bandages and parts of weapons indicated the hurried nature of the withdrawal. The quantity of lost enemy equipment was significant as a result of the number of Viet Cong withdrawing during the night, in the rain, with a command system in tatters. Caches of cooking oil, kerosene, rice and fish heads were also found.2 Corporal Peter Short recalled seeing fresh blood trails against tree trunks and bushes – he reckoned that ‘you could smell them’.3

  On being informed of the discovery of the track, Townsend immediately radioed Brigadier Jackson for permission to follow up on the retreating enemy force. With his battalion, carriers and a supporting company from 5 RAR, Townsend assessed that he had sufficient strength to conduct such an operation – and all on the ground within the plantation seemed to want to push on and finish the job. However, Jackson refused, only allowing him to push on down the track another 1000 metres: beyond that, he would be out of artillery range. Nor would Jackson sanction moving his batteries forward to increase Townsend’s operational area.

  Jackson was still concerned about the safety of the Task Force base at Nui Dat and had yet to assess that Major Smith and D Company had inflicted serious casualties against a superior enemy force, resulting in a significant victory. Major Alex Piper recalled at the time that no one at the Task Force base ‘was in the frame of mind to go charging off into the jungle chasing the enemy when we thought we’d been done’.4 While some at the time criticised Jackson for his ‘cautious’ approach, Townsend later conceded, when writing his after-action report and discussing the situation many years later, that Jackson had been correct. Considering the risks of following up a strong enemy force (whose strength at this point was still unknown) and considering the state and strength of his own force, it would have been folly to conduct such an operation. Townsend concluded that it would have been ‘unwise to have thrown caution to the wind . . . despite the temptation’.5

  While Townsend’s force on paper looked pretty strong, the troops were exhausted. D Company was still suffering from its ordeal and was represented by two battered platoons; A Company had been thrown into the battle after having just completed a three-day patrol; B Company had a strength of just 32 men, as those on R&R were not scheduled to return until 4 p.m. the next day, and essentially B Company represented a composite platoon; and the APCs were vulnerable to ambush from RPG and recoilless-rifle teams. The only ‘fresh’ companies at Townsend’s disposal were C Company of 6 RAR and D Company of 5 RAR.

  Corporal Robin Jones of B Company was part of the element that moved down the newly discovered escape route for about 1000 metres. The track had obviously been used by the enemy to withdraw from the battle. As they advanced, they came across about eight fresh graves and signs of a rapid withdrawal. They continued following the track, which took them in a northerly direction to the western arm of Suoi Mon River. Jones had been ordered to go no further and turned back and headed back to the battle site. Sergeant Jim Myles of A Company was also sent forward, to investigate one of the withdrawal tracks to the east. It was apparent that a very large enemy force had moved off and had subsequently broken into smaller groups, making it extremely difficult for Myles to follow up. He and his men followed the track to Suoi Mon River, where it swung north. Like Jones, he was to go no further and retu
rned to the main battlefield area.6

  By now it was mid-afternoon and Corporal Rod Armstrong, also from A Company, was keen for a shave, but his gear had been left back at Nui Dat and they had only brought out their basic webbing. So he searched a number of Viet Cong packs in search of a razor blade. He found ‘a couple of razor blades (French – you could tell by the wrapping), and it was just my luck: they were blunt. I wanted a drink, as our resupply had not come, so I opened up one of their bottles, and it had grass in it. I opened another one, and it had grass in it too. I never found out why they had grass in them.’7

  Likely close by was Private Bernie Wesiak of Armstrong’s company, who was burying an enemy soldier. ‘A Kiwi soldier [one of Captain Morrie Stanley’s men] and myself were ordered to dig a grave and bury a VC body we had found. After we dug the grave we found it was too short. I was reaching for the shovel to lengthen the grave when the Kiwi soldier said, “Don’t bother.” He then jumped on the legs until they fitted. I shuddered but carried on with the burial because I didn’t want to display any weakness in front of the Kiwi.’8 Private Alan Parr recalled seeing something similar that made him sick to his stomach. An Australian had just finished burying a body in a shallow grave but one of the legs was ‘sticking up from the knee, so he was hacking at it with a machete to get it in the grave’.9

  Back on the main battlefield site, Private Bill Akell and others of D Company, 6 RAR were in the midst of the slaughter burying the dead. The signaller recalled that ‘you lift them, and you’ve got the brains pouring out the back of the head . . . I mean, it was grim stuff, it really was.’10 He also recalled that the graves were extremely shallow as all the Australians had to work with were their entrenching tools, ‘so there wasn’t six-foot graves, they were only very shallow, but at least we buried the dead that were there . . . Artillery does a terrible thing to the human body and quite honestly there were bits and pieces of bodies all over the place. And even today, I still think about picking up the odd arm and throwing it into the hole . . . There was this, and I’ll never forget it, what I would call a young kid – he probably looked about 15 or 16. He was a Viet Cong, and there was only half of him – the bottom half was missing from just below the ribs down – and he was just lying there, and I’ll never forget that image until the day I die.’11