In To Long Tan, Ian McNeill advances several military and political aims that the VC may have had as they prepared for the battle: to recover the two liberated villages of Long Phuoc and Long Tan; to inflict casualties on the Australians and encourage the Australian public to demand their recall from Vietnam; and to reconnect the revolutionary forces with the people.9 These are no doubt broadly correct, although one could quibble about particular aspects. It is doubtful, for example, whether by August 1966 the Australians had in fact ‘broken’ the connection between the revolutionary forces and the people in Phuoc Tuy. But perhaps there were other political aims. We may not know precisely what combination of military, political and diplomatic purposes each of these battles was intended to serve, nor the weight given to each factor, until the archives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, commonly known as North Vietnam), the National Liberation Front (NLF), and the Provisional Revolutionary Government are open to examination. We can, however, speculate.
To return to the example of the battle of Long Tan, it is a fact seldom acknowledged that the battle took place in the middle of an election campaign in the Republic of Vietnam (the South). And this was not just any election campaign. It was a campaign for the election of a National Constituent Assembly which was to draw up a new constitution and electoral laws for a democratic South Vietnam. The election was a major step by the South towards establishing its political legitimacy. As such, it cut across everything the NLF – a communist-led coalition of nationalist and communist individuals and groups opposed to government of the Republic of Vietnam – and the government of the DRV stood for. From mid-July 1966, the NLF and the DRV mounted a campaign throughout South Vietnam of steadily increasing violence, intimidation and propaganda against candidates for the election, polling stations, voters and government officials. Electors were warned not to participate under pain of death. The battle of Long Tan unfolded three weeks before polling day, and underscored the power of the NLF and DRV to carry through with their threats.
As the battle in the rubber plantation at Long Tan ended, a new psychological and propaganda struggle for the way the battle was to be perceived began in the villages of Phuoc Tuy. Almost immediately, NLF supporters in the province claimed the battle had been a defeat for the Australians. Two weeks before polling day, Radio Hanoi and Radio Peking broadcast lurid accounts of the battle claiming an overwhelming victory for PAVN forces.10 This psychological struggle was a part of the battle that the NLF and DRV seem to have unreservedly won, for there was no comparable Australian psychological operations effort. The battle for the Vietnamese people’s political allegiance in this regard – the much-vaunted ‘hearts and minds’ – was never contested. Although their doctrine for counter-revolutionary warfare explicitly stated that psychological warfare played a ‘vital role’ in counter-insurgency, the Australians deployed to Vietnam without any such capability.11 A psychological warfare capability only gradually built up within 1ATF, based on scratch groups of enthusiastic amateurs with little or no training, equipment pulled together from wherever it could be found, and with poor support from within the Task Force. It was not until April 1970, four years into the war, that a properly staffed and resourced 1st Australian Psychological Operations Unit was created, and even then it seemed to be an afterthought.
The scale of the psychological warfare effort on the other side and its rapid deployment suggest that, for the enemy, the political aims of the battle were at least as important as the military objectives.12 Yet if the battle of Long Tan was an enemy attempt to adversely influence the vote for the National Constituent Assembly on 11 September 1966, it failed. Throughout the Republic of Vietnam, over 80 per cent of registered voters turned out to vote despite 210 VC-conducted anti-election incidents. In Phuoc Tuy Province, the turnout was even higher: 89.4 per cent of the province’s 36 700 voters cast their ballot in the election.13
While the enemy’s aims in some of the landmark battles remain unclear, in others these aims can be linked to political or diplomatic developments. The battles of ‘mini-Tet’ in May 1968 were timed to maximise the DRV bargaining position at the beginning of the Paris Peace talks. The battle of Binh Ba on 6–7 June 1969 was linked closely to the meeting of US President Richard Nixon and President Nguyen Van Thieu of the Republic of Vietnam at Midway Island on 8 June 1969. Similarly, the battle of Nui Le on 20–22 September 1971 was connected with the Republic of Vietnam presidential election less than two weeks later. Although specific political or diplomatic outcomes may or may not have been achieved through these battles, the socialist revolution survived in the South, despite allied efforts, to ultimately achieve victory.
At a meeting in Hanoi on 25 April 1975, Colonel Harry Summers, chief negotiator for a US delegation, was in conversation with Colonel Tu, his opposite number from the DRV. ‘You know you never defeated us on the battlefield’, said Summers. Tu replied ‘That may be so, but it is also irrelevant’.14 Military defeat at the hands of the American or Australian forces did not matter. What was necessary, but never fully achieved by the United States and its allies, was the political defeat of the enemy.
Beyond the prevailing misconceptions of the true nature of combat operations for Australians in Vietnam, other myths persist. There is no doubt, for example, that the VC had a well-merited reputation for excellence in jungle warfare throughout South Vietnam. The US Army and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) were rarely able to find the enemy in their search-and-destroy operations unless the enemy decided to ambush or attack isolated allied units. VC/PAVN ambushes, in particular, regularly inflicted heavy casualties on allied forces before the enemy broke contact and slipped away to fight another day. But again, this was not the pattern in Phuoc Tuy Province. A projection of this experience onto Australian servicemen in Vietnam is not at all accurate.
Through its operations in the Malayan Emergency and Confrontation, especially in North Borneo, the Australian Army had developed considerable experience in counter-insurgency warfare. It had developed high levels of skill at small group patrolling and ambushing at platoon, half-platoon and section levels. In Vietnam, it quickly applied these skills. Soon after the establishment of the 1ATF base at Nui Dat, reconnaissance, fighting and ambush patrols were deployed, and an intensive program of operations involving patrolling and ambushing was maintained until the withdrawal of the Task Force in late 1971. Of the 3909 Australian contacts in Phuoc Tuy, about one third (1300) were planned ambushes and another third were patrol encounters. Such ambushes involved Australians lying in wait for a group of enemy to enter a pre-selected ‘killing ground’. At the optimum moment the ambush was sprung by bursts of machine-gun and rifle fire, and most often the detonation of claymore mines. Ambushes were highly effective ways of contacting the enemy because they conferred on the Australian patrol the benefits of having selected and prepared the ground. This enabled mines to be positioned, machine guns to be sited to achieve maximum effect, flanks to be protected, camouflage checked and orders issued. In prepared Australian ambushes, patrols saw the enemy and opened fire first in 96 per cent of contacts. Opening fire first not only achieved surprise, it confered significant advantages in lethality. In Australian ambushes, for every friendly soldier who was killed or wounded, there were ten enemy casualties.
The VC/PAVN in Phouc Tuy were much less successful at ambushing than the Australians. Such enemy ambushes were conducted on only 103 occasions, ten times less often than Australian patrols mounted. Not only did such ambushes occur less often, when they were executed they were less effective. Despite having the advantages of having selected and prepared ground, for every one VC/PAVN casualty suffered in their own ambushes, there were only 2.7 Australian casualties.15 The ‘ambush battle’ in Phuoc Tuy Province was not a success for the VC/PAVN.
There were several reasons for this outcome. First, VC/PAVN troops lacked the cross-country navigation skills possessed by Australian patrols. Using map and compass, the Australians moved through the jungle withou
t relying on the network of tracks that criss-crossed it. The VC/PAVN, however, tended to depend upon these marked routes. They knew the track system well and used it to move swiftly between their jungle bases, but sometimes they were over-confident and moved along these tracks while talking and with weapons slung. Although the track network provided a means of rapid movement to the enemy, it also presented ideal opportunities for ambush. Australian patrols seldom used the tracks and were therefore much more difficult to ambush. Second, Australian patrols were highly skilled at what was called ‘bush craft’ – the techniques of silently moving through the jungle, stopping to listen and observe, and maintaining high levels of security through the use of sentries and scouts. Third, whereas VC/PAVN units had few opportunities to practise their marksmanship skills, the Australians had regular practice. Through good bush-craft, excellent tactical drills, sound marksmanship, high levels of self-discipline and effective junior leadership – all of which were the results of thorough training – the troops of 1ATF out-matched the VC/PAVN in this important counter-insurgency skill.
Patrol contacts, which made up one third of all Australian contacts in Phouc Tuy, occurred when a moving Australian patrol bumped into a moving VC/PAVN patrol and a fire-fight ensued. Unlike ambushes, in patrol encounters neither side had selected the ground in advance, and to that extent they represent a form of contact in which the ground played little part and the contest was determined by the battle skills, resources and determination of the two sides. Of these contacts, the Australians saw the enemy and opened fire first in 78 per cent of cases.16 Once again, 1ATF patrols reaped the benefits of most often initiating the contact: for every Australian casualty in such contacts there were nine enemy casualties. In the remaining 22 per cent of cases the enemy fired first, but even then they regularly failed to maximise this advantage: for every enemy casualty in patrol encounters where the Australians were caught unawares, there were only 1.4 casualties from 1ATF. The cause of this imbalance was, once again, the superior bush-craft of the 1ATF patrols.
A third enduring myth concerning the Australian experience in Vietnam – or rather another inappropriate imposition of the wider American experience on to the Australians in Phuoc Tuy Province – was the idea that the VC ruled the night. The VC/ PAVN certainly dominated the province in the night hours before the arrival of 1ATF in May 1966, but over subsequent years this nocturnal superiority was wrestled away. Although the enemy used the hours of darkness to redeploy and resupply its forces unseen, the most significant night-time activity was the penetration of the villages of the province. Until late 1968 the VC/ PAVN had virtually unimpeded night-time access to all villages and towns for food collection, intelligence gathering, taxation, recruitment, proselytising and socialising.
Australian doctrine for counter-revolutionary warfare recognised the importance of isolating the insurgents physically and psychologically from the population.17 It advocated that this process should begin early in the struggle. Deficiencies or vulnerabilities in the insurgent organisation were to be identified and exploited. One of these vulnerabilities was the insurgents’ reliance upon access to the villages for food. By cutting off VC/PAVN access, the Australians knew that they could bring pressure on the large enemy forces without engaging them in direct battle. Most enemy penetrations into villages occurred at night when, under cover of darkness, enemy patrols could cross the open rice paddies and enter the villages without being seen and prevented by counter-insurgent forces. Soon after their arrival, Australian units therefore began to increase their ambush patrols close to the civilian settlements that gave support to the VC. In 1968, 1ATF initiated 123 successful ambushes within 2.5 kilometres of Phuoc Tuy villages. This figure fell to 113 in 1969 due to Australian ‘out of province’ operations, but rose again to 132 in 1970, indicating the steadily increasing pressure that 1ATF applied.18
By itself, 1ATF never had enough troops to clamp a permanent military cordon around all the villages of Phuoc Tuy Province. Inevitably there would be gaps in any protective screen that the Australians attempted to establish. The building of the illfated barrier minefield was an attempt to overcome this deficiency. In any case, providing security around the villages did not become the top priority for 1ATF until General Creighton Abrams, Commander, United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, implemented a pacification strategy in April 1969. Abram’s plan elevated the security of the Vietnamese people to top priority, reversing the policies set earlier by General William Westmoreland (in which providing security was third priority after bringing the enemy’s main force elements to battle and training South Vietnamese forces). From April 1969, the Australians increased their efforts to secure the villages of Phuoc Tuy against enemy penetration. Intensive ambushing around village perimeters was implemented and the training of ARVN and village militia forces was begun in earnest. While gaps might remain through which enemy patrols might enter villages, from mid-1969 the enemy was increasingly faced with having to fight their way into and out of the villages.
Considerable Australian effort was also put into training the local government forces of the province. With the exception of the Revolutionary Development Cadre, Province Reconnaissance Units, and some units of the Regional Force, in 1968 provincial militia forces were poorly trained, badly led and indifferently armed. These largely amateur soldiers were mostly based in the villages and hamlets of the province, and were expected to defend their villages against VC/PAVN penetrations. In 1968 and early 1969 most Phuoc Tuy villages lacked the barbed-wire fences, bunkers and compounds that might have enabled their militias to repel attempted enemy penetrations. They were incapable of putting much pressure on the battle-hardened enemy, even when they initiated contacts. They lacked the training to take advantage of a surprised enemy, and could quite often suffer more casualties than their adversaries in these exchanges. Not surprisingly, a ‘live and let live’ attitude developed in which village militias did not fire on the VC/PAVN if the VC/PAVN did not fire on them.
Throughout 1969, however, the Australians built bunkers and fences and trained these militias, particularly in those villages giving the strongest support to the insurgents. As well as defensive measures, training also emphasised offensive patrolling and ambushing. Gradually, this improved the confidence, combat performance and aggression of the militias. The net result was that the provincial militias stopped waiting in their bunkers for the enemy to initiate contacts and increasingly went out looking for the enemy around their villages, particularly at night. In 1969, slightly more than half of all contacts between the village militias and the VC/PAVN were initiated by the militias. By 1970 this had risen to 65 per cent, and in 1971 to 70 per cent. A gradual improvement in the combat performance of the militias was also evident in their loss ratios: in 1969, when the provincial militias initiated the contact, they achieved a casualty ratio of one villager for every 1.9 enemy casualties; by 1970 this had risen to one provincial soldier casualty for every 2.7 enemy casualties. By this stage the provincial militias were out-fighting the VC around their villages.19 While there were some notable tactical failures in these militia contacts, it is clear that they were making an increasingly aggressive and effective contribution to the security of the villages.
By these various means, the steady denial of the VC/PAVN night-time village penetrations produced a food crisis for the enemy that began in 1969 and extended until the end of 1971, when Australians troops withdrew from Vietnam. During this period, VC/PAVN night-time movement into villages was regularly interdicted by provincial militias and Australian patrols, while enemy movement between jungle bases was ambushed day or night. The loss of the freedom of entry to the villages forced the VC/PAVN into putting more and more effort into searching for food at the expense of conducting military operations. Enemy-initiated contacts throughout Phuoc Tuy steadily fell over the period from 1969 to the withdrawal of 1ATF in late 1971: in 1969 the enemy initiated 380 contacts in Phuoc Tuy; in 1970 these had declined to 223; and in 197
1 had sunk to 135.20 The enemy was losing control of the night. This is not the picture presented in Hollywood accounts of the war, and it is not the Vietnam of popular mythology – but it is the war fought by the Australian in Phuoc Tuy Province.
The last of the myths related to the Australian experience in Vietnam concerns the iconic small arms of that war: the AK47 and the M16. The enemy’s AK47 has over time taken on the lustre of a ‘super weapon’, one that is widely thought to have been far superior to its allied equivalent, the M16. A typical example is this glowing testimonial from a US Army officer, Colonel David Hackworth. Hackworth relates that, after jumping into a hole where a bulldozer had just unearthed an AK47 that had been buried for ‘a year or so’, he shouted to his soldiers ‘Watch this guys, and I’ll show you how a real infantry weapon works’. He then cocked the weapon and immediately fired 30 rounds. ‘That was the kind of weapon our soldiers needed’, he later wrote, ‘not the confidence-sapping M-16’.21
There is no doubt that the AK47 was a robust and highly efficient weapon, capable of operating effectively even when exposed to the mud, dust and water of tropical Vietnam. But did it really so far surpass the M16 as Hackworth implies? It is true that when first introduced into service in the US Army, the M16 was prone to stoppages. High rates of breakdown in any weapon can be extremely confidence-sapping to those soldiers whose lives may depend on their reliability and performance. In this case, however, the explanation was relatively simple. Cleaning kits had not been issued, and training on the care and maintenance of the weapon had been neglected. These and other problems were quickly solved.
It was also true that the M16 was not as robust as the AK47. It was specifically designed to fit under a weight limit and as a consequence was not so tough or rugged. The Australian and American forces, however, had a much more efficient resupply system than did the VC/PAVN. Failed or broken M16s could be replaced with relative ease. But for the VC/PAVN, replacement of a failed AK47 required that a new weapon be shipped down the Ho Chi Minh trail, a long and difficult route even under the best conditions, and one that was also under frequent air attack. The replacement weapon might take months to get into the hands of a soldier in Phuoc Tuy Province. For the VC/PAVN a weapon of robust design, one that above all could survive the rigours of extended combat use in the jungle, was very important.
Anzac's Dirty Dozen Page 20
