Death Without Glory
The 21st of February was the 33rd Anniversary of the biggest
land-mine incident involving Australian troops in the Vietnam War. Nine died when an
Armoured Personnel Carreir ran into a mine-field.
Tony White, now a Sydney dermatologist, was the medical officer.
It was hot and dusty, the height of the dry season. After nine months in the country and three months to go, the troops were weary. They had effectively been on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week apart from five days of rest and recreation, hell-raising somewhere else in Asia.
They were also intensely wary. Wary from sporadic, inconclusive fire-fights and encounters with mines and booby traps. The jokes were becoming more sardonic.
"Let's get a shot of you where you've still got both your legs!" was to be heard when diggers lined up their mates for a photo before setting out on patrol. The boys were only half joking when they talked wistfully about getting a ‘homer’, a wound decent enough to ensure their evacuation to Australia but not resulting in any great permanent incapacity.
On this day's patrol there was to be a sweep through the Long Hai hills, a Vietcong stronghold known to be full of bunkers and well defended with mines. Mounted on APCS, the battalion headquarters group and B Company of the Fifth Battalion ground out of the village and halted an a gravel road to bolt down a quick lunch and finalise plans.
Around us stretched rice paddies, crackling with grey-brown stubble and quivering with heat haze. Six months ago, in the wet season, they had been green and brimming with water reflecting the huge vapour-laden sky.
B Company set off across the paddies, into the scrub at the base of the hills. Fifteen minutes later, just as we were about to follow, we were startled by the sound of a massive explosion. Already a dark mushroom had formed over the bush in their line of travel. Four minutes later there was a second, smaller explosion. A radio, report of casualties followed but there was no clear picture as to what had happened.
By chance, an army Sioux-helicopter was in the area. The battalion commanding officer called me over. "Tony, get over there and see what you can do." I grabbed my medical backpack and climbed into the perspex bubble of the little two-man ‘Flying Sperm’. It was a two-minute skim to catch up with B Company. Banking to find a cleared area in the bush to land, we saw the astonishing sight of the lead APC on its side.
I jumped out and the chopper took off. The chatter of its rotor faded, to be replaced by a soundtrack of suffering, groans, cries and mutterings. I was led over to Major Bruce McQualter, Officer Commanding B Company. He had a head wound. With rifle in one hand and map case in the other, he was appealing for a hand to help him to his feet, but his eyes were closed and he could not respond to either questions or instructions.
Close by, also with a head wound, lay the lanky form of Lieutenant Jack Carruthers. He was unconscious, stretched out on his side as though at the end of a rowdy night in the mess. His trademark, bulky ginger moustache, was drenched in blood.
The third member of the group was Sergeant ‘Tassie’ Wass, sitting propped up against his backpack. In great pain, arms outstretched he pleaded piteously for help, both elbows were smashed and his forearms dangled from the clumsily butchered joints. Acutely aware that I had seen only a fraction of what lay around, I quickly made him as comfortable as possible with dressings, splits and morphine.
Ten meters away the APC lay on its side. Its back door had been blown off and nearby lay what at first glance seemed to be a pile of discarded uniforms, blackened and dusty. Getting closer I realised that the heap was composed of dead and wounded soldiers. In amongst the carnage, I came across the body of Mick Poole. He had just turned 20 and was a favourite with village kids because of his cheeky good humour. He played the tenor horn in the battalion band. On patrol, bandsman acted as stretcher-bearers and provided first aid. I caught up with the B Company medic, and three more stretcher-bearers, all dazed and wounded but getting on with tackling what lay at hand.
The task was to make a rough order of priority, identifying those needing urgent first aid from those not in acute need. There was a third group, those mortally wounded and beyond any help. The situation was out of control. The number of casualties was overwhelming Horror was piled on horror. Close to the APC lay the torso of its driver. The lower half of his body was missing. Blood was already drying on his white exposed ribs. Protruding from under the APC was a detached arm, its hand still grasping an M-16 rifle.
While moving around this slaughter-house, I was powerfully aware that we were stalled in a mine field. At any instant I could myself join the dead or, even worse, the living mutilated. At one time I spotted the three-pronged wires of a "jumping Jack" mine close to my boot. My heart stopped and I felt a bitter chill despite the stifling dusty bush around us. Pathetically I found myself moving among the wounded with one hand, protectively over my balls even though I knew that these mines could ablate not only the genitals but the legs and more.
I was amazed by the torrent of weird thoughts that surfaced as I worked. People who are dying or are terrified are said to see their past life rushing by like a speeded-up movie. My mind raced with a stream of images of childhood, home and family. Mixed in with these were other bizarre reflections on our present predicament. I thought of Tassie Wass and his shattered, dangling forearms. The absurd line "Look Ma - no hands!" kept revolving through my head.
I had recognised the distinctive features of Barney Gee, the only soldier of Chinese extraction in the battalion. He was quite calm as I got him to press on a dressing I applied to a spurting artery on his arm. His skin was blackened by the explosion. "Red on black - very Chinese!" I thought.
I recalled a movie I had seen as a child in which a minister was trying to halt alien invaders. With his congregation cowering behind him, he advanced on the aliens with open Bible, reciting Psalm 23. He had just intoned "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil" when he was abruptly carbonised by the alien ray gun. All that remained of him was a pyramid of ash from which rose a thin spiral of smoke.
After an eternity, sappers were choppered in. They quickly went to work with mine detectors, laying white tape on cleared pathways through the mine-field. One sapper spotted me. "Do you want to get us all killed?" he screamed. "For fuck's sake, stick to the cleared area!" I had to bite my tongue to avoid pointing out that I had been wandering around there for the previous half hour or so.
A landing zone was cleared for the Dust Off choppers. The critically wounded were shipped out first, then the lesser injured and finally the dead. The evacuation included a macabre audit, matching up corpses with missing parts as they were retrieved. Some parts were never found. Jack Carruthers died three days later and Bruce McQuatter after two weeks. Neither regained consciousness.
I remained with the shaken remains of B company for a short while. On an afternoon's outing they had lost their company commander, a platoon commander and numerous comrades. It had been entirely a passive event, with no trace of an enemy and no opportunity to strike back. Death without glory. A more potent prescription for anger and despair could not be imagined. On getting back to battalion headquarters I was too shaky to hold a coffee mug. I tried to describe the scene and discovered the futility of words for communicating such an experience.
What had happened? Reconstructing events, it appeared that the lead APC had detonated a mine of enormous destructive power. There was a crater 2m wide and lm deep, The 12-tonne, vehicle had been tossed 3m away onto its side and there was a large hole in its hull directly under the driver's seat. The patrol then halted, prepared for an ambush. The officers dismounted from their APCs and summoned the company medic and stretcher bearers. As they walked towards the wounded there was a second explosion. One of the party had stepped on a "jumping jack". These devices, when triggered , are propelled 1m into the air before exploding to hurl shrapnel in a destructive swathe for metres around.
For years, like a diminuendo drumbeat, February 21 was to spook most of those who had participated in this calamitous and futile episode.
Did good emerge from that afternoon? I would offer three positive observations.
Firstly, the way the medic and stretcher-bearers went forward to provide help for the first group of casualties. Their response to stricken comrades was immediate and selfless, as evidenced by the fact that all of them were wounded. Secondly, the tattered remains of B Company continued to function in the immediate aftermath. Junior officers stepped in to fill the gaps. Morale and discipline were maintained. All this reflects very well on the quality of their training.
Finally, 30 years on, most of the survivors are getting on with life and contributing to the community. These surely are all qualities that Australia needs now.
From - The Canberra Times Saturday February 22 1997
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