Going Back Read Free Page B

Province—now known as Ba Ria–Vung Tau Province—was the area the Australian Task Force were responsible for as part of the Allied effort against the Viet Cong. The province covered approximately 2500 square kilometres, consisting of coastal plains with sand dunes to the south, the Mekong River Delta with mangroves and swamps in the south-west, and three isolated jungle-covered mountain groups to the south-east, with Ba Ria as its capital. The province was chosen for a number of reasons. It was strategically important as it contained the port facility of Vung Tau where Australian logistics could be brought ashore, and the vital Route 15 arterial road between the port and Saigon. Although heavily controlled by the Viet Cong, the province could also be contained using Australian counter-revolutionary warfare techniques, and the terrain—mostly flat and covered in jungle—suited the Australian forces and their military structure for operations.
    Phuoc Tuy Province was an operational backwater compared to the northern provinces of South Viet Nam near the demilitarised zone (DMZ) on the 17th Parallel border. However, it harboured fewer suspected enemy than the regions to the north, and was an area where the Task Force could manage its own military affairs to a certain degree and work in accordance with Australian Army doctrine and tactical procedures.
    The province has changed dramatically since the war ended. Returning veterans will notice the changes to the village structures, the widened and bitumened roads—some of which are now toll roads—and the overall increase in village and population density. They will also have to buy new maps as many of the road and street designations have changed—and in many cases throughout Viet Nam, towns have also been renamed, usually to honour a local war hero or represent a Communist victory.
    Once the veteran enters the old province, whether by road down from Ho Chi Minh City, or by the much-preferred hydrofoil ferry down the Song Sai Gon (Saigon River), things will begin to look familiar, and memories will start flooding back. The major geographical features have not changed, although since 1993 the vegetation on top of the Nui Thi Vais has started to regrow after decades of being barren as a result of defoliant spraying.
    Vung Tau
    The first place many veterans saw in the province if they came by sea aboard HMAS Sydney —the converted aircraft carrier that operated as a troopship and stores carrier—was the port and resort city of Vung Tau, about 130 kilometres south-east of Ho Chi Minh City. The wreck of a ship was prominent at Cap St Jacques, but it has long since gone to the scrap-metal yards. The city is once again a seaside resort town, and attracts flocks of residents from Ho Chi Minh City on weekends, especially young courting couples on motorcycles.
    During the war, when the Sydney arrived in the port the soldiers were most often ferried ashore by American Army Chinook helicopters. For most Australians it was the first time they had ever seen one of these huge machines—which one American compatriot once described most colourfully as ‘two palm trees fuckin’ in a bucket’—let alone fly in one. Once on board, the American crewmen would ensure that the soldiers’ rifles were pointed down towards the floor so that an accidental discharge didn’t take out the vital hydraulics that kept those two ‘palm trees’ operating. Bill Kromwyk recalled his maiden flight in one of the huge noisy machines:
    I just remember looking around at everybody’s faces and—with the exception of Bob [Bettany]—how green and bewildered they looked. It was a whole new experience; here we are in Viet Nam. And then I looked at the American gunners on the doors and the pilots—there were about five crew—and they were sort of hardened and had a laid-back sort of look. And I thought, ‘My God, we certainly are