Battle of Long Tan

The Battle of Long Tần is arguably the most famous battle fought by the Australian Army during the Vietnam War. It was fought in a rubber plantation near the village of Long Tần, about 4 km north-east of Vung Tau, South Vietnam on August 18–19, 1966.

Battle of Long Tan
Overview
Date	August 17, 1966-August 19, 1966
Location	Phuoc Toy Province, Republic of Vietnam
Victor	N/A
Combatants
Australian Army	Viet Cong
Commanders
Colin Towsend Lieutenant Colonel, Australian Army	Nguyen Thanh Hong Colonel, VC
Strength
1,100 (including rear-echelon troops)	108 (not including reinforcements)
Casualties
42 Killed: 18 Wounded: 24 Missing or captured: 2 (recovered)	150 Killed: 47 Wounded:100 Missing or captured: 3-4

The action occurred when D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR), part of the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF), encountered the Viet Cong (VC) 275 Regiment and elements of the D445 Local Forces Battalion. D Company was supported by other Australian units, as well as New Zealand and United States personnel.

For several weeks prior to the battle, Australian field intelligence had tracked a radio transmitter moving south but were unsure about what unit it belonged to. Aggressive patrolling failed to find this unit.

On the night of 17–18 August, the Viet Cong 275th Regiment fired over 100 mortar rounds into the 103 Battery area and 22 Australian soldiers were wounded, one later dying from his wounds. B Company 6 RAR was sent out early on the morning of the 18th to find the VC heavy weapons. D Company (to which was attached three New Zealand Army personnel) relieved B Company at midday. The commander of B Company, Major Noel Ford, briefed the D Company commander, Major Harry Smith, and B Company returned to base. After discussing the situation with the 6 RAR battalion commander, Lt Col. Colin Townsend, D Company moved to the east towards the limit of their covering artillery range.

The battle is often used in Australian officer training as an example of the importance of combining and coordinating infantry, artillery, armour and military aviation.

Background

1ATF arrived in Vietnam in May 1966 and was based at the Nui Dat base, in Phuoc Tuy Province. (As of 2005, Nui Dat and Long Tan are both in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province.) 6 RAR was composed mainly of conscripts. The Australians faced formidable enemy forces, which were operating on home soil:

“

Within Phouc Tuy and the neighbouring provinces of Bien Hoa, Long Khanh and Binh Tuy, the principle [sic] main force formation… was the 5th NLF Division, which usually had its headquarters in the Mây Tào Mountains. It consisted of 274th Regiment and the 275th Regiment plus supporting units. North Vietnamese regulars were used to boost and reinforce this South Vietnamese Viet Cong formation…

”

Members of D Company found new VC tracks and spread out into a wide formation, to maximise the chances of contact. Two platoons led the way, with company headquarters behind them and a third platoon in the rear.

Battle

Against overwhelming odds, all but 17 of 108 Australians survived wave after wave of attack until a relief force in the form of a company arrived in armoured personnel carriers (one soldier died later from his wounds, while 24 were wounded)

At 15:40, a VC squads walked into the middle of 11 Platoon on the right flank of D Company. One was killed in the action, the area was cleared and 11 Platoon moved forward again.

Several light mortar rounds were fired towards the company position landing to the east, most likely the same mortars that had fired at the base on the night of 16 August, causing several casualties. The accompanying Forward Observation Officer (FO), New Zealand Army Captain Morrie Stanley, organized counter battery fire, neutralizing them, as the mortars were not fired again. This diversion separated the main company slightly from 11 Platoon, putting the main body behind a slight rise.

As 11 Platoon continued to advance they were attacked by heavy machine gun fire and sustained several casualties. Following normal contact procedures, the platoon went into a defensive position. The VC formed an assault and attacked 11 Platoon around 20 minutes after initial contact with support from their heavy machine guns.

Stanley called in all available artillery support from the 1 ATF artillery units, and 10 Platoon moved up to the left of 11 Platoon to relieve pressure on them and allow them to withdraw to the company defensive position out of the heavy machine gun fire. The commander of 11 Platoon, (ex-conscript) 2nd Lt Gordon Sharp, was killed and Platoon Sergeant Bob Buick assumed command of the platoon. During this engagement both platoons' radios went out.

Heavy monsoon rain began falling, obscuring the battlefield.

10 Platoon, under 2nd Lt Geoff Kendall, also came under fire and went into a defensive position. 12 Platoon, commanded by 2nd Lt Dave Sabben, had been the reserve platoon, and it was ordered to the right to support 11 Platoon. 12 Platoon left one section behind to support Company HQ.

Stanley called for close US support but when it arrived it was unable to identify targets due to the bad weather. The US warplanes dropped their bombs to the east causing disruption to the VC rear areas.

The Australian soldiers were carrying a light load, approximately five magazines, and quickly ran low on ammunition. At 5:00pm Smith called for an ammunition resupply. By coincidence, two Iroquois helicopters from 9 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force were available at the Nui Dat base, having just been used as transport for a Col Joye and Little Pattie concert. One of the Iroquois pilots, Flt Lt Bob Grandin, disobeyed orders by dropping supplies to D Company. He recalled: "[i]t did sound extremely bad on the radio. I recall Harry [Smith] saying, 'If you don't do this for us you all might as well start saying your prayers — it's all over'."

The survivors of 11 Platoon withdrew under the cover provided by the torrential rain to the company position. Smith requested reinforcements from 6RAR. B Company HQ with one platoon had not yet got back to Nui Dat and was ordered back to Long Tan. At Nui Dat, A Company was ordered to ready itself and the M-113 armored personnel carriers of the 1st Armored Personnel Carrier Squadron to transport them.

The VC continually formed assault groups and moved forward but were broken up by artillery fire. Fortunately for the attackers, the soft boggy ground reduced the effect of the shell bursts, but there were a large number of wounded. The soldiers of D Company held their line and repulsed any VC that got through the artillery barrage. D Company were supported by twenty-four 105 mm and 155 mm guns from the Australian 1st Field Regiment, the 161st Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery and the U.S. 2nd Battalion, 35th Artillery Regiment. Over 3,000 rounds of artillery were fired throughout the remainder of the battle and night, with fire concentrating on likely VC forming-up positions and escape routes. "A" Battery, 1st Field Regiment fired rounds every 15 seconds for three hours. The U.S. gunners were in the same base as "A" Battery and assisted the exhausted Australian gunners by carrying artillery rounds to their guns.

The reverse slope that D Company used for defense meant that the VC found it difficult to use their heavy calibre weapons effectively; the VC could only engage the Australians at close range. The VC tried to find the Australian flanks but the wide dispersal and excellent defensive position meant the VC thought they were up against a larger enemy.

At last light two rifle companies and APCs from 1 APC Squadron arrived under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Townsend and assaulted the Vietnamese flank. In teeming rain, 3 Troop, A Company under Lieutenant Adrian Roberts and 2 Troop, A Company under Lieutenant Peter Dinham, also attacked the forward elements of D445 Battalion, taking them by surprise. A Company dismounted from 10 M-113s and attacked the fleeing enemy, withdrawing to the east. One Australian soldier from the reinforcements was killed as they attacked the D445 Battalion position.

The fresh reinforcements formed a perimeter around D Company allowing them to treat the wounded and rest. The supporting artillery repeatedly fired on likely escape routes of the VC and some Australian wounded were evacuated by helicopter. A and B Companies were a strong force and should have been able to repulse any night attack. As it was there was no further contact.

The next day the dead and wounded from 11 Platoon’s position were recovered and 50 enemy dead buried. Australian historians later claimed US forces captured documents indicating 800 killed and 1,000 wounded. They also point out that the VC routinely carried away their dead during a battle, and this would have reduced the body count.

The Australian losses were 18 killed and 21 wounded. According to the 275th Regiment and D445 Battalion veterans and Vietnamese historians, forty-seven Viet Cong soldiers were killed in action and 100 wounded.

The author of First to Fight, Lieutenant-Colonel Bob Breen later wrote:

“

A combination of the battle discipline and bravery of the Australians, the cover provided by the torrential rain and the effects of hundreds of artillery and mortar rounds falling among the Viet Cong attackers resulted in a stunning victory for the Australians and a further enhancement for the fighting tradition of Australian infantry.

”

Body count

Both sides tried to evacuate the injured in the darkness, although several wounded Australians spent a long and terrifying night on the battlefield while the female and children members of the VC medical platoon (Mrs Phuong's Medical Evacuation Unit) moved around them. The morning light revealed the full extent of the horror. Around 50-245 Viet Cong bodies were found in the battle area and it was thought that many more were removed in the night. Eighteen Australians were killed at Long Tan and 24 wounded – over one third of the initial force engaged. In all, 188 enemy killed and wounded were reported by the CO of 6 RAR in his initial report on 19 August.The platoon under 2nd Lieutenant Eric Andrews reported a body count of about fifty killed on 20 August.

The official Australian Army history To Long Tan, by the Australian military historian Ian McNeill, lists the number of Vietnamese killed in action as 245 and three enemy captured. However, new research shows that Australian claims about 245 enemy soldiers killed in the battle may be highly inflated.

Controversies and conclusions

Both the Vietnamese and Australian militaries have disputed each other’s version. The first North Vietnamese communiqué claimed that: "Liberation Fighters ... wiped out almost completely one Battalion of the Australian Mercenaries in an ambush in the Long Tan Village."

There have also been accusations that the Australians also exaggerated enemy casualties. Casualty figures for the Viet Cong ranged from the 245 reportedly found dead on the field of action to the often quoted American Intelligence Officer's high count of 800 Vietnamese killed, with some 6 RAR veterans accepting the reinforced 275th Regiment's count (including D445 losses) of 47 killed and one-hundred wounded. Australian Military Historians Bruce Davies and Gary McKay say claims citing the US Army Intelligence Officer's record purportedly showing that 800 Vietnamese were killed in the battle are wrong for the report does not exist.

Terry Burstall, a private in the 12 Platoon section guarding D Company HQ during the battle, has contradicted Australian official accounts of Vietnamese losses:

“

When I returned to the battlefield the day after the battle, there were bodies lying all through the area ... Would a shell-shocked digger count an arm, a trunk and a leg scattered over several metres as one body or three bodies? Nobody knew or cared at the time, and certainly not the people doing the counting. ...Looking back I don't really think that I would have seen more than 50 bodies and I spent three days in the area.

”

The more recent Australian claim that 2,500-3,000 Vietnamese were involved in the battle with D Company is not supported by all Australian authors. Lieutenant-Colonel Bob Breen, author of First to Fight (the history of 1 RAR's first tour in Vietnam) has written that "the Viet Cong 275th Regiment ran into D Company in teeming monsoon rain" and that "for several hours just over 100 Diggers withstood the best efforts of over 1500 Viet Cong soldiers to kill them."

Vietnam veterans have also reported that Australian soldiers shot or bayoneted wounded VC no longer trying to defend themselves. Bob Buick faced criticism in 2000, after admitting that he killed a mortally-wounded Vietnamese soldier on the battlefield, the day after the battle. Such an act would have been in breach of the Geneva Convention and therefore a war crime. Buick was criticised by both Burstall and then president of the Australian Long Tan Association, John Heslewood. Burstall commented: "Bob says it was a mercy killing ... would he have done the same to an Australian?"

Many Vietnamese participants are adamant that D Company was ambushed. They state that the VC had planned to draw the Australian force into a wooded area to the north of the rubber plantation, where heavy weapons had been set up on a rise known to the Australians as "Nui Dat 2 GR4868". A supporting company of D445 Battalion were in the south near the village of Long Tan with one anti-tank platoonplaced on the south western edge of the plantation, hoping to slow down any APC-mounted reinforcements, and cut off an Australian retreat. In 2006, Sau Thu, a former major in D445 Battalion, was quoted as saying that he had been ordered to lure the Australians out of Nui Dat, kill as many of them as possible, capture their weapons and then take the base. We didn't know how many you had in Nui Dat. We tried to draw them out We thought they would go one way but the Australian soldiers went the wrong way and came behind us."

According to Burstall, the Vietnamese commander at Long Tan, Colonel Nguyen Thanh Hong, was amazed that the Australians could look on the battle as a victory:

“

How can you claim a victory when you allowed yourselves to walk into a trap that we had set? Admittedly we did not finish the job, but that was only because time beat us and your reinforcements arrived. I mean you did not even attempt to follow us up. How can you claim a significant victory from that sort of behaviour?

”

Lieutenant-Colonel Townsend was reportedly unable to pursue the mauled 275th Regiment because of the vulnerability of the Nui Dat base to an attack from the 274th Regiment. However, seven days later the 173rd Airborne Brigade, a US marine battalion, several ARVN battalions and 5 RAR joined in Operation Toledo and from 25 August to 7 September were involved in a large-scale sweep of the area. Captain Robert O'Neill (Intelligence Officer, 5 RAR) wrote that no evidence of heavy casualties were found in the enemy retreat:

“

...the battalion had been keyed up to the possibility of a major encounter with the Viet Cong-a battle which would have had a decisive effect on the Viet Cong in Phuoc Tuy Province. Instead all we found was dense jungle with no trace of any large Viet Cong force ever having been in the area.

”

Aftermath

A US Presidential Unit Citation (PUC) was awarded to D Company 6RAR, by President Lyndon B. Johnson on May 28, 1968, for the unit's actions at Long Tan:

“

By virtue of the authority invested in me as the President of the United States and as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, I have today awarded the Presidential Unit Citation (Army) for extraordinary heroism to D Company, Sixth Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment, The Australian Army.D Company distinguished itself by extraordinary heroism while engaged in military operations against an opposing armed force in Vietnam on 18 August 1966. While searching for Viet Cong in a rubber plantation northeast of Ba Ria, Phuoc Tuy, Province, Republic of Vietnam, D Company met and immediately engaged in heavy contact. As the battle developed, it became apparent that the men of D Company were facing a numerically superior force. The platoons of D Company were surrounded and attacked on all sides by an estimated reinforced enemy battalion using automatic weapons, small arms and mortars. Fighting courageously against a well armed and determined foe, the men on D Company maintained their formations in a common perimeter defence and inflicted heavy casualties on the Viet Cong. The enemy maintained a continuous, intense volume of fire and attacked repeatedly from all directions. Each successive assault was repulsed by the courageous Australians. Heavy rainfall and low ceiling prevented any friendly close air support during the battle. After three hours of savage attacks, having failed to penetrate the Australian lines, the enemy withdrew from the battlefield carrying many dead and wounded, and leaving 245 Viet Cong dead forward of the defence positions of D Company. The conspicuous courage, intrepidity and indomitable courage of D Company were to the highest tradition of military valour and reflect great credit upon D Company and the Australian Army.

”

Soldiers that served ino D Company 6 RAR still wear the PUC on their uniforms.

Townsend was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). Smith was recommended for a Distinguished Service Order, but received the lower award of a Military Cross. Each of the three platoon commanders were recommended for Military Crosses but none were awarded. Two Distinguished Conduct Medals, and two Military Medals were also awarded. The lack of recognition paid to Australian veterans by the Australian government was remedied under the government of Prime Minister John Howard. In November 2006, Howard visited Long Tan, the first Australian Prime Minister to make the journey. At Long Tan, Howard acknowledged the poor treatment that Australian Vietnam veterans had received.

A total of 22 members of D Company were awarded South Vietnamese medals. However, it had long been the policy of the Australian military that its members could not accept awards from foreign powers, including allies. It was only in June 2004 that the awards were finally accepted by the Minister of Defence.

Commemoration and reconciliation

The Battle of Long Tan has become a symbol of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War and August 18th is now commemorated in Australia as Vietnam Veterans Day. Almost 60,000 Australians served in Vietnam; 521 died and over 3,000 were wounded.

6 RAR erected a concrete cross to commemorate those that died. This was removed by the government of Vietnam following the Communist victory in 1975, but has now been replaced by a larger monument of similar design. The original, discovered by Terry Burstall in his trip, is now on display at Dong Nai province museum in Bien Hoa.

In more recent times former officers from D Company have visited Vietnam and met former adversaries.

In 1996, on the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, The Sydney Morning Herald printed a special commemorative issue to do with the Battle of Long Tan and revealed to the Australian public for the very first time the Vietnamese version of events of VC soldiers involved and killed in the 275th Regiment:

“

[The] senior Vietnamese officers made the startling claim that only 700 of their men had taken part in the battle — half the most conservative Australian estimate — and that only 30 had been killed.

”

A feature film, a fictionalised account written and directed by ex-Australian Army Commando and filmmaker Bruce Beresford, and entitled Long Tan, was released in 2008.

In 2013, Phan Chien, chairman of the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Veterans' Association, reported that the VC forces suffered over 170 killed from 1966 until 1971 in Phouc Tuy Province, which appeared to confirm Australian estimates over enemy numbers killed in the Battle of Long Tan.