Long tan, p.27
Long Tan, page 27
But Townsend, as in December 1966, continued to claim unapproved awards for my soldiers had been downgraded at higher HQ. He did not tell me that ‘he personally had downgraded and scrubbed awards for my men’, which was to be revealed in a confession when he was terminally ill with prostate cancer published in Paul Ham’s 2007 book, Vietnam: The Australian War. He did suggest the MID upgraded to MM for Private Ron Eglinton by Brigadier Jackson was because it was politically expedient for a National Service soldier, the first, to be decorated with a medal to take the heat off the loss of so many others. This embarrassed Ron Eglinton, the only platoon soldier to be recognised.
I also ascertained he never passed my citation recommending Lieutenant Adrian Roberts for the MC to his APC Squadron unit commander Major Bob Hagerty. Bob, who retired as a Colonel AM, was to tell me in recent years that when he raised the subject of awards immediately after the battle, he was told by the more senior Colin Townsend that Smith was to get an MC and thus Adrian had to be restricted to the MID that had been cited for the two Delta Company platoon commanders.
Adrian Roberts had been unfairly criticised by Charles Mollison and this was taken up and published by Townsend in the 6RAR After Action Report, although it was ordered to be removed by Brigadier Oliver Jackson, along with an apology, published in November 1966. I am sure Adrian was not the flavour of the month for refusing to stop his advance and wait for Townsend, who, although he claimed otherwise in various articles, was not with the APCs when they left Nui Dat, having told the Operations Officer to tell Adrian he would fly out later – in a monsoonal rainstorm? The APC force was delayed by over an hour in leaving Nui Dat and there was ample time for Townsend and his HQ party to get on board.
After the 1999 Tanzer Review advisers in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Directorate of Honours and Awards, as well as several generals, opposed any review, quoting all the usual tales that GRVN awards could not be approved as it would usurp a government no longer in existence, that we could not go back in time and approve Imperial awards that had been properly considered and so on. They claimed this would set a precedent for World Wars I and II.
But in 2004 we did have a rare win. Ex-Army officer, Liberal MP Mal Brough, holding the portfolio of Assisting the Minister for Defence, was able to obtain approval for the 1966 individual Vietnamese awards of which 12 were for some of my men in 1966, but not for the Unit Citation. He told me the new foreign award legislation provided for approval of offered individual awards but not unit (group) awards. Although they had to buy replicas from medal shops for about $40, the recipients were now able to wear their Vietnamese awards. I of course had my original National Order of Vietnam given to me in Saigon and could then wear it. I continued to push for approval of the Vietnamese Unit award and the unresolved Imperial awards.
Minister DVA Bruce Billson MP was supportive. On 17 August 2006, when we were in Canberra for the Prime Minister’s memorable 40th Long Tan Day/Vietnam Veterans’ Day, John Howard called Adrian Roberts, Dave Sabben and myself to his modern office with a grand view down the long Memorial Drive to the War Memorial.
John Howard agreed that the 1997–98 End of War List Review should have included the unapproved and downgraded Long Tan awards and he listened to Minister Billson’s claim there was documentary evidence to support the offer of the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry Citation, as with the medals approved in 2004. Because of the requests by Vietnam Veterans who had been given Vietnamese awards without appropriate documentation, especially people from the Army Training Team Vietnam, legislation had been passed in 1999 that provided for approval of foreign awards if evidence of offer could be produced. Breakthrough at last! The PM directed the Minister to seek opinion for a review from Defence.
A year later, in September 2007, John Howard sent me a hefty 150-page dossier for my comment, which consisted mostly of formerly secret documents relative to Imperial and Vietnamese awards. It was delivered to me by a local Cairns MP in a government car to our Cavalier 395 cruising yacht Cavarlo in the Marina Mirage at Port Douglas while my wife Felicia and I were en route to Lizard Island. Apart from many files relative to my push for a review of awards, it contained the briefs and comments of various advisers. On page 4 one adviser criticised my claim that I had cited platoon commanders for the MC, saying they were only recommended for MIDs, and that I said Townsend had arrived after the battle terminated. He then went on to say, ‘It is recorded that CO6RAR moved out immediately and took firm and effective control of the battle, contrary to Lieutenant Colonel Smith’s recollections of the events!’ That sort of negative opinion from advisers sitting in their Canberra offices based on reading fraudulent citations was of little benefit to justice being done. The dossier also contained negative opinion from 8RAR Association suggesting we should not get the Vietnamese award they had, and even a quote from Charles Mollison that to approve any more awards for Delta Company would be detrimental to the harmony within 6RAR.
These comments and similar opinions were signed off on 30 April 2007 file CDF/2007/390, by Air Vice-Marshal Angus Houston, Chief of Defence Force, below a note that ‘… he did not agree with any additional awards or a Unit Citation to force elements involved in Operation Smithfield in Vietnam during August 1966’. Appalled, I wrote back to John Howard, vehemently opposing Houston’s view and asked for a formal review. I asked nothing for myself but insisted my officers and men be reconsidered for the awards I had recommended in 2006, plus the awards to two Alpha Company soldiers and the APC officer, and the offered Vietnamese Unit Citation for my company.
My main argument was the awards should have been considered and upgraded in the belated 1998 Review and the citation approved with the Vietnamese medals in 2004. Opposition to this theme had come from Defence advisers to their ministers and generals who really did not comprehend nor were genuinely interested in the problem, the rhetoric being you can’t go back in time and risk setting a precedent for earlier wars.
Then Chief of Defence Force (CDF) Air Vice-Marshal Angus Houston, had himself accepted five high foreign awards from Malaysia, France, Singapore, East Timor and the Netherlands – along with a Commander of the Order of Australia for meritorious service as CDF. I am not saying his awards were not deserved, but think it’s hypocritical that it was good enough for him to accept foreign awards, yet he tried to deny appropriate awards and the Vietnamese citation to my soldiers who fought and sacrificed in combat at Long Tan!
I met Angus Houston at the 2006 Canberra Long Tan Day and more recently at the March 2012 Caloundra dedication of the second Iroquois helicopter that resupplied us with ammunition at Long Tan, recovered from Nyngan in western New South Wales, refurbished and now a monument outside the RSL. Angus was the last CO of 9 Squadron. He had been replaced by Lieutenant General David Hurley as CDF in July 2011 and, no longer serving, he was very friendly but I did not discuss awards with him although we did briefly discuss our respective prostate cancer surgeries. In any case we had seen his 2007 opinions in the John Howard dossier overturned in 2008 with the approval of three officer awards and the Vietnamese Unit Citation.
In October 2007 Felicia and I had to climb halfway up the Cook’s Look hill at Lizard Island to get mobile phone reception from the mainland aerial near Cape Flattery after receiving an SMS. While looking down at the stunning reef around Mrs Watson’s Bay, I received welcome advice from Minister Bruce Billson that Prime Minister John Howard had read my comments on the dossier and had approved a review of Long Tan awards to start in December, chaired by Retired Major General Peter Abigail AO, the former Land Commander of the Australian Army, and including Retired Major General Steve Gower AO AO (mil), Director of the Australian War Memorial, plus Retired Brigadier Gerry Warner AM LVO. I wondered how General Gower had been chosen as he had written articles supporting more awards for Long Tan in AWM Wartime magazines and even in the foreword to our 2004 Commanders book. He may well have been perceived as biased but I welcomed him being on the panel. On the other hand, Canberra colleagues told me to beware of General Abigail as he had the ‘mind of a barrister’ and if the paperwork was not there, with the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed, he was unlikely to approve anything.
In addition to providing a written statement I was called to give verbal evidence at a very brief two-hour Canberra interview on 13 December and the report was published in March. It became known as the Review of Recognition for the Battle of Long Tan March 2008. The panel did not seek to interview my three platoon commanders and discuss the awards they had cited for their platoon soldiers. I must say I was warmly welcomed by the generals and they accepted the main documents I tendered relative to the Vietnamese citation; two letters from Tran Van Lam, and an 18 December 2000 Defence letter to my colleague Bill Roche signed by adviser Brad Fallon advising yes, the government did admit the Vietnamese Government had offered medals and a unit citation in 1966.
I thought all that would see the Vietnamese award approved by the Review panel, but no. We discussed the Imperial Awards, but while General Abigail made me aware of many former secret files, such as the use of the DSO as a senior officer good service award, and the reduction of the Imperial awards quota by half in 1966, we really did not get down to detail in the brief interview before I had to leave to fly home at noon, the booking made by Review staffers. I followed up the interview with another written submission but I felt the outcome of the Review had been decided before the interviews. Colleagues claim that all Canberra reviews simply confirm decisions that have already been taken!
The Review report was then delayed by a late request for the upgrading of an RAAF MID to DFC for one of the helicopter pilots, the late Cliff Dohle, who flew in ammunition at Long Tan, although not under fire, and was directed to the drop point by the leading helicopter piloted by the (late) Frank Riley DFC.
The March 2008 report recommended that only three original ‘officer’ awards be upgraded to the new equivalents of their recommended 1966 awards: to the Star of Gallantry (SG) for myself and Medal for Gallantry for Geoff Kendall and Dave Sabben, contemporary equivalents of the DSO and MC. While a former Alpha Company soldier has recently claimed we should have only received Meritorious Service Awards, thus suggesting we did not demonstrate personal gallantry, he is obviously not aware that good service awards do not apply in combat, and that our awards were for ‘conspicuous gallantry – command and leadership in action’, not personal heroism. No other men on the list, nor pilot Cliff Dohle, were to be upgraded and the other individual awards and the Vietnamese Unit Award were not recommended on the grounds of ‘no official forms or evidence on file’. The RAAF MID award upgrading was denied on the basis that Cliff Dohle was led into Long Tan by Frank Riley and was sent home injured after crashing a helicopter in October, thus failing to complete his tour and qualifying flying hours, apparently an RAAF requisite for the DFC.
The Review panel was quick to point out that Brigadier Jackson’s ‘Long Tan’ DSO was warranted by his good service over his 18 months in Vietnam and his able personal direction of the battle, and said it was a periodical award, despite heading the Long Tan Gallantry Awards list. The DSO is undoubtedly an immediate gallantry award and is so stated in the Imperial Honours Regulations (Modified for Australia) which applied in 1966.
On page 21 of the report it compared our awards with other battles. It showed 17 awards, but only nine of those were given to my company which fought the main battle. To pad out the figures to aid their negative findings, it included the two DSOs for Jackson and Townsend, the two awards for the NZ gunners, the two awards for the RAAF pilots, and the two awards for the APC Troop, another eight.
As to further blatant inconsistency, on page 26 the report denies the 1967 DSO for Colin Townsend was an immediate award for gallantry as on the citation form, just a periodical good service award, but on page 17, it includes the 1967 DSO award as being a gallantry award for Long Tan, August 1966! One would have expected the authors of the report to have at least got it right.
Much of the report dealt with various claims of conspiracy and manipulation of awards in order to dispel an image that senior officers not in action had decorated themselves at the expense of the combatants. It dwelt on my submissions about the interview in Saigon 1966 and letters from Tran Van Lam and dismissed them as being unsupported by official documents, despite being given a copy of the written admission by Defence adviser Brad Fallon in 2000 that the Vietnamese awards ‘had been offered’.
The final bullet was on page 10 where the report extended the time of the end of battle from 7.10 pm to the midnight casualty evacuation, to cover the Commanding Officer, Townsend being in a hostile area. This is like saying that World War II ended when the troopships arrived back in Australia!
It also said the victorious company battle ‘was also due to a product of planning, decisions, and actions by other participants including the commanders at battalion and task force level’.
The old schooltie club blatantly shows up here. What planning? What decisions? And what actions? I am on record stating the brigadier did little other than delay the reinforcements, causing more casualties, and the colonel did nothing but argue with my requests for reinforcements and regimental artillery, arriving after the enemy had withdrawn.
The report also stated the opinion:
…that if General Mackay had not been back in Australia at the time, his attitude to awards might have been more liberal, whereas the awards approved did not conform to the level of recognition which might otherwise have been expected.
So why therefore did they not approve all the awards that I had recommended for my men?
The change of my company’s Operation ‘Vendetta’ into 1 ATF ‘Smithfield’ and its dates from 17 to 21 August created a scenario which suggested Long Tan started with the mortaring of the Nui Dat base on the 17th, and ended on the return to Base on 21 August, yet not one shot was fired before 3.40 pm and after 7.10 pm on the 18th.
The five-day Operation ‘Smithfield’ then became a vehicle for the Task Force and battalion commanders to be seen as being involved at Long Tan and they certainly made use of that. It was also noted that General Mackay was recommended for a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by AHQ which was upgraded to Commander of the Bath (CB) in Canberra.
The 2008 report decorated just three officers and none of the soldiers. It was illogical, inconsistent and unjust but there were no original forms for other than myself for the DSO downgraded to MC, and MID forms for my two officers, plus those for the few approved awards, totalling nine.
The unapproved soldiers’ forms were supposedly not on file and there was no evidence to show whether they had been destroyed or secreted. But the Review accepted testimony under a principle of the 1994 Committee of Inquiry into Defence Awards that ‘where documentation was not available as is often the case, testimony of recommendation can be considered’. I stated I had cited Geoff Kendall and Dave Sabben for MCs and this was accepted. I gather former assistant to Brigadier Jackson, David Harris, testified he had seen those awards on the original forms sent up the line, confirming my testimony. It was then suggested by the panel that the original forms had been rewritten, down from MC to MID after I was downgraded from DSO to MC, a domino effect, and the originals destroyed. But while the officers were upgraded the same principle was not then applied to the soldiers.
The report also required Geoff, Dave and me to return our Imperial awards in order to accept the new Contemporary Australian awards. As Australia had excised itself from Imperial Awards with the 1991 Contemporary system, this direction was queried by protocol experts as the original Imperial Awards were from Her Majesty the Queen and could only be withdrawn by de-gazettal in London, normally for being guilty of offences, like Rolf Harris who recently lost his CBE. Besides, apart from some of the 81 people upgraded in the 1998 Review who were permitted to keep their original Imperial awards, there was precedence from World War I where Australian soldiers awarded MIDs in 1914–15 were upgraded to the new MM when issued in March 1916 and they were permitted to keep and wear both awards. The 1854 MID was originally just a mention of good service in a message dispatched to higher HQ. It was gazetted during World War I, then became a Metal Oak Leaf Clasp attached to the campaign medal ribbon from 1919.
I discussed the 2008 Review report with the new ALP Government Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Alan Griffin MP, whose portfolio then included Honours and Awards. Alan Griffin had been supported by Graham Edwards MP in suggesting favourable approval of awards in their ALP election platform. Dave Sabben and I both threatened not to accept new awards if the soldiers’ awards were not similarly approved. And apart from that principle, we were not overly impressed by the design and appearance of the new contemporary awards compared to the gilt and enamel DSO and the silver MC. Walk into any RSL with a DSO or the distinctive white and purple MC ribbon above the silver cross and heads turn. Some who look at my SG, unaware of what it is, say it looks like it was stamped out of a beer can and sprayed with gold paint! Many say we kept the Victoria Cross for Australia, so why did we not keep the other UK gallantry medals? The 2014 reintroduction of Knights and Dames adds to the argument. As my Vietnam National Order is a Knight order, some of my former soldiers have said ‘Boss, tell Tony Abbot to call you Sir Harry.’
Alan Griffin, an impressive Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, whom I admire for his support and good advice, persuaded Dave and me to accept the upgrades because they added lustre to the platoons and company. He suggested the other unresolved awards should be approved by the ALP’s new Defence Honours and Awards Tribunal on the 1994 Committee of Inquiry into Defence Awards’ principle that it would accept testimony they were in fact recommended in 1966. The government told me it established the Tribunal in late 2008 because of many other claims for awards justice. The new ALP government then approved the recommended new officer awards which were gazetted immediately. It also approved the Vietnamese Unit Citation ‘on proof off offer’ and referred the unresolved awards to a new 2009 Tribunal inquiry. We wore the new Vietnamese Citation emblems on Long Tan Day 2008. In 2009 Mike Kelly AM MP told me the original documentation for the offer of GRVN awards had been located and was used in 2008 to approve the unit citation, CGCP.
