John Hungerford Aussie Warrior photos and stories II
John W B Hungerford
April 3 at 11:55 PM
Special Operations Thai - Malaya Border
Part 2
Cave Systems, Base Camps, Wild Life & Navigation
In the mountains there were numerous cave systems, many used by Buddhist Monks during their periods of retreat.
Usually by the time we located these caves the Buddhist Monks had safely retreated.
Though I must say, that of all my experiences in life, one of the most frightening and terrifying was spending a night in one of these cave complexes.
Normally we bivouacked in a defensive position off a path, in the deep darkness of the jungle. So dark that you could not see your hand before your eyes. The only illumination was the phosphorus glow of the fallen debris on the jungle floor. To navigate to the night sentry posts it was necessary to erect ‘string lines’ along narrow paths established by sweeping the debris along the ‘string line’.
I quickly put aside the notion that the enemy’ had special powers that allowed them to see in the dark as were propagated by the writers who attempted to explain away the failings of the British and Australian Military Command to anticipate the rapid advance of the Japanese Forces down the Malaya Peninsular during WWII.
However after nights of camping soaking wet and cold on the ground under the cover of your ‘hoochie’, the idea of sleeping in a dry, warm, secure cave complex is very appealing.
So on the occasion, towards the end of a day of ‘slogging’ through the hostile jungle environment, coming across what appears to be a secure and warm network of caves set aside a gentle clear mountain stream, that could only be approached by wading up the stream. A Cave complex that offered a clear view of any approaching ‘enemy’, a magnificent defensive position, hidden from view, with a dry interior, cathedral like and space for a platoon of weary soldiers to comfortably camp for the night.
Our Platoon Commander and Section Commanders were in agreement with ‘the troops’ that this was the ideal bivouac location.
The drawbacks we did not realise until the darkness of the night.
In such caves each sound is magnified and echoes in an eerie manner and where we to be engaged in gunfire the percussion would have been deafening.
But worse close to a running stream, the gentle rustle of the waters sounded very much like the movement of a Brigade of Communist Terrorists moving int position to lay siege to the cave.
There was no warm dry sleep for a very young inexperienced soldier.
When dawn broke, I swore that I would never spend a night in a cave again.
Putting to one side the rigours of carrying out ‘Special Operations’ in the mountains and valleys of a tropical jungle forest, advancing cautiously along the ridges, with forward scouts advancing in a leap frog fashion. In the military it is called ‘fire and movement,' while one scout moves forward, the second scout props in a safe position to provide covering fire if necessary. Slow, tedious and requiring tense concentration, always searching, scanning the horizon, looking for the slightest unusual movement in the undergrowth calculating “… from what location would a likely ambush be set, where would they have the best line of fire, where is the best spot to take cover…”
Following were the remainder of the section, the platoon, the remainder of the company usually in single file, the further down the line the slower the progress, carrying up to seven days rations, their SLR (Self Loading Rifles), Bren guns (machine gun) or Owen guns, ammunition and bedding. In the day wet with sweat from exertion in the tropical sun and at night sleeping on a thin groundsheet, under a hastily erected hoochie, wet from the tropical rain of each afternoon.
Wild Life
What ever those passing terrors, the tropical forest mountains of the Malays Peninsular were spectacular.
Though so were the leeches and the scorpions.
The leeches, as many of the jungle paths were narrow and the undergrowth was wet and thick it was necessary to progress in ragged single file, with a lead or point section rotating on the hour.
Initially, as the forward scouts slowly advanced there was no sign of the leeches, but leeches are seekers of warmth and the smell of blood. As the remainder of the column slowly inched forward, so did the leeches, literally standing vertical, in their hundreds, swaying from side to side, waiting to attach themselves to passing legs.
At each break it became necessary to check your body for clinging leeches that had managed to penetrate gaps between boots, socks and trouser legs and detach their blood bloated bodies.
The scorpions, particularly along the high ridges at night bivouacs. These foot long (140 cm) arachnids, sought shelter in our hoochies at night. The main saving grace being that they were too large to hide away in your clothing.
There was other wild life in the mountainous jungle forests. Tigers prowled at night, taking one hapless Kiwi soldier from his hoochie. Though they were not confined to the Northern jungles, there were regular reports in the English language newspaper, The Straits Times, of tigers taking early morning rubber tappers as prey. One of our patrols encountered a tiger on a jungle path. The tiger did not survive.
Monkeys, as we sought to, in silence, push through the giant buttressed trees of the jungle forest, the almost unseen monkeys, hidden in the tree canopy, warned all of our presence with their mocking, laughing chatter as they observed and followed our progress through the humid tropical heat.
Elephants, they were the ghosts of the jungle. I had always imagined that the large Elephants would be loud and noisy as they crashed through the vegetation.
I only encountered one heard. They were silent and majestic as they emerged and disappeared through the mist of the morning.
Navigation
Our operations were meant to be on the Malaya side of the Thai - Malaya border region. However without the sophisticated navigational tools of today, we relied on map and compass. In an area where visibility, topological features and the high tin content within the ground made it extremely difficult to enable accurate compass bearings for triangulation, for small patrol groups, it was, at times, impossible to know if we were in Malaya or Thailand.
It was not unusual for a patrol to become ‘lost’ for a day or two.
We did have one soldier who for some time was in my section. In Terendak Camp barracks slept in the bed adjoining mine, but whose name I cannot remember, he was a studious note taker, with ambitions to become a novelist.
He became ‘lost’ while on field operations in the region for near a month. When he returned he claimed that he had been captured by the Communist Terrorists and had managed to escape.
I do not think the military authorises believed him as he was swiftly deployed back to Australia with no ‘goodbyes’.
Base Camps
After moving into an area of operations a temporary Base Camp was established from which Platoon or Section groups carried out small scale ambush, search or clearing operations. Sometimes overnight or up to two or three days.
I was always amazed as to how quickly the Headquarters folk transformed these bases into comfortable, almost semi-permanent encampments using machetes, string and the short lengths of tie rope we carried in our back packs.
Shallow defensive fire pits were quickly dug, but few slept on the ground. Tables, benches and beds were constructed from the abundant bamboo.
…. continued
1. JWBH3Apr2020_1 At the sharp end 4 Pl B Coy Border Operations Base camp in the jungle 1963
4 Pl B Coy 'hoochies' in a rubber plantation near Sik, Kedah State, Malaysia 1963 on Special Operations.
2. JWBH3Apr2020_2 4 Pl B Coy In a rubber plantation, near Sik, Kedah State Malaysia 1963 On Special Operations.
3. JWBH3Apr2020_3 Member of 4 Pl B Coy catching up on News after resupply while on Special Operations near Sik Kedah State Malaysia 1963.
4. JWBH3Apr2020_4 4 Pl B Coy In a rubber plantation, near Sik, Kedah State Malaysia 1963 On Special Operations.
5. JWBH3Apr2020_5 At the sharp end - 4 Pl B Coy Border Operations Malaya Base camp in the jungle 1963.
6. JWBH3Apr2020_6 At the sharp end 4 Pl B Coy Border Operations Malaya Peninsular 1963 Base camp in the jungle Pte John (Jack) Hungerfords section.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
John W B Hungerford
April 5 at 8:40 PM
Special Operations Thai - Malaya Border.
Part 4
Leave in Penang
One of the great ‘highlights ’ of being on Special Operation on the Northern Borders of the Malaya Peninsular was a few days, ‘mid-operations’ leave in Penang, the Pearl of the Orient.
The most culturally diverse city on the Malaya Peninsular, a great former British Colonial trading hub off the Malacca Straits.
A city with the remnants of the British Empire, British Colonial buildings, Chinese Shophouses, Mosques, a large Tamil Indian population, culturally diverse, Multi Cultural and Multi Lingual, active night life, a visit to Penang was highly desired by Australian Service personnel based in Malacca.
The journey from our temporary barracks in Kroh was via the back of a troop carrying truck with canvas covers, necessary for a climate where the tropical rainfall was frequent.
It was a two or three hour trip through the lush green countryside.
Then a short passenger ferry voyage from the mainland to Penang Island.
A choice of accomodation either in a British Army Recreation facility or a ‘recommended’ privately owned hotel.
My group, I recall, Ken (Brasso) Matherson and ‘Bluey’ McGurkin chose a ‘recommended’ hotel. A small hotel on the North Eastern side of the Island, with a steep frontage and access to a semi-secluded beach front adjoining the Malacca Straits, where we could sit in the evening and drink Tiger beer and the Colonial plantation managers choice of Gin and Tonic, to ward off malaria, with a sea breeze from the Straits giving relief from the oppressive humid tropical heat.
The hotel also served exotic ‘seafood cocktails’ on their menu.
Though at some point we did have a little regret our choice as a number of our fellow Company members later reported on their romantic liaisons with the group of British Army Nurses who were also spending their leave time at the British Recreational facility.
However from our base we were able to explore the sites of the Island by taxi.
The rambling Buddhist Snake Temple where the venomous Pit Vipers are on display, in a tranquillised state, sharing space with temple visitors.
The temple, built in the 1850s, during the period of British Colonial rule and the snakes were thought to be disciples of the Buddhist monk who founded the temple as during his lifetime, he gave shelter to and rescued snakes.
At the entrance of the temple there’s a big incense burner which fills the main prayer hall with ‘smoke’: the incense that wafts through, acts as a tranquilliser, making them appear motionless, even asleep.
Despite the assurances of the monks who were acting as hosts and guides, I did forgo the invitation to handle and caress the snakes. I had grown up in Central Queensland where all snakes except, perhaps, the Green tree snake, were to be treated as being deadly and were much better off dead.
The Penang Hill Teahouse with views overlooking the entire Island, where we could sit and be served on tables with white linen cloth in the high cooler air.
I suppose that we imagined we were Colonial Rubber plantation managers.
That was, in fact, the vision of many of my comrades commenting of the short leave in Penang. As one of our comrades remarked on leave in Penang “… we arrived like Plantation Managers and left like Rubber tappers…”
For me Penang Island was alluring. Its images were much closer to my preconceived ideas of the Orient than of Singapore or other Malaya Peninsular cities.
So much so that along with a small group of my fellow platoon members, we again visited Penang for our annual leave.
An overnight train trip from Tampin, the Malaysian trains were slow on narrow gage tracks, spectacular changing jungle scenery by day, tiring by night.
The military met the cost of annual leave travel by train, as a sitting passenger, to a destination on the Malaya Peninsular. Some folk took the slow train trip to Bangkok.
The ‘trick’ was to have your sitting seat upgraded to sleeping by approaching the conductor as soon as the train left the station, paying $20.00 Malay (around AU $3.00).
I suspect that the conductor kept the fare.
But the true ‘Aussie Digger Abroad on leave’ highlight was the return trip to Kroh at the end of our stay in Penang.
We were to rendezvous at a small parking area adjacent to the ferry on the mainland.
For those familiar with travel, there is always a small bar adjacent to a ferry.
Our transport vehicle was a little late arriving and a small bar adjacent to a carpark and a ferry is a great place of refuge from the tropical heat for young soldiers waiting.
Drinks were ordered and as most observers know, one drink usually leads to another.
When the vehicle arrives it is explained that it broke down along the way but all is well now and fourteen or so, happy young soldiers accompanied by a happy but serious sergeant clamber aboard.
The sergeant being the most senior sits in the cabin with the driver.
However, contrary to assurances that the vehicle is in good working order, it will not start.
With the delay, a happy soldier discovers that he can slide over the top of the cabin and quickly duck into the bar for a beer and ‘nip’ around to the back of the truck and clamber aboard again, unnoticed by the serious sergeant who is distracted by the lack of focus in his happiness.
As time progresses emboldened by the non observance and with the mirth of happy young soldiers returning from leave the remainder of the passengers repeat this exercise on multiple occasions.
By the time the vehicle in in good order and ready to depart the bar owner is very happy as his trading results for the day are exceptional.
By the completion two or three hour journey back to the barracks a significant number of the passengers, including myself, are displaying symptoms of being ‘tired and emotional’ as a result of their leave experience and lacking ‘fitness for duty’.
I do recall that the Commanding Officer spoke to me personally and reminded me that I was to be on the parade ground, fit for duty, packed and ready to commence operational duties at 0600 hours the following morning or there would be severe consequences.
I heeded his warning and devised a plan to ensure that I would be on the parade ground at 0600 hours.
This involved packing my gear, bedding, retrieving my weapon and ammunition from the armoury and sleeping on the parade ground.
The following morning, in the dawn light, severely feeling the effects of the previous day, there i was, a little wet and soggy but ready for duty.
We departed the parade ground troop transport vehicles to the start point of the second half of our border duties in a tropical downpour.
That night after ‘slogging’ through the very muddy jungle I discovered that I had neglected to pack a change of clothing.
I would be in the same trousers, shirt, socks and underwear, in the tropical jungle for the next two weeks or more…
End
John (Jack) Hungerford
Thursday, 2 April 2020
7. JWBH5Apr2020_1 Contemporary photograph of the Snake Temple, Penang, Malaysia.
8. JWBH5Apr2020_2 The interior has changed little Contemporary photograph of the Snake Temple, Penang, Malaysia.
9. JWBH5Apr2020_3 The interior has changed little Contemporary photograph of the Snake Temple, Penang, Malaysia.
10. JWBH5Apr2020_4 The interior has changed little Contemporary photograph of the Snake Temple, Penang, Malaysia.
11. JWBH5Apr2020_5 Leave pass issued to Pte. Boyce Moffat B Coy 2RAR on mid-operation leave. Special Operations Thai - Malaya Border Malaya Peninsular 1962.
Paludrine was an anti Malaria medication to be taken daily by soldiers posted to the Malaya Peninsular.
12. JWBH5Apr2020_6 B Coy 2RAR members Boyce Moffat and another at temporary barracks in Kroh, Perak State, Northern Malaysia. Mid-way through Special Operations on the Thai-Malaya border 1962.
13. JWBH5Apr2020_7 B Coy 2RAR platoon member Boyce Moffat returning from Thai - Malaya Special Operations Border mid-operation leave Penang 1963. looking every bit the B Company comment on leave in Penang “We started leave in Penang imagining we were Rubber Plantation managers, we finished as Rubber Tappers…”
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
John W B Hungerford
April 4 at 8:39 PM
Special Operations Thai - Malaya Border. 1963
Part 3
Illegal Tin Mines & Re-supply
While we did not encounter any Communist Terrorists we did encounter many illegal tin mines.
Usually by the time we discovered the mine, the occupants had, wisely, moved on to other quarters. Except on one occasion, which is worthy of a seperate paragraph in the chronicles of a young soldier abroad.
The ventures of these tin miners, hidden in the mountains and valleys of the Northern Malaya Peninsular was and remain a source of wonderment and ingenuity.
They were often preceded by what appeared to be kilometres of bamboo viaducts, weaving through the valleys to provide water to sluice the alluvial tin from the hills.
The heavy engines to drive the pressure hoses had to be dismantled and hand carried through the narrow, steep and winding jungle tracks, then reassembled.
The tin was then packed into canvas bags and carried for processing to establishments such as Royal Selangor Pewter or similar.
It was my encounter with one of the occupants of one of these illegal mining ventures that alerted me to the notion that after the completion of my military service, I would not be a suitable candidate to pursue a career as a policeman.
In the mid morning our, while on patrol, our platoon swept into a small illegal mining complex and detained a gentleman who had not been alerted to our presence.
In Malaya it was necessary for folk to carry with them identity and permit papers.
The papers possessed by this gentleman were such that it was obvious that they had not been renewed for a couple of years or more.
He was not armed, cooperative, laughed at our jokes, though we could speak only basic Bahasa Malay and no Chinese and he not English.
As was more often the case than not in the hills where radios depended largely on ‘line of sight’ transmission our young platoon commander was unable to seek advice on what to do with the gentleman.
While he was certainly an illegal tin miner it was highly unlikely that he was a Communist Terrorist.
After some thought, our platoon Commander noted that we had passed a small Kampong, with a Police Station some five kilometres distant.
He decided that the platoon should secure the area and dispatch the said detainee with a detachment of three led by 21 year old Private Jack Hungerford to the Police Station and ‘turn him over’ to the Malayan Police Authorities.
Off we proceed, in good spirits.
Three young soldiers armed with SLR’s, wth back packs full of rations, bedding, water bottles and basic pouches full of ammunition, escorting a fit tin miner, dressed in shorts and shirt and an intimate knowledge of the terrain.
It quickly became obvious that our detainee was much more agile than his escorts.
His walking pace was much quicker than his escorts.
Though we were armed with deadly weapons and he not our training and experience had ingrained into our practice that you never pointed a weapon, loaded or unloaded, at a target unless you intended to fire at it.
I explained to him, I suppose without too much menace, in English that he may or may not have understood, that it was necessary for him to proceed at a much slower pace.
He smiled with enthusiasm, and agreed.
This process was repeated on a number of occasions during the 5 kilometre journey, until we reached the edge of the Kampong, where there were a few of the local inhabitants within the vicinity.
He greeted them with enthusiasm, and suddenly, as we progressed to the Police Station the number and size of the greeting party became quite large.
The greetings became more effusive.
It was obvious that our detainee was a well known personality in the Kampong, and then, he merged into the crowd.
I think, wishing us well and thanking us for safely escorting him back to the Kampong.
So how do three young, battle hardened soldiers respond to the situation?
They return to the Platoon Commander and inform him that they delivered the detainee to the Police Station. That the Police knew him well and returned him to the community.
That night, in my hoochie I thought “Jack, I do not think you are cut out to be a policeman…”
I would hope that our ex-detainee enjoyed a lifetime of telling the story of his daring escape from the might of the Australian military.
Resupply
When venturing into ‘the bush’ for operations for prolonged periods of up to three weeks it is necessary to have a regular resupply of rations.
Generally, with weapons, ammunition, bedding, machete, digging tool and a change of clothing, it is only possible to back pack a weeks supply of ration packs.
The packs were so heavy that for the first two days progress was very slow. You dreaded the ‘saddle up’ order after every break.
On most occasions resupply was from designated locations.
But for at least one, our location was so remote and difficult that an ‘air drop’ was necessary.
Air drop supplies were more common than helicopter resupplies in the early 1960s. Helicopter resupplies required a ‘hacking and slashing’ a landing pad in a jungle opening.
This happened rarely as in the early 1960s the design and technology for helicopter movement for use in troop movement and supply was not developed to the point that they could used on an industrial scale.
The Helicopters of the British Air Force did not possess the flexibility, the mobility or the firepower of the American Bell UH-1 Iroquois (Huey) which was later used extensively during the Vietnam War for just those purposes.
The ‘air drop’ of which I hold the most delightful memories are of B Company being resupplied by parachute drop.
We were around a fortnight into the operation and we were to be supplied with fresh rations, steak and vegetables.
The British ration packs were, in my opinion, far superior to the American ration packs of the Vietnam war.
Each pack contained a small can of either Irish Stew or sausages, a can opener, a small block of chocolate, tube of condensed milk, a block of Cheddar cheese (bung hole), a packet of rice, packets (small) tea, coffee and condiments and packets of dry biscuits. Also issued was small pack of hexamine heating blocks with a burner.
Rations that are excellent for short periods, but no long term substitute for the fresh food required to maintain maximum health and fitness.
The drop was to be in a smallish jungle clearing and at the given hour a marker balloon was inflated.
The supply plane flew over, smoke flares were ignited, soldiers were readied to retrieve the parachuted crates.
The supply pallets were pushed from the belly of the plane, however one parachute failed to open.
The crate crash skipped into the opening, bouncing along leaving a trail of steaks scattered along the ground.
These were quickly retrieved and washed.
Our quick thinking Company Commander radioed authorities informing them that our steaks had been destroyed in the air drop and requested additional supplies.
Within hours another parachute air drop occurred.
That night we enjoyed a double ration of barbecue steak.
Continued ...
14. JWBH4Apr2020_1 Airdrop resupply. Supplies being parachuted from aircraft Border Operations 4 Platoon B Coy 1963.
15. JWBH4Apr2020_2 Members of 4 Pl B Coy in Jungle near Sik, Kedah State Malaysia hacking (clearing) a a helipad for resupply during Special Operations 1963.
16. JWBH4Apr2020_3 Two members of 4 Pl B Coy preparing to work on clearing a helipad for resupply while on Special Operations near Sik Kedah State Malaysia 1963.
17. JWBH4Apr2020_4 Sargent Hardy, Platoon Sgt. 4 Pl B Coy near British Army helicopter before Special Operations, near Sik, Kedah State Malaysia 1963.
18. JWBH4Apr2020_5 Royal Air Force resupplying B Coy @RAR Special Operations Thai Malaya Border. Photograph by Boyce Moffat.
19. JWBH4Apr2020_6 Member of 4 Pl B Coy Guarding the entrance of a camouflaged mine discovered during Special Operations, near Sik Kedah State Malaysia 1963.
20. JWBH4Apr2020_7 "Ringo' member of 4 Pl B Coy at entrance to camouflaged mine in the jungle near Sik Kedah State Malaysia discovered during Special Operations 1963.
21. JWBH4Apr2020_8 At the sharp end 4 Pl B Coy preparing for Airdrop resupply. Thai-Malaya Border Operations 1963.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
April 2 at 6:14 PM
Special Operations Thai - Malaya Border.
Part 1
By the early 1960s the Malaya Emergency was over. However it was believed that the remnants of the Chen Peng Communist Insurgency had retreated to the rugged mountain areas of the Thai - Malaya border, in the States of Kedah and Perak.
At times both 2RAR and 3RAR were deployed to the districts of Sik and Kroh in pursuit of the remnants of the ‘Communist Terrorists’ who were thought to have retreated into the mountains.
During my time on the Malaya Peninsular we were involved in ‘Special Operations’ around the towns of Sik and another Kampong named Kroh in the Northern Region of Kedah. Sparely populated, mountainous areas with heavily forested jungle vegetation interspersed with small areas of rice paddies, abandon during the period of ‘The Emergency’.
Though the areas were also the home of a significant number if indigenous or original Malay people. Orang Ashi or ‘original people’ in a Malaya language translation or ‘Bush people’ in an Australian vernacular interpretation.
For me, the feeling of amazement and wonder, on my first encounter as s forward scout, emerging from a thick jungle forest track into an unexpected clearing with a family group of ‘bush people’.
Each of us momentarily staring at the other in wonderment and then each, with bare acknowledgement of our presence proceeding along our respective ways.
They into the safety of the jungle and me forward through the clearing.
Perhaps each of us never to encounter our different cultures again.
These mountainous jungle forests were also the home to Asian Elephants, Tigers, monkeys and the largest leeches and scorpions I have ever encountered.
However to be deployed on these border operations were highly desirable.
It was the opportunity to become a ‘real soldier’ carrying live ammunition, performing the active role of protecting our democracy and preventing ‘the reds’ from advancing downwards to Australia. It was a variation from the endless ‘training exercises’ and forced route marches aimed at keeping the troops fit and ready for action.
And being deployed on such a ‘Special Operation’ for 30 days was regarded as a ‘War like’ activity and those participating qualified for a War Service Loan on return to Australia.
Now in retrospect, while the time on the Border Operations provided some challenging moments and they did provide a solid grounding which later made deployment to Veitnam less daunting, we were fortunate not to encounter any ‘Communist Terrorists’, nor they us.
We did though encounter illegal Tin miners and Smugglers and there were real casualties.
One young Platoon Commander Died of Wounds when he accidentally discharged his Owen Gun during a particularly difficult assent of a steep and slippery hill. Another was seriously injured by a falling branch from an ancient tree and a hapless Kiwi soldier dragged from his hoochie in the middle of the night by a tiger.
In a region rich with deposits of tin and multitudes of cave complexes it was an ideal environment for those who did not want to be found or just wanted to find solitude in the tropical mountain forests.
Being rich in tin deposits, over terrain covered by ancient tropical forests navigation by map and compass was extremely difficult.
For those familiar with map reading, the closer the contour lines on the map the steeper the incline. The contour line on maps of Northern Malaysia are very close together.
The dense forest, combined with the magnetic force of the deposits of tin also made it very difficult to accurately view high points and then to take accurate compass bearings for triangulation and thus accurately determination your location on the ground.
It was quite common for a section or even a platoon to become ‘lost’ on the ground for a day or two.
However for the individual ‘baggy arse foot slogger’ the closeness of the contour lines became most evident when you were allocated to the daily ‘water party’ at days end after traversing the jungle ridges for the best part of the day.
The ‘water party’ of around a half section set off with the platoons empty water bottles, descending the steep ridge to the mountain stream below, filled them and then returned to camp laden with full bottles.
Night ambushes were set along the narrow mountain ridge paths. On some occasions the ridges were so steep it was necessary to rope yourself to a tree to prevent rolling on to the jungle path below.
Continued….
22. JWBH2Apr2020_1 4 Pl B Coy in jungle near Sik, Kedah State, Malaysia, 1963 on ;Special Operations' Private John ( Jack ) Hungerford, bearded, Second right, front row.
23. JWBH2Apr2020_2 Corporal Jim (Blah) Broderick Section Commander 4 Pl B Coy in jungle near Sik Kedah State, Malaysia 1963 on Special Operations.
24. JWBH2Apr2020_3 'Charlie' ? Member of 4 Pl B Coy on Special Operations, near Sik, Kedah State, Malaysia 1963.
25. JWBH2Apr2020_4 Orders Group 4 Pl B Coy near Sik, Kedah State Malaysia 1963 on Special Operations. At the orders group the Section Commander passed down daily orders to the troops and most vitally the daily 'pass word'.
26. JWBH2Apr2020_5 Members of 4 Pl B Coy 'Bluey' McGlerkin and other on Special Operations in Jungle near Sik Kedah State Malaysia 1963.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
March 18 at 7:04 PM
Malaya Posting (1962 - 1965), Sporting Life
As the Malayan Emergency was coming to an end in the late 1950s, Australian service personnel in Malaya were posted to what is generally known as Garrison Duties.
That is an expectation of minor confrontation with the enemy. Though there was within the Malaya peninsular, with a population of ethnic Malays, Chinese and Indians, there were simmering underlying racial tensions, which culminated in major race riots in Singapore & Malaya in the early 1960s. During this period Australian Service personnel were confined to barracks to avoid being drawn into the conflict. I went on leave to Singapore in the weeks immediately after these riots and the atmosphere on the streets was electric with tension. I believed that a small incident could easily escalate again into major confrontation again.
This aside, garrison duties concentrated heavily on field training in an orderly and organised manner. Garrison duties involved a fairly standard work routine, so far as it is possible in military life. Work hours were in the main 0800 hours to 1630 hours, Monday to Friday, except where required for guard duty or other planned field training operations.
For the Commanders of a battalion strength force consisting of around 1500 very fit and active single males in a foreign country, with a differing racial and cultural mix this can lead to difficulties.
One of the military organisation solutions to this potential set of problems is to ensure that every opportunity is provided for ‘the troops‘ to be engaged in activities which are beneficial to both the overall military organisation and the individual soldier, as it has been since time immoral that any group of young soldiers, left to their own devices will gravitate towards the nearest beer hall or bar and then to the closest brothel.
To this end, you will find that the world over military garrisons are, and always have been surrounded by bars and brothels.
Terendak Camp in Malacca Malaya, in the 1960s was no exception.
To provide an alternative to this activity the Australian Military organisation encouraged involvement in sporting ventures.
Each Wednesday afternoon was devoted to organised sport and involvement in weekend sporting activities was also encouraged.
As I came from a family who were heavily engaged in sporting activities, in particular athletics, Dad had been a champion cyclist prior to WWII and was a runner-up in the prestigious Stawell Gift foot race, Mum was a horse-riding enthusiast, my sisters were champion Queensland athletes in their fields. In my Slade School days I had been a keen member of the school junior Cricket, Athletics and Rugby Union football teams. This was, for me, not a diversion but an extension of family life.
In retrospect my athletic prowess was probably propelled more by enthusiasm than by natural ability. I was a plodder rather than a sprinter, so I became a middle to long distance runner and a fearsome and skilled tackler on the football field rather than a dashing winger. Nevertheless, I earned my place as a representative of the Battalion in both 2RAR and 3RAR, and our Sporting Personnel United (SPU) Cricket team, made up of folk not considered good enough or graceful enough to make the ‘A‘ Team managed to win the Area premiership for two years in a row.
My sporting enthusiasm won me two trophies which I still cherish. The B. Company ‘Most improved player‘ for Rugby in B Coy 2RAR 1962 - 1963 and the Individual Athletic Championships Second trophy for the Malaya Area in 1964.
My enthusiasm for sporting activity was enough for me to be sent to a special Athletics Training course, run by the British Army, in Ipoh, near the Cameron Highlands in Central Malaya.
An area of great natural beauty.
I was also also surprised to learn many years after I left the Army and after his death, from his daughter, the B. Coy 2RAR Company Sargent Major, Warrant Officer II, Clarence (Curley) Lamb had recommended me as a suitable candidate to attend the Army First Class Certificate of Education Course.
A two week course studying the then Victorian Intermediate Certificate subjects of Arithmetic, English Expression, History of Australia and the Pacific and History of the British Empire which I passed with ease. Attending and passing this course greatly restored my confidence and self worth to a level that enabled me to undertake further studies after leaving the Army, a Batchelor of Social Work from the University of Queensland and eventually a Post Graduate University Degree in Business Management. That Australian Military Forces Certificate of Education still hangs on the wall of my office as the most significant of all my education achievements.
To that I owe a great debt of gratitude to the B. Company Football Team coach, WOII Curley Lamb, a crusty Korean War Veteran and career soldier of great integrity, who, on reflection, without interference or showing favour guided me, an innocent and naive country lad, through many of the pitfalls of youth and encouraged my potential for personal development.
The following photographs are of my Athletic and Rugby endeavours in 2RAR and 3RAR in Malaya between 1962 and 1965.
27. JWBH18Mar2020_1 Some members of B Coy 3RAR Football team at NAAFI after training session Terendak Camp Malacca Malaya 1964 Pte John (Jack) Hungerford standing back to Camera.
28. JWBH18Mar2020_2 B Coy 2RAR Football Team celebrating after winning battalion trophy 1962. Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 3rd left front (head) Coach CSM Curley Lamb on chair front row.
29. JWBH18Mar2020_3 B Coy 3RAR football team celebrating a win Terendak Camp Malacca Malaya 1964 Pte John (Jack) Hungerford at back on shoulders.
30. JWBH18Mar2020_4 B Company 3RAR 1963 Malacca Malaya with inter Company Pendant Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4th left front row.
31. JWBH18Mar2020_5 Most Improved Player B Coy 2RAR Rugby football Team Malacca Malaya 1962-63.
32. JWBH18Mar2020_6 B Coy 2RAR Cross Country Team, Malacca Malaya 1962 wins Malaya Area Trophy Jack Hungerford 2nd left front row.
33. JWBH18Mar2020_7 Malaya Area Athletic Championships programme 1964
34. JWBH18Mar2020_8 Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR in the Malaya Area Championships Terendak August 1964 came second.
35. JWBH18Mar2020_9 Trophy won by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford B Coy 3RAR Runner Up 880 yards Malaya Area Athletic Championships 1964.
36. JWBH18Mar2020_10 B Coy 3RAR. 1963:64 Malacca Malaya Athletics team with Battalion trophy. Pte John ( Jack) Hungerford 2nd left front row.
37. JWBH18Mar2020_11 3RAR Athletics Team 1965.
38. JWBH18Mar2020_12 At the Start Malaya Area Championships Cross Country Race with teams from all Malaya Area Units. Pte John (Jack) Hungerford was a member of the team.
39. JWBH18Mar2020_13 Pte John (Jack) Hungerford Leading the field Malaya Area Cross Country Championships 1964 The 3RAR team won.
40. JWBH18Mar2020_14 Pipped at the Post John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR just beaten by a Brit, race should have been just another 20 yards longer Malaya Area Championships Cross Country race.
41. JWBH18Mar2020_15 B Coy 2RAR Tug of War Team Malacca Malaya 1962 winning with technique over strength.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
March 18 at 12:08 AM
Recruit & Infantry Training
Kapooka & Ingleburn Feb - August 1962
After leaving school, Slade School, Warwick, where I performed badly in Queensland Junior. Passed only three subjects, agriculture, english and physiology. I worked at various jobs around Biloela. A temporary telegram boy with the PMG. I did not realise that in the public service in those days temporary actually meant permeant so I resigned from that job for a permeant job as a shop assistant at Banks Brothers Hardware in Biloela, which was temporary.
In my spare time I joined the Australian Army Citizens Military Force (CMF) where I enjoyed the outdoor bivouacs and the fellowship of fellow reservists at the drill hall. This inspired me to apply to join the regular army, and after a trip to Brisbane to undergo a battery of tests and medical examinations, I was accepted to undergo recruit training.
In early February 1962, I left the farm at Valentine Plains for training. It was a familiar trail that we had followed in our term journeys to Slade School during our boarding school days.
Mum and Dad drove me into town to meet the bus and wave farewell. The farewell was not emotional, a handshake with Dad and perhaps a short hug from Mum. These were not the days of emotional tearful farewells.
It is only now, some 50 years later I realise the anguish they must have felt.
For Dad his dreams that I would take over the farm would have been severely dented, though he never gave up, He never gave a hint of his inner feelings, he would have been guided by mum. I recall how proud he was when I choose to do the Agricultural course at Slade School, when I loved and was good at Chemistry. He never put any barriers in my way. As I was under 21 both he and Mum would have had to give parental consent to my joining the Army.
For Mum it was probably a combination of relief and sadness. She always said that she did not want her children to live out their life on a farm.
From the time I left to join the Army until the last weeks before she died my mother and I exchanged letters every week. Not letters of deep expressions of feeling, no discussions of political discourse, just facts about what was happening around us. Mum kept me informed, in stream of consciousness letters about her world, farm activities, about my brother and sisters, friends, farm activities, the CWA. I wrote in a similar manner, facts without context, “... went on leave to Singapore... bartered for a seat in a taxi... across the causeway at Johor Bahru at dusk, stayed at Sandes Soldiers Home, then back to Malacca, we are on operations somewhere in North Malaya next week...”
After the farewell a trip on the familiar route to Gladstone on Snow Hills postal bus. Up over the Great Dividing Range, with frequent stops to drop off the mail to the various Cattle Stations, once he got to the top of the range Snow would switch off the motor and allow the bus to glide down the hills to save fuel. Then an overnight trip to Brisbane on the Sunlander train.
Then, a trip to the Army recruit Office and the ragged group were ‘sworn in’ and I became 16632 Private John W. Hungerford. A soldier never forgets his/her number. Followed by my first night in the Enoggera Army barracks before a train trip to Kapooka, just outside Wagga Wagga by train. I was intrigued that the NSW Railway carriages still had porcelain foot warmers.
Then my first day in real military training. A trip to the quartermaster store where recruits were issued with their uniforms, packs, webbing in the evening and told to have their gear assembled for parade at 0700 hours next morning.
The next three months were full of action. Reveille at 0600 hours, parade at 0700 hours, Breakfast, drill, all night picket duty, weapons training, weapons firing on the rifle range, gym training, forced marches, fitness tests, hut inspections, sport on Wednesday afternoons. No leave for six weeks. The fear of all recruits was ‘back squadding’ if they failed a progressive test.
After six weeks a long weekend leave in Sydney or Melbourne. The Army authorities encouraged leave with family members. No air travel for Queensland or WA recruits. I choose to go off to Melbourne to stay with Aunty Beth & Uncle Viv.
Uncle Viv and Uncle Paul took me to a St Kilda home game at Moorabbin. It was bitterly cold and windy. I wore my army greatcoat. It was a time when our service personnel could and were encouraged to wear their uniform, on leave, with pride and be given respect. The Vietnam experience for service personnel changed that, and the people who strive to pervert the Muslim religion with their misunderstanding of jehad have made it almost impossible to happen again.
St Kilda was playing South Melbourne. St Kilda received a thrashing, but Viv & Paul were hopeful to the end.
Back to Kapooka and more training as we edged towards graduation.
I teamed up with a fellow Queenslander, Glen Hayes (now Gillard). He had joined about a week after me. Glen and I served together in Malaya, our paths passed again in Vietnam and after 50 years we still keep in touch. Glen has pursued a career as an artist since his discharge from the army.
However, suddenly the recruit training was over, then the inevitable graduation parade and Corps assignment.
We were marched single file into a room of Officers and Non Commissioned Officers to a table. The exchange went thus
“Private Hungerford” “Sir” (with salute) “Infantry Corps, Ingleburn ” “Sir” A salute and my course for life was set.
Then to Inglewood and exposure to the great city of Sydney.
Glen & I , and our fellow trainees, visited Taronga Park Zoo, Kings Cross, the Cabramatta Hotel, Went to the local Liverpool Dance Hall and met girls who wrote to us regularly when we were posted to Malaya.
Military life in Ingleburn was full of Bush exercises, Route marches, weapon training, we had to strip and reassemble a Self Loading Rifle (SLR) blindfolded in less than 60 seconds.
The Regimental Sargent Major was a dour Scotsman, most likely recruited from the British Military.
He was the bane of recruits on night picket duty, as they roamed the grounds of the Ingleburn barracks during the early hours of the morning. They became bored and looked to activities to relieve their boredom.
In the grounds there was a WWII Ack-Ack anti-aircraft Gun, in working order. Their imagination wild occasionally a Infantry trainee mounted the gun and twirling the operating wheels and levers took aim at the imaginary aircraft. On one occasion one of my comrades was performing such an operation, at around 0200 hours or so, when the RSM approached him from the rear.
“Have you managed to bring any down, laddie” said the RSM, in his dour Scottish accent and with his swagger (pacing) stick firmly tucked under his arm, in correct military posture.
‘No sir” replied my quaking comrade.
“ Well then, you had better keep trying until you bring one down, Lad” said the RSM and marched off into the night.
Then graduation and posting as a Private soldier to 2RAR in Malaya.
The following photographs are from that period.
42. JWBH18Mar2020_II_1 In the Barracks 1RTB Kapooka 1962 inside the recruits Nissan hut. Pte Jack Hungerford at end of bed.
43. JWBH18Mar2020_II_2 Recruit training 1RTB Kapooka 1962 Pte John (Jack) Hungerford showing off his rifle drill skills.
44. JWBH18Mar2020_II_3 Recruit training 1RTB Kapooka 1962 Pte John (Jack) Hungerford showing off his rifle drill skills for the camera.
45. JWBH18Mar2020_II_4 Recruit training 1RTB Kapooka 1962 Pte John (Jack) Hungerford ‘at ease’
46. JWBH18Mar2020_II_5 Recruit training 1RTB Kapooka 1962 Pte John (Jack) Hungerford showing off his rifle drill skills for the camera.
47. JWBH18Mar2020_II_6 Recruit training 1RTB Kapooka 1962 recruit’s housing Nissan Huts.
48. JWBH18Mar2020_II_7 Recruit training 1RTB Kapooka 1962 a warning to wayward recruits in Pte Jack Hungerfords training platoon.
49. JWBH18Mar2020_II_8 Recruit training 1RTB Kapooka 1962 Pte Jack Hungerfords Recruit platoon on parade in Wagga Wagga.
50. JWBH18Mar2020_II_9 Recruit training 1RTB Kapooka 1962 Pte Jack Hungerfords Recruit platoon on parade in Wagga Wagga after completing recruit training. Pte Jack Hungerford second left.
51. JWBH18Mar2020_II_10 Infantry Training Ingleburn 1962 Pte Jack Hungerford in platoon lines.
52. JWBH18Mar2020_II_11 Infantry Training Ingleburn 1962 members of Pte Jack Hungerford platoon Al Glen (Gillard) Dick Shep & Mick.
53. JWBH18Mar2020_II_12 Infantry Training Ingleburn 1962 Fellow Infantry Corps trainees.
54. JWBH18Mar2020_II_13 Infantry Training Ingleburn 1962 Fellow Infantry Corps trainees.
55. JWBH18Mar2020_II_14 Infantry Training Ingleburn 1962 Sydney Harbour from the ferry on a trip to Taronga Park Zoo while on leave.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
John W B Hungerford added 14 new photos to the album: View from the back of a troop truck Malaya 1962 - 1965.
February 24, 2013
Photo 10 Malayan Fishermen from Kampong near Terendak Camp Malacca Malaya. Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 - 1965Views from the back of a troop truck Malaya 1962 - 1965 During my posting to the Malaya Peninsular from 1962 to 1965 with both 2RAR and 3RAR, we went on field operations all over Malaya. Seemingly exotic names as Terengganu, Kelantan, Kota Bharu, Johor, Selangor, Ipoh, Sik, Johor, as well as Malacca were visited for field operations. Malaya in the 1960’s was a rugged country with extensive wilderness jungle covered areas. These areas were generally suitable for military training as they were not heavily populated, therefore lessened the potential for clashes with the local population. To reach these areas soldiers were transported in the backs of trucks fitted with canvas canopies. Each truck carried around 16 soldiers in full field kit. Backpacks, rifles, rations and the like. To reach the exercise areas it was necessary to travel through the extensive and surprisingly good Malayan road network. As private soldiers on the back of the truck we were able, almost like tourists, view the kaleidoscope of life that was the Malaya Peninsular in the 1960’s, Rubber plantations, Kampongs,Rice paddies, the diverse population. The following photographs are some of the scenes of Malaya in the 1960’s, taken from the back of a truck by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford B Coy 2RAR & 3RAR.
56. JWBH13Mar2020_1 Photo 1 View from the back of a troop truck of a Malayan Kampong Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1964.
57. JWBH13Mar2020_2 Photo 2 View from the back of a troop truck of a dwelling in Malayan Kampong Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 – 1965.
58. JWBH13Mar2020_3 Photo 3 View from the back of a troop truck of a Malayan Kampong Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 – 1965.
59. JWBH13Mar2020_4 Photo 4 View from the back of a troop truck of a bike rider and street vendor in a Malayan Kampong Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 – 1965.
60. JWBH13Mar2020_5 Photo 5 View from the back of a troop truck of a rice paddy and a Malayan Kampong Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 – 1965.
61. JWBH13Mar2020_6 Photo 6 View from the back of a troop truck of a substantial domestic Malayan dwelling Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 – 1965.
62. JWBH13Mar2020_7 Photo 7 View from the back of a troop truck of a Malayan Kampong Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 – 1965.
63. JWBH13Mar2020_8 Photo 8 View from the back of a troop truck of a Malayan Kampong and rice paddy Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 – 1965.
64. JWBH13Mar2020_9 Photo 9 View from the back of a troop truck of a Malayan Rubber plantation Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 – 1965.
65. JWBH13Mar2020_10 Off the Coast of Malacca, 1963 or 1964 on coast watch duties. Interaction with local Malayan fishermen, during the period of confrontation with the Indonesion Government. The photo was probably taken from our machine gun post as we looked westward waiting for the expected Indonesion invasion.
66. JWBH13Mar2020_11 Photo 11 View from the back of a troop truck of a Malaysian guard at entrance to Terendak Camp Malacca Malaya Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 – 1965.
67. JWBH13Mar2020_12 Photo 12 Malayan Rubber Tapper Malaya Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 - 1965 while on field training exercises.
68. JWBH13Mar2020_13 Photo 13 Short man with water Buffalo Malacca Malaya Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 - 1965 while on field training exercises.
69. JWBH13Mar2020_14 Photo 14 Alter Table and offerings at a Buddhist Temple Malacca Malaya Photo by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4Pl B Coy 3RAR 1963 - 1965 while on field training exercise.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
70. JWBH3Mar2020_1 Photo 1 Malaysian Airlines Fokker Friendship aircraft that flew Pte. John ( Jack) Hungerford from Malacca to Singapore in 1965 on the first leg of his trip home after a two and a half year tour of Malaya with the Australian Army.
The photo associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
John W B Hungerford added 3 new photos to the album: Our Sacred Sites Malaya Peninsular.
February 28, 2013
Our Sacred sites in Malaya During WWII Australian soldiers from 8th Division were involved in a number of major battles with the invading Japanese military forces. One of the battles, known as ‘The Battle of Muar’ which took place near Gemas around 50 kilometers from Malacca. Major action took place at the now demolished Parit Sulong Bridge. Australian forces inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese and held up their advance for a number of days, though ultimately they were overrun by superior force. Many were captured and massacred on the orders of the Japanese High Command. The Japanese also executed many of the Malay community who they suspected offered assistance to the Australian forces During my tour ensured that I visited these battle sites to pay my respects to the Australian and Indian Army soldiers and the members of the Malay community who gave up their lives to protect our way of life and freedom. These photographs were taken by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford at those battle sites during his tour of duty 1962 - 1965 based at Malacca Malaya. Lest we Forget.
71. JWBH28Feb2020_1 Photo 1 Parit Sulong Bridge scene of a major battle between Australian Diggers of 8 Division and Japanese invaders in 1942 (WWII).
72. JWBH28Feb2020_2 Photo 2 Memorial plaque erected by the 2/19 Battalion A.I.F. at Parit Sulong Bridge scene of a battle between Australian Diggers of 8 Division and Japanese invaders in 1942 (WWII).
73. JWBH28Feb2020_3 Photo 3 Gemas railway station. Gemas was the scene of a major battle between Australian Diggers of 8 Division and Japanese invaders in 1942 (WWII) visited by Pte John (Jack) Hungerford during his tour of Duty Malacca Malaya 1962 – 1965.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
February 23
During our posting to the Malaya Peninsular 1962 -1965, with 4 Platoon B Company 2RAR then 3RAR, I reckon we carried out 'training' exercises the length and breadth of the Peninsular.
Route Marches, All night marches, they all involved 'Hurry up and wait'. That is Hurry to get ready on time and wait until the logistics were organised. These photos are from the 'hurry up and wait' periods. With the additional photograph by Boyce Moffat, a fellow platoon member, of the platoon 'resting' either at the end of or in the middle of a gruelling 'field training' exercise.
74. JWBH23Feb2020_1 Hurry up and wait. Members of 4 Platoon B Coy. 2RAR in Barracks, near dawn, 'waiting' to commence a Field Training exercise.
75. JWBH23Feb2020_2 Members of 4 Platoon B Coy. 2RAR 'resting' during a Field Training exercise. Malaya Peninsular 1962 – 1963.
76. JWBH23Feb2020_3 Members of 4 Platoon B Coy. 2RAR 'resting' during a Field Training exercise. Malaya Peninsular 1962 – 1963.
77. JWBH23Feb2020_4 Members of 4 Platoon B Coy. 2RAR 'resting' during a Field Training exercise. Malaya Peninsular 1962 – 1963.
78. JWBH23Feb2020_5 Members of 4 Platoon B Coy. 2RAR 'resting' during a Field Training exercise. Malaya Peninsular 1962 - 1963. A route march with full equipment? Photo by Boyce Moffatt fellow platoon member.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
John W B Hungerford
February 18
Saigon Guard
Part 3
For us as soldiers this was manifest in the difference in perception between the Saigon Australian contingent and the troops from the field on guard. This difference came into stark relief during ‘after work hours’ when the permanent occupants returned to their quarters at night. Resentment at the midnight curfew was a prime complaint. The guards were in the main 21- year-old national servicemen. Not trained in the art of managing resentful, alcohol affected, badgering and bullying persons returning to their quarters. But in the main they handled the situation with some submissive diplomacy. However, there was at least one character who managed to get up their collective noses. Now I must say that in my military career as a junior NCO in charge of an overnight guard contingent, there were only two occasions that could have resulted in total disaster.
The first was in Enoggera Barracks when a soldier from the visiting Yorkshire Regiment got into an altercation with the taxi driver bringing him back to the barracks. His behaviour led us to install him in the Guard House cells for the remainder of the night. We were assertive but polite, gave him a gentle ‘pat down’ search and encouraged him to sleep it off until the Yorkshire Regiment Guard Sergeant could collect him in the morning. Overnight, he became increasingly agitated and aggressive. He defecated and smeared the contents over the cell walls. In the morning, as the guard commander, I suggested quite strongly that we would provide him with the necessary equipment to clean the cell. He refused, so we cleaned him and the cell with the fire hose. When the Guard Sergeant arrived to escort him back to his barracks, he gave him a less than gentle body search and located, hidden in his clothing, a very dangerous ‘flick knife’. The next time I saw that soldier was during a subsequent joint training exercise at Shoalwater Bay. He was marching at ‘double time’ with the battalion’s ‘punishment’ platoon at the end of the day after a gruelling day of Field Operation exercises.
The second was as Saigon Guard Commander.
As mentioned previously, in Saigon in 1967, at midnight, there was a curfew. After that hour only authorised personnel were allowed to enter or leave the building. Being infantry soldiers the folk in my section well understood that on occasions circumstances prevented occupants, with the best of intentions, from managing to return to quarters by midnight.
(Sometimes those romantic liaisons with the barmaid from the local Saigon bar extended longer than expected)
But they did expect folk to be at least a little apologetic or contrite. However, each morning at roll call they complained about the behaviour of one particular character who usually returned at around 0200 hours. He was, I recall, a Corporal Dental Technician.
In terms of Infantry Military etiquette you can act like a drunken, abusive, idiot moron on one occasion and be excused as ‘having a hard time’ and be forgiven, on the second time it becomes a little annoying, by the third or fourth occasion the sentiment is that ‘this idiot is a whacko arsehole.’
By the end of the week the troops were quite over being informed of their poor heritage, that they were only ‘private’ soldiers, “Who should be charged for questioning a superior officer” and more.
I was outraged that this fellow appeared to behave in this fashion, in particular abusing ‘my troops’ who were, in reality, turning a blind eye to his continual abuse of the curfew rules at their personal risk.
On the day before we were due to return to Nui Dat I resolved that:
“If no one else would do something about it, I would!”
If necessary, I would remain on guard all night and confront him when he returned to quarters. I started on guard at around 2200 hours, by 0200 hours I was well ready when a slightly inebriated figure appeared.
“Who are you?” I enquire.
“Corporal!“ he replied.
“You have been arriving at this late hour, drunk and abusing my soldiers, pulling rank and being aggressive.” I launched into my prepared tirade.
“Not me,” he replied.
“Do not lie to me. You are a disgrace.” I responded.
“Who do you think you are?” he said, adding that we were an ignorant bunch with very poor parenting heritage.
“Well that may be, but you are spending the night in the cells. We have called in the (American) Military Police.”
He protested his innocence some more but we were hearing none of it…and off he went to the cells. After he was cleared away one of the troops said to me:
“Well, done, but wrong man.”
Our last day began with transport through Saigon to Ton Son Nhut Airport where we learned that the aircraft that was to return us to Nui Dat was postponed with mechanical problems and there would be a ‘short’ delay. We could wait in the airport PX. It was a semi-luxurious bar and restaurant space, air conditioned, with a ground level view of aircraft movement and access to duty free spirits. The hours pleasantly rolled by and eventually we were informed that the flight had been delayed until the following morning. We would be housed overnight in the American Military Transition Accommodation on the Ton Son Nhut Airport site. I mention this as this accommodation gave a first-hand insight into the industrial nature of the American Military given that it was transitional accommodation — clinical, stark, impersonal bunk beds stacked three or four high. American military personnel were confined to the barracks overnight.
Some of the members of our guard contingent were keen to explore the street life in the airport precinct and after a discussion with the American Master Sergeant, who appeared to be in charge of the American service personnel, it was agreed that Australians were independent and not under the command of the US Military so it was up to me.
“Make sure you are back by 2200 hours,” I told them.
The American Master Sergeant and I shared the contents of a bottle of duty free PX acquired scotch, probably rambling through the prominent subjects of the day until very late into the night. I do remember that I departed when he wanted to open my bottle of vodka. I often wonder if the reason our guard contingent was able to wander so freely at night through the civilian precinct surrounding the airport, at that stage of the Vietnam war, was because the Vietnamese Nationalists were in the final stages of planning for the Tet Offensive. And they did not wish to draw attention.
In less than 60 days of our Saigon guard assignment the city had moved from an atmosphere of false confidence to fear and terror.
However, oblivious of what was to come, the following morning with our sick bags at the ready our Saigon Guard contingent boarded our plane and returned to Field Operations in Nui Dat.
John (Jack) Hungerford Monday, 17 February 2020
79. JWBH18Feb2020_1 Saigon Street Scenes, 1967 Sometimes the residents of the Australian contingent building arrived later than the curfew hour as they were delayed by ‘romantic liaisons’ at one of the many Saigon Bars or nightclubs.
80. JWBH18Feb2020_2 Saigon Street Scene 1967.
81. JWBH18Feb2020_3 Saigon Street Scenes, 1967 Sometimes the residents of the Australian contingent building arrived later than the curfew hour as they were delayed by ‘romantic liaisons’ at one of the many Saigon Bars or nightclubs.
82. JWBH18Feb2020_4 Tan Son Nhut Airport, Saigon 1967.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
February 18
Saigon Guard
Part 2
As an exercise, Saigon Guard was straight forward. In presentable, Australian Army uniform, roster a section of soldiers to guard and check the identity pass of personnel entering the Australian contingent building. As there was a midnight curfew, only authorised military personnel could enter or leave from midnight until the lifting of the morning curfew.
The accommodation for the Australian contingent could be described as average to ordinary budget quality. Adequate. Services were intermittent with a string of complaints from permanent residents about power failures, lack of hot water in showers, poor quality coffee, rat infestation, the ‘Faulty Towers’ style of staff services. It is pretty clear that the Australian government did not want to be accused of having their civil servants housed in luxury accommodations in a war zone…but for the troops who had spent months in much less luxurious accommodation, the opportunity to experience the oriental city of Saigon was foremost.
Being mindful of the “buildings across the road," guard duties during the day were uneventful. Time passed quickly, cheerfully greeting the folk coming and going from the building. Night time duties were more of a challenge. The combination of boredom, mixed with the occasional confrontation as residents fuelled with the negative courage associated with the inhibited neurone pathways as a result of high octane fluid intake, returned to semi-comatose slumber before being woken by the ‘maids’ the following morning to pose the question “What did I do last night that everyone is looking at me strangely today? I must have had a good time.”
For the guard contingent it was a life of almost freedom. A morning roll call, guard roster for the day with at least one day free. In pairs we explored the city. Saigon was a capital city and while it was a military city the war was far away. It was in the months before the Tet Offensive. The military elite were convinced that they were ‘winning the war’.
There was an atmosphere of false confidence. If Vung Tau was an Oriental vision of France, the Americans were determined to make Saigon an Oriental version of America. The large American presence demanded American institutions to service American personnel. American style supermarkets filled with American consumables, a massive PX (Post Exchange) filled with duty free white goods, alcohol and spirits and tobacco, air-conditioned recreational venues for off duty service men and women with facilities for tape recording American music.
I spent the best part of a day in one of those facilities in a recording section transferring music from American records to my newly acquired, duty free, tape recorder to accompany my newly acquired duty free, top of the market play and record portable National radio…all from the vast American service PX.
Saigon was a city both at war and in transition from a traditional Oriental French colony to a “modern’ Western consumer society – white goods such as refrigerators, washing machines and electronic sound systems were, in civilian life, in very short supply. With an American services ration card, there was virtually unlimited access to these goods. With unlimited access to scarce commodities comes unlimited corruption. At the individual service member level, it could be described as ‘petty corruption’. Was it really wrong for a desk clerk in the U.S. Navy stationed in Saigon to use his or her rations card to purchase an unwanted bar refrigerator from the PX for $100 duty free and sell it to a street vendor around the corner 100 yards away for $200?
The flow from the PX to the street vendors was enormous and organised. Personnel entering the PX ran the gauntlet of ‘buyers’ with lists. Items were purchased and loaded onto pedal powered carriers for delivery. We later learned that the control systems were so poor that the Viet Cong were able to load their trucks on the wharf directly from the ships.
I must confess, after great discussion, that we gave a carton of cans of Coca Cola to our rickshaw driver in return for his guiding us around the streets of Saigon. Though he may have preferred American dollars as he immediately sold it to a street vendor for profit.
As a city of the world, Saigon was not a pretty, graceful city. Full of bustle, but gritty, with a pretence that the war was far away.
A divergence here from the tale as a member of B Company Saigon Guard contingent.
As I was researching the role of the American PX during the Vietnam war I happened across a website devoted to allowing ex-American Vietnam veterans to write about their PX experiences. Their stories contrasted the differing attitudes of the Australian and American military. Unlike the Australian military, Saigon was a major centre for short term leave for American personnel. When the opportunity arose, Australian personnel also took the opportunity to purchase duty free electronic equipment from PX stores. However, the Australian forces who were, in the main, Infantry soldiers, did not and were not permitted to take electronic entertainment devices such as transistor radios on operational duties.
The late 1960s saw the introduction of ‘boom boxes’, later known as ghetto blasters, to the market. They were available for sale at the PX stores. They were very popular with American service personnel, particularly those from black and Hispanic cultural backgrounds.
In the field, Australian troops who were experienced in jungle warfare, operational silence was a virtue. Orders were communicated by hand signal and whispers. In contrast, the American military relied on the vast industrial clout of heavy weaponry, air superiority and firepower. Operational silence appeared to be not necessary. Joint operations with the American military were a frightening experience.
I recall one field operation in the north of the Phuoc Tuy Province in an area where the Viet Minh had successfully ambushed a battalion of French forces. A vast, flat jungle plain suitable for armoured vehicles. I was hoping to find remnants of that battle and wondered how an entire battalion could have simply driven into such an ambush and the amount of detailed logistical planning must have gone into deploying a force and undetected set up the ambush.
On one night we established our defensive position adjacent to an American armoured unit, mainly Armoured Personnel Carriers. It was our practice to, at around 1600 hours, silently form a defensive position, put up our ‘hootchies’, cook an evening meal on hexamine stoves and post sentries and ‘close down’ as darkness fell for the night. It seemed from the noise coming from the American camp that they had just begun. The boom boxes rang out through the jungle.
Out of curiosity and the desire to meet an American, a group from our section approached their camp.
In 1967, throughout the United States of America, the drive for Civil Rights was at its peak. Most of the ‘other ranks’ in the unit were white Americans from Louisiana, Kentucky, I recall. They had a black officer. Their major grievance was that they were being forced to take orders from a black man. A very strong discussion followed, an argument in the middle of the Vietnam jungle, while on a field operation, about civil rights in America.
Another night to remember, triggered by a ‘boom box’ from the Saigon PX.
Cont…
83. JWBH18Feb2020ship_1 Saigon Waterfront 1967
84. JWBH18Feb2020ship_2 Saigon Street Scene 1967
85. JWBH18Feb2020ship_3 Saigon Street Scene 1967
86. JWBH18Feb2020ship_4 Saigon Street Scene 1967
87. JWBH18Feb2020ship_5 Saigon Street Scene 1967
88. JWBH18Feb2020ship_6 Saigon Street Scene 1967
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
February 17
Saigon Guard
I do not know how I came to be the Non-Commissioned Officer to be in command of a composite section of B Company Personnel assigned to the prestigious Saigon Guard for a week in Saigon but it was not an assignment I would complain about. It was a break from Field Operations to guard the Australian contingent of civilians and service personnel based in the capital city of South Vietnam.
Usually the NCO assigned to the task held the rank of Sergeant. It may have been that I was Acting Platoon Sergeant at the time.
The contingent was, as always, accompanied by a junior Commissioned Officer who was generally not sighted from arrival at the Quarters to time of departure back to Nui Dat. It was also unusual that one lowly ranked Corporal be assigned, as just prior a previous rotation, the Sergeant in charge had disgraced himself in a manner that led to his appearance before a military justice panel to account for his actions. I was warned of this in the briefing before departure from Nui Dat.
As it transpired, I knew this Sergeant, we had served together on the Malaya Peninsular. He was a Corporal then and I was a very young Private. He had a liking for a large intake of alcoholic beverage. He had been accused of “Being intoxicated while on duty…of firing his weapon into the upper windows of the building opposite the Australian contingent living quarters…” His defence was that they were Viet Cong spies reconnoitring the Australian contingent building.
In retrospect, with knowledge of hindsight, when viewing his actions it may be that his alleged crimes be separated into three categories — one and two, intoxicated whilst on duty and discharging a weapon – most likely guilty, three, assertions that they were Viet Cong spies reconnoitring the building — probably correct and he probably saved the Australian building from attack during the Tet Offensive.
This gives a little context to the environment into which a contingent of soldiers experiencing the day to day rigours of Field Operations and the “we are winning” comfort bubble of Saigon into which the B Company Saigon Guard contingent entered.
Cont…
89. JWBH17Feb2020_1 Guards View from the front of the Australian contingent accomodation Veitnam 1967.
90. JWBH17Feb2020_2 Guards View from the front of the Australian contingent accomodation Veitnam 1967.
91. JWBH17Feb2020_3 Street Scene Saigon, Veitnam 1967.
92. JWBH17Feb2020_4 Street Scene Saigon, Veitnam 1967
93. JWBH17Feb2020_5 Street Scene Saigon, Veitnam 1967
94. JWBH17Feb2020_6 Corporal John (Jack) Hungerford, Saigon Guard 1967
95. JWBH17Feb2020_7 Street Scene Saigon, Veitnam 1967
96. JWBH17Feb2020_8 Street Scene Saigon, Veitnam 1967
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
97. JWBH14Feb2020 Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 4 Pl B Coy 3RAR with Cpl Jim (Blah) Broderick in Sydney Bar at entrance to Terendak Camp Malacca Malaya 1963.
The photo associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
February 5
Field Operations B Coy. 2RAR Vietnam 1967 - 1968 (Part 2)
The transport too and from field operations was primarily by helicopter. The ‘Huey’ was used for movement into small landing zones such as rice paddies or jungle clearings. In all, B Company troops commenced involvement in ten field operations via Hueys, two in Chinook helicopters, two by Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) and one on foot.
The landings by Hueys were both the most exhilarating and vicarious . Each helicopter carried a section of around 7 men. They were designed for rapid landing and exit. The cargo section of the aircraft had no doors. Should they pitch from side to side, passengers were in danger of simply falling out. However, if they were to pitch from side to side, the probability would be that they would crash in any case.
To avoid enemy gunfire they were flown at almost treetop level over vast expanses of the jungle canopy and the picturesque network of rice paddies joined by threads of bullock cart tracks.
On this particular occasion, we were briefed the previous day in orders group. In the early morning, post dawn hours, we would be flown to a landing zone — abandoned rice paddies to the east of Xuyen Moc. 5 Platoon was to be the leading landing group. Upon landing, we were to move to the high ground (a small rise on the edge of the rice paddy, the rice paddy was on the edge of thick jungle vegetation) and to secure the ground against possible Viet Cong counter attack. A vital task.
Moving a full company into position requires a compliment of around 30 helicopters flying in line formation. There is no more than two or three helicopters that can be off loaded at a time. In reality, they barely land once on the ground. The seven passengers take barely 30 seconds to be offloaded. The soldiers with their full packs, weapons and ammunition scramble off, re-orient and run like blazes to their defensive positions. In this case, around 70 to 100 metres across the cleared paddy to the edge of the jungle.
In his description of the landing, Major Newman describes it thus
“As the (Battalion) came in a sniper on the edge of the landing zone attempted to engage elements of B company. The sniper was dealt with, with unknown results, by helicopter gun teams…the landing was accomplished smoothly, although the Battalion had some difficulty clearing the landing zone which was waist deep, flooded paddy. It moved quickly and was established in a defensive position by nightfall.
As a result of the action on this operation there was one (Australian) killed in action and one wounded in action.”
He goes on to list the U.S. and Viet Cong casualties and damage - For the U.S. one KIA, 7 WIA, 2 APCs destroyed and one damaged. For the Vietnamese Nationalists 37 KIA, one rifle captured, 171 bunkers and 12 tunnels destroyed.
Why only one rifle, which ended up in the hands of 5 Platoon members, captured? The bunkers and tunnels?
I had not realised the true extent until I read Major Newman’s report. 5 Platoon was the lead platoon, we encountered a camouflaged bundle of footwear fashioned from motor vehicle tyres, a rifle in the trunk of a hollow tree with a seething mass of weevil ridden rice and then a complex of fire pits and bunkers. The engineers (Sappers) were called forward and the company moved forward to secure the area and then moved on to its next objective.
This is where the memory becomes muddled. I was certain it was on another operation.
In all, during our time in Vietnam, we discovered, overran and destroyed five Viet Cong hidden emplacements or camps ‘in the bush’. They were disguised and camouflaged, giant jungle forest trees with ropes pulling their branches to hide gaps in the canopies. Hidden from view of the reconnoitring Bell helicopters.
However the landing, the flight from Nui Dat was normal, with the expectation of a normal ‘bush exercise’ landing. The previous night had hosted its normal tropical storm. There was a sense of exhilaration as the landscape rushed by as our helicopter skimmed across the treetops. We psychologically prepared as the landing zone came near. Then with no warning a cacophony of gunfire, no short bursts. In the near dawn light, the phosphorous tips of the bullets ‘floated’ through the air like a dazzling fireworks display and from my right, a stuttering stream directed towards the leading helicopter.
A surreal sensation, suspended with a stunning view, like a target in a sideshow game and realising that you could see only one in seven of those floating objects, that this was not a sideshow, that you would land and leap and run, that you had seven men, one with a machine gun, to get across the paddy into the edge of the clear ground, into the ‘safety’ of the jungle.
The noise of gunfire, the engines of helicopters was thunderous. Each soldier knew the drill. There was no “what do I do now?” It was just land, jump and run in the pointed direction. We jumped into a flooded paddy, around a foot of water, I pointed and shouted and ran. We had not expected the water, which slowed us down. Machine gunner Bill Gillham carefully progressed through the paddy. To my mind he was too slow. The entire battalion was relying on my section securing the high ground. The high ground would never be secure until that machine gun was in position. I yelled, I shouted, I swore, I implored as never before at Bill Gillham the machine gunner. I fell into a flooded ditch. We reached the edge of the paddy and formed a defensive semi-circle.
The length of time from the cacophony of fire to the formation of the defensive semi-circle would have taken no longer than ten minutes. Within an hour we had ‘moved on’.
Over the years I spent much time of thought and anguish over that landing.
“I should never have sworn, yelled, demanded Bill Gillham in that manner. He was a national serviceman, a conscript, he was doing his best. He could have been psychologically damaged forever…”
In 2010 at a platoon reunion, I gathered my courage and took Bill aside and apologised for my actions. He replied “Jack, you know that there was so much shit (gunfire, engine noise) going on that no-one could hear anyone shouting. I was just concentrating on getting to the edge of the paddy.”
In one way, I had wasted 43 years of worry and anguish. In the tension, the confusion, the danger of the moment, each of us had created our own individual reality.
On another operation, in this case one that commenced with a beach landing from a much larger Chinook helicopter, our platoon moved cautiously northward through ‘the bush’ parallel to the now infamous minefield from Dat Do to the southern beaches. Through rotation, my section was the lead or point section. We encountered a swift running, moderately wide (approximately ten metres), waist-deep stream. There was a crossing point that, from its appearance, had been in regular use by the Vietnamese folk who inhabited the countryside. In a hostile environment, crossing a stream is a situation of vulnerability.
The machine gunner, Bill Gillham, has to be moved into position to provide fire support should there be contact with opposing forces. As section commander, using silent hand signals, I was in the middle of this process when forward scout, Frank Kehoe yelled that I had ‘tripped a wire’. We had moved into a carefully laid network of grenades and mines. Fortunately, the tripped wire did not detonate the first of what was to be a series of explosions and the aftermath was not dramatic. The Sappers were called forward to clear the explosives. It took around an hour for them to arrive on the scene. Then the platoon moved around 50 metres downstream and crossed.
Though every time Frank retold the story, especially when wives and girlfriends were present, it became bigger, more dramatic, we became Super Diggers as we stood immobilised for hours, vulnerable to Viet Cong attack, holding the tripwire taut to prevent it from detonating while waiting for the sappers to disarm the vast field of grenades and explosives.
The reality was that we had moved on, moving downstream, crossing some 20 to 50 meters westward, continuing our progress through the jungle forest, following a compass bearing. (The canopy was so thick that the only way to navigate was by compass.)
The following morning we were to find why the crossing was so heavily booby trapped. We had continued slow progress until around 1600 hours to bivouac and establish a defensive position for the night. As darkness fell I heard a rooster crow in the not too far distance to our north west.
Having grown up on a farm in central Queensland, I was somewhat aware of the behavioural habits of roosters. “That is a domestic rooster,” I thought. “There should be no domestic roosters in the middle of this jungle. There must be human beings encamped nearby…and the only human beings likely to be encamped in this jungle are Viet Cong.”
When learning map reading, we were taught never to take compass bearings on moving lights or sounds as they are most likely inaccurate, so I took a compass bearing on the sound of the rooster crowing.
At the evening orders group I gently raised my theory with the leadership group though not with strong conviction. The following morning the rooster crowed again and again, with great conviction I argued that the rooster was nearby and not too far off our compass bearing, we should look.
Now, for those who have no experience of jungle warfare — moving from your compass bearing when advancing with a company of around 160 armed soldiers is fraught with great danger. Not from the enemy but from ‘friendly fire.’ There are three platoons, each advancing following their compass bearing. The ever vigilant forward scouts are taking every step with the expectation that the next image they will see, the next unexpected movement of vegetation will be a Viet Cong soldier intent on inflicting a fatal gunshot injury. Moving off your bearing has the real potential to create ‘contact’ with your closest friend from the next platoon.
However, the weight of my convictions convinced platoon commander Eric Pearson that we should investigate the crowing rooster and within a short distance of around 400 metres. The rooster led us to a very recently vacated, sizeable group of skilfully camouflaged Viet Cong dwellings. I searched the nests of the hens, which would have accompanied the rooster, and found one with an egg, which indicated that the occupants had vacated the previous day, most likely as the Chinook helicopters delivering a battalion of 2RAR soldiers to a beach landing descended.
Again, there was no delay as to our rear was a Battalion moving forward. The engineers, or as they were more colloquially referred to ‘The Tunnel Rats’ were called forward and we moved on in pursuit. Later in the day we came across the most exquisitely crafted, woven from the jungle vegetation, passive trap for small native, Vietnamese animals. It was circular and covered around 100 square metres in size. No more than 6 inches in height (150 mm), guiding the small animal into entrapment. I have often thought that the Vietnamese bushmen who designed and constructed this exquisite trap were most likely the same folk who guided us into the network of grenades and mines at the river crossing.
During this operation there were to follow two more notable incidents. The first being our encounter with a pregnant Viet Cong woman, of this encounter I wrote some five years ago. The second occurred towards the final days of the operation. It was towards the end of the day. The platoon had been ‘slogging through the bush’ since early morning. It had been a heavy day, wet with tropical rain, the ground was soggy. Preparation had begun to bed down for night bivouac.
Sentries were posted, soldiers were erecting their ‘hoochies’, digging shallow fire pits and heating their night rations on the small Hexamine stoves, when across the rice paddy some 200 metres away the sentry on picket observed two Viet Cong soldiers wandering by.
They were not aware of our presence, though just out of rifle range. It was the end of the day, darkness would soon be on us. It was not time to go chasing after wandering V.C. In circumstances such as this, what did you do? You call in artillery support.
You make radio contact and give the map reference of your target. The artillery folk then fire off a shell or a ‘shot’ allowing the forward observer to indicate adjustments needed for future shots.
Now it must also be noted that where the ground is flat, the tree canopy is thick and there are few high features. Sometimes the infantry soldiers on the ground are not exact in knowing their location or they simply give the artillery folk the incorrect map reference.
On this occasion the shot came over and skidded into the ground less than 20 metres from our lines.
“Up 200, up 2 fucken hundred!” yelled the radio operator.
We were fortunate, the ground was sodden, the trajectory of the shell from the Battery at the Horseshoe was west to east, there were only a couple of pieces of shrapnel that sprayed harmlessly around us. The next couple of shots were around the area of the previously wandering V.C. and the troops, almost oblivious to the near catastrophe, went on preparing their evening brew.
POST SCRIPT:
These are just a few of the ‘minor’ incidents that occurred involving the men of 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR during the first tour of Vietnam. There are many others, one emerging from the jungle canopy to a Viet Cong camp STRADDLED by a B52 bombing strike, left like an island, surrounded by obliterated trees. In the very middle of the camp, less than a metre from a hammock suspended between two trees the fin and half body of an unexploded 500 pound bomb or discovering a grenade factory in a bamboo hut on the bank of a jungle stream.
Such was the life of an infantry soldier on field operations in Vietnam.
In late January of 1968, I left Vietnam to complete the process of discharge from the military after six years of service. On the first operation after my departure, the Viet Cong launched their Tet Offensive. Operation Coburg had just commenced, 5 Platoon became engaged in one of the major Australian engagements in the Vietnam war. Their engagement is best summarised in the citation accompanying the awarding of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the highest military honour, under the British military awards, to a soldier from the ‘other ranks, other than the Victoria Cross.’
“On 27 January 1968, during Operation Coburn in Bien Hoa Province, 5th Platoon contacted twenty enemy and in the ensuing encounter the Platoon Commander was wounded. Sergeant Woods immediately took command of the platoon and succeeded in forcing the enemy to withdraw so that the casualties could be evacuated. The platoon had a further contact with fifteen enemy on 28 January 1968 and came under heavy automatic and rocket fire. Sergeant Woods aggressively led his platoon again forcing the enemy to withdraw leaving their dead and weapons behind.
On 2 February 1968, 5th Platoon was again given the task of assault platoon on an occupied enemy camp. When the 5th Platoon came under heavy fire from a group of enemy bunkers, Sergeant Woods organised the platoon to provide supporting fire and organised an assault with successfully overran the enemy group killing at least four of the enemy. As the assault continued the platoon again came under heavy machine gun and rocket fire from more enemy in bunkers. For two hours Sergeant Woods directed the fire of his platoon into the enemy position, personally engaging the enemy machine gun position with a M72 rocket killing its crew. During these actions Sergeant Woods displayed a complete disregard for his personal safety to encourage his soldiers to lead them forward by his own example.
The personal conduct of Sergeant Woods and his aggressive actions in commanding his platoon served as an inspiration and example to all members of his platoon and gained the admiration of the remainder of his company. His high standard of courage and leadership are a credit to himself, his unit and are of the highest tradition of Australian army.”
Company Commander Major Bill (Maps) Carter was mentioned in dispatches for his leadership of the company over this period.
Private (Bones) Billing was killed in action. Platoon Commander Lt. Eric Pearson and six others were wounded in action. Section Commander Bill Harris, under fire, rescued wounded Private Bob Topping.
While the citation for Sergeant Jack Woods summarises the leadership activities of 5 Platoon from the beginning of Operation Oakleigh through to Operation Coburg, it by its very nature and purpose ‘flows over’ the activities and interactions of the 35 men within the platoon during that extended period and the consequential impact on their lives.
Operation Oakleigh started with the search of the village Hoa Long after reports of Viet Cong in and around the village. Like so much of the Vietnam war, there was no distinct separation between combatants and civilians.
Private Robert (Bob) Wickes:
“Before I went to Vietnam I was quiet, an apprentice panel beater, when I was called up my boss promised my job would still be there when I returned…I did not smoke or drink. I did what I was told. I took photographs around the camp [Nui Dat]. I only took my camera into the bush once…as Major Carter (Company Commander) told me I would be in big trouble if I was caught with my camera. I took my camera during the village search. I did not want to miss out.
I wet my pants when the shooting started. There as a kid (a six-year-old child) on the road caught up in the crossfire…a kid…I could not leave him there. I left my rifle to grab him. I had to carry him around for hours until he could be medevacked out.
I started smoking in Vietnam, there was a packet of smokes every day in the American ration packs [Unfiltered for men Lucky Strike or Camel]. I did not drink until we came home. We had just come off the carrier [HMAS Sydney] when we were attacked. This girl [young woman] was yelling and screaming. She hit me on the head. That was what hurt. I can still feel it today. After that I started drinking. I went back to my old job but I left after two months.
I was saved by an old Rats of Tobruk man. I had applied for a job as a petrol tanker driver. He interviewed me. I told him that I had spent all my time in the army in the Transport Corps. At the end of the interview as I was leaving he said – Bob, I do not think you have ever been in the Transport Corps. At the bottom of your service certificate it says Rifleman, best not to tell lies, but I will give you a start anyway.”
Like so many Vietnam veterans, Bob hid the fact that he had ever been in Vietnam until the Hawke government organised the ‘Welcome Home’ march in 1987. It was not until after that ‘Welcome Home’ march that Platoon Commander Eric Pearson and Section Commander Arthur (Franger) Francis undertook the task of locating every surviving platoon member and organising a platoon reunion. It was then that many of those soldiers and the women in their lives were able to begin the process of healing and to emerge from the role cast on them by the collective Australian society as evil participants in a war that was not of their making, or their understating or of their choice.
How ironic that the memory of the actions of these young men, their standards of conduct in the interactions with the Vietnamese population were more highly respected by ‘the enemy’ than by those to whom they gave their service with honour.
John ( Jack) Hungerford
Wednesday, 5 February 2020
98. JWBH5Feb2020_1 Boeing CH-47 Chinook Helicopter, a versatile, twin-engine, tandem rotor heavy-lift helicopter, used to transport members of B Coy 2RAR, First Tour, 1967 - 1968 to Field Operations. Photo Luscombe Field, Nui Dat.
99. JWBH5Feb2020_2 Boeing CH-47 Chinook Helicopter, a versatile, twin-engine, tandem rotor heavy-lift helicopter, used to transport members of B Coy 2RAR, First Tour, 1967 - 1968 to Field Operations. Photo Luscombe Field, Nui Dat.
100. JWBH5Feb2020_3 Captured AK-47 rifle. With Cpl John ( Jack) Hungerford, B Coy 2RAR lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
101. JWBH5Feb2020_4 A Coy 2RAR after Helicopter landing on Field Operation. “…the landing was accomplished smoothly, although the Battalion had some difficulty clearing the landing zone which was waist deep, flooded paddy…” Vietnam 1967.
102. JWBH5Feb2020_5 Beach Landing via Chinook Helicopters. B Coy 2RAR Vietnam 1967.
103. JWBH5Feb2020_6 Patrol emerging from ‘the Bush’ 2RAR Vietnam, First Tour 1967 – 1968.
104. JWBH5Feb2020_7 Company Commander Major Bill ( Maps) Carter inspecting a complex of Viet Cong Bunkers, Tunnels and Camps discovered by Jack Hungerfords Section. 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR Vietnam 1967.
105. JWBH5Feb2020_8 Part of a Tunnel & Bunker complex located by Jack Hungerfords section on Field operation. 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR, Vietnam 1967.
106. JWBH5Feb2020_9 Members of 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR - First Tour, Vietnam during Village Search Operation Oakleig.
107. JWBH5Feb2020_10 Members of 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR ‘Taking cover’ following ‘Contact’ with Viet Cong during Village search, Operation Oakleigh, Vietnam, 1968 Photo by Bob Wickes Forward Scout.
108. JWBH5Feb2020_11 Operation Oakleigh Planning Chart 2RAR First Tour, Vietnam 1968.
109. JWBH5Feb2020_12 Company Commander, Major Bill ( Maps) Carter, Company Sargent Major ‘Kiwi’ Gibbons and another soldier of B Coy 2RAR during Field operation, Vietnam 1967.
110. JWBH5Feb2020_13 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR Commander Sgt. Jack Woods (Right) with Section Commander Cpl. Bill Harris (left) and Platoon Signaller Pte. Alan Smith during Operation Oakleigh, Vietnam, 1968.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
February 4
Field Operations B Coy. 2RAR Vietnam 1967 - 1968 (Part 1)
Soldiers and other service personnel who served in the Vietnam war were derided as not have been “in a real war”. Their mobility, resulting from advances in flight technology, changed the nature of contact with the enemy. The nature of war had changed from set piece, mass battles or epic, stagnant trench warfare.
The Australian military in the Phuoc Tau province of Vietnam and the Viet Cong or Vietnamese Nationalist, insurgents were pursuing a strategic and tactical guerrilla warfare. The Australian forces were modelling their strategies on the successful campaign of the post WWII defeat of communist insurgency in the “Malayan Emergency," heavily supplemented by the might of the Industrial American might of superior air and navy fire power.
The Viet Cong or Vietnamese Nationalists, however, were pursuing classical guerrilla warfare. Smaller groups of soldiers, dispersed throughout the thick, jungle forests, hidden from view by the deep cover of canopy provided by ancient tropical forest trees, infiltrated throughout the civil services and dispersed within the community. They were supported by the local rice-growing farmers who cultivated the paddies to the edge of the jungle forests; forests, which unlike the images of the moving pictures, were largely clear of ground cover as the tropical sun rarely penetrated the canopy except where giant, primordial trees had fallen creating clearings where tropical plants like bamboo and other ground-covers now reached to the sun in a frenzy of floral colonial conquest and domination.
It was into these saturated, dark jungle forests, with occasional pockets of near impenetrable vegetation, that the men of 5 Platoon B Company 2 RAR, in a deadly hide and seek, pursued the army of the Vietnamese Nationalists. The Vietnamese Nationalists, in their turn hunting us, with lesser firepower but superior knowledge of the countryside and the wiles of experience gained from hunting and trapping the wild animals of the jungle forest, supplemented with the power of the deadly ‘Jumping Jack mines’ taken from the Australian laid ‘minefield barrier’ to be used against us.
Increased flexibility and mobility meant that infantry soldiers spent more time on actual field operations than was ever possible. Excluding routine Tactical Area of Responsibility (TOAR) patrols, the men of B Company 2 RAR spent 161 days on actual field operations during their long ‘tour’ of Vietnam in 1967 - 1968. This involved 15 named operations. The duration of each operation ranged in length from two days to 23 days, with an additional 42 days based at ‘The Horseshoe’.
During these operations, hundreds of ‘minor’ incidents occurred. Incidents that, had they occurred in routine civilian life, would have been regarded as major life threatening events. For the individual soldier on the ground, the field operations seemed to run into each other the events were so many and some slip from the memory, suppressed but waiting to spring to the surface many years later when the unconscious blocking guard is stripped away by a seemingly innocuous event.
The incidents were so many and so frequent that on the field the demand and the need to focus and prepare for the next event allowed no time or circumstance to de-brief or analyse, we were required to put it aside and get on with the job. For each of those incidents, each of the participants has a seperate set of memories. Over time they become jumbled both in importance and sequence. Some are inconsequential to one and substantial to another. An example of this: I was recently talking with Bob Wickes on the telephone about the photographs that he took recording the life of B Company soldiers ‘in the lines’ in Nui Dat.
“I must find the photograph I have of you cutting the hair of Roly Lee…I think it is one of the best photographs I have ever taken,” He said.
I have no recollection of ever cutting the hair of Roly Lee.
For another operation, events of which during the operation were of major significance and I can still picture in my mind in vivid detail, there are further aspects of which I have no memory. The detailed account of “The ANZAC Battalion in Vietnam 1967 - 1968” by Major K. Newman records that at the beginning of this operation “B Company moved into position (by foot) overnight…” yet I have no recall of ever being involved in a major night movement in Vietnam. Ambushes, listening posts, there were many, but the movement, in silence, by foot of an entire company of near 200 soldiers with the very real prospect of contact with the Vietnamese Nationalist forces…nothing. Yet it did happen, it was in the Xuyan Moc area, where the Viet Cong were particularly active. It had to precede an action which is imprinted on my memory with clarity, yet I have always wondered “how did we get into place?” The “orders group meeting” I remember well: “Tomorrow morning the company will move into position to begin an assault on two small knolls that intelligence advises are occupied by two V. C. machine gun positions. 4 and 5 Platoons with 6 Platoon in reserve will assemble on the start line at 0600 hours and on a signal advance toward the knolls…”
Perhaps it was my focus on “advancing on the knolls” with two machine gun posts that extinguished the memory of night movement.
Section members would have had to ask “What do we do if we come under fire?” and my reply would have been “Take cover and return fire but do not take cover at the buttress of a tree as it will offer no protection.”
To my amazement and awe, when we arrived at the ‘start line,' in the jungle there was an actual start line. During the night, or late on the previous day, the engineers (Sappers) had, using a line marker similar to those that are used to mark the lines on tennis courts, drawn ‘the line’ some 200 metres from the knolls.
In silence, the men of my section and the platoon assembled some ten metres apart and on the given signal, advanced in the dawn half light towards the presumed machine gun posts.
There is a time to reflect on the silent courage of that group of young men. Fortunately, the time of this advance was during a period that the Vietnamese Nationalists were preparing for the Tet Offensive and had recently abandoned their positions. The knolls were taken without contact or casualties and we moved on to the next encounter.
Cont ...
111. JWBH4Feb2020_1 Once was Newlyn Antiques & Nursery (John W. B. Hungerford)
· February 4 ·
7 Section 6 Pl B Coy 2 RAR/NZ! 1967 Typical Infantry Section prior to mounting a Field Operation - Transport Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC), in background.
Once was Newlyn Antiques & Nursery (John W. B. Hungerford) I thought it was Dave Mansfield with Machine gun, but he was in 5 Platoon sometimes in my Section.
Chris Cannan Once was Newlyn Antiques & Nursery, you are spot on there John it's Dave Mansfield, John Marsh on his left section comd and me on the right ??
Once was Newlyn Antiques & Nursery
??
John Schroeder Dave Mansfield also did a stint as a door gunner on a chopper.
Chris Cannan John Schroeder, he sure did in fact he took my place because I got promoted to Lcpl bugger ??
John Schroeder Chris Cannan Dave flew (with a giant fan overhead to keep cool) while you had to walk. (PS I caught up with Dave a couple of weeks ago, he's looking good, considering what he's been through.)
Del Boaler Look at the cute guy second from the left.
Chris Cannan Del Boaler, the one on the left is better looking Del ??
Chris Cannan The photo is of 7 Section 6 Pl B Coy 2 RAR/NZ! 1967
Keith Fraser And the tall, lanky Chris Cannan is third from the left.
John Schroeder https://vimeo.com/180384346
112. JWBH4Feb2020_2 Typical Orders group setting as Platoon Commander outlines ‘Orders, Objectives, Tactics and Administrative arrangements for a Field Operation, 2RAR Vietnam. This photo is 5Pl. BCoy second tour (70-71) L-R (cigarete in mouth)Paul "Cowboy" Jones, Brian Mathers,Dave Connel, Ed Saunders, Dave Lawrence and section cmd Cpl Syd MacLeod.
John Schroeder This photo is 5Pl. BCoy second tour (70-71) L-R (cigarete in mouth)Paul "Cowboy" Jones, Brian Mathers,Dave Connel, Ed Saunders, Dave Lawrence and section cmd Cpl Syd MacLeod.
Once was Newlyn Antiques & Nursery Thank you John Schroeder. Have edited the caption. Kind Regards, John (Jack) H.
vimeo.com
svn viet 1970-71 - ops.movie
113. JWBH4Feb2020_3 Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopter. Near B Coy 2RAR lines, First Tour . Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967 -1968.
114. JWBH4Feb2020_4 Australian Military Forces Pilot of Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopter. Near B Coy 2RAR lines, First Tour . Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967 -1968.
115. JWBH4Feb2020_5 Interior of a Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopter. Near B Coy 2RAR lines, First Tour . Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967 -1968.
116. JWBH4Feb2020_6 Gunner on Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopter. Near B Coy 2RAR lines, First Tour . Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967 -1968.
117. JWBH4Feb2020_7 Taking off for Field Operation on Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopter. Near B Coy 2RAR lines, First Tour . Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967 -1968.
118. JWBH4Feb2020_8 Taking off for Field Operation on Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopter. Near B Coy 2RAR lines, First Tour . Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967 -1968.
119. JWBH4Feb2020_9 View from a Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopter en route to a Field Operation. B Coy 2RAR Vietnam, 1967 -1968,
120. JWBH4Feb2020_10 View from a Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopter en route to a Field Operation. B Coy 2RAR Vietnam, 1967 -1968.
121. JWBH4Feb2020_11 Like a swarm of very large flies, transporting a Company of of Infantry soldiers to a Field Operation on Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopters. B Coy 2RAR First Tour ., Vietnam 1967 -1968.
122. JWBH4Feb2020_12 Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopters landing in line to commence a Field Operation. B Coy 2RAR Vietnam, 1967 -1968.
123. JWBH4Feb2020_13 It was just land, jump and run in the pointed direction. Section of soldiers exits Huey (Bell UH-1 Iroquois) Helicopters landing in line to commence a Field Operation 2RAR , First Tour, Vietnam, 1967 -1968.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
Unarmed Combat course & Community Development Activity Malacca Ma.
January 31, 2013
Community Support Project, Malacca, Malaya 1963 Having foreign military forces posted in any country always creates the possibility of tension and resentment. Australian Military Forces have always recognized this in every field of conflict and to counter this possibility, engage in civic development projects to assist the local community. AMF personnel are expected to respect the values and practices of the people in countries where they are posted. This is probably one of the reasons that Australian military personnel are respected in countries where they have been posted. Vietnam is a prime example, where Australian ex-service personnel are particularly welcome, with many residing in Vung Tau in their retirement. In Malacca, Malaya in 1963, I was involved in such a civic development project. It involved the building of a sports facility for the local community in Malacca. The British, Australian and New Zealand forces based in Malacca, in a combined effort with the local community worked together to erect the facility. Towards the completion of the project, probably to ensure that it was occupied as a safeguard against vandals, a number of 2RAR soldiers, myself against the number, were assigned to a two week long, British Army run, Unarmed Combat course at the facility. This involved bivouacking on the premises. For me this was a great experience. I learned the basic elements of unarmed combat, which I was able to use to great effect in an incident in Vietnam some years later. This is a story that gets retold and embellished at every 5Pl B Coy 2RAR reunion. It also provided my first prolonged opportunity to meet and mix with members of the Malacca Tamil community. Their children, ever curious, gathered to watch as we learned and practiced our newly acquired self defense and gymnastic skills. We soldiers, in return, offered them chocolates and other items from our ration packs. Though we were embarrassed when a an aged Tamil community elder politely returned the cans of Irish stew and braised sausages explaining that Tamils were vegetarians and while our generosity was appreciated it was not possible for them to accept. The completion of the course coincided with the official opening and handing the facility to the community. The following photographs are from the opening day ceremony.
124. JWBH31Jan2020_1 B Coy 2RAR personnel demonstrate Unarmed Combat skills at the opening of a community Sporting facility Malacca Malaya 1963.
125. JWBH31Jan2020_2 Opening of a community sporting facility Soldiers based at Terendak Camp Malacca Malaya 1963 demonstrate their Gymnastic and Unarmed combat skills learned at a course.
126. JWBH31Jan2020_3 Children of British, Australian & New Zealand married soldiers based at Terendak Camp Malacca Malaya 1963 demonstrate their marching skills at the opening of a Community sporting facility in Malacca.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
127. JWBH29Jan2020_1 3RAR Athletics team Malacca Malaya 1964 Pte John (Jack) Hungerford 2nd left front row also in photo 3rd left back row Capt Jefferies later Aust Governor General. Pte Glen Gillard 2nd right, back row.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
Christmas on Overseas postings.
January 29, 2013
Christmas on overseas postings On overseas postings it was not possible for single soldiers to have Christmas with families. In garrison postings such as Terendak, where there were married quarters, married soldiers, not on duty, and their families were able to do so. Serving soldiers wives groups, usually driven by officers wives, were able to organize Christmas lunches for families & their children. For single soldiers Christmas could be problematic. Rather than leave soldiers to their own devices, Australian Army units have developed a set of Christmas Day traditions, which are an extension of everyday practices in the field. One of the main unwritten rules for the Australian Army, in the field, is that an Officer never eats before his men. It is a simple rule which underlays the relationship between Australian other ranks and their Officers. An officer is responsible for the safety and well being of his soldiers. This relationship often extends far beyond the period of Active Service. It has been my observation that many Australian Army officers continue to care for the wellbeing of their ‘troops‘ long after both have been discharged from service. It is a tradition in the Australian Army that on Christmas Day, for Christmas Lunch, the units officers serve lunch to the other ranks. A special Christmas lunch is always arranged. For 2RAR & 3RAR this tradition held true both in Malaya and Vietnam. In my six years of service in the Australian Army I spent four Christmases on overseas duty. The following photos are of Christmas day 1964 in Malaya with 4Pl B Coy 3RAR.
128. JWBH29Jan2020_pt2_1 Christmas lunch with 3RAR Malacca Malaya 1964.
129. JWBH29Jan2020_pt2_2 Christmas lunch with 3RAR Malacca Malaya 1964.1
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
January 11
BBQ’s, Concerts and Christmas, Vietnam 1967
Even in War Zones, to relieve tension , to develop camaraderie, to give a sense of meaning, to create an atmosphere of normality, to boost morale, for propaganda purposes, to parallel civilian life, the ‘events’ of civilian life are replicated.
BBQ’s, Concerts, Sport Carnivals and in particular Christmas rituals are organised and celebrated.
For the troops on the ground they are enthusiastically welcomed.
I still treasure the trophies won during sporting contests during my period of deployment to the Malaya Peninsular.
Most improved player in the B Company Rugby team, Second fastest 880 yard runner in the Malaya Area, and a few more.
During my six years of Military Service, four Christmases were spent on Overseas Duty.
‘The Military’ always ensured that the ‘troops on the ground’ were acknowledged and celebrated over Christmas.
A traditional Christmas Banquet was always ‘put on’, and for this Banquet the Officers and Senior Non Commissioned Officers had the responsibility of serving ‘the men’ at the banquet table.
Showpiece concerts, involving high profile Australian entertainers were regularly presented , the venue being at the verge of the Nui Dat ‘Luscombe Field’ airport against a backdrop of aircraft flying to and from operational sorties.
Regular Company BBQ’s were organised during the course of the year, usually by the Company Sargent Major.
In ‘the lines’, when not on operational duty, impromptu football and cricket matches were organised.
The accompanying photographs, which were mainly taken by Robert Wickes a member of 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR during deployment to Vietnam as a rifleman and forward scout as he recorded those events.
His skills as a photographer have also resulted in many of his images of 5 Platoon B Company in Vietnam being forever recorded in the National War Memorial in Canberra.
130. JWBH11Jan2020_1 Ice Cold Beer, Members of 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR at ‘Company BBQ’. B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
131. JWBH11Jan2020_2 Members of 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR at ‘Company BBQ’. B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
132. JWBH11Jan2020_3 An informal chat with the Company Commander, Major Bill (Maps) Carter Members of 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR at ‘Company BBQ’. B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967
133. JWBH11Jan2020_4 ‘Around the Fire’ Members of 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR at ‘Company BBQ’. B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
134. JWBH11Jan2020_5 ‘Around the Fire’ Members of 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR at ‘Company BBQ’. B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
135. JWBH11Jan2020_6 ‘Beer and Prawns’ ‘ Members of 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR at ‘Company BBQ’. B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
136. JWBH11Jan2020_7 Pte Peter Guthrie 5 platoon B Coy 2RAR ‘ going for a ton…’ Impromptu Cricket match …’ B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
137. JWBH11Jan2020_8 5 Platoon members at B Coy 2RAR ‘Christmas Banquet’ Nui Dat Vietnam 1967.
138. JWBH11Jan2020_9 Platoon Commander Lt Eric Pearson ‘serving the men’ at B Company 2RAR ‘Christmas Banquet’, Vietnam 1967.
139. JWBH11Jan2020_10 ‘Christmas Banquet, B Company 2RAR at B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
140. JWBH11Jan2020_11 Company Sargent Major Kiwi Gibbons, ‘Serving the men’ at B Coy 2RAR Christmas Banquet. B Company lines, Nui Dat Vietnam 1967.
141. JWBH11Jan2020_12 Officers and Senior NCO’s of B Company 2RAR preparing to serve ‘Christmas Banquet’ B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
142. JWBH11Jan2020_13 Entertainer 2RAR Christmas Concert, Luscombe Field, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
143. JWBH11Jan2020_14 Entertainer 2RAR Christmas Concert, Luscombe Field, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
144. JWBH11Jan2020_15 Entertainer 2RAR Christmas Concert, Luscombe Field, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
145. JWBH11Jan2020_16 Entertainer 2RAR Christmas Concert, Luscombe Field, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
146. JWBH11Jan2020_17 Playing to a backdrop of aircraft coming and going from operational sorties. Entertainers at 2 RAR Christmas Concert, Luscombe Airfield, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
147. JWBH11Jan2020_18 The Audience 2 RAR Christmas Concert, Luscombe Airfield, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967.
148. JWBH11Jan2020_19 Members of 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR at ‘Company BBQ’. B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam 1967 Foreground Pte Allen Smith, right Platoon Commander Lt. Eric Pearson.
149. JWBH11Jan2020_20 Pte Allen Smith 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR at ‘Company BBQ’. B Coy lines, Nui Dat, Vietnam, 1967.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
January 10
Vung Tau Hospital
In war there are always casualties.
Sadly most are civilians have who few opportunities to take refuge in places of safety and when they do take the opportunity to take their families from the horror of war and persecution they are often turned away or interned.
For the soldiers ‘fighting the battles’ even minor injuries can become life threatening unless treated promptly in facilities equipped to treat and repair the traumatic wounds of gunshot, mines, mortar and artillery shrapnel.
Many died not from the wounds but from infections which developed as a result of the time it took to receive treatment.
In the Vietnam War the lives of many thousands of Allied soldiers were, for the first time, able to be saved by rapid access to treatment in well equipped Hospitals.
Specially designated ‘Dustoff ‘ helicopters were able to transport casualties rapidly to military hospitals.
Though even with the designated helicopters there is ‘engine failure’.
On one operation when our Platoon Commander, Eric Pearson, was struck down by a serious ailment and had to be casualty lifted out the ‘Chopper’ developed ‘engine failure’, a replacement had to be rapidly called in and our Platoon, with Section Commander and acting Platoon Sargent Jack Hungerford elevated for a day to Acting Platoon Commander, in charge of protecting the downed helicopter until it could be repaired and recovered.
That operation is a whole story within itself and is best left for another day.
While in Vietnam on its first tour, there were many 2RAR casualties, some from battle wounds and possibly many more from tropical diseases such as malaria.
After I left Vietnam 5 Platoon B Coy was ambushed while on operations. One of the members of my former section, a replacement, ‘Bones’ Binning was Killed in Action. Others were wounded.
They were all treated in the Vung Tau Hospital.
Earlier another member of the Platoon, forward scout and photographer Pte Robert Wickes contracted Malaria while on operational duties and had to be admitted to the Vung Tau Hospital and Recuperation facility.
While he was, in admission, to the hospital a batch of casualties was brought in by the Dustoff helicopters.
He recorded photographs of the soldiers being admitted as casualties.The black and white photographs are of members of ‘My Section’ who were Wounded in Action as a result of the Viet Cong Ambush in February 1968.
150. JWBH10Jan2020_1 Australian Military Hospital,Vung Tau Vietnam 1967.
151. JWBH10Jan2020_2 Australian Military Hospital,Vung Tau Vietnam 1967.
152. JWBH10Jan2020_3 Interior Australian Military Hospital,Vung Tau Vietnam 1967.
153. JWBH10Jan2020_4 Bed Patient Australian Military Hospital,Vung Tau Vietnam 1967.
154. JWBH10Jan2020_5 Incoming Casualties Australian Military Hospital,Vung Tau Vietnam 1967.
155. JWBH10Jan2020_6 Incoming Casualties Australian Military Hospital,Vung Tau Vietnam 1967.
156. JWBH10Jan2020_7 Incoming Casualties Australian Military Hospital,Vung Tau Vietnam 1967.
157. JWBH10Jan2020_8 Incoming Casualties Australian Military Hospital,Vung Tau Vietnam 1967.
158. JWBH10Jan2020_9 Incoming Casualties Australian Military Hospital,Vung Tau Vietnam 1967.
159. JWBH10Jan2020_10 Wounded In Action Pte. Scruffy Harris 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR in
Australian Military Hospital, Vung Tau Vietnam 1968.
160. JWBH10Jan2020_11 Members of 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR Wounded In Action. Australian Military Hospital, Vung Tau Vietnam 1968.
161. JWBH10Jan2020_12 A Company 2RAR - Vehicle ambushed by Viet Cong en route from Horseshoe to Dat Do checkpointVietnam 1967. Ambush resulted in one soldier Killed in Action and others Wounded in Action.
162. JWBH10Jan2020_13 Australian Military Forces Recuperation Facility Vung Tau, Vietnam 1967.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
January 8
Leave in Vung Tau
During our ‘Tour’ of Veitnam during 1967 and 1968, ‘Leave’ was in short supply.
I managed just one day in Vung Tau shortly after completing the Company’s rotation to the Horseshoe.
To be fair this was not entirely the fault of ‘the military’.
Most Australian Service men and women were entitled to four days of ‘Rest and Recreation’ out of Veitnam.
The choice was Bangkok, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong or if you were married an Australian capital city.
Single men were not permitted to return to Australia for fear that they would desert.
American service men and women were encouraged to spend their Rest and Recreation in the Australian City of Sydney.
I was single and engaged, I had been posted on Service the Malaya Peninsular for two and a half years and while Singapore and Bangkok were exciting destinations my desire was to spend my Rest and Recreation with Jeanette in Australia.
Being obstinate, stubborn and righteous my argument went something like this “… why is it so important that American Service men and women are allowed their R & R in Australia and Australian Servicemen and Women are not? If I cannot take my leave in Australia, then I will not take leave. I am not going to quietly do nothing…”
Now, I am certain that the Military establishment was shaken by my stubborn and vocal condemnation of their policy as around 12 months after my stand they began to allow single Servicemen and Women to take their R & R in Australia…
However, while all the other folk in my Platoon were rostered through their R & R, I remained on operational duty.
But to our Platoon’s Day leave in Vung Tau.
During the French Colonial era, Vung Tau was a popular beach resort, the closest beach to Saigon, to the South east, around a three hour trip by road.
Its architecture reflected the many years of French colonial rule. It was , in many ways, a Vietnamese version of the memories of France.
The news that our Platoon was to spend a day’s leave in Vung Tau was greeted with must excitement, for many and varying reasons.
Relief from the tension of constant ‘alertness’ of operational duty, of ‘a day at the beach’ of exploring Vietnamese culture, an opportunity to buy gifts to ‘send home’, to drink beer in a bar, to discover Vietnamese Antiques and Art and for some to explore the possibility of short term female companionship…
The distance between Nui Dat and Vung Tau, by road was around 25 kilometres, through flat rice paddies and small villages.
While the route was within the ‘Umbrella of protection’ and was a land supply route from the port to Nui Dat, it was nevertheless potentially vulnerable to Viet Cong activity.
The Viet Cong had, in the past, regularly ‘ blown up’ the many small bridges over low lying river delta watercourses along the route.
These bridges had been replaced by earthen ‘causeways’ which were much more difficult to destroy.
Even though it was regarded as a ‘safe zone’, Organising a platoon of around 40 men on a Day trip from Nui Dat to Vung Tau by motor vehicle, in the middle of a war zone is a logistical difficult task.
The travelling time, by open backed troop carrying vehicle took up to one hour each way.
It had to be completed in daylight hours.
It had to be in convey and the troops, while in ‘stand down’ mode, had to be fully armed and ready to react to any hostile activity.
At least one soldier in each vehicle needed to be ‘on watch’ for the entire journey.
It is also possible that the convoy may have also been ‘escorted’ by a light armoured vehicle.
As most of the small villages along the route were within the ‘protective umbrella’ and were regarded as ‘friendly’ the atmosphere was generally ‘relaxed’, though were our military strategists aware of the plans of the Viet Cong, as enacted a little further north in the provincial capital of Binh Ba in mid 1969, we may not have been so.
As most of our transport, to this time, had been too and from operations by helicopter it was an exciting opportunity to travel ‘on the ground’ by motor transport and observe at close hand life along a semi-rural Vietnamese travel route.
Throughout South East Asia, in Thailand and the Malaya Peninsular when military conveys negotiated their way through small villages it was the children who quickly gathered to greet, to call and wave to the passing vehicles. In turn it was the practice of the transported troops in open vehicles to wave in return, throwing rations, chocolate and sweet lollies to the children, cigarettes were reserved for bartering with adults.
This was no different in Vietnam, as we passed through each village children cheered, greeted and waved chocolates, sweets and American cans of Turkey and Cranberry were reciprocated.
A rising of anticipation of release into the freedom of a Beach Holiday, tempered by the regular sighting of the remains of bridges destroyed by the Viet Cong at every major water crossing.
As we approached the outskirts of the town it was the excitement of viewing the remnants of French architecture, the Cast Iron Street lights, the colonial buildings, the street life as it mixed with the garish modern that filled with wonder.
But first, our weapons were to be secured. Vung Tau was s safe destination, soldiers did not wander through the streets carrying firearms.
From the time soldiers embarked on the HMAS Sydney they were required to carry their weapons ‘at all times’. The 10 day voyage acclimatised them to this notion and on board there were many instances of soldiers acting in anguish after ‘mislaying’ their weapons.
After being issued with live ammunition prior to disembarkment it became an ‘offence’ to not be in control of your firearm ‘at all times’.
Then as it was approaching lunch time the obligatory Beach BBQ. After which, having been given the obligatory warnings about appropriate behaviour and the need to wear condoms at all times, the platoon dispersed for around three hours of ‘free time’ to explore the provincial beach town of Vung Tau.
For me that was to wander the streets looking at Antiques, Architecture and Art, Jeanette and I were engaged to be married, virtuous, promises had been made that could not be broken.
We were to wait until we were married.
Though, in a confession of sorts this promise was ‘temporally’ interrupted on the first day I returned from Veitnam.
We checked in to a Hotel and spent the remainder of the day setting about the creative possibilities of producing our first daughter, Rebecca.
We married shortly after.
In Vung Tau I wandered from Gallery to Gallery and purchased some oil paintings from a street vendor, some Bronze artefacts that the Gallery owner assured me were from an ancient Vietnamese Dynasty (especially crafted for visiting and most welcome Australian Servicemen).
By this time my time in Vung Tau had expired and I returned to our rendezvous, where we checked that all platoon members had returned and commenced our return journey.
It was on this journey and in the following days I learned just how much ‘adventure’ that a platoon of around forty young men in their early twenties can fit into three hours.
There was the joy of the young man who was displaying the underwear gifted to him by the young women he had just met and was in love with forever.
There was the group who after drinking for some time in a small waterfront bar, began to argue with the bar owner about the authenticity and alcoholic strength of the ‘Scotch Whiskey’ they were purchasing and consuming.
The strength of the argument escalated to the point where they began rearranging the furniture within the bar and a hostile crowd began to gather.
The ARVN (Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) Military Police (White Mice) became involved.
But the day was saved when they negotiated a payment of $20.00 American to the ‘White Mice’ to hold off the crowd while they made their escape.
And there were the lesser adventures that involved consumption of alcohol and female encounters in a provincial beach town.
The most dangerous and potentially deadly incident of the day, though, occurred on our return journey.
The soldier involved was not from my section and is no longer with us.
He was a young man with an unkindly disposition to the world in general and with the consumption of alcohol this disposition increased to a dangerously heightened degree.
His judgement was such that he regarded all people from Asia as ‘the enemy’.
On this occasion his judgement was impaired to the extent that he felt the children who gathered along the route would be very good ‘target practice’.
He began throwing cans of rations at the children as we passed.
Then he decided he should use his SLR (Self Loading Rifle), which was wrestled off him by all the other occupants in the back of the truck.
Fortunately it did not discharge.
A dampener to a day’s leave in the Provincial beach Town of Vung Tau in 1967.
163. JWBH8Jan2020_1 Remains of one of the many Bridges Blown up by Viet Cong on the route from Nui Dat to Vung Tau as seen by 5 Pl B Coy 2RAR Vietnam 1967.
164. JWBH8Jan2020_2 Along the Route to Day leave from Nui Dat to Vung Tau, 5 Pl B Coy 2RAR 1967.
165. JWBH8Jan2020_3 The Day leave route from Nui Dat to Vung Tau 5 Pl B Coy 2RAR 1967.
166. JWBH8Jan2020_4 Along the Route to Day leave from Nui Dat to Vung Tau, 5 Pl B Coy 2RAR 1967.
167. JWBH8Jan2020_5 Private Alan Smith with Cpl John ( Jack) Hungerford - Beach BBQ Vung Tau while on Day leave Vietnam 1967 Dressed for a party.
168. JWBH8Jan2020_6 A house of tin cases. Taken by member of 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR on leave Vung Tau in 1967.
169. JWBH8Jan2020_7 Guest House waitress at Vung Tau Recreation facility attended by member of 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR, Vietnam 1967.
170. JWBH8Jan2020_8 Street Vendor Vung Tau, Vietnam 1967 Photo by Pte. Bob Wickes 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR while on Day leave.
171. JWBH8Jan2020_9 Street Scene Vung Tau, Vietnam 1967. Photo by Pte. Bob Wickes 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR while on Day leave.
172. JWBH8Jan2020_10 Street Market Vung Tau, Vietnam 1967 Photo by Pte. Bob Wickes 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR while on Day leave.
173. JWBH8Jan2020_11 Street Scene Vung Tau, Vietnam 1967. Photo by Pte. Bob Wickes 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR while on Day leave.
174. JWBH8Jan2020_12 Recuperation Facility, Vung Tau, Vietnam 1967, photo by Bob Wickes, 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR while on Day Leave.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
January 5
Around the lines - 5 platoon B Company 2RAR 1967 - 1968.
When not on operations the 'troops' were based at the Task Force Base located at Nui Dat in Veitnam.
The Task Force Base housed around 5000 soldiers, it was the size of a large country town, with all the necessary logistic support. An Airfield, Artillery Batteries, Transport facilities, Entertainment facilities, Armoured Corps, Field Hospitals and much more.
B Company 2RAR Lines were on the perimeter, on the edge of a French owned Rubber plantation. The owners of which were paid rental and compensated for any 'war damage', unlike the members of the Vietnamese community who were 'relocated' to 'Controlled' Villages with no compensation.
The photographs are of day to day life in B Company 'lines' in Nui Dat during 1967 and 1968.
175. JWBH5Jan2020_1 On the Firing Range. 5 Platoon members Scruffy Harris and ? Machine Gun fire practice.at nui Dat, Veitnam 1967 -1968.
176. JWBH5Jan2020_2 On Guard. Forward defence B Coy 2 Rar Nui Dat, Veitnam 1967 -1968.
177. JWBH5Jan2020_3 B Company 2RAR Headquarters, Nui Dat, Veitnam 1967 – 1968.
178. JWBH5Jan2020_4 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR members, Jim (Irish) Lyttle and others 'relaxing'. Their rifles will have been within reach.
179. JWBH5Jan2020_5 Forward Bunker with machine gun post. manned 24 hours each day. 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR, Vietnam 1967-1968.
180. JWBH5Jan2020_6 Rubber trees at the edge of B Company lines B Company 2RAR Vietnam 1967 -1968. Note the forward bunker. At night and with a slight breeze, for the soldiers on guard, with every movement there was a Viet Cong soldier advancing behind every rubber tree.
181. JWBH5Jan2020_7 The road to B Company 2RAR lines. Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 – 1968.
182. JWBH5Jan2020_8 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR soldier on guard providing radio report. Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
183. JWBH5Jan2020_9 Private Robert Wickes taking 'selfie' in front of his 'tent' B Company 2RAR lines Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
184. JWBH5Jan2020_10 Tent accomodation, B Company 2RAR lines Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968. Four soldiers shared each tent.
185. JWBH5Jan2020_11 View from the machine gun post 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
186. JWBH5Jan2020_12 Accomodation Tent B Coy 2RAR Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
187. JWBH5Jan2020_13 Grenade Launcher, one of the weapons routinely carried by Section Commander John (Jack) Hungerford 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR, on operations.
188. JWBH5Jan2020_14 Forward Bunker B Coy 2RAR Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968
189. JWBH5Jan2020_15 Some of the weapons carried by members of 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR,Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
190. JWBH5Jan2020_16 B Coy 2RAR Mess building? Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
191. JWBH5Jan2020_17 5 platoon B Coy 2RAR lines, Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
192. JWBH5Jan2020_18 Recreation Building B Coy 2RAR, Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
193. JWBH5Jan2020_19 Mess Facility B Coy 2RAR, Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
194. JWBH5Jan2020_20 Scruffy Harris and 'Skip' Miracle from 135th Assault Heli Company (AHC). in 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR lines, Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
Comments
Rick Brittain Scruffy Harris and 'Skip' Miracle from 135th Assault Heli Company (AHC). Skip was a spec 4 who was attached to 5 platoon when we provided Machine Gunners to 135th AHC. Skip did a second tour as a cobra pilot. A top bloke !
Bill Dixon A double for Scuffy Harris :)
Once was Newlyn Antiques & Nursery (John W. B. Hungerford) You are correct Bill Dixon, I was thinking of Norm when I wrote it up & they are of similar build. Thanks, Kind Regards, Jack H. ??
195. JWBH5Jan2020_21 Battalion Movie screen Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
196. JWBH5Jan2020_22 Everyman's Hut 2RAR, Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968 No matter your religious belief this facility was available to all ( who did not attend the 'Company Boozer'. Soldiers were required to carry their weapons 'at all times' because of the danger of attack.
197. JWBH5Jan2020_23 Inside the Evervman's Hut.2RAR Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
198. JWBH5Jan2020_24 Section Commander John (Jack) Hungerford with Private's Steven Way & Norm McCullock 5 Platoon B Coy lines Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
199. JWBH5Jan2020_25 Section Commander Norm Deverux 9centre0 with 5 Platoon, B Coy 2RAR members Dave Mansfield and Bill Gillham, B Coy lines, Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
200. JWBH5Jan2020_26 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR lines Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
201. JWBH5Jan2020_27 Section Commander Norm Deverux with his section. B Coy 2RAR lines Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
202. JWBH5Jan2020_28 Interior of my 'tent' John (Jack) Hungerford 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968 ( forever tidy).
203. JWBH5Jan2020_29 Norm McCullock and Section 2 I/C Bill Harris . 5 Platoon B Coy 2RAR lines Nui Dat Vietnam 1967 -1968.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
January 5
There are many stories to be told of our 'Tour' of Veitnam in 1967 - 1968. Many will never be told. After I wrote of my recollections of 'The Horseshoe', Bob Wickes sent me another batch of photographs of the activities of our platoon. Some are brilliant, some are ordinary. These I share as they illustrate different aspects of 'the Tour'.
204. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_1 The men of 2RAR assembled on the parade ground of Enoggera Barracks awaiting transport to HMAS Sydney for the 10 day voyage to Vietnam, First Tour 1967 -1968 — in Campbells Creek, Victoria.
205. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_2 2RAR leaving Brisbane for 2RAR 'First Tour' of Veitnam 1967.
206. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_3 John (Jack) Hungerford embracing Jeanette Eva Gillies on Wharf before embarking to Vietnam with 2RAR 1967.
207. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_4 Once was Newlyn Antiques & Nursery (John W. B. Hungerford)· January 5 ·
Warren (Badger) Bourke member of 'my section' 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR 'climbing the gangplank' of Aircraft Carrier HMAS Sydney en route to Veitnam, 1967
Comment: by Allan Smith: Rick Brittain in front of Badger fortunately his head missing from this photo!!!
208. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_5 Refuelling HMAS en route to Veitnam 2RAR 'First Tour' 1967’
Comment: Linton Reynolds D59 was HMAS Anzac an appropriate name for escort duties to SVN.
209. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_6 On deck Activities on aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney en route to Veitnam with 2RAR First Tour Troops 1967.
210. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_7 On board entertainment. Members of B Company 2RAR Geoff Brewer, Arthur Francis,Peter Guthrie and Peter Appleyard 'Strut the Boards' en route to 2RAR First Tour of Veitnam, on aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney 1967.
211. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_8 Looking into the interior of HMAS Sydney en route to Veitnam with 2RAR 1967. Note the Wessex Helicopters.
212. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_9 The view from the Stern of the Aircraft Carrier HMAS Sydney transporting 2RAR to Veitnam 1967.
213. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_10 First view of Vung Tau Harbour. Photograph taken from the HMAS Sydney. 2RAR First Tour Veitnam 1967.
214. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_11 Disembarking via landing craft. 2RAR First Tour 1967. Note: I missed this disembarking as I flew directly to Nui Dat in the 'advance party' via Huey Helicopters, in combat dress.
215. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_12 On the docks in Vung Tau awaiting transport to the airfield to be air lifted to Vung Tau via Chinook Helicopters. 2RAR Veitnam, First Tour 1967.
216. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_13 Men of B Company 2RAR on Vung Tau airstrip awaiting transport to Nui Dat via Chinook Helicopters (background) Veitnam 1967.
217. JWBH5Jan2020_pt2_14 Transport in convey to Vung Tau airport. 2RAR First Tour Veitnam 1967. Note the style of 'open truck' troop carrier. These soldiers while in dress uniform have been issued with live ammunition. The open back vehicle is to allow them to quickly exit should they be 'ambushed'. Though highly unlikely in Vung Tau.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
(Posted on 2 Jan 2020)
December 30, 2019
The Horseshoe
Memories of Vietnam
Continued …
Part 8
Midnight, Mortar Defence, Morning Patrols and Mail from home…
Another ‘on guard’ incident of note occurred during our time at the Horseshoe. It was shortly after the platoon had discovered the freshly dug ‘fire pits’, not too far distant to our North East, inside the Bamboo thickets and within the imagined ‘Umbrella of Safety,' which was , in theory, cleared of Viet Cong activities.
I was, with another section member, completing my nightly shift, on guard, in the very early morning hours.
The night was very still and very dark. In such conditions noise and light seem to be magnified.
As we sat in silence with no lights, no smoking, no conversation, always aware that any movement or light exposure may result in sniper fire, concentrating on the possibility ‘enemy’ movement.
In the daylight hours the view was down the side of the extinct volcano crater, across the patchwork of rice paddy fields to a treed winding natural watercourse which would provide the cover of ‘dead ground’ for any movement some 500 meters to the horizon.
Cover for an ‘enemy’ observing and reconnoitring our stationary position. Mapping our machine gun posts, massing to prepare a dawn attack, waiting for the flare and then glow of a lighted cigarette…
At some point we convinced ourselves that we had seen, in the distance, a flare of light, some movement.
In the darkness of night and the tension of arousal, the mind races through a raft of possibilities.
A farmer who has not returned to the village after curfew?
A lone sniper?
A reconnoitering patrol?
A battalion of Viet Cong massing before a dawn attack?
A vivid imagination beyond belief?
And then the What if “… I report this, it turns out to be nothing and I am regarded as a mad ‘Panic Merchant’ and general ‘dill’?”
While on these guard posts there was always constant radio contact with the Horseshoe Command Post. I choose to notify and suggest mortar support reasoning that if there were massing VC a few mortar shells would surely provoke a response.
Having never before ‘called in’ mortar fire in daylight, let alone a pitch black night apart from the target being “… approximately 500 meters west of our post…” we had no idea where to direct the fire. Those in command were not deterred, in retrospect they were probably ‘just waiting’ to test their response capability.
In a now situation of ‘heightened urgency’ the reaction period from calling support to mortar shells falling somewhere near the target feels like a lifetime.
In the dead of the night the mortar team are not standing by in their mortar pits ready to drop shells down the barrel. They are in their bunks, they have to wake and scramble into position, prepare their weapon then fire.
This may take five minutes.
Sitting in a bunker, on the side of a hill, in an anxious state of alert, five minutes is an eternity.
Eventually, you hear the ‘crump’ as the shell explodes from the barrel, lifts high into the darkness and explodes ‘somewhere’ near to where you think the target is, with a bedding shot.
“Down 50 to the left…” you near whisper into the radio handpiece, with a degree of calmness you never knew existed.
After a few shells and no reaction the mortar team is stood down, but the rest of the Company are now ‘stood to’ for an hour or so.
Then there are the ‘follow-up’ consequences.
Military life is a combination of routine and diversions. Normal order and Routine must be maintained. Interrupted sleep is not a reason for interrupted routine, but soldiers who have spent a good part of the night ‘standing to,' for what appears to be no reason, have a tendency to be ‘grumpy’.
Routine determines that the pre-dawn clearing patrol must still occur. A half section creeping through the zig zag gap in the barbed wire entanglement and minefield, across the skirting road, then reentering through a small gap in the wire back into the platoon lines. All before the morning lifting of the curfew and the flow of civilians into the rice paddies and bamboo thickets, with the knowledge that there may be a Viet Cong ambush party waiting.
This ‘grumpiness’ can, on occasions, transpire into less than civil exchanges between ‘the troops’ on the ground and those responsible for ensuring that routine is followed.
Such an exchange occurred prior to the morning patrol.
While my exact memory of with whom I had the exchange is not fully clear, I like to believe that it was with one of our riflemen, Jim Lyttle, simply because it would be the most colourful version of my memory.
I must diverge a little to give some explanation as to why.
Jim or Irish as he was nicknamed should never have been conscripted into the Australian Army. He was on a ‘working holiday’ from his home in Northern Ireland when he was told, for some reason, he was required to register for National Service and his ‘number came up’.
He objected and explained his position to the authorities conducting the conscription process.
He was assured that since he was on a ‘working holiday,' being in the Australian Army for a couple of years he would enjoy the benefits of regular full pay and accomodation, and as he was a vegetarian he would most likely be posted to the Medical Corps or a non combatant post within Australia.
Irish was posted to the Infantry Corps and ultimately to Jack Hungerfords section in 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR and on his way to a ‘working holiday’ in Vietnam.
In the Army, in the 1960s, in a Corps that made no provision for vegetarians which made life very difficult for Irish. The prevailing philosophy within both the Military and the general population at the time was that conscription would ‘… make men of boys’ and ‘vegetarians would soon learn to love good red meat…’.
In the Australian Army in the 1960s the only thing being worse than being a vegetarian was being ‘gay’. For Irish, being ‘gay’ may have been better as it would have meant an instant discharge from the armed services.
In the section Irish, with his sharp Irish accent, was intelligent, full of dry wit, insightful, argumentative, able to point out every single flaw in every single operational plan, a very good soldier and human being.
A dedicated vegetarian who struggled and complained about the nature of our daily American ration packs while we were on field operations.
He was also later wounded in action and the nature of his wounds still trouble him to this day. He also retains his sharp Irish accent and dry wit.
But I return to the morning of the clearing patrol.
As I had called the mortar fire and presumably knew the location of the potential enemy, I was to lead the clearing patrol.
From the outset, I had no intention of venturing 500 meters across open paddy fields, with a half section of men armed only with light firearms.
For me it was to be a normal routine morning clearing patrol skirting the edge of the wire.
This it appears, was not adequately communicated, at least to Irish.
As we prepared to leave the safety of our lines “Jack” says a voice from the semi-darkness “This is fucken suicide… there might be a fucken thousand out there…” “You could be right” I replied, thinking ‘no there is not…’ “… and you have just volunteered as forward scout…”
In silence we carried on with the patrol.
We never checked across the paddy fields and we will never know if we were observing a Viet Cong patrol… or it was a figment of our imagination.
Some many years later, in Melbourne, while assembling for the ANZAC Day parade, a voice with the strongest of Irish accents wafted through the crowd, followed by a limping Irish.
“Jack Hungerford. I hated you with a passion…” [ that I represented every authority in the Australian Army that had lied to him).
And we embraced.
Throughout our period at the Horseshoe there were periods of relief.
One method of relieving the tension and demonstrating to the ever watching Viet Cong was to regularly hold our Major Bill Carter inspired ‘Free Firing Exercises’. On one evening, every week, after the afternoon curfew and before darkness, the entire Company would ‘man their firing posts’ and on a given signal would ‘free fire’ for a five minute period.
There is little more awesome than demonstrating the fire power, discipline and effective communication of around 200 men overlooking the near silent countryside and in unison firing their automatic and semi-automatic weapons into the surrounding space. Sound then silence.
A demonstration of firepower to strike fear into the hearts of any with the intent of mounting an attack. Though, I suspect, also an opportunity to take compass bearings on our machine gun posts.
However my weeks at the Horseshoe provided the opportunity for me to think, to write letters to my mother, with whom I had corresponded on a weekly basis from when I went off to boarding school in Warwick and continued until shortly before she died.
To exchange letters with my future wife and mother of our children, Jeanette.
There was the relief, joy and comforting assurance of receiving a bundle of ‘letters from home’ each week when the mail came in.
It was during this six weeks that major life decisions were made.
Continued…
218. JWBH2Jan2020_1 Photo 33 Clearing patrol ‘around the wire’ (Horseshoe) Vietnam 1967.
219. JWBH2Jan2020_2 Photo 32 Jim (Irish) Lyttle making a point at 2010 Platoon reunion.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
220. JWBH29Dec2019Church St Gabriel's Church of England. Biloela 1950s.
I could never find the 'Holy Spirit amongst us...' I did search under the pews, but never could. I think I was sent to search 'outside' to 'look' so the rest of the folk could listen to the minister...
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
December 29, 2019
Continued …
Part 7
Horseshoe Defenses
It could not be said that life on the Horseshoe feature was defensive. While there were few ‘night operations’ and at the end of each day we returned to our bunkers for sleep, the daily routine was exhausting. There were regular ‘clearing patrols’ into the surrounding Bamboo thickets and jungle to the North and there was little doubt that the Viet Cong were actively observing and monitoring our activities.
On one of our extended clearing patrols through the bamboo thickets, which were so thick it was impossible to move forward following a compass bearing. This placed the Forward Scouts at high risk of ‘Friendly Fire’ from other platoons moving forward following parallel bearings, we encountered a group of recently dug fire pits. These would have been dug in preparation for mortar attacks.
Preparedness for attacks is, or should be, a constant pre-occupation in defensive positions.
Maintaining constant vigil, though, is difficult when there is a low level of ‘hostile’ activity as was the case during our Horseshoe deployment.
The Viet Cong were in the process of planning for the Tet offensive and those in High Command were convinced and exuding confidence that they were ‘winning the war’.
The soldiers of B Company were mostly young men, a mixture of regular soldiers and conscripts. The work schedule being maintained was both physically rigorous and mentally demanding.
There are times when the level of ‘alertness’ wanes as the nature of wartime military activity is a combination of “… 90% boredom and 10% terror…”
A ‘working day’ could extend across a 24 hour period with little opportunity for rest.
When not on patrols or checkpoint activities away from the Horseshoe keeping ‘the troops’ focused and alert was imperative.
They were young, fit active men at the height of their curiosity of life. In an environment where half a day is the equivalent to a lifetime boredom sets in quickly. They are not readily confined to the management of three or four bunkers on the side of a hill between sentry duty.
They ‘ wander off’ to visit a mate across ‘the other side of the Horseshoe’ or to watch the movement of helicopters coming and going from operations, or to check on the Artillery battery hidden away at the base of the volcano or to retreat to their bunker to sample a drop of the spirits they smuggled into the lines after their last visit to the American PX in Nui Dat.
They begin to believe that the only real danger is from Sunburn or Heat stroke from being exposed to the searing hot tropical sun while carrying out the mindless task of filling sandbags on the side of a hill stripped of its natural shade and vegetation.
Defensive positions always require ongoing maintenance and upgrading. For infantry soldiers this usually involves the task of ‘filling sandbags’. It is a task of little inspiration and resentment of “… the shiny assess, up the chain…”
As a Section Commander, with direct responsibility for nine men and five bunkers, I gave thought to the complaints “… No time to clean my gear…
writing to my girlfriend… visiting my mate… you are just a bunch of arsholes…” and more and devised a plan.
“ Just how many sandbags should a Section be able to fill in a day, “ I asked and calculated.
After some enthusiastic and non-enthusiastic discussion we reached a number.
“Well, if you can triple that number, with one soldier less you can roster one of the Section off for the day and if you manage it by 1300 hours, apart from sentry duty, you can all ‘knock off’ until the 1600 hours parade”.
A task I thought would be very hard to achieve.
It took just three days for the Section to be ready to ‘knock off’ by 1300 hours.
Maintaining a level of alertness and readiness on a 24 hour basis in a mammoth task.
The physical and mental strain of ‘Clearing patrols’, Checkpoint Duties, Search Exercises, Equipment maintenance and around the clock sentry duties, combined with dealing with the inevitable day to day interpersonal issues which arise from a group of young males confined in a disciplinary space brings with it both exhaustion and tension.
From time to time, depending on ‘Intelligence Reports’, levels of alertness would be promulgated ‘from above’.
In the normal routine a soldier would be expected to rotate through a two hour ‘stint’ by the machine gun each night. The next level was ‘two hours on and four off,' then came the orders ‘one hour on and two hours off’ an almost impossible ask for a sustained period. Sleeping on sentry duty, especially when there is the possibility of a potential imminent attack.
An offence usually punished by 30 days field punishment and one of the soldiers in my section could not be left alone on sentry duty. During one operation he ‘fell asleep’ at the sight of two Viet Cong soldiers who were ‘passing by’. It was most likely his mechanism for dealing with fear. He should never have been assigned to the Infantry Corps. It was only after that incident he was transferred to a more suitable posting. After his discharge he continued to serve as an active member of the army reserves Transport Corps for the next two decades.
There are times when those at ‘Headquarters’ demand of their troops the impossible and then blame them for not making it possible.
I chose to interpret the order as meaning that if two men were on sentry duty together for two hours they could then have four hours sleep before their next shift and they would keep each other awake while sitting by the machine gun, staring into the darkness…
I had remembered well the night, while on a SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organisation), in Thailand , as a platoon Radio Operator ( Signaller), at the end of an exhausting, day sitting, for a minute, with radio on my back and handpiece in hand and not waking until the following morning ‘stand to’… with the radio handpiece still in my hand.
The system worked well for some weeks, until the platoon Sargent at the time, woke me in the middle of the night to inform me that he had, on a night inspection round, found two members of my section, sound asleep, on guard, at the machine gun post.
I had some immediate and serious explaining to do, to platoon Commander Eric Pearson.
Continued…
221. JWBH29Dec2019_1 Photo 31 5 Platoon members, Privates Len Webster & Peter Guthrie working on trench maintenance in standard day time dress-wear for soldiers not on ‘operational duty’. Horseshoe, Veitnam 1967.
222. JWBH29Dec2019_2 Photo 30 5 Platoon members Privates Norm McCulloch and Gerald (Suds) Saunderson ‘filling sandbags’ The Horseshoe, Veitnam 1967.
223. JWBH29Dec2019_3 Photo 31 Typical night Hoochie with tiny ‘dugout’ Veitnam 1967.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
December 28, 2019
The Horseshoe
Memories of Vietnam
Continued …
Part 6
Village Search
During our time at the Horseshoe there were more encounters with the inhabitants of Dat Do than ‘manning checkpoints’.
Dat Do was considered to be ‘… under the influence…’ of the Viet Cong.
Village officials and business owners who ‘collaborated with the enemy’ were regarded as traitors and throughout the Vung Tau Provence there were regular reports of ‘laundry owners’ or ‘Civil Officials’ being assassinated by Viet Cong agents.
One of the tasks assigned to B Company while based at the Horseshoe was to carry out a ‘door to door’ search of the Village.
While some of the photographs were taken by Platoon member Private Bob Wickes during a later search of the Hoa Long Village, they are indicative of the very similar Dat Do village.
While carrying out some research to check some details of the search, I was surprised to note that these village searches are officially referred to as “ Census and Medical Assistance” operations.
My recall is that in a day long operation we moved from house to house searching every possible hiding place for weapons or material which may assist the Viet Cong.
The closest that we came to a Census was to question the whereabouts of those who were listed as occupants of the dwelling and were not present. In general those who were not present were young men and women of conscription age and while the inhabitants, who were present, were always cheerful, co-operative and compliant, when I enquired, through our interpreter “ … is listed as a member of this household/dwelling, they are not present Where are they today …?”
The response was either “ ( That is very surprising to me…) I think they may be in Saigon or Vung Tau …” or “ I do not know, they do not seem to be here…”
They were, I would surmise, in a Jungle training camp with the Viet Cong.
During the day we had one elderly lady taken away for questioning as she had items of medical equipment ‘stashed away’ in a below ground ‘dug out’.
For me, the operation provided a first hand insight into how ordinary civilians lived during wartime conditions with the ever present threat of bombing or firearm conflict.
Most of the dwellings had dirt floors. Bedding was rudimentary, with no luxuries such as mattresses. Bare boards suspended over a dug out ‘bomb shelter’ pit.
Their staple diet, rice, was stored in very large, silo like, woven rattan containers around two meters in height.
Life was precarious.
Continued …
224. JWBH28Dec2019_1 Photo 19 Style of dwellings and environs in Village search conducted by members of 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR, Vietnam 1967.
225. JWBH28Dec2019_2 Photo 20 Machine gunner Private Russ Tyres on guard Village search Vietnam 1967.
226. JWBH28Dec2019_3 Photo 21 Scene during village search Vietnam 1967.
227. JWBH28Dec2019_4 Photo 22 Scene during village search Vietnam 1967.
228. JWBH28Dec2019_5 Photo 23 Scene during village search Vietnam 1967.
229. JWBH28Dec2019_6 Photo 24 Scene during village search Vietnam 1967.
230. JWBH28Dec2019_7 Photo 24 Group of Children Village Search - Vietnam 1967.
231. JWBH28Dec2019_8 Photo 25 Girl making fishing net - Village search Vietnam 1967.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
December 27, 2019
The Horseshoe
Memories of Vietnam
Continued …
Part 5
Checkpoints, Listening Posts and Minefields
It is well to remember when reflecting on incidents like this that at the heart of the Viet Cong insurgency was the profound inequality that existed between the majority Buddhist philosophist population and the minority Catholic Christian ruling government. Most of the population, residing in the sparsely settled countryside, were subsistence farmers who had been severely affected by the war policies of the government. This included resettlement to ‘controlled’ villages without compensation. Many resisted and attempted to live out their lives in the familiar countryside. They supported, sustained or joined the Viet Cong. They were, in reality, small family groups.
Nevertheless, listening posts around the Horseshoe regularly reported movements of around ‘platoon strength’ (16 - 44 soldiers) Viet Cong in the vicinity of the Dat Do village and listening post exercises were somewhat unnerving.
They involved a section or half section of soldiers moving into a defensive position around 5 metres from a ‘well used’ jungle path before darkness, observing (and not engaging) any human activity along that path in the night, then reporting on any movement.
In the silence of the jungle gloom, only illuminated by the fluorescence of insects, the noiseless, black-clad ghosts glide by…your body, your hands shaking with no control, you count but dare not breathe, until the very last ghost passed by…you are still alive.
Checkpoints are places where there is always potential for serious occurrences. They are always at the intersection between ordinary people going about their everyday lives and usually armed persons of authority. In our case, young, untrained infantry soldiers acting mainly on our instinctive life experience and values of decency.
In telling of the following incident I am mindful of the Tom Stoppard play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”. In this play, Stoppard explores the question as to how the bit players conduct themselves while the main characters in Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” are on the main stage. The answer, of course, is that they create their own Hamlets, with the same tragic ending. Fortunately, our 5 Section, 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR First Tour checkpoint minding Hamlets did not have a tragic ending.
Another checkpoint that we were required to man was at the North-East entrance/exit to Dat Do. To the East was the major provincial town of Ba Ria. The North-East checkpoint was regarded as the ‘safe’ checkpoint as it was within the ‘umbrella,' an imaginary line that extended from the Horseshoe to Nui Dat, and the 10 kilometre minefield from the Horseshoe south to the coastal village of Lang Phuoc Hai. Daily, the checkpoint was jointly manned by a section of Australian soldiers and a section of ARVN soldiers.
The ARVN soldiers were not particularly well liked by the local population. The South Vietnamese army had been trained following the French, Napoleonic, tradition of ‘being distant.’ They were drawn from more distant administrative districts. Their uniforms were immaculate, crisp and their manner was overbearing. We were transported from the Horseshoe to the checkpoint by APC because of the ambush on the checkpoint resulting in the death of an Australian soldier. Upon arrival at the checkpoint, the Australian soldiers took up positions to the left of the road and the ARVN to the right. Our day did not begin well, as shortly after my section moved into position and before the lifting of the curfew, my ARVN counterpart called his section order for an inspection. He began berating one of his soldiers and as the soldier stood to attention he pulled his sidearm from his holster and physically struck him with some force, an action that in no circumstances would be tolerated in the Australian army. Good order and discipline is not and never will be maintained by physical violence towards subordinate soldiers. I was not at ease with this fellow.
The day progressed with routine, a couple of section on guard at the machine gun, one or two resting and the remainder greeting oncoming bullock carts, horse carts and ‘chuk chuks’ and checking papers. This was a population at war, travelling outside populated areas required permits and identity documents. Vehicles and their contents were given at least rudimentary searches. We were infantry soldiers with no training in vehicle or load searches. Laden vehicles were poked with bayonets and waved through with banter and good humour. However, I noticed that our ARVN counterparts were much more confrontational and aggressive, that something was taken from each load or person before they were waved through. Petty corruption — and we were supposed to be winning the hearts and minds of the population. In the main, the Vietnamese population complied with, perhaps, resignation. Then around mid-day or a little later, in the heat of the day, a young woman laden with two baskets of bamboo shoots suspended or balanced on a long pole approached the checkpoint. My ARVN counter began checking her papers and demanded part of her load. She refused with some acrimony. He responded with threats and forced her to stand in the middle of the road and remove her hat. It was at the height of the hot, tropical sun. After a short time, I intervened.
“Are her papers in order? Is she VC?” I asked.
He was evasive.
“I will check her papers,” I insisted.
We glared at each other.
“If she is not VC let her go,” I demanded.
Now I must say that the young woman was not really helping to de-escalate the situation as within the Vietnamese culture there appears to be less reticence than with English culture to explore the nature of sexual expression. So far as I could interpret with my limited Vietnamese, she was in very loud voice explaining to all now listening that he was a soak from Saigon that had limited capacity for sexual performance and that he was not really a nice person…and a little more…
The situation was intensifying. It was very hot, tempers were high, but I also figured that a person who had recently pistol-whipped one of his soldiers was unlikely to have the unreserved support of his troops. So I ‘stood to’ my entire section. Now if there is anything that helps concentrate the mind, it is facing off a section of six or so soldiers armed with machine guns and semi-automatic weapons, especially if you are alone armed only with a holstered handgun. He quickly waved the young woman through and retreated from the scene. She went off carrying her load and in somewhat anti-climactic conditions everyone returned to their routine of managing the checkpoint.
I then noticed that one of my section was not present. He appeared a little later. During his break he had ventured into the Dat Do village in search of a beer and female companionship, on duty, a Viet Cong sympathising village, unarmed and in the middle of the day, casually explaining that it was “…his lunch break.”
It took me some years of reflection to wonder why so many of us were so at ease with the Vietnamese population. That it was the regular soldiers who wandered off. Then I realised that they were all soldiers who had served for extended periods on the Malaya Peninsular, unlike the majority of the Australian population at the time, they were familiar with Asian culture, not through formal learning but by experience. On duty and on leave they had mixed with the local population. They saw the civilian population as people coming and going about their daily life, not as ‘the enemy’. The ease and experience of the regular soldiers in my section followed through and influenced the slightly younger, conscripted soldiers.
In wartime situations there are a series of small incidents that demonstrate the sheer insensitivity to the plight of the civilian population caught up in the conflict engulfing their everyday life. In 1967, those in command of the Australian military were obsessed with the notion that laying minefields across extended areas was a great defensive tactic. The main source of sustenance for the folk who lived in the Dat Do village was rice growing. Each season their rice was harvested and stored in very large rattan containers in their home. They depended on the rice harvest for their very existence. There was no social security, no pension, no aged care services. To the South-East of the Horseshoe, rice paddies reached to the very base of the feature. A small paddy, less than an acre, was on the North-East of the road that skirted around the base of the Horseshoe and led to the bamboo plantations to the North.Each day, an elderly farmer from Dat Do arrived in the early morning and until curfew tended his small plot. Having grown up on a farm, I followed the progress of the crop. With favourable conditions in the tropics, a farmer can produce three rice crops a year. When we arrived at the Horseshoe, his crop was approaching harvesting maturity. Each day he, like my father with his wheat crop, tested the hardness of the rice to judge its readiness for harvest.
Then without notice, around three weeks before harvest, it was fenced off to lay a protective minefield. As I recall, my section was at the time patrolling that section at the perimeter. The gentleman was no longer allowed to tend his crop. He approached me and pleaded to be allowed at least to harvest his crop. In turn I approached our Company Commander Major Bill (Maps) Carter, pointing out that his harvest was imminent and it would not hurt to delay laying the minefield for a week or so. Bill Carter took up the matter with his superior officers but the word came back that the farmer should “take it up with the civil authorities” and ask for compensation. The elderly farmer returned to the fence daily to watch his crop wilt and die.
During my time at the Horseshoe and beyond no ‘urgently required’ minefield was laid and within a few months the grand minefield barrier from the Horseshoe to the coastal village of Lang Phuoc Hai was being removed as the Viet Cong were lifting the Jumping Jack mines and relaying them as tactical weapons against the Australian Military Forces. The official war records show that they were, in fact, the largest single cause of Australian casualties in the Vietnam War.
Indeed, I and my Section were extremely fortunate not to become casualties of the mines and grenades when on a later operation I ‘tripped’ the wire in a well laid field of grenades and mines while preparing for crossing a moderately large and swift flowing water crossing.
The field was laid by local subsistence ‘hunters and gatherers’, who were experienced and practices at laying traps for wild animals. They had anticipated our tactics in crossing water streams and placed their mines and grenades to cause maximum casualties as we deployed soldiers to provide cover and support for the section that would move forward to cross the stream and secure the northern bank.
I was with Forward Scout, Frank Keogh, preoccupied, using silent hand signals to ensure that our machine gunner was placed in the best position, on the ‘high ground’ to provide protective fire for those who were most vulnerable crossing the stream when Frank yelled “ Jack you just tripped the fucken wire…”
The grenade that the wire I tripped failed to explode, that though is of a story yet to be told.
232. JWBH27Dec2019_1 Photo 16 ARVN Soldier assisting Village Search Vietnam 1967.
233. JWBH27Dec2019_2 Photo 17 Curious children of Dat Do village at checkpoint, note machine gunner on guard. 5 Section 5 Platoon, B Company 2 RAR Vietnam 1967.
234. JWBH27Dec2019_3 Photo 18 He came to tender his rice crop daily.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
December 26, 2019
The Horseshoe
Memories of Vietnam
Continued …
Part 4
Checkpoint Duties
However, one of our tasks while deployed at the Horseshoe was to man, in conjunction with personnel from the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam (ARVN), the East and North-West checkpoints at the entrance and exits from the village from the lifting of the morning curfew after dawn to the evening curfew. It was a task for which, as infantry soldiers, we had completely no training. Each morning a section of soldiers would begin by clearing a section of around 200 metres of road from the fortified entrance of the Horseshoe Fire Support Base to the ‘main road’ (the unpaved road that skirted around the Horseshoe).
The purpose of clearing the road was to ensure that overnight the Viet Cong had not, in the cover of darkness, laid anti-personnel mines. This was also an exercise for which we had virtually no training. While it is now that many folks have sophisticated mineral detecting equipment, some fifty years ago in Vietnam, mine detecting equipment was relatively primitive. We were, with no training, issued with a cumbersome mine detector to ‘sweep’ the road. They were, to be praiseworthy, of little use. Our technique was to carefully examine the ground for any fresh disturbances that indicated a newly planted mine and on every occasion I thanked the Aboriginal folk from my childhood Fleetwood station where they taught me as a three and four year old to track animals, find water and how to find my way home if I was lost.
After clearing the road we were transported via armoured personnel carrier to the checkpoint where we stopped every incoming person, checked their paperwork, searched their bullock carts, donkey carts and ‘chuk chuk’ transport vehicles as they travelled from village to village through Viet Cong territory. The work on these checkpoints was mainly routine. The exchange with the local Vietnamese folk was cheerful and respectful with good humour. During my time as Section Commander on the Eastern checkpoint there were only two incidents of memorable note.
The first of these incidents requires a quick reminder that east of the checkpoint was regarded as Viet Cong controlled. There were frequent American bombings with strikes of 500 pound bombs and if you are wanting to swiftly excavate a hole for a 30 metre swimming pool, a 500 pound bomb will do the job. Now imagine a stick of ten. To determine just where to drop these bombs requires observance. This was usually done by pilots flying small reconnaissance helicopters. There was a clear 500 metres from the Eastern checkpoint to the jungle. The Eastern checkpoint was generally less active than the West, as it ran through Viet Cong territory, people approached by vehicle rather than by foot. On this occasion, in the distance we spotted a tiny figure running in the middle of the road. As it approached we observed that it was not a Vietnamese man but a man in uniform running at full pace…running for his life. The man was the pilot of an Australian Army Reconnaissance flight unit, which was operating out of Nui Dat. The unit was carrying out reconnaissance (Recci) flights over the Viet Cong dominated jungle area to the east of the Horseshoe, some 5 kilometres from the checkpoint, in Viet Cong territory when his Bell helicopter had developed engine difficulties, forcing him to land in an open rice paddy adjoining the road from Dat Do to Xuyen Moc. His options were to stay with his helicopter and wait for assistance (risking the possibility of being killed or captured) or to run. He possibly broke all running records for a 5 kilometre dash for a pilot officer in full uniform in Vietnam for 1967. (It is worthy of note that the helicopter was recovered intact by the end of the day.)
The second incident also relates to the bombing of Viet Cong territory. There is no accurate knowledge of the strength of the Viet Cong units operating in the jungle and rice paddy areas between Dat Do and Xuyen Moc but they were regularly subjected to strikes by B52 bombers delivering multiples of 500 pound bombs. Prior to sustained bombing sorties, it was a practice to ‘smother’ the target area with ‘surrender’ leaflets, distributed by helicopters or light aircraft. Shortly after one of these ‘leaflet drops’, our section was allocated to manning the checkpoint at the Eastern entrance to the Dat Do village checking the papers of all incoming folk. There was a regular flow of ‘Chuk Chuk’ passengers form the Xuyan Moc village to the East. But then one ‘chuk chuk’ vehicle arrived with great commotion. It was overloaded with thirteen passengers, all vigorously waving ‘surrender leaflets.’ Thirteen surrendering Viet Cong greeting a handful of bemused Australian Infantry soldiers and I, Corporal Jack Hungerford, was ‘Commander of the Guard.’
As was a frequent occasion our radio communication back to the Horseshoe was not ‘in order.’ What does one do on such an occasion? I asked myself. Being a farm boy from isolated Central Queensland and having been brought up to think for myself and make decisions, my thoughts, without really thinking through the possibilities that something may go wrong, were…it is not a good thing to have thirteen Viet Cong under guard at a major checkpoint waiting some hours for relief because the radio is not working. They are, in the main, unarmed women, children and elderly folk who do not appear to pose a threat, and after all they are surrendering on the way to the checkpoint. In the morning sitting on top of an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC). I noted a well guarded Army of South Vietnam (ARVN) police station and decided to just hop on to the back of the ‘chuk chuk ‘ along with the surrendering Viet Cong and escort them to the police station then get the driver to bring me back to the checkpoint — which I did.
Thinking it through over the subsequent years, it was just a little risky and I probably only survived the exercise because of its audacity. A single soldier in a Viet Cong sympathetic village escorting a group of surrendering Viet Cong women, children and elderly to a well guarded ARVN police station, off loading them and cheerfully wishing them goodbye and good luck with appropriate Buddhist symbols then returning to the checkpoint to resume normal duties. When we returned to our company at day’s end and reported the incident to Company Commander Bill ‘Maps’ Carter, he chastised me for not seeking additional support and not recognising that our company could not claim credit for surrendering VC as I had handed them to the ARVN. Though, I note, he could not have been too upset as he did not object to me becoming the Acting Platoon Sergeant on operations a short time later.
Continued…
235. JWBH26Dec2019_1 Photo 8 Transport to Checkpoints was on APC’s in this manner.
236. JWBH26Dec2019_2 Once was Newlyn Antiques & Nursery (John W. B. Hungerford)
· December 26, 2019 Photo 10 Dat Do Checkpoint Vietnam 1967
Comments by Lloyd Young: That is where the 2 RAR crew were going when ambushed and Weston was killed.
Chris Cannan: This is the result of that ambush
Willie Russell: I remember the dat do check point very well
237. JWBH26Dec2019_3 Photo 11 Dat Do to Xuan Moc transport.
238. JWBH26Dec2019_4 Photo 12 ‘Chuc Chuc’ transport.
239. JWBH26Dec2019_5 Photo 13 Section Commander John (Jack) Hungerford conducting vehicle search at Horseshoe Checkpoint, Vietnam 1967.
240. JWBH26Dec2019_6 Photo 14 5 Platoon members conducting check and search of travellers through Dat Do Checkpoint. Vietnam 1967.
241. JWBH26Dec2019_7 Photo 15 Traveller through Dat Do Checkpoint Vietnam 1967.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
December 26, 2019
The Horseshoe
Memories of Vietnam
Continued …
Part 3 Settling in
My first night I came across my first challenge to bunker living. Being a well organised soldier, ready for any eventuality, I ensured that each night my backpack was packed and prepared for the next day — rations, ammunition, bedding and the like. The previous occupant int he bunker had installed a number of wall hooks for hanging packs. I duly packed my equipment and hung it on the wall. The next morning, as I prepared to exit for patrol, I threw on my pack to find it was nearly empty and had a massive hole in the back. Rats had crawled up the wall of the bunker, eaten through the pack and then eaten my rations. I was sharing the bunker with a cohort of rats! From then on, all my rations had to be stored in steel ammunition boxes.
One problem solved but bunker living produced some further unexpected challenges. As our bunkers were on the outer perimeter facing the potential of enemy attack or sniper fire, there was no lighting. Our daily routine was to attend the company mess area for meals and the semi-outdoor shower complex, lower into the crater, for daily ablutions. On dark nights, movement to and from picket duty was ‘by feel’ — stumbling along darkened trenches to the machine gun post that was manned 24 hours each day. It was the wet season and each time it rained, streams of water coursed along the open trenches and into the lowered entrance to the bunker and exiting through a small hole at the forward base of the bunker after flooding the floor. This was rectified by finding a number of used ammunition boxes, some wooden ‘duck boards’ and raising the floor by around a foot to allow the water to flow underneath.
Nevertheless, I quickly adapted to living in my bunker and there were massive benefits. From my bunker I was able to appreciate and contemplate the intrinsic beauty of the Vietnamese countryside and culture.
It may seem contradictory, but from the bunker the war seemed far away. Each morning in the pre-dawn light we ‘stood to’ prepared for the possibility of an attack by the Viet Cong. ‘Stand to’ lasted into the post dawn. That was an enchanting time, looking from the height of an extinct volcano across the West at the soft pastel green network of paddy fields as they emerged through the dawn. Skirting around the base of the Horseshoe from the village of Dat Do was an unpaved road that wound through the rice paddies to larger villages, bamboo plantations and the jungle forests. Each morning, following ‘stand to’ in the post-dawn light immediately after the lifting of the nightly curfew, the villagers streamed by foot, bullock cart and donkey, to their fields or to the next village for commerce. The noise of their animated conversations floated up the side of the hill in some magical way.
In retrospect, the reason for the animated, noisy interactions may have been to ensure that we, as defenders of the Horseshoe, were aware of their presence and did not fire on them in fright, or it may have been the normal exuberant cultural manner of a Vietnamese heritage. But for what ever reason, it instilled in me an awareness of the beauty of both the landscape and the Vietnamese culture.
The essence of understanding military life is being able to accept the dichotomy of routine and chaos. For order it is necessary to have routine. For military action it is necessary to confront chaos.
Each day after ‘stand to’ came the morning ‘clearing patrol’. A half section wove their way through the network of paths down the side of the hill, cautiously making their way through the barbed wire entanglement and minefield to ensure that there were no enemy soldiers hidden ready to attack with sniper fire from the base of the hill. Following this — ablutions, breakfast in the mess tent and, as Section Commander, the daily ‘Orders Group,’ where final preparations for daily exercises were given.
‘Orders Group,’ which consisted of Platoon Commanders and Section Commanders, were carried out at least twice daily and on operations more often. Usually, in the evening ‘Orders Group’ the expected activities for the following day were outlined. E.g. “Jack, tomorrow your section will be manning the East Dat Do checkpoint. Transport will be by APC (Armoured Personnel Carrier). Get your troops to the assembly area at 0700 hours. Rations for one day.”
I would return to ‘the troops’ for their ‘daily orders,’ which included briefing for the following day, ensuring that their equipment was in order, rations were collected and the night sentry of picket shift was organised — two hours on and four off, or if the alert level was high, one hour on and two off.
With the section bunkers spread over a considerable distance and communication via zigzag trenches, Section Commanders were afforded a high degree of autonomy in the day to day management of their section. As already mentioned, with our section west facing and, in theory, ‘safe’ because of the open network of rice paddies, minefield and barbed wire entanglements. There was however, one gun placement that alerted my instinct that the strategic military planners thought differently.
The Horseshoe hill faced north to south with the open end of the horseshoe to the South, overlooking the village of Dat Do. Our section was placed at the South-West end of the hill. To our Immediate south was a bunker facing directly towards the Dat Do village. It was manned, not by troops from our Infantry Company but, I believe, by troops from the Armoured Corps. They were manning the largest machine gun that I had ever seen. Its direct field of fire was in to the Dat Do village below. My thought on this gun placement went something in the direction of — “We have been told that our objective is to protect the village from the Viet Cong. Prior to our deployment to the Horseshoe, elements of A Company en route to the East Dat Do checkpoint through the Dat Do village were ambushed in the village. No one in the village saw any of the platoon of Viet Cong assembling for the ambush or withdrawing after the ambush. I reckon that the military planning people expect that any attack will be mounted from the ‘safe’ side — through the village — with the help of the folk we are supposed to be ‘protecting.’” Thankfully, my theory was never tested.
Continued…
242. JWBH26Dec2019_pt2_1 Photo 8 Private Norm McLennon 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR ‘Bashing Dixies…’ The Horseshoe, Vietnam 1967.
243. JWBH26Dec2019_pt2_2 Photo 7 Private Stephen Way, 5 Platoon B Company 2RAR at ‘The Horseshoe’ manning ‘… the biggest Machine Gun that I had seen in my life…’ Vietnam 1967.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
December 24, 2019
The Horseshoe
Memories of Vietnam
Part 2 “The Bunker” Continued…
During our posting , in addition to providing an on-ground defence of the base, our tasks included clearing patrols around the Horseshoe, manning the Eastern and North-Western checkpoints at the road entrances and exits to the village of Dat Do and a large house to house ‘search’ operation of the Dat Do village.
The Eastern checkpoint monitored and searched the flow of traffic and Vietnamese folk travelling through the Dat Do village to outer villages, such as Swan Moc (Xuyen Moc) to the East. East of this checkpoint was considered Viet Cong territory.
The North-West checkpoint was regarded as being ‘safer’ as, in theory, it was within the ‘protective perimeter’ of the minefield and an imaginary line to the Nui Dat taskforce. It was also within an area of heavily cultivated rice paddies where most of the subsistence farmers from Dat Do tended their rice fields on a daily basis.
The routine for manning the Eastern checkpoint was for a section (around 7 to 9 soldiers) to leave the Horseshoe Base in the early dawn hours and travel by Jeep vehicle through the Dat Do village to the checkpoint prior to the lifting of the overnight curfew.
One morning, an estimated platoon of Viet Cong soldiers ambushed the checkpoint duty soldiers en route, killing one A company soldier and wounding others.
So it was that around 6 weeks into our placement in Vietnam our platoon were transported by helicopter the short distance from Nui Dat to the Horseshoe. The landing pad was nestled at the heart of the crater and we made our way on foot the few hundred metres to our new base at the South-West rim. Our section was allocated five bunkers facing west.
Up to this point, my entire army experience, in training and on duty in Malaya, had been as a constantly moving, jungle warfare infantry platoon. Passive hilltop defence had never been part of my thought process, apart from reading accounts of trench warfare in WWI. Yet, here we were, with classic zigzag trenches, bunkers and warnings not to expose yourself to view from the outer perimeter.
The sides of the steep crater were adorned with barbed wire entanglements covering a field of landmines, accessible only by a network of zigzag paths through ‘the wire’. Step off the paths and you stepped on to a mine.
Our section’s bunkers comprised four ‘two man’ bunkers and one ‘single man’ bunker. The ‘single man’ bunker was a little forward and at a lower elevation to the others and the troops that we were relieving informed us it had been ‘condemned’. I assumed it was ‘condemned’ because it was too far forward and in danger of being overrun in the event of a mass attack. I decided that as we were facing west on the ‘safe’ side of the Horseshoe looking across a wide expanse of paddy fields that a mass attack from that direction was unlikely. In addition, it was the centre bunker, allowing easier communications with section members on either side. I allocated it to myself. (I later realised that one of the reasons for its condemnation was that, being forward, it was in the ‘arc of fire’ of our own defensive machine guns.)
One of the other reasons that I chose a ‘one man’ bunker was that it meant solitude. In my five years and three months in the armed forces I always lived in barracks, sharing daily living with up to six other soldiers and as I was within months of completing ‘my time’ in the army I would have to think through my options — to sign on again or to opt for returning to civilian life. Being alone at night allowed for more thinking time.
My first night I came across my first challenge to bunker living. Being a well organised soldier, ready for any eventuality, I ensured that each night my backpack was packed and prepared for the next day — rations, ammunition, bedding and the like. The previous occupant int he bunker had installed a number of wall hooks for hanging packs. I duly packed my equipment and hung it on the wall. The next morning, as I prepared to exit for patrol, I threw on my pack to find it was nearly empty and had a massive hole in the back. Rats had crawled up the wall of the bunker, eaten through the pack and then eaten my rations. I was sharing the bunker with a cohort of rats! From then on, all my rations had to be stored in steel ammunition boxes.
One problem solved but bunker living produced some further unexpected challenges. As our bunkers were on the outer perimeter facing the potential of enemy attack or sniper fire, there was no lighting. Our daily routine was to attend the company mess area for meals and the semi-outdoor shower complex, lower into the crater, for daily ablutions. On dark nights, movement to and from picket duty was ‘by feel’ — stumbling along darkened trenches to the machine gun post that was manned 24 hours each day. It was the wet season and each time it rained, streams of water coursed along the open trenches and into the lowered entrance to the bunker and exiting through a small hole at the forward base of the bunker after flooding the floor. This was rectified by finding a number of used ammunition boxes, some wooden ‘duck boards’ and raising the floor by around a foot to allow the water to flow underneath.
Nevertheless, I quickly adapted to living in my bunker and there were massive benefits. From my bunker I was able to appreciate and contemplate the intrinsic beauty of the Vietnamese countryside and culture.
Continued …
244. JWBH24Dec2019_1 Photo 5 Part of The Horseshoe Bunker and Trench System - Vietnam 1967.
245. JWBH24Dec2019_2 Photo 6 Machine Gun Bunker 'The Horseshoe' Vietnam 1967.
246. JWBH24Dec2019_3 Photo 7 The view from 'my Bunker' across the pastel soft green paddy fields into the western hills. Vietnam 1967.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
December 24, 2019
Over the past few weeks I have been 'gathering together' my recollections of a six weeks deployment to an extinct volcano known as 'The Horseshoe' in Vietnam.
The story is perhaps too long for the limitations of Facebook so I will 'publish it' in short episodes
The Horseshoe
Memories of Vietnam
In their thesis , The Social Construction of Reality, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman, presented the compelling notion that:
Our views, knowledge and reality are shaped and moulded by the beliefs and confines of the society within which we are born. That is, if you are born into an isolated society of Welsh coalminers, your construction of reality will be shaped by the cultural beliefs and practices within that society. Similarly, if you are from a society that holds Buddhist or Muslim or Hindu of Christian beliefs, your social realities will have been pre-determined many generations before your birth. Changes in those realities will only emerge and take hold incrementally with constant exposure to differing realities that question and challenge existing social constructions.
The construction of the beliefs, the values, the philosophies that guide you through are incremental. They are grounded during your formative years, a combination of parental nurturing and genetic predisposition. They are tested and refined during adolescence. By early adulthood, they are generally firmly moulded into life patterns.
When I review my life’s progress and the most significant period of firming all of the childhood, adolescent and young adult incremental steps I see they came in 1967 when, as a Section Commander in 5 platoon B Company 2RAR, we undertook a 42 day rotation to the Horseshoe Fire Support Base in Vietnam. During the first tour of Vietnam by 2RAR, each Infantry Company was rotated through to the Fire Support Base to provide defence personnel. The base was commonly termed “The Horseshoe”.
In strategic terms, the Horseshoe was the remnants of a long extinct, horseshoe-shaped volcano crater. It was located 8 kilometres south-east of the Task Support Base of Nui Dat and around 750 metres north of the village of Dat Do. It provided an extensive view of the surrounding countryside. While the official war records say that the base was to “provide the village of Dat Do protection from the Viet Cong” the reality was, that most of the village folk from Dat Do, at the very least sympathised with the Viet Cong and passively collaborated with them. It was also associated with one of the major failures of Australian involvement in the Vietnam war. Again, according to official Australian war records, it was a base from which a “barrier minefield would sever a vital Viet Cong supply route, preventing their movement from their mountain base to the rice growing areas of the west…It would contain approximately 20,000 Jumping Jack mines, for a length of 10 kilometres, from the Horseshoe, near Dat Do to the coast…The completed minefield would be guarded by Australian and Army of South Vietnam troops.”
“The minefield security was ineffective and the Viet Cong breached the barrier fences, lifted the mines and re-used them effectively against Australian and ARVN Troops.”
There were also Australian injuries and deaths during the mine laying operation and “In August 1969, a 5RAR attack in the Long Hai [coastal) mountain fifty-eight Australians were wounded and nine killed. Most of the casualties were the result of Jumping Jack mines…”
B Company’s rotation to the Horseshoe was early in the establishment of the Fire Support Base, at a time when the Viet Cong were quite active in the area. From our pre-deployment briefings, at least at platoon strength (16 to 44 soldiers).
Continued....
247. JWBH24Dec2019_pt2_1 Photo 1 The Horseshoe Vietnam 1967.
248. JWBH24Dec2019_pt2_2 Photo 2 Military map of The Horseshoe in relation to the Dat Do Village - Vietnam 1967.
249. JWBH24Dec2019_pt2_3 Photo 3 View into The Horseshoe -Vietnam 1967.
250. JWBH24Dec2019_pt2_4 Photo 4 View of The Horseshoe from the paddy fields to the east. Vietnam 1967.
The photos associated with this portion of John’s story can be viewed by clicking here.
Submitted by Richard Hungerford at 4:25 PM on April 17, 2020.