Going Back Read Free

eyes:
    I guess the biggest impression when I landed at Tan Son Nhut was the American air equipment that was there. Be they helicopters, be they all sorts of shapes and sizes of aircraft, many of which I had never seen before. The revetments that were around some of them; the activity by the Americans, and that was clearly the most significant thing. 5
    Pilot Peter Rogers was on his way to join the 161 Recce Flight in Nui Dat and was craning his neck to look out the 707 jet window. Peter remembered what he was taking in through excited eyes:
    My most vivid memory is of flying really low and steep into Tan Son Nhut. I could see the craters from aerial bombs, artillery and whatever . . . and looking out and thinking, ‘Oh God, it looks like we are in a war zone.’ 6
    Captain Ted Heffernan was posted as a medical officer to the artillery field regiment and also to serve in the field ambulance at Nui Dat. He was given the desultory pre-deployment briefings at Healesville and Canungra and recalled looking out into the glare of the tropical haze as he stepped onto the aircraft stairs in 1966:
    We had a briefing at Puckapunyal and my understanding of it was that you would know who were Viet Cong because they wore black pyjamas—when we landed at Saigon everyone had black pyjamas on, and we thought we were too late! 7
    Some soldiers flying into Saigon found themselves in a war zone much sooner than they expected. Infantryman Second Lieutenant Neil Weekes flew into South Viet Nam as part of the 1 RAR advance party in early 1968. Neil wrote in a letter:
    When we arrived at the airport, Saigon was under attack. There was artillery fire going in, fires around the airport. There were several damaged planes that had been hit with rocket or artillery fire, and as we got off the plane we were issued our weapons and live rounds for our magazines. We were then shown across to the protection bays of the aircraft where we huddled against the walls while waiting for a couple of Caribou to fly us into Nui Dat—my diary records, ‘Guns blasting everywhere—we’re in it.’ 8
    Most units, other than the infantry battalions, used what was called a ‘trickle reinforcement system’ to replace their soldiers when their tour of duty was completed. Cavalryman Ross McCormack recalled his arrival at Tan Son Nhut in 1970:
    As the aircraft descended to land at Saigon, I remember the green paddy fields of the Delta area soon changed to the harsh realities of Tan Son Nhut airport, with all sorts of military aircraft coming and going. The noise was continuous, the smell of aircraft exhaust was overpowering, and the temperature and humidity debilitating. I was at Tan Son Nhut for about three hours before I was able to jump on board a Caribou ‘Wallaby’ flight to Nui Dat. 9
    Tan Son Nhut today is like many other international airports with its multi-storey construction, chrome and glass fittings, baggage carousels and airbridges. The only frustrating thing about moving through the airport complex is what seems like the inordinate amount of time to be processed through Customs and Immigration, however that unfortunately seems to be the case anywhere around the globe in the new millennium.
    Coral and Balmoral battle sites
    In May 1968 the Australian Task Force was redeployed out of Phuoc Tuy Province and tasked to sit astride a main ingress route into Saigon about 35 kilometres from the capital and twenty kilometres north of Bien Hoa City. The 1st and 3rd Battalions RAR found themselves facing a numerically superior force on the north-western approach route for almost a month as they occupied and fought out of Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral respectively during what became known as the second Tet Offensive. The two fire support bases were only six kilometres apart and able to support each other with troops, tanks and field artillery.
    Veterans of the Fire Support Base Coral and Balmoral battles are advised that the