Digging In: Tim Page with 1RAR & 5RAR Bien Hoa & Phuoc Tuy

U.P.I. sent me out to cover 1 RAR’s arrival in Bien Hoa in ’65. That first day out. The squadies were still in their US helmets and parade ground green.

Assigned to do security operations and patrols, a few weeks later they were looking like classic Diggers eventually leaving the 173rd Airborne, to whom they were attached, to get on with their own thing.

They didn’t really like the media, us Bao Chi, hanging out with them. My presence was tolerated as I was a Pom who’d gotten some taut photos of a couple of hairy operations published in Life. In the end they even dropped me a ‘giggle’ hat and a sweat rag. 1RAR wove a red cloth into the Aussie boonie’s brim.

That was the last I saw of the Digs for a while, the PAO shop (Public Affairs) would always let my bureau know when something was going to happen.

In between sorties with Special Sector Ops in Da Nang crewed by the AATTV, I met an Aussie WO who had his map grease marked where there was ice or 33 or La Rue beer available across the Charlie dominated zone south of the airport. At the time I also did a patrol out of Khe Sanh when it was still an SF A Team in a coffee plantation.

By the time I got back to the RAR, it was part of an Aussie Task Force down in Nui Dat. That was sweetly near Vung Tau and the Long Hai beaches, a two-hour 90cc bike ride from Saigon.

That summer in ’66 I had been on a US Coast Guard cutter, which was friendly fired up by a brace of Phantoms and a B-57 off the DMZ. 400 plus pieces of schrapnel and untold sutures later, I was ready for my first field op.

Hitched a ride down with Aussie journos Neil Davis and David Stuart Fox of U.P.I. to hang out with until we had what we needed.

Retrospectively we were given a right royal tour de force of the Aus Task Force. The WHAM program (Winning Hearts and Minds) was having effect along with relocation tactics from the Malayan campaign.

We flew infils with the RAAF, hung out with the gunners and rode tracks through the surrounding villes. We could mess and drink with the regular and Nasho Digs or in the Officers Mess.

5RAR was now in country and there were problems in the Rung Sat west of Nui Dat. Here the land dissipated into a vast mangrove swamp that forms the outer estuaries of the serpentine Saigon River. The Rung Sat contained shipping channels that fed Saigon and the military Newport Dock facility – logistics all the way up to the Cambodian border.

Small islands in this nightmare swamp provided refuge and sanctuary for VC companies and important staging posts for their north south communications which was mainly water-borne. The ARVN were loathe to go into the Rung Sat, maintaining odd Popular Force and Regional Force outposts that were often overrun. From the Rung Sat rockets could be lobbed across the river into downtown Saigon.

The Rung Sat operation also served to get the newly arrived 5RAR off base at Nui Dat while the engineers completed the infrastructure. The Horse Shoe in the Dinh Hills (Nui Dinhs) would be cleared as it dominated the terrain. Virtually the whole battalion deployed with platoon units operating over a wide area. I was assigned to A Coy 5RAR under the tutelage of the then Lt John Hartley (later General).

After a night Harbour we cordoned off Phoc Hoa village at the edge of the swamp next to Route 15. All men and women between 12 and 45 were rounded up and marched off to Baria for screening. Subsequently five VC and 11 suspects were detained. The ARVN draft dodgers and deserters went back to their green machine.

Next day we assaulted in Hueys into the mangroves themselves to take Long Son island, hoping to catch the VC Chau Duc District Mainforce Company.

Deep in the Delta, with the ARVN. We had to wade canals up to our chests. Here you were wet from the waist down all day. Keeping anything dry, especially cameras was impossible. Staying upright was difficult – the mangrove roots a tanglefoot.

It was stinking, humid and hot and luckily Charlie had taken off. Fighting in this environment would have been brutal. The VC were not long gone, their breakfast fires were still warm. Only old folks, their kin, remained – denizens of this inhospitable saline environ.

Aussie Ops. No body had been abused, no casualties suffered. The tactics of landing on top of Charlie, of initiating contact were being well tested. A large section of the TAOR was secure and the mob in the swamp had been cautioned their rear area and lines of communication seriously interdicted.

Operating with Australian troops was chalk and cheese when compared to the Americans – Special Forces and LRRPs aside. Even the often reluctant conscripts, the Nashos, had gone through intensive field craft exercises. Attention to jungle warfare had been the focus of the Canungra courses fuelled by veterans of the almost continuous campaigns in S.E. Asia.

Discipline in the field casual yet taut. Minimum noise, which I probably failed Click Click. Efficiency of movement, more adaptable gear. There was even condensed milk and tea bags in the rat packs. And little trace of their passage through Charlie’s patch.

Above all, you never felt insecure, even when shaken out in a Section. Always a considered helping hand. Always questions about the rest of the war - “what are the Yanks like?” “What about the ARVN?” A countless enquiry. It was easy to slip into the vernacular. Easy to work. Always good frames.