Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

On indulgence: in rising to speak on this matter, I do so in the sense that we have had a very successful reception given for those who fought in the battles of Coral and Balmoral. We have also had a very important commemorative service at the Vietnam Memorial for 3RAR as well as for Coral and Balmoral. There has been a general awakening of thought and the need to remember and put into context the fine service given by Australian soldiers fighting in the battles of Vietnam. We have heard how badly our men were treated when they came back from fighting in Vietnam and yet the intensity, malice and vitriol of those people who denigrated them and their families during the Vietnam War I think also need to be revisited to understand exactly what it was that those men and women went through. It is also important to put in context the battles of Coral and Balmoral as fire support bases and perhaps to revisit the Tet offensive of 1968 and Operation Thoan Thang (Complete Victory) from April to June of 1968, of which Coral and Balmoral were a part. The Tet offensive was the aspiration of the North Vietnamese to, in their terms, ‘liberate South Vietnam’ with uprisings all over South Vietnam, with the intention of winning the war.

Part of that Tet offensive was the battle of Hue, where an incredible massacre by the Viet Cong took place of the people who lived in Hue. Hue was a city where intellectuals lived and there was a real understanding of what democracy was about. I am most grateful to be one of many people reading Vietnam, the Australian War by Paul Ham, which puts into context and explains so many of the things that happened. Paul Ham wrote of that battle:

The massacre of some 6,000 inhabitants of Hue who were the educated citizens who were chosen for death by shooting, clubbing, bayoneting or being buried alive because they were educated and middle-class and they would not capitulate to the North Vietnamese.

Paul Ham’s book says:

The massacre fulfilled the letter of the Liberation Front directive of 2 December 1965 sent to regional and district commissars, party and political training schools and said in areas temporarily under enemy control, ‘We are to exterminate key and dangerous elements of such parties as the Vietnamese Nationalist Party.’

Sentiments perhaps reminiscent of Pol Pot and his killing fields, but the barbarity of the attack on the people of Hue was not reported in the Western press. They were much more interested in reporting against our troops and against our people. The stories that I have heard since, with people coming together, tell how wives living at Holsworthy would not be served by shopkeepers in Liverpool because their husbands were serving in Vietnam. Children were singled out for bullying in the playground because their father was serving in Vietnam. One story told of a soldier who had died of appalling wounds and whose parents were rung up by an anti-Vietnam demonstrator. Speaking to this person’s parents, they said, ‘He got what he deserved.’ Their home was then daubed with red paint. These are truly shameful incidents that occurred and have been pushed back in memory. But if we are truly to acknowledge the service and sacrifice of the men and women who served in Vietnam then we must revisit the malice and vitriol that was around at that time.

The Tet offensive was unsuccessful for the North Vietnamese. Something like 45,000 Vietcong lost their lives. But the TV coverage of the Tet offensive sent a message that preached against the actions of those opposed to North Vietnam and the Vietcong. The result was that President Johnson announced on 31 March 1968 that he would not seek re-election and that he would stop the bombing of North Vietnam and negotiate with Hanoi. General Westmoreland’s departure to the US was announced. He was being kicked upstairs, as the jargon went. Hanoi was buoyed by the failure of nerve, and the People’s Army troops poured into South Vietnam.

On 13 May, the communist leaders agreed to begin the so-called peace negotiations in Paris, which coincided with an escalation of the war. Hanoi saw the West’s weakness and they launched a mini Tet offensive. Contemporaneously with the announcement of peace talks was the beginning of Coral and Balmoral. Australia’s General Macdonald agreed to send two Australian battalions, the 1st and 3rd, to support the defence of Saigon. Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Bennett and Lieutenant Colonel Jim Shelton were the respective battalion commanders, two very esteemed gentlemen—soldiers; brave.

The Australians were under American command and were tasked to block enemy withdrawals and reinforcements from Saigon. They were to be dropped into country rife with enemy and were meant to lure the enemy into the open. ‘Surfers’ was the codename they gave to the area around Bin Hoa, which they further divided into areas called Bondi, Newport and Manly. They had to establish a fire support patrol base, which they called Coral, named after an Australian officer’s girlfriend. The aim was to protect the weapons system and armoured operations in the area of operations.

On the night of 12 May, initial contact was made with the North Vietnamese army, who all day had been observing them being dropped in by helicopter. The North Vietnamese struck with full force at 3.30 pm, but the Australians’ training kicked in. I would like to read an extract from Paul Ham’s book. He says:

Both sides fought like threshing machines. ‘The enemy withdrew under devastating firepower and was severely mauled,’ said Bennett the next morning. The gunships and fighters, the bravery of the Australian mortar and artillerymen and the effective operation of the 1st Battalion command post, notably the fire support control centre, had saved the base from being completely overrun. The ashen-faced Australian survivors rested amid the shambles, many in a state of shock. The wounded were airlifted to Vung Tau, and Staff Sergeant Terry Loftus packed the personal effects of the dead for dispatch to Australia. Somewhere in the jungle, hundreds of North Vietnamese soldiers dragged their comrades to makeshift field hospitals and the strange mournful utter of the battlefield subdued into birdless silence. On the earth before Coral lay hundreds of pairs of Ho Chi Minh sandals. Fifty-two North Vietnamese army bodies were recovered and buried in a mass grave.

Private Dick Nordon, whose action prompted Sir Rodon Cutler VC to remark quietly when decorating him, ‘I do not know what one has to do these days to win a Victoria Cross.’ He was caught in an ambush. Nordon had rushed forward under covering fire to retrieve two Australian wounded. His section commander and forward scout shot 20 metres ahead. As he ran, Nordon himself was wounded. He shot a Vietnamese soldier then, out of ammunition, grabbed the dead man’s rifle and continued firing until he reached his section commander, whom he dragged to safety. Nordon then raced forward again under fire and reached the now dead Australian scout, whose corpse the Vietcong rifleman was using as a shield. Nordon killed this soldier, returned to his section, ran forward a third time with grenades and cleared the area so that the scout’s body could be retrieved. Nordon single-handedly saved his section commander’s life and reversed the enemy’s advantage with complete disregard for his own safety.

The men who fought for Australia in Vietnam were proud, courageous and endowed with the Anzac spirit. Balmoral was the name given to the second fire support base in the Newport area near the village of Bingmei. It was another tethered goat strategy—that is, designed to lure the enemy out into the open. Lieutenant Jim Sheldon of the 3rd Battalion was chosen for this second base. He made two very important decisions: firstly, he welcomed Australian centurion tank support; and, secondly, instead of flying in his battalion for the North Vietnamese Army to observe, he sent them in quietly on foot. He also had an innovation that was called Sheldon’s Mortar Marauders. He had armed personnel carriers mounted with mortars, which did short tours around so they would think that was all they had.

The Australian destroyed at least fourteen bunker systems in the first encounter and they thought they had pretty well succeeded, but on the 28th of May the North Vietnamese Army returned to Balmoral.

Again, I read from Paul Ham’s book:

For fifteen minutes they mortared the base with frightful accuracy thanks to the courage of their nocturnal scouts, who crept up and captured the distance with lengths of string. Then in an exact replica of an early attack, only bigger, at least 800 North Vietnamese threw themselves on the tethered goat. As foolish as they were courageous, the attacks were suicidal, reminiscent of Japanese determined-to-die units. Perhaps the Vietnamese were drugged, some wounded. Those who reached the wire met a hail of canister and rifle fire and fell chiefly at the feet of Major Peter Phillips’ company, who withstood the brunt of both attacks for which Phillips’ leadership earned him a Military Cross. Some corpses hung on the wire until dawn.

An examination of the North Vietnamese bodies revealed that they were boys aged 15 to 17. The Australians were fighting an army of teenagers and the destruction of so many lives disturbed many Australian soldiers. ‘To waste all that young manpower seemed to be criminal,’ said Major Peter Phillips afterwards. ‘It is a measure I guess of Hanoi’s skill that they were able to indoctrinate these young kids. I never saw the grey eminences who were directing them. We only saw the young kids.’

It was a fearful war. It was a disgraceful reaction when the people of Australia let those men down. When the welcome home parade happened so many decades too late, some of the damage that we had done was rectified. We still owe those men and women a great apology. We owe them thanks for the courage and for wearing the uniform of which they were proud and of which I can say we must all be truly proud. They gave of themselves, as indeed any soldier has ever given in any war that this nation of ours has been involved in.

The battles of Coral and Balmoral are important to learn about and to know about, because they again give our young people and the coming generations more information about the sorts of things that they had to endure. But it needs always to be seen in context. It needs to be seen in the context that we, as a people, let them down at that time—as did the politicians of that time. Now we have an opportunity to make some of that up. Now we have the opportunity to do some things right that will help those people ease their pain. The scars that were left have been endured quietly by so many for so long. Perhaps having statements like these will help assuage the pain. We must never forget that they were fine, proud soldiers who served our country well.

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