Sherro5

Abstract: Some adventures encountered with the local fauna by Australians in Vietnam.

To achieve control over the local VC supporting population and to keep the VC off balance, the Australian Task Force used a couple of techniques. One was constant and relentless ambushing, particularly in our Tactical Area Of Responsibility (TAOR) out to the limits of 81mm mortar range, the other was called ‘Cordon and Search’. Basically a cordon and search entailed moving around and encircling a village, usually by night, and then in the morning closing the trap, sometimes with armour, sometimes with more troops.

It was a very effective method of achieving military control and superiority, it kept the VC off balance, disrupted their supply lines and it was amazing how often, time after time, we’d catch VC dozing in their beds with their girlfriends, wives or families. However, it could go awfully wrong and it had many hazards. It required very strong command and control and good firing discipline. Some of the hazards are described below.

One memorable night was during a move to cordon and search a village called Duc My, a known VC controlled place. My company moved out by foot and walked for about 18 kilometers and then harboured up in a rubber plantation to eat and rest. All webbing and equipment was double checked for rattles, shine and noise, and just after midnight we set off again, in a monsoon night of total inky blackness.

Now at night in the monsoon season with cloud cover down to about 1,000 feet, darkness is absolute; you could go to sleep with your eyes open because it made no difference to the blackness whether you kept your eyes open or closed. To keep contact we tied our eight-foot long toggle ropes together and held on to them, put pieces of luminous fungus on our packs and uncovered luminous watch faces -- which were normally kept covered. Torches were absolutely forbidden, except with red filters under a groundsheet for map reading. Ninety to a hundred men on one long rope is a very awkward activity, and it stretched and shrank like a concertina as obstacles were crossed and there was much stumbling and suppressed curses.

I was walking along and heard the whispered warning: “step”, when suddenly from just in front of me I heard a sort of vaguely human ‘whoooop’ noise and a big splash. One of our M60 gunners had stepped over the lip of a well in the dark and fallen fifty feet down it, M60 and all. After a bit of screwing about we managed to get someone down on a rope and fish him out, he was very lucky as there was a crossbeam near the bottom which he’d missed during his fall – it would have killed or seriously injured him if he’d hit it. We recovered his M60 the next day. The gunner was quite useless now anyway, muttering and shivering and saying over and over: “ I just kept falling, there was f******g nothing there!!!!” He was in mild shock and quite spaced out.

We continued on our way using compass and counting paces, then we sropped again, quite near the village. The ‘enemy’ sign was passed back and the snick of safety catches could be heard. I could hear the whispered and strained conversation between the forward scout and his Corporal: “Quiet, listen!!!!” In the silence we could hear deep breathing and loud snoring all around us. We were in an enemy harbour position!!!

We started to quietly move out into an attack formation instead of a single file when it all erupted. Someone trod on one of the enemy and with a shrill squeal he leapt to his feet and bolted away, accompanied by his comrades. It was a large mob of wild pigs! Only the strongest strength of will stopped a pig massacre as they ran helter skelter through the company.

Astonishingly, not a shot was fired and we moved through and successfully cordoned and searched the village. As we walked up a path along one side of the village tracer started bouncing right down the track from near a bunker at the rear corner of the village. On one side of the track was a neatly laid out banana plantation, on the other side was thick prickly bushes in a ditch. Suddenly the track was empty except for our three brand new replacements who stood around on the track open-mouthed for a while with tracer whipping around them and then they took cover in the unprotected banana plantation after being shouted at. They had a lot to learn and Vietnam would kill them if they didn’t learn the lessons quickly. A forward scout who was just near the three VC popped them with six quick, aimed shots, a double tap in each. I was very proud of him, because I’d probably trained him in rifle shooting in recruit training and he’d operated 100% correctly. He’d never used a rifle before he joined the Army. Two VC were dead, one died soon after.

Another night we went for a cordon and search at Hoa Long, a village just south of our task force base. We’d done quite a few of these on Hoa Long and caught VC every time, but this one was a little different. Once again we set out just after midnight and our company slid around one side of the village which straddled a busy road. There was an ARVN Popular Force platoon in the village and we had an Australian advisor attached to them. He was supposed to tell them we would be passing close to their .50 cal bunkers at each entrance to the village as we encircled it.

The message didn’t get down to the .50 cal gunner on sentry who fired a short three round burst at us before his weapon jammed or he was stopped. There was a whole company of Infantry at about two meter intervals spread out across 50 meters in front of him and we all hit the dirt. Once again there were safety catch noises and frantic NCOs and officers whispering to people to not fire back. I carefully aligned my M79 at the firing slit, resting it on my pack for a nice accurate aim. One more shot and he and his whole crew would be wasted. Nothing more happened and we continued around the side of the village. To this day I still think he was a closet VC trying to warn his friends, as three quick shots was the VCs normal warning when we go too close.

We passed very close to some of the outlying huts and there were kerosene lanterns lit in some of them. A group of us were crouched only ten feet away from one when the blanket covering the doorway was flung back and a Vietnamese male stepped out and lit a cigarette. His night vision was probably ruined by the light and the match flare because he stood there, undid his flies and urinated on one of the M60 gunners. (The M60 gunner still swears the Vietnamese did it deliberately!)

As we moved into our final blocking positions there was a huge ruckus over the other side of the village. First there was a 20 round burst of M16, but the tracers seemed to be going randomly skywards, then there was a bellow, then shouts, then a couple of M26 grenades going off, more shots then sounds of crashing and destruction and more bellowing.

Water buffalo are mean critters. It is a serious mistake to think of them as just big cow-like creatures because they’re not. Unlike the smaller breeds in the Philippines and Indonesia, Vietnamese water buffaloes are big – and can be aggressive. The ones in the villages were ridden by small children just like horses and this made them look even more harmless, but the beasts seemed to have a distinct dislike towards the unfamiliar smell of Europeans. One of those things pawing dirt and zeroing in on you with the whites of its eyes showing was enough to get the M60 gunner up front and the rest of us heading for the tree line.

What had happened was that the forward scout for the other company had stepped through the teak bars of a water buffalo pen and the pen happened to contain a huge sleeping buffalo bull. He’d stepped on it in the darkness and it had lurched to its feet under him, he’d triggered his M16 out of reflex and creased it across the arse, which enraged an already dangerous animal. It charged about and smashed the pen and then some idiot threw a couple of M26 grenades. The little bits of shrapnel further annoyed the monstrous animal and it went crashing about in the pitch-blackness, treeing people and totally disrupting the cordon on that side of the village. Miraculously no one was injured and the bull had only minor flesh wounds.

Finally the excitement died down and all went dead quiet again. As dawn broke the sleepy villagers came out and stood in shock. There were the dreaded ‘Uc Dai Loi’ (Australians) right on their doorsteps, locked and loaded. Search parties then swept through, and lo and behold! We captured another pair of sleepy VC. How anyone could have slept through that racket I’ll never know. It confirmed my long held opinion that they were smoking dope or opium, probably to relieve malarial symptoms. We did many cordon and searches but these were quite memorable.

BUFFALOED AT THE HOA LONG CORRAL.

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