Remembering the Battle of Long Tan: The 55th Anniversary

Oil Painting by Official War Artist Bruce Fletcher.

With the passing of August 18th saw the most recent anniversary for the Battle of Long Tan, Australia’s costliest engagement during the war in Vietnam.

Taking place in 1966, the newly established base of Nui Dat in the heart of Phuoc Tuy province, saw the 1st Australian Task Force came under attack by the enemy without warning.

Mortar bombardment and recoilless rifle fire lasted for more than 20 minutes on August 17th in the early morning, leaving 24 soldiers wounded in the aftermath.

Fearful concerns were raised that the morning’s attack was potentially a prelude to an even larger full-scale attack from enemy to take the Nui Dat base.

Rifle companies of 6th Battalion in the Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR) were sent out at dawn in search of the enemy forces.

After locating mortar positions and discovering tracks left behind by the enemy, patrolling soldiers see no contact from the expected Viet Cong.

The next day, August 18th, the ordered was given to D Company to patrol the area of interest. They had left the base at 11am, eventually patrolling into a rubber plantation nearby.

For many Australians fighting in Vietnam, they were used to short, sharp enemy engagements from local guerrillas who would quickly strike and then slipped away.

But this time, it’s not the case, as after 3:40pm, the ANZACs will encounter the biggest battle to be fought at Vietnam involving our nation.

Where waves upon waves of attacking Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army in full force of roughly 2000 enemy soldiers, heavily equipped, engaged the Australians who consisted of a mere 108 men.

The enemy was met with a combination of infantry and artillery fire from the ANZACs. During the battle, a monsoon downpour and thunderstorm breaks out, making all communication difficult through a barrage of gunfire, artillery, rain, and thunder.

Under intense enemy fire, D Company fought off successive assaults and were assisted by their accurate artillery fire from the base at Nui Dat, just five kilometres away.

Fighter-bombers attempted to provide air support but were unable due to the thunderstorm.

With ammunition running very low for the Australians, two RAAF helicopter crews dropped resupply boxes of ammo through the tree-tops down to their fellow soldiers.

In this daring, risky mission, the rotorcraft crews had to combat not only enemy ground fire but the heavy downpour they flew in dangerous conditions.

After significant losses being inflicted, with 28 men killed or wounded, annihilation seemed imminent as the daylight began fading by the minute at 6:20pm.

D Company radios in the following transmission: “Enemy could be reorganising to attack. Two platoons are about 75 per cent effective. One platoon has been almost completely destroyed. [We] are reorganising for all-round defence.”

As the enemy began forming their final assault to finish off the Australians who were left, they are counterattacked by the ANZACs reinforcement company consisting of infantry mounted in armoured personnel carriers (APC) who held back the enemy until driving them off.

For the survivors of D Company, the battle is over and leaves them with 17 killed in action and 25 more were wounded. The average age of the dead were 21 years old.

Lest We Forget.

On the morning after the battle, troops in a clearing in the rubber plantation of Long Tan examine some of the Viet Cong weapons captured by D Company, 6RAR, including rocket launchers, heavy machine-guns, recoilless rifles and scores of rifles and carbines.

A wounded Viet Cong prisoner, one of three found on the battlefield after D Company 6RAR returned to the Long Tan rubber plantation is questioned by 6RAR intelligence officer Captain Bryan Wickens, with the help of a Vietnamese interpreter.