Going Back

by Gary McKay

  Mental and physical preparation

  Apart from being medically fit to travel and fully inoculated, it is also important that veterans are mentally prepared for their return to the battlefield. In particular, they need to be aware that things have changed fairly dramatically, and sights and places that have been etched into memory will no longer look the same. As part of his preparation tour guide Garry Adams contacts his tour group to set the scene for their visit:

  I speak with them on the phone and give them a brief outline of what the place is like now. I think it is important to let them know that it is quite safe to move around and they are not going to have people jumping out of the bushes at them with guns and all that sort of thing.17

  Garry also ensures that the group acclimatises before reaching the battlefield areas, both physically and mentally:

  It sets their mind at rest . . . We always spend a few days in Saigon first to let them get back and to realise they are back in Viet Nam and it is not full of boogie men and they are not going to get shot at, and they are not going to get robbed—I mean they might get pick-pocketed if they are unlucky—but it eases them into it. And even if it is [only] two or three days it is always helpful to spend that time in Saigon first, or even in Hanoi if we are coming south. It just lets them get back into the swing of things, have a look at the city, and see how friendly the people are. Then we just take it from there step by step.18

  But before even joining the group, the veteran must also be psychologically ready to tour. It is not in the best interests of the veteran or his family and friends if there are ‘issues’ that need to be resolved. As Garry Adams explains:

  I have had women ring up on behalf of their husband and say ‘my husband needs to go back to Viet Nam because he has a lot of issues’. And I ask what issues does he have, and they say, ‘Oh, he beats me up and he beats the kids up and then runs out the back and hides behind the chook house, shouting out the VC are coming,’ and all this sort of business. And ‘he has been arrested for assaulting Asians down at the local supermarket’. I tell them, ‘I can assure you he is not coming on our tour.’19

  Thankfully those cases are very few. Most tour members are ready and more than willing to visit Viet Nam and immerse themselves back into the country.

  However, it must be realised that Viet Nam is still a Third World nation, not a first-class tourist destination. There are no facilities for the disabled, and there is a distinct lack of public amenities away from the larger cities. It can be rough on the ladies at times, and carrying your own supplies is always strongly recommended.

  Thoughts on the former enemy

  Most tour groups will run into former South Vietnamese soldiers and may find the experience unsettling, as the men are now treated somewhat unfairly by the current political regime. Occasionally tour groups will also come into contact with former Viet Cong (VC) or North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldiers, and this can be even more unsettling.

  Men like Bob Hann had quite strong views on the former enemy. Bob returned to Viet Nam with me in 1993, and when asked if he ever felt sorry for them, replied, ‘At the time never. After the trip back in 1993 I saw some things differently.’20 Fellow infantryman Steve Campling expressed a similar sentiment when asked the same question: ‘Never! It was them or me!’ But that hasn’t deterred Steve and his wife from returning for a second trip to Viet Nam, which they undertook in late 2006. For Steve events of war are now ‘water under the bridge’.21

  Derrill De Heer, who met and interviewed many prisoners and detainees during the war, had a different view of the former enemy:

  After many interviews and seeing the effects of abductions, kidnappings, assassinations and the destroying of government facilities used to achieve military and political ends, I’m not sorry for their leaders. I feel sorry and have a lot of sympathy for those who had been coerced into supporting the VC. I felt sorry for the peasants who lost limbs to the mines the VC placed where the locals were injured.

  I felt sorry for the people, as the VC [Communists] destroyed their society with fear, coercion, threats, kidnappings and assassinations, so they could build it in the way they wished.22

  And that is one thing that may stick in the craw of some veterans: the manner in which the former enemy fought. It can be a sticking point to reconciling with the former foe— but only if the veteran allows it to be. I found it was easier to let bygones be bygones, and get on with living in the present. Many former enemy soldiers were only doing what they believed was right for their cause at the time.

  Only rarely have I found that Australian servicemen actually ‘hated’ their enemy, and even then it was tempered with respect. Mortarman Garry Heskett viewed his former foe as ‘a very resourceful and battle-hardened opponent which I hated on one hand, but respected on the other, for his skills in confrontation had been tested and honed over many years’.23

  Ian Ryan saw the enemy uncomfortably close on a few occasions, especially at Fire Support Base Harrison during the Tet Offensive of 1968. As a gunner and battery surveyor he saw first hand how hot the action got as the enemy assaulted the Australian position. His view of them was pragmatic:

  At the time, I did not allow myself to think too much about them. Even when you saw their dead bodies, it had no impact on me whatsoever. The NVA I thought were very good soldiers and made the most of what little they had. I feel sure had they been better equipped and trained, who knows how much more damage they could have inflicted on the Allies. You have to remember that we were fighting on their terms and in areas that they knew well and they could easily blend in with the local population most of the time. I did, however, feel that they were expendable (‘cannon fodder’) by their leadership, and that how many of them would be killed in the process, it did not matter, as long as the end justified the means.24

  Ian Ryan’s supposition about the attitude of the enemy leaders is supported by Intelligence Sergeant Derrill De Heer, who had a great deal of contact with captured Viet Cong soldiers, and many others who had surrendered under the Chieu Hoi (surrender) program:

  Many were uneducated, illiterate poor peasants. Some had been abducted into the Viet Cong [units] and pressed into service. The VC cadres were very good at indoctrinating these people. The VC volunteers who came back under the ‘returnee’ program came back because they were tired, hungry, needed medical treatment or had lost the will to fight. After some time many of them didn’t believe their cadres anymore.25

  Bill Kromwyk did his tour of duty as a machine-gunner in the Tracker Platoon on 6 RAR’s second tour of duty in 1969–70. His platoon had a ‘successful’ tour in that they accounted for a number of enemy and lost no-one from the Trackers. Bill offered these comments about the men he fought against:

  I suppose I did feel sorry [for them] a couple of times after someone was shot. I remember one VC; his foot was only just hanging on with a bit of tendon. He was being lifted out by helicopter, and I can still see the look on his face. He was in absolute agony. I suppose you feel a little bit sorry there, but it could be you. I remember someone throwing me the wallet from a dead Viet Cong soldier and they said, ‘Here Bill, that’s yours.’ Inside there were a couple of family photos of his sisters and his mother, and you don’t feel good after that.26

  Such moments of compassion were quite understandable, although Bill also added that after a while he became ‘a bit hardened with them actually. But I was there to do a job and I did it as best as I could.’27

  Peter Rogers was attached to the Americans for a while on flying duties and was exposed to a different type of enemy, the NVA, that many in Phuoc Tuy Province didn’t get to see too often. Peter described how he felt about them:

  When I was with the Americans we were up against the NVA almost exclusively. They were very well trained, well equipped and well disciplined. The local force—the VC— would pick up a rifle part-time and I don’t think they had much idea of what was going on. The thing that got me was that they were fairly dedicated�
�very dedicated—and you had to have a lot of respect for them.28

  No hard feelings

  It is now 32 years since the war ended. Over the last two decades I have interviewed literally hundreds of Australian Viet Nam veterans. The common thread seems to be that the war was a dreadful waste of time, resources and lives— on both sides. But the veterans also realise that one cannot undo what has been done.

  Many former Viet Cong that I have also spoken to on my six trips back to the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam state that they hold no grudge—indeed, many respected the Australian soldiers because they ‘did not commit atrocities, took care of the Viet Cong wounded, buried their dead and tried to do something for the people of Phuoc Tuy Province’.29

  In the fifteen years since I first returned to Viet Nam the attitude towards Australians who fought in the ‘American War’ has not changed: there is no animosity, anger or angst expressed towards the returning veteran. I have drunk beer and other potent substances (I am still not sure if it was avgas or alcohol) with our former enemy, and the stark realisation that we were all soldiers once—and young—is driven home most emphatically.

  No-one has anything to be ashamed of, especially Australian veterans.

  Chapter 2

  THE 5 RAR TOUR GROUP

  The 5th Battalion, RAR, replaced 1 RAR in Viet Nam in mid-1966 after being formed at Holsworthy outside Sydney a year before. They were the first infantry battalion to deploy overseas with conscripted National Servicemen. The 5th Battalion prepared for war by conducting platoon, then company and finally battalion exercises, and attended a battle efficiency course at the Jungle Training Centre in Canungra, Queensland, where they undertook the prescribed and predictable two weeks of scrub bashing. They were then engaged in, as former company commander, Major (later colonel) Paul Greenhalgh, described it, ‘a wonderful training exercise at Gospers [north of Sydney] and conducted live firing exercises as well’.1

  The battalion deployed primarily by air (via Manila), while one rifle company went by sea on the HMAS Sydney.2 It was a unit of ‘firsts’, being the first infantry battalion to operate around Vung Tau on acclimatisation training, the first unit to move over the ground and secure the future Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat during Operation Hardihood, the first unit to occupy Nui Dat hill itself, and also suffered the first National Serviceman killed in action. Later, they would be the first unit to occupy The Horseshoe, south-west of Nui Dat.

  The 5th Battalion was a very busy unit, with companies deploying on at least 26 operations during their tour of duty, meaning that of the 353 days in-country they spent 71 per cent of it on operations. On top of this heavy patrolling requirement, they also had to clear, secure and establish the Australian Task Force base from scratch. That meant days of digging, sandbagging, wiring and just clearing the bush in and around the disused rubber plantation. For the bulk of their tour they lived under hoochies and didn’t have the luxury of the electricity, reticulated water and other facilities that later units enjoyed.

  The modus operandi for 5 RAR and then 6 RAR in 1966–67 was to deploy to an area of operations and then patrol primarily on foot. Their aim was to search for and destroy the enemy who were operating in what was then called Phuoc Tuy Province. There was also a need to establish the Australian presence, which they achieved by conducting cordon and search operations that left the local populace in no doubt that there were new players in town.

  The 5th Battalion has a very strong unit association. At a five-yearly reunion in Canberra in September 2005 it was estimated that some 900 former members attended. The idea of a pilgrimage for former officers was born some time between the laying up of the battalion’s colours in April 2004 and the funeral of a former battalion chaplain in September 2004. It took about six months for Association President Roger Wainwright to sign up enough men to make the trip viable. He planned to return in October 2005 and by June of that year he had his group assembled.

  These are the men who made up the 5 RAR tour group that returned to Viet Nam in 2005. Their ranks are given as they were in 1966.

  Major Paul Greenhalgh, Officer Commanding Delta Company, 5 RAR

  Paul was a Melbourne lad who decided to attend the Royal Military College (RMC) Duntroon in 1954. He graduated into the Infantry Corps as a lieutenant after four years. After an initial posting with a National Service battalion at Puckapunyal, he attended a parachute course and was then posted to 1 RAR, which was about to embark for service in Malaya in 1959. He served with 1 RAR as a rifle platoon commander with 7 Platoon, C Company, chasing Communist terrorists. As Paul commented, ‘Without a doubt the greatest learning experience of anything was being a platoon commander in the jungles of Malaya, and believing you were going to catch Chin Peng.’3 Paul then served with the SAS Company as a platoon commander, then as adjutant at RMC. He believed Malaya was a ‘good training ground’ for what he encountered in South Viet Nam in 1966, when he was posted on promotion to command Delta Company, 5 RAR.

  Before deploying to Viet Nam, Paul arrived at Holsworthy, ‘at the same time as about 70 per cent or 80 per cent of the company’ and undertook an intense amount of training:

  The structure of NCOs [non-commissioned officers] was there; the Regulars from the 1 RAR days and 5 RAR had only had about five or six months on its own anyhow. So it was an incredibly hectic time of training, which was planned very brilliantly by the CO [Commanding Officer] John Warr, by the senior staff at the battalion, and we just went hell for leather for five months before going away in May. It was just staggering what was done.4

  Delta Company had a mixed bag of platoon commanders: Dennis Rainer (later to win a Military Cross), a Portsea graduate; Greg Negus, a full-time Citizen Military Forces (CMF) officer;5 and Finnie Rowe, a senior graduate from the Officer Training Unit at Scheyville in the first intake of National Service.6 Half of the soldiers were Regular Army; the remainder were National Servicemen serving out their two-year conscription—but they were all infantrymen trained under the same system. As Paul remarked, ‘Obviously the older ones were Regulars but . . . there was no separation of class or anything at all, they were just all there together.’7 By the time Major Greenhalgh deployed he had a good understanding of what the war in South Viet Nam was all about, adding that the unit they were to replace, 1 RAR, were preparing 5 RAR with training notes: ‘We were definitely being fed the “dos and don’ts” and lessons learnt.’8

  After securing the Nui Dat position through Operation Hardihood, it was six weeks before the Australian Task Force came in. As Paul stated, ‘In a sense we were on our own and extremely vulnerable all that time.’ When describing the nature of their operations he added:

  The intensity was incredible and I don’t know how that compared later on in battalions, but I would say being the first in there we were in the front line and vulnerable the whole damned time. At no stage did you feel that you could let your guard down, maybe down at Vung Tau when you were sitting on R&C when you got away from the place. But you seemed to have a 360-degree personal perimeter the whole time.9

  Delta Company was spared mine incidents, but lost four killed in action in two separate incidents. Paul recalled, ‘I remember having a service in the boozer on Nui Dat hill’. On discussing the enemy he faced, he thought their ‘ability to fight was unquestioned . . . But right at the beginning I wondered about the Allies’ ability to win this war.’10 Primarily 5 RAR was continually running into local Viet Cong, and usually from D 445 Provincial Mobile Force Battalion.

  Paul looks back on his tour of duty ‘with incredible pride. My strongest legacy of the year in Viet Nam was the degree of professionalism that the soldiers attained, achieved—the National Servicemen particularly, because they were that youthful element.’11 Paul missed out on a second tour of duty as a commanding officer but did command 5/7 RAR in December 1973. His reaction to the fall of South Viet Nam was one of ‘shock and horror’. He remarked, ‘I was at Canungra [instructing] on Tactics Wing and I remember about t
en majors and myself listening to this announcement and saying, “Good God, all that effort has gone to waste.” ’12

  Paul and his wife Wendy have been back to Viet Nam several times because their son has been living in Hanoi for eight years, running a motorbike touring company. When asked why he wanted to come on the 5 RAR pilgrimage, Paul replied:

  It’s down memory lane to physically see the terrain of Viet Nam where we were. Maybe things have changed so much we won’t see any comparison to what we had before. I have got photos; my son has actually been there twice and has been to Long Tan and all over the place. It is just down memory lane for a few days and to go with a few friends and to relive that time. To see Vung Tau, Cap St Jacques as it was, and of course we will end up seeing my son up in Hanoi.13

  Initially Paul was totally against returning to Viet Nam, but after a battalion reunion in Wagga, NSW, a few years ago, and after the funeral of battalion chaplain Father John Williams in Sydney, he was convinced by fellow officer and Association President Roger Wainwright to take the journey back with a group of the battalion’s first tour officers. He admitted he was ‘just never really interested to come back to Viet Nam. It never really meant so much.’ Even though Paul had been on many battle tours around the world, he said, ‘For some reason I saw no need to come back here. But thank God I did.’14

  Wife Wendy was delighted that Paul agreed to return with the 5 RAR group and was keen to accompany him because she wanted to see the country where he had fought. She had no expectations before the tour, adding, ‘I wanted to see where he’d been to sort of fill in a jigsaw puzzle that wasn’t quite complete.’15