Going Back (10 page)

Before the trip, Roger Wainwright was keen to ‘go back and see my old platoon position' on the northern side of the airstrip. After his visit to Nui Dat Roger was elated. Grinning broadly, he said, ‘I found it, and I didn't need a GPS to do it either.' He added:

I knew pretty well exactly where my tent was. I wandered around my platoon position; I knew how it was laid out and particularly the .50 cal bunker position that was down the front. And I went down there and had a look at that. And I knew from the fall of ground where it was.
¹⁷

Reinforcing the need for veterans to have time to reflect during a battlefield visit, Roger remarked: ‘I would have liked a little bit longer there. Just to have a little bit of time, you know, just to reflect about my mates.' Roger was responsible for drawing together the small ceremony at ‘Tiger Pad' and shared his thoughts on what that meant to him:

That was special. And we did that purposely because when we came back from various operations and we'd lost people we'd have commemorative services with the whole battalion lined up around that square pad. So that's why we chose that position to do it. And at the same time to remember our comrades from the second tour of 5 RAR. We had 25 lost on each tour. So . . . as an association we weren't going to forget them.
¹⁸

Veterans will find that returning to where they lived for a year will evoke a lot of memories. As Ron Shambrook said so succinctly, ‘It was nostalgic.' Little things will shake the dust of time off the memory banks and images and thoughts will come flooding back. I found myself inwardly smiling at various things that started to return to the front of the brain, and often they were just trivial things—like the rubbish truck doing its rounds, and men playing volleyball between the rubber trees, and going in forlorn hope down to the Post Exchange to see if there were any reel-to-reel tape recorders left after the base wallahs and pogos had cleaned out the store. The latrines—rows of thunderboxes whose lids would lift when the 155 and 8-inch self-propelled American artillery let loose—pissaphones, sandbagging and gun pickets, mud, dust and duckboards.

Home, sweet home.

Chapter 5
OUTSIDE THE WIRE: PHUOC TUY

Travelling outside the wire throughout Phuoc Tuy is relatively simple. The arterials are all well marked and guides very rarely get geographically misplaced. I have even used a war-era map and been able to get from one side of the province to the other with little trouble. Most groups base themselves down at Vung Tau while they spend a couple of days touring the province. The areas they will normally visit are Nui Dat, The Horseshoe, the Memorial Cross site at Long Tan; they will also do a circuit around the mountains at the southern end of the province including the Long Hai Hills, and the Nui Thi Vai and Nui Dinh Mountains. If they have time, groups can also venture further afield to Xuyen Moc and do a circuit up to Binh Ba north of Nui Dat, and then motor west across the Hat Dich area and turn south back down past Long Son Island to Vung Tau.

Ba Ria–Vung Tau (Phuoc Tuy) Province

Situated about 40 kilometres south-east of the former Saigon, Phuoc Tuy Province—now known as Ba Ria–Vung Tau Province—was the area the Australian Task Force were responsible for as part of the Allied effort against the Viet Cong. The province covered approximately 2500 square kilometres, consisting of coastal plains with sand dunes to the south, the Mekong River Delta with mangroves and swamps in the south-west, and three isolated jungle-covered mountain groups to the south-east, with Ba Ria as its capital. The province was chosen for a number of reasons. It was strategically important as it contained the port facility of Vung Tau where Australian logistics could be brought ashore, and the vital Route 15 arterial road between the port and Saigon. Although heavily controlled by the Viet Cong, the province could also be contained using Australian counter-revolutionary warfare techniques, and the terrain—mostly flat and covered in jungle—suited the Australian forces and their military structure for operations.

Phuoc Tuy Province was an operational backwater compared to the northern provinces of South Viet Nam near the demilitarised zone (DMZ) on the 17th Parallel border. However, it harboured fewer suspected enemy than the regions to the north, and was an area where the Task Force could manage its own military affairs to a certain degree and work in accordance with Australian Army doctrine and tactical procedures.

The province has changed dramatically since the war ended. Returning veterans will notice the changes to the village structures, the widened and bitumened roads—some of which are now toll roads—and the overall increase in village and population density. They will also have to buy new maps as many of the road and street designations have changed—and in many cases throughout Viet Nam, towns have also been renamed, usually to honour a local war hero or represent a Communist victory.

Once the veteran enters the old province, whether by road down from Ho Chi Minh City, or by the much-preferred hydrofoil ferry down the Song Sai Gon (Saigon River), things will begin to look familiar, and memories will start flooding back. The major geographical features have not changed, although since 1993 the vegetation on top of the Nui Thi Vais has started to regrow after decades of being barren as a result of defoliant spraying.

Vung Tau

The first place many veterans saw in the province if they came by sea aboard HMAS
Sydney
—the converted aircraft carrier that operated as a troopship and stores carrier—was the port and resort city of Vung Tau, about 130 kilometres south-east of Ho Chi Minh City. The wreck of a ship was prominent at Cap St Jacques, but it has long since gone to the scrap-metal yards. The city is once again a seaside resort town, and attracts flocks of residents from Ho Chi Minh City on weekends, especially young courting couples on motorcycles.

During the war, when the
Sydney
arrived in the port the soldiers were most often ferried ashore by American Army Chinook helicopters. For most Australians it was the first time they had ever seen one of these huge machines—which one American compatriot once described most colourfully as ‘two palm trees fuckin' in a bucket'—let alone fly in one. Once on board, the American crewmen would ensure that the soldiers' rifles were pointed down towards the floor so that an accidental discharge didn't take out the vital hydraulics that kept those two ‘palm trees' operating. Bill Kromwyk recalled his maiden flight in one of the huge noisy machines:

I just remember looking around at everybody's faces and—with the exception of Bob [Bettany]—how green and bewildered they looked. It was a whole new experience; here we are in Viet Nam. And then I looked at the American gunners on the doors and the pilots—there were about five crew—and they were sort of hardened and had a laid-back sort of look. And I thought, ‘My God, we certainly are green compared to these guys. Just look at them.' I felt like a really green soldier.
¹

Vung Tau was a relatively secure area; there was little direct threat from the Viet Cong by day, and only occasionally by night. Any enemy activity was usually in the form of sporadic rocket attacks or small-scale ground attacks on Regional Force or Popular Force outposts in the local area.
²

Mortarman Private Garry Heskett was flown ashore in a Chinook and said he experienced feelings of dread, admitting he had ‘a feeling of slight nervousness, anticipation and being super-alert, believing that the enemy were hiding behind every bush and tree'.
³

Bill Kromwyk was doing his National Service with 6 RAR on their second tour of duty in 1969–70, and came ashore from the HMAS
Sydney
by other means:

We were anchored off Vung Tau and then the landing craft came and got us. We went from there in the landing craft to land on Vung Tau. We climbed down into the landing craft and we couldn't see anything, all we knew was that we were heading towards Vung Tau and didn't know what to expect. We were told that probably nothing will happen but, just in case, be careful. I don't know if we even had any ammunition! Of course nothing happened. I always remember the big ramp coming down and there were all these officers standing there waiting for us. There was no enemy. So we piled off and we had to march to the airstrip, and the [RAAF] Caribous took us to Nui Dat.
⁴

When 5 RAR first arrived in country in 1966 they were to be part of the 1 ATF. The battalion main body (about 700 men) was sent down to the sand dunes of Back Beach to acclimatise and prepare for Operation Hardihood, which was to be conducted in close coordination with American units to secure the Task Force base area.
⁵
The sand dunes were hot, windswept and not at all inviting. There was a total lack of facilities and the equipment the soldiers needed to prepare for their immediate task.

Captain Peter Isaacs stood on what is now a Viet Cong martyrs' monument—where once the 1st Australian Logistic Support Group (1 ALSG) Officers' Mess stood—and looked down at the four-lane toll road leading to Ba Ria, and several hotel resorts under construction near the beach. He commented, ‘I think it looks ghastly.'
⁶
Not everyone has that same opinion and many are glad to see the area forging ahead, fuelled in part by massive off-shore oil and gas exploration projects that are now bringing energy resources and wealth into the area. Peter reflected:

I've wandered around the world since those days and the development that's gone on is typical of development that goes on which is unplanned, haphazard. Some of the buildings are very good, and I certainly applaud the Vietnamese [for] the gardens that they have developed and so on. But Back Beach? Well, it was a stretch of sand, and it was as I expected it would be.
⁷

Paul Greenhalgh recalled his most vivid memory of Vung Tau as:

Standing on the sand at the ALSG at Vung Tau . . . talking to the soldiers before Operation Hardihood. We flew in by choppers from Vung Tau and I remember going on a bit like a football coach, geeing them up and saying, ‘Here we go, here we go.' And then there was a short [chopper] flight up to what was the Nui Dat area and landing. It was on; we were away.
⁸

During their tour of duty soldiers would be given a few days' R&C leave at Vung Tau. This was usually granted about six times during a one-year tour, if you were lucky, and was designed to refresh soldiers. Groups of about 100 or more could be accommodated at a time, and when the 1 ALSG rest centre was established at Back Beach it was called the Peter Badcoe Club after the posthumously decorated Victoria Cross winner from the AATTV. Soldiers were then billeted in a hostel in town, which was named ‘The Flags' on account of Allied nations' flags decorating the opposite street. The men were free for about 48 hours to visit the town dressed in civilian attire, and went unarmed—but also forewarned that the greatest danger they now faced was not the VC but VD. There were about 3000 bar girls plying their trade, and sexually transmitted diseases were prevalent; it was an offence if a soldier failed to take precautions and became a casualty.

So, it was a case of taking it easy and relaxing by swimming, drinking, boating, drinking, dining out and drinking, and occasionally taking in the cultural delights of the town such as bars, saloons and hotels. The Military Police were kept busy and generally most of the soldiery who went to Vung Tau had a good time—if they could remember it. The officers were billeted at the Grand Hotel, which sat on Front Beach facing the South China Sea and had a luxurious beer garden, a reasonable restaurant and of course the obligatory dimly lit bar, where exorbitantly priced drinks were dispensed by hostesses who insisted on being bought a ‘Saigon tea', which was a method of extracting good money for worthless coloured water.

A popular ditty that circulated at the time has now reemerged on souvenir items ranging from T-shirts to stubby coolers, which are boldly emblazoned with versions of these words:

Uc Dai Loi, he cheap Charlie,
He no buy me Saigon tea,
Saigon tea cost many many pee*
Uc Dai Loi, he cheap Charlie
(* for piastre—the local currency during the war)

Bill Kromwyk was asked if he remembered his visit to Vung Tau on R&C leave and he replied, ‘. . . sort of'. On his first visit back in 2001, Bill stayed in a hotel and walked around the town. ‘But it all looked different you know, I couldn't quite recognise much of it—just around near the Grand [Hotel], I thought I remembered a little bit around there.'
⁹

Ben Morris had reasons for not liking the town when he went down there on R&C leave with his platoon. The staunch Catholic explained:

To me Vung Tau was the Forbidden City. It was the place I didn't really like going. I hated taking soldiers there on R&C because the bastards would all piss off. They'd all be in the out of bounds area and there was not much you could do about it . . . And invariably there were the one or two that you had to find and no-one in the world loves going back to Nui Dat to face the CO, missing a Digger or two.
¹⁰

Ben has been back to Viet Nam three times now and has travelled from one end to the other. Of the modern Vung Tau he said:

Vung Tau is like a lot of Viet Nam. It's moved on. It's become cleaner. For a Communist country they believe in a lot of capitalism. I really am intrigued by the fact that here we are in a country that's supposed to be Communist, and it's raw capitalism.
¹¹

Fred Pfitzner was based in Nui Dat and only visited Vung Tau a few times during his tour of duty. Asked whether he was disappointed in the changes and being unable to recognise places, Fred replied, ‘Not at all. I would have been disappointed not to have seen great change.'
¹²

Aviator Peter Rogers also went around town looking for landmarks and explained: