Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Called up 1st May 1968 and reported to Marrickville, NSW, Army Recruitment Centre. Transported by Army bus to Mascot Airport and transported from there by RAAF Caribou aircraft, to a grass airstrip at Singleton, NSW. That was my very first flight in any aircraft.

Upon arrival, 1st May 1968, posted to the 3rd Recruit Training Battalion (3RTB), located close to Singleton town centre, as a 'Recruit'. Training staff - 1st Lt R.Davies, Sgt Jock Kelly, Snr Cpl White, Cpl Johnson and Cpl Kaiser, leading a Platoon of 43 National Service Recruits. Completed training 10th July 1968 and paraded out as a 'Private'.

From 10th July 1968, posted to 18 Platoon, D Coy, at the Singleton Infantry Training Centre for Infantry training. Training staff - 2nd Lt Kelly, Sgt D.Frew, Snr Cpl Baker, Cpl Philp, Cpl Anderson, L/Cpl Barnes, leading a Platoon of 41 National Service Privates. Paraded out as an Infantry Private, 21st September 1968.

A short break of leave and then in October 1968, I was posted to the Infantry Centre at Ingleburn, NSW, interspersed with short stints at South Head Barracks, NSW, Holesworthy Base, NSW, Shoal Bay Training area, Qld, Canungra Jungle Training Centre, Qld, and fighting bushfires in the Bulli Pass area, NSW, early December 1968. My 21st birthday was spent, exhausted, on a floor in the Corrimal RSL Club, NSW, where we were billeted night time during the fire emergency response.

I was selected for NCO training at the Ingleburn Infantry Centre and commenced training with a Warrant Officer, on the Parade Ground at that Centre however, that was curtailed when the Privates in residence, were all called on parade in front of a large notice board - we were about to hear of our future postings ... Butterworth in Malaya, Vietnam or, to remain in Australia. Many of us were to be sent to Vietnam and some were sent just before Christmas 1968 however, I was lucky to be able to have Christmas at home. We had no choice with our postings nor did we volunteer.

On the early morning of the 29th January 1969, a group of us with kitbags were taken by bus to Richmond RAAF Base where we were loaded onto a RAAF C130 Hercules aircraft, to be transported to Vietnam. It was a long, fairly slow and extremely noisy flight to a stopover in Darwin N.T. We were billeted in corrugated iron Nissan huts for the night and we were able to relax with some Crown beers.

The following morning we flew out of Darwin and headed for the Vung Tau american military airstrip at the edge of the Mekong Delta, South Vietnam. We arrived mid afternoon and were quickly transferred into a USAF Fairchild twin engine transport plane (known as a 'Fat Rat', a flying tin can!), to be flown from Vung Tau to the 1st Australian Task Force Base (1ATF) at Nui Dat in the Phuoc Tuy Province inland to the north.

Flying into Nui Dat was a daunting sight - red soil with clumps of grass or bush in and around the Front Gate to the task force area, with much barbed wire entanglements, star pickets, crude sentry boxes and pits and the dusty road leading into the base - our new home. We landed on Luscombe airstrip in a cloud of dust and were trucked to the Australian Reinforcement Unit (ARU) lines where most of us would be posted for the following three weeks, to enable climatisation.

The ARU was situated amongst a fairly large banana grove with a tall sentry tower on stilts, with a small sentry box on top that faced the barbed wire perimeter entanglements in that section of the task force perimeter. The area beyond was known as 'no mans land' as it was a roughly cleared area of sight stretching out for a few hundred metres, to enable observation and clear lines of fire. When becoming accustomed to the climate, as well as normal duties of pruning banana trees, tidying up and mess duties, we had to undertake routine piquet duty up on the sentry tower.

My first introduction to the inherent dangers of war was to be on piquet duty one night, up in the sentry tower watching the red coloured tracer arcing thru the air from a fire fight in the nearby town of Baria. All of a sudden, a stray bullet whizzed past my head, to go thru the small bamboo wall behind me and into the night. A close shave, closer than what I would have liked!

On the 24th February 1969, I was posted to 1 Section, 10 Platoon, D Company, of the 9th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, as a Rifleman Private. On that day, from ARU, I was flown by helicopter to join the Battalion on Operation Federal, located north from the 1ATF base and in the vicinity of the big American Base at Bien Hoa, to block . It was the dry season and the area of operation for D Coy, had recently been taken over from a Kiwi element who had fought an attempted incursion thru perimeter wire by VC and NVA troops, at night time, a few days earlier.

'Bangalor Torpedoes' a long length of hollow bamboo containing explosives, had been used by the VC in an attempt to blow holes and create passageways thru the barbed wire, which was largely repelled by the Kiwis with many of the attackers killed. The Maori Kiwi's had buried the deceased attackers however, they knew that the Vietnamese had a belief that evil spirits would prevail if bodies were not properly buried. The Kiwi's had left an attackers hand or, foot sticking out of the ground as a deterrent and the area stank at our arrival but, no further attacks eventuated in that area!

A further eight Operations were completed in 1969, interspersed by two short Platoon Rest & Convalesence (R&C) breaks at the Peter Badcoe Club in Vung Tau and in June 1969, six days of R&R as an individual, with family and friends back in Sydney, Australia. During 1969, incidents tasked me to take on the duties of Platoon Signals and the additional weight of carrying a PRC25 Radio and a spare battery for several weeks. This meant that I patrolled with the Platoon HQ group, in proximity to our 1st Lieutenant Platoon Commander, Adrian Craig and our Platoon Medic Laurie Creece.

Come November 1969, the major Operaions had just about concluded for 9RAR and patrols reverted to Tactical Area of Responsibilty (TAOR) patrols around the local 1ATF base area and, work inside the base preparing for the Battalion to return to Australia.

On the 25th November 1969 we boarded trucks for our final trip down Route 15 to Vung Tau at which time we boarded landing craft, to be taken out to HMAS Sydney (The Vung Tau Ferry) anchored offshore. We travelled down thru the Malacca Straits, sailed around Christmas Island and onto Fremantle W.A. as our first stop, escorted by ships, firstly HMAS Vampire and then HMAS Duchess.

Our second stop was Port Adelaide and the whole Battalion was disembraked for a parade thru the city of Adelaide, the Battalions formation home town. Many on board had departed by this stage and the remainder who were from the east coast, returned to the ship and sailed for Sydney to arrive at dawn and sail up to a berth at Garden Island, Sydney Harbour - we were then officially on leave.

9RAR was reformed to Enoggera, Qld in January 1970, and following leave, the troops that had not completed their National Service of two years, returned to that base. My completion of National Service was coming to an end 30th April 1970 and a few weeks before that date I was posted to the South Heads base for menial duties before going to Holeworthy Barracks on my last day, to be formally discharged.

I returned to my job as a banker with a NSW State owned bank, as Government entities guaranteed jobs for employees that went into National Service (and paid the difference between the military wage and the extra that an employee would have earnt in their civilian job). Unfortunately, what was then found was that the individual returned to the grade they were at when leaving for National Service, whilst their contempories had moved onto grades two years advanced - and in those days of seniority, that discrimination and financial disadvantage, was never really overcome for many years.