Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to remember our Vietnam veterans and to do honour to 18 August, which we now call Vietnam commemoration day. Perhaps I am a bit old-fashioned, but I would still like to hear it called Long Tan day. We do not talk about Gallipoli as the Turkish campaign, we talk about it as Gallipoli. I think there is something very special about Long Tan, as speakers have said today. Celebrating the arrival of the cross at the War Memorial resonated particularly with me because Harry Smith, the commander at Long Tan, is a constituent of mine, and is much loved in the Hervey Bay community. We have had some amazing battles in Australia's military history going back to the Sudan and the Boer War. I mention Gallipoli and the Western Front in the First World War. There were some incredible battles of the Second World War, not least of which was Milne Bay to our north. It was the first time that the Japanese had been defeated on land for centuries. There was the amazing withdrawal, while the Australians held the line, of the United Nations troops escaping from Kapyong. It was an extraordinary battle.

We then come to the Vietnam War and, as my colleague has just said, we have never given that—at least until comparatively recent times—the honour due to it. My personal view is that when you read about these patterns, and I do read a bit although I do not claim to be a military historian—not like the member for Riverina, who really is up on these matters—you see that in terms of intensity that was probably our most important military engagement of all time. I know there will be military people who will disagree with me. But the Battle of Long Tan went from about 3.40 pm until 7.10 pm. It was on the edge of a rubber plantation. It was not a setpiece battle. The Australian the company had gone out on a normal reconnoitre and had come across scouts from a huge party of North Vietnamese regulars and a Vietcong unit. They engaged on the edge of that rubber plantation in the mid afternoon until late afternoon on 18 August. It was a fierce battle, made all the worse by the fact that it went on in pouring rain. The Australians were hopelessly outnumbered. The exact numbers will never be known because the North Vietnamese took their dead from the field, but from what has subsequently been found in intelligence documents and the number of bodies that were buried on the day it is thought that the local irregulars, the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese regulars totalled somewhere in the order of 2,500. They were taken on by 108 ANZACs—105 Australians and three New Zealanders. As I said, it was in the pouring rain. At the height of the battle, Harry Smith, the commander, was lying in two or three inches of muddy water with his New Zealand artillery officer beside him and they were calling down a barrage of American, New Zealand and Australian guns just metres in front. It was incredibly dangerous and of course the shells exploding in the rubber plantation were very effective, and really slowed the North Vietnamese forces down.

Eventually, around seven o'clock, after this terrible battle, the North Vietnamese forces withdrew.

There is another sideline to this battle. In the middle of all this, the Australians were, as I said before, out on patrol, a reconnoitre—they did not go heavily armed in the sense of going in for a definitive battle—and an RAAF pilot actually flew into the middle of the battle with ammunition, at an incredible risk. There had been intelligence reports that there was a big North Vietnamese unit forming up. Some people scotched it and some people took it seriously, but what we have subsequently discovered is that those 2½ thousand troops had not come to engage the company 6RAR; they had come to attack the Australian base at Nui Dat. On that afternoon, about the same time that the battle was going on, there was a concert with Little Pattie and so on at Nui Dat. Nui Dat was not a heavily defended base, so you can imagine what might have happened had that patrol not engaged with them. Imagine 2½ thousand troops descending on Nui Dat immediately after a concert in the early evening. Imagine the mayhem and the death toll that may have occurred, and yet these 108 guys took on 2½ thousand people and won it. That is the first part of the story.

Well might we celebrate that cross and well might we bring it to Australia in this year's Vietnam commemoration. But there are still wrongs to be righted in this dreadful business. Harry Smith was recommended for the DSO and his two lieutenants were recommended for the Military Cross. When the freedom of information documents became available later, Harry discovered—30 years on—that his DSO had been downgraded to a Military Cross and that the Military Crosses of his two lieutenants had been downgraded to be Mentioned in Dispatches, whereas the commander back at Nui Dat accepted a DSO, a commander who did not visit the field until after the battle. I find that absolutely appalling. There was one review by Tanzer in 1999 that recommended there be a long-term review. That was opposed by the generals and, in fact—and this is not said to denigrate the man in any way—Angus Houston said at the time: 'Note that I do not agree to any proposal for additional awards or a unit citation for the force elements in operation Smithfield August 1966 (Long Tan).'

For years these guys have been struggling not just to have their personal awards reinstated but to see that their men were recognised. Eventually Harry Smith was upgraded to the equivalent of the DSO. He got the Star of Gallantry—I am not as familiar with the awards as I should be—and his two officers, Dave Sabben and Geoff Kendall, the Medal of Gallantry.

In fact, it was my pleasure to be at Enoggera Barracks in Brisbane last August to see the Meritorious Unit Citation for Afghanistan presented and also to see the former Vietnam soldiers from D Company, 6RAR receive the Unit Citation for Gallantry that had been denied them. Both those awards were presented before the Governor-General at Enoggera Barracks last year.

Twelve of those soldiers who were there that day were recommended for awards. I have told you the odds that there were on that day and the absolute gallantry of the officers who led that event. Eighteen Australians were killed and 24 were wounded. Harry Smith recommended 12 people for awards. Two of them have died. One of them was Gordon Sharp, who was recommended for a posthumous award, and more recently Ron Brett has died. The other 10 were Bill Roche, Ian Campbell, Geoff Peters, Barry Magnussen, Neil Bextrum, Allen May, Noel Grimes and Bill Moore from the unit and, from an APC reaction force that came up to support the troops later in the battle, Adrian Roberts and Frank Alcorta. The late Ron Brett was also part of that group.

Again, this is not said with criticism of any of the people involved, either in the Howard government or in the Gillard government; there is no criticism applied to individuals. But we have now invoked a valour inquiry part 1 and we are currently in the throes of the valour inquiry part 2. I think it is very important that these 12 men be recognised. Harry Smith tells me he has had a difficult time getting this up, because it will require the approval of the minister before the matter can go before the valour inquiry part 2, which is working from now till the end of the year and is being chaired by Alan Rose. So I appeal to the government: in celebrating this event we have to do more than go to the memorials, put our hands on our chests or beat our breasts and say what a marvellous thing it was, how great it was and what marvellous things they did for the Australian psyche and then be so mealy-mouthed—so incredibly mean—as to say, 'But we will not decorate you guys, despite all the evidence and despite you being at the very forefront of the definitive battle of the Vietnam War,' because some records and evidence were lost, even though there is plenty of evidence that can neutralise that. Another general said it would open a can of worms. There is all that stuff, but no-one is going to the core of it: that these were 12 incredibly brave men, 10 of them still alive.

We treated the Vietnam troops in general abysmally after the war. Thank God, over the last decade or so that has changed dramatically, and many of them have moved into the RSL. The president of the RSL in some towns is now a Vietnam veteran. So a lot of that healing has gone on, but these guys were on the front line. These people did our country proud. These people faced an incredibly superior foe. These people won the battle. These people probably prevented a bloodbath at Nui Dat. As my salute in the Vietnam commemoration, I salute these 12.

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