Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

On indulgence, I want to make a very important contribution to the condolence motion that recognises the return of our two final missing from Vietnam. What a moment it is for all Australians to know that the last two, who had been missing for so long, will be finally coming home to Australia. It is now more than 39 years since they went missing in action. The bodies of Flying Officer Michael Herbert and Pilot Officer Robert Carver have been found. As a nation we all waited with anticipation for the day these remains would be found.

The Air Force recovery teams, the Vietnamese officials and all involved knew that we would never give up the search for the missing—whether in Vietnam or other theatres of war—and trying to identify those buried as unknown Australian soldiers or airmen. We will continue to work to identify and to find the remains of the missing. Flying Officer Michael Herbert and Pilot Officer Robert Carver will now not be on the Vietnam veterans’ memorial on Anzac Parade as missing, but will be with all of those now who have been recovered and returned to Australia.

It was on 3 November 1970 that the two servicemen, who were members of the 2nd Squadron Royal Australian Air Force, were participating in a night-time bombing mission. They were returning after that mission to their base when they disappeared in the Quang Nam province near the Laotian border. The day after they disappeared from the radar screen an extensive aerial search of the area was undertaken by both Australian and American units. After three days the search was called off. The search was hampered by bad weather conditions and was made extremely difficult by the very rugged expanse where they were reported missing.

Pilot Officer Carver had served in Vietnam for just eight weeks and Flying Officer Herbert had just two months to go before he would finish his tour of duty and return to Australia. Both were 24 years of age. I guess it is hard for us in this generation and in this time but often I pause at a war memorial in my electorate and just listen all around me to the silence, the peace and the wonderful life that I have enjoyed and reflect on the loss of so many Australians throughout time to give us this peace in this wonderful Australia. I think of when I was 24, thinking about marriage and thinking about a business, and I think about these two officers—just 24 years of age—and look now in 2009 at what they lost in their lives. I guess it is hard to really understand the pain felt by their families and, indeed, the families of all soldiers who have been lost in action. I know that over the ensuring decade Joan Herbert, who was Michael’s mother—whose son was only two months short of returning home—wrote some 600 letters to the Vietnamese authorities hoping that perhaps those letters might identify where her son was. I am sure that, as a mother, she never really gave up hope not only that her son would be found but that he would be found alive.

I was the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs in 1996 when I took the very first official pilgrimage back to Vietnam: veterans, war widows, next of kin and a number of servicemen representing the units which had served there. I have to say they were a great bunch of people. For them, it was going to be a return to some areas that had troubled them since their return from Vietnam. We had the widow of Peter Badcoe VC—and what a wonderful woman she is—and she was representing in so many ways the widows. We had the next of kin represented by a wonderful young lady who was starting to grow up at 20-odd years of age but who was four when she lost her father—a father she never knew. To take them back to Saigon, and to talk to them, helped me as the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. It gave me a personal insight into not only how they felt about their service, how they had in so many ways got on with life since returning, but also the sense of camaraderie between the Vietnam veterans and what it meant to be a widow, a next of kin or a Vietnam veteran themselves. I will never forget the then Deputy Prime Minister, and a Vietnam veteran himself, Tim Fischer, joining us at Nui Dat. We had a very small memorial service at Nui Dat and he was able also to bring a sense of how he had got on with life and was able to manage in some ways in his own life the trauma that war can so often bring to people.

I was also able to see the work that the Vietnam Veterans Reconstruction Team are doing in Vietnam. I think in some ways that is also a measure of the Australian task force in Vietnam. I will never forget driving around some of the villages and areas around Vung Tau, Nui Dat and Ba Ria. We saw a Southern Cross windmill, made in Toowoomba—the home, of course, of Flying Officer Carver, who never returned having died that night in his Canberra bomber. In so many ways our reconstruction team was there helping these villages—for example by bringing clean, fresh, running water to their communities. That work goes on today with the Vietnam Veterans Reconstruction Team, and I commend them for the work that they do. It is important that we as a nation recognise that there was enormous damage inflicted on those communities and on so many innocent people. I know that the Vietnam veterans themselves, through the reconstruction team and the corporate support that they receive, are well meaning and are certainly making a difference to many of those communities which were formerly the battlefields of the Vietnam War.

I also want to say something about the new Vietnam gallery at the Australian War Memorial. It is a great credit to the board of the Australian War Memorial and all those who put the concept together. There is an Iroquois helicopter there, simulating a dust-off. There is a theatrette, where the battle of Long Tan is reconstructed and there are talks about the losses incurred. In many ways it is about the triumph of the Australian soldier under such trying conditions. In fact, when we stood in the battlefields of Long Tan we had with us Jim Richmond, who was left for dead that night but was actually recovered the following day. He also features in A Letter from Home in the theatrette in the galleries of the Australian War Memorial. I just want to say to those who may be listening today that if they are ever in Canberra I would commend not only a visit to the Australian War Memorial but a visit to the new galleries that they have completed, including the Vietnam gallery, which I think does great credit to all those who served in Vietnam. It is appropriate; it has been appropriately done. I think the people, including young children, who visit that very important and poignant gallery will gain not only an understanding of the sacrifices made throughout wars but a knowledge of our involvement in the Vietnam War.

We can now close the book on these six brave servicemen who were missing in action. Finally we know the identification and final location of Flying Officer Michael Herbert and Pilot Officer Robert Carver, and they are coming home. In conclusion, I just want to say to all of us in Australia who have inherited the great legacy of freedom and the wonderful democracy we have that they come at a great price and we should never forget the sacrifices made nor the families who continue to suffer silently today. I am reminded once again of Joan Herbert, Michael’s mother, who kept writing and writing and writing, never giving up hope. I know we have families experiencing this today, and I saw it personally as veterans’ affairs minister. They never give up hope, thinking that one day their loved one will be found or their remains identified in a grave somewhere in the world, where they are listed as an Australian soldier or airman but nothing more than that. I commend all those who have been involved in the recovery. The work was never stopped. I want to also thank the Vietnamese authorities for their cooperation in helping this nation finally find the last two of our missing in Vietnam.

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