In Good Company Read online

  In all, from the time the contact had broken out until the shooting had stopped, no more than three or four minutes had elapsed. Once again no-one in the platoon had been hit and I put our good fortune down to the fact that we were moving quietly, that we had good camouflage on our faces and that we were aggressive. After questioning the men on what they had seen first about the enemy they all said it was the yellow skin of their faces. I noticed that the facial camouflage in the platoon never slackened after that observation.

  The platoon was now feeling pretty good and were patrolling with a keen eye. They now knew that we were in country used by the ‘nasties’. The previous contact had indicated that at least five of them were patrolling in single file, and as they were scrub-bashing this meant that they were strangers to the area. The packs on their backs indicated they may have been in transit through the area or were patrolling out from a distant base. Things were warming up.

  8

  Nui Le and the NVA

  On 19 September the company regrouped for a resupply and a briefing on the next battalion operation. This had started the day before and was called operation Ivanhoe. The company was harboured in a thick leafy area of jungle to the south-east of the Courtenay rubber plantation. We were expecting reinforcements to replace some of the nashos who had returned home. My platoon was still suffering a lack of men; we were down to 24 at best. The choppers arrived about 10.00 am and we went through the resupply routine. The company commander called an orders group and the platoon commanders and the mortar fire controller and forward observer’s assistants gathered at company headquarters to get the latest on what was going on and what we were likely to do until the end of the operation. Then Jerry Taylor gave us our areas of operations and asked each of us to come back to him later with our plan of how we would like to search our areas.

  The helicopters brought in some of my soldiers who had been rotated through Nui Dat on rear security details and four new men who were all national servicemen. I introduced myself to these reinforcements and allocated them out to their new sections. Because of the time restraint and the need to come up with a new plan for the next week, I really didn’t have much of a chance to get to speak at any great length with the new men.

  After all the platoon commanders had had their plans accepted, it was time to get going. I had come from an area to the east and was returning to more or less the same patch to look for the enemy. The Viet Cong appeared to be returning to the area in strength. All the intelligence reports indicated that not only Viet Cong Main Force but North Vietnamese Army units were crossing into the province, and we naturally speculated that the enemy might want to kick our tails before we left, to gain propaganda value out of our impending withdrawal. Almost every other time the enemy had come down into Phuoc Tuy Province in force he had been the loser, especially at the battle of Long Tan in August 1966.

  Kev Byrne’s platoon was heading south-east from the resupply point so I waited until I thought he would be clear of the area before I gave the order to move out. I intended to head out the way we had come in and save breaking a fresh track for about 200–300 metres before heading off on a new bearing. After ten minutes or so I gave the order to move.

  Just as we were setting off my signaller came up and told me that he had been handed a message from company headquarters. In essence, the message said that we should keep our eyes open as the enemy was expected to be within a kilometre of our present position and in some force. I passed the message forward by voice down the line and signalled for the platoon to move on. We hadn’t gone more than 150 metres downhill, on what I thought was our old track, when firing broke out at the front of the platoon. I immediately yelled out ‘Contact front’ to my signaller so he would send the message to the whole company; he looked at me sort of stunned and said ‘10 Platoon is in contact too!’ My mouth went dry and my heart skipped a beat as it struck me what was happening. I sprinted forward screaming out for everyone to cease firing and came up level with my forward scout. There was a lot of confusion and the men were sitting around looking bewildered. My radio operator joined me and I grabbed the handset to speak to Kevin. It was his platoon we had run into. He was talking to Jerry Taylor and telling him he had a couple of casualties.

  I felt really sick and waited until Kevin had finished speaking and I came up on the radio and told Jerry Taylor that my platoon had run into the back of 10 Platoon and that my scout had opened fire on what he thought was enemy.

  I moved forward to check out what damage had been done. One of the 10 Platoon soldiers had been hit with a bullet in the head; the other had been lightly creased in the area of his scrotum. The lad who had been struck in the head with an M16 round was unconscious, and his wound was quite shocking. I knew almost instantly that he was going to die before we could get him on a chopper. Kevin’s medic was working frantically on the unfortunate man but to no real avail. As I returned to my platoon one of the 10 Platoon soldiers mouthed an obscenity at me and I turned on him and let loose with all the venom I could muster. I knew how he must have felt having lost a mate because of a mistake on my part, but I really didn’t need that kind of hassle just there and then. My platoon sergeant had arrived. He told the upset digger to sit down and to shut up.

  We set about cutting a path back up to the chopper pad to aid the evacuation of the wounded. My platoon worked feverishly to widen the existing footpad to allow a stretcher to pass back up to the landing point. I returned back to where the wounded were in 10 Platoon but there was nothing more I could do. My biggest problem now was finding out exactly what had happened and who had caused this terrible accident. My forward scout was sitting near a tree with his section commander and it became pretty obvious that he was the one who had seen movement and fired without really identifying the movement as enemy. This was exactly the kind of the thing we had tried to avoid by running exercise Lifesaver after every operation. It was easy to say that one should always identify the target as friend or foe before engaging, but considering the circumstances I could see why the man had shot first. It was a tragic error and I felt for my scout, knowing that this kind of thing would be with him for a long time to come.

  A chopper arrived at the pad and we evacuated the two diggers from 10 Platoon. A strange air of quiet had come over my platoon. I personally felt deflated and suddenly very tired. I was still trying to figure out how I had been on the wrong track out of the company position; and despite the fact that I wasn’t the man that had pulled the trigger, I still felt a lot of the responsibility for what had happened. The company commander had a quick chat with me, told me to put the incident behind us and get on with our task. He asked me what I intended to do with my forward scout who was still quite upset at what had occurred, and I told him he would be staying out on the operation with us. Jerry Taylor agreed that this was probably the best course of action as sending him back to Nui Dat would only worsen his situation and let him brood on the matter. He was feeling bad enough as it was; sending him back to our base would make him feel rejected and punished for what he had done.

  We continued on our patrol and moved east for about an hour or so travelling for about a kilometre through reasonably thick bush. There was no sign of the enemy at all—and for that I was a little thankful as I was worried the platoon would now all be over-cautious and lack the aggression of our previous contacts. Then I stopped the platoon to have a navigation check and see how my scout was going, but no sooner had I done that when a message came through that my scout and I were to return to the area where our clash with 10 Platoon had taken place. I told my platoon sergeant to take over and I took a small protection party and radio operator back to where we had come from. We made good progress back along our trail and in about twenty minutes we were back at the pad. Peter Schuman was there to greet us, having been flown in to conduct the investigation. I was surprised that the investigation was being done so quickly, but glad in another way that it would all be over and done with. For about an hour and a half
we were questioned separately as to what had occurred. Peter was taken down to where the incident took place and when he had finished we were told to return to my platoon cooling its heels in the jungle. By now it was starting to get late in the afternoon and we would really have to move to get back before dark. I spoke to Darryl on the radio and warned him that we were coming back and not to worry about the noise he would hear. We set off at a great rate of knots and got back to the platoon just as it was getting dark. It had been a bugger of a day and one I would rather forget.

  Before I turned in for the night I had a yarn with my scout who seemed to be coming round a bit and told him that, as much as he could, he was to concentrate on the job in hand and stay switched on. My plan was to make his section stay at the tail of the platoon for the next day and to let him settle down before he had to scout again. I asked his section commander to keep an eye on him without being too obvious and let me know how he was going. As it turned out the whole regrettable incident was subsequently confirmed by the investigation as an accident.

  The 20th of September saw us heading further east in search of the large group of enemy which was supposed to be heading back into Phuoc Tuy Province. We had barely made a kilometre the day before in all the drama that had taken place and now we had to start searching for the enemy. We finished our morning routine and moved out of our night harbour, very much aware that the enemy was reported to be close by. I asked my section commanders to keep the patrol pace down and to keep their eyes wide open. Nothing was sighted until around mid-morning when the scout in the forward section called me forward to have a look at a track he had found. I moved up to the front of the platoon and was confronted with something I had never expected or had seen before. Running at right angles to our patrol direction was a footpad which had seen a lot of enemy movement and quite recently. The track was about a foot and a half wide and at least six inches deep! This represented movement of enemy in the hundreds. I called Darryl Jenkin and Cpl Dick Heatley forward to have a look, and these experienced trackers confirmed my suspicions.

  I grabbed the radio and trying to sound and remain calm I sent a message to the company commander telling him what I had found. All the movement appeared to be heading north toward a hill complex called Nui Le and to the south-east corner of the Courtenay rubber. Major Taylor asked me how old the sign was and I guessed at under twelve hours. He told me to keep moving east but to tread softly while he decided to move the other two platoons into the area to help search and provide support if required.

  Things started to look decidely spooky as we moved very quietly toward our next check point. My scouts started reporting sawn logs and stumps of trees covered over with mud to hide the fact that they had been recently cut down. It was becoming obvious that there was enemy in the area—the problem was where and how many. We patrolled very quietly and slowly, hoping to catch a sound of enemy movement or the smell of a camp. We wouldn’t have been making more than 500 metres an hour the way we were moving. Every 15 minutes or so I would call a listening halt and we froze where we stood and just listened for noise. Noon saw us still moving slowly eastwards and when I called a halt for the meal break I decided to have a cold meal with no cooking just in case the enemy was nearby.

  About an hour after lunch we came across another track heading almost due north and even larger than the one we had found earlier in the day. The scout called me forward to have a look at this track and to save time I signalled Darryl to come forward and have a look as well. When I reached the front of the platoon I had a close look at the footpad and reckoned on about two hundred enemy having used it, some of them that morning. I told the lead section commander to post sentries and also to have his gun and the ‘floating’ gun Niblett was carrying cover the track. I then signalled for my radio operator to come forward so I could relay the information back to the company. I figured the discovery of this second track would interest the company commander greatly as it appeared a pattern was being set and the enemy could well be just north of our location.

  Darryl was standing on my right hand side and peering closely at the track. He agreed with me that lots of enemy had come along the track and probably within twelve hours. I was checking the different sandal and shoe marks on the track when I was suddenly pushed backwards by Darryl and all hell broke loose.

  While I had been head down studying the tracks a group of enemy had come from the north around a bend in the path not 25 metres away. Firing was breaking out all around me and by the time I had sorted myself out we were into a fairly heavy fire fight. From the amount of fire being directed at us I figured that the enemy was in about platoon strength and intent on taking us out. My forward observer’s assistant, Russ Pullen, started adjusting artillery fire to the north to give the enemy something to think about and, if there were as many around as we feared, to stop or hinder possible reinforcements.

  I was now lying down behind Ralph Niblett and directing the fire of his gun as the enemy started to move back down the track. Darryl had closed the rear of the platoon up and we were now in all-round defence. By the look on his face I think he was on the same wavelength as me and wondering just how many enemy there were wandering around in this area. I started to move around to see how many enemy we had dropped in the initial burst. Niblett reckoned he had seen about four go down when he opened up on them. Darryl believed he had hit one or two—so I became keen to capitalise on our early success. The enemy commander was now yelling at his men and they started probing forward. I suspected they were after the men we had hit who were lying on the track. Darryl came forward to help me out as I wanted to try to grab the wounded or dead enemy. As far as I could tell there were about three bodies on or near the track.

  The enemy platoon commander had the same thoughts as I did. We clashed again as I was moving my soldiers forward to gain a better view. I noticed that the enemy was using fire and movement just as we did. We could hear the enemy commanders shouting commands just before they fired and then they would rush to their next fire position. With two M60 guns we were soon able to convince the enemy that we had more firepower than he did—and he pulled back into the scrub. As I moved forward to see how much further we could go the enemy probed again, and so I grabbed a couple of hand grenades to clear an area behind him. As a couple of the men threw grenades together, I noticed that there was hurried movement away from the area just before the grenades detonated. The enemy could be heard moving around to our east now. He was probably trying to determine how big our group was. Then he came up on us about 50 metres from where we had our first contact with him—and just as a couple of enemy broke the cover of the bush my right hand gun opened up on them and they withdrew hurriedly. We weren’t sure how many enemy we had hit in this exchange, but our machine gunner reckoned a couple of them went down.

  The enemy was now firing sporadically in our direction and everyone was keeping their heads down. I had told people only to fire at positively identified targets. This was a twofold aim. Firstly, to save ammunition and secondly to stop a lot of confusion as to where the enemy actually was. For about another quarter of an hour the enemy kept moving around our flank and I kept trying to out-guess where he was going to turn up next. All this meant was that I moved my machine-guns into the obvious areas where the enemy was likely to show up. We were carrying a heavy-barrelled SLR (or automatic rifle L1A4 as the purists would know it) and it now proved handy as I used it to cover our rear. Thus I was able to use the other four M60s to hit the enemy.

  Meanwhile the artillery was on hold as it was having little effect. The other platoons in the company were moving towards us. In the big picture, 10 Platoon was to our north-west and 12 Platoon was closing from the west. Company headquarters was also on the move in an endeavour to maintain communications with everyone.

  The fire from the enemy then fizzled out; he seemed to be withdrawing away to our north-west. I told company headquarters on the radio and everyone came up on the air and acknowledged what was going on.
By now my forward section had moved up the track a little way and could see the bodies lying on the track. I decided we needed to clear the area around us to make sure no nasties were still around, so one of the rear sections swept around the platoon in what would have to have been our longest ever clearing patrol. They found plenty of sign, including blood trails to the north and evidence that the enemy numbered around 30. There was sign right around our flanks even further than I had expected and I was now glad that we had gone into our all round defensive positions as quickly as we did. Once the clearing patrol returned inside the perimeter, I gave the closest section the task of dragging the dead enemy inside our perimeter to search them. Once again 11 Platoon had come through a fairly heavy fire fight without a scratch. I began to feel that our quick aggressive action in contact was the key to our good fortune.

  This was our first indication that the enemy was not Viet Cong or VC Main Force. These soldiers were wearing proper greens with belts, chest webbing and green pith helmets. They were NVA soldiers, but a distinct lack of documentation left us in the dark as to what unit they were from. The enemy were carrying small green packs which were packed very neatly with food, spare clothing and additional ammunition. Both soldiers were carrying AK-47s and had 200 rounds of ammunition apiece. I sought some consolation in the fact that they were carrying packs, believing that they must have been some distance from their base camp. The only worry was what all the cut logs around the area were being used for.

  While we were busy searching the bodies and equipment, a contact broke out some distance away to our north and it appeared that our recently departed enemy may have had a quick clash with 10 Platoon. All in all it was turning out to be a busy day for our troops. Four APCs from 1 Troop were also ambushed along Route 2 north of the village of Ngai Giao by about twenty enemy. Rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire were used but a swift counter-attack by the APCs resulted in one North Vietnamese soldier being killed. He too carried no identification and was well-armed.