Chapter 5 of The Fighting Fourth: The Long March

Chapter 5 of The Fighting Fourth: The Long March

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The Long March

The long march begun

In the year of the withdrawal from Vietnam, the tasks allotted to 4 RAR/NZ were out of the ordinary, not so much in the methods of undertaking but certainly in the implications of the period. Everyone thought that the Australian forces were leaving soon and when the general date became known, the maintenance of operations had a flavour that soon we would be back in Australia - and wasn't it sweet.

But the wait was long yet as the Battalion's Headquarters was still commanding the battle from Courtney Hill. To leave there, leave Nui Dat, leave Vung Tau, sail the seas and to march through down-town Townsville was still to come. The Long March began with Operation VALIANT in moving our Headquarters to Nui Dat. Gee, it was a hell of a shame to leave Courtney Hill (after only four months) with it's beautiful surrounds and that sort of lived-in feeling, but that was the requirement, so we went.

Task Force en route to Vung Tau.

To settle back at Nui Dat as the Task Force was leaving, provided a series of problems. With the moving of Australian Forces back to Australia in three basic stages, some had to remain at Nui Dat till enough had vacated Vung Tau to provide accommodation. "The Dat" was being handed over to the Vietnamese and 4 RAR/NZ was to hold half of the base while the other half was being emptied logistically by Vietnamese sappers, and defended by an ARVN Battalion.

The result - The ANZAC Battalion with supporting arms and services defended the area once occupied by 3 RAR (Ap An Phu lines) and remained for approximately one month.

Hornbill Fire Support Base and SAS Hill were resurrected and a Battalion group as a separate and complete entity was in operation on 16 October as 1st Australian Task Force withdrew. The wire on the western side was difficult to defend as V Company found out, with Vietnamese "friendlies" and civilians nearby collecting stores and the liaison dramas involved in the bird shooting were too lengthy and involved to describe here.

The base was well defended (some say one-thousand claymores and three thousand metres of detonation cord) and the base patrols tedious and uneventful till one was shot at by Regional Force soldiers just south of Binh Ba while another took out some of the nationals from the ARVN Battalion to assist them on a good ground recce of the area.

Nui Dat

Then we left. Operation SOUTHWARD took us to Vung Tau where the Battalion group was split but maintained its identity by working and sporting together as much as possible. It was to be a very difficult month with parades and memorial services before the big ship of the "Grey Funnel Line" took us to shores south. Our fourth dose of spring cleaning met with little reward. Leave at night was good . . . and expensive and the takers grew thin, then thinner. But soon the magic moment was to come - in only ten days Australia again.

To sail a sea, to catch a wind, to be home again. A short march, a welcome home and six weeks of spending a year's work, was all that remained to be done . . . for most of us. The longest march of all was yet to finish as D Company and their support (1 Troop B Squadron 3 Cavalry Regiment), remained to defend the Task Force base at Vung Tau until the last man could be evacuated. Their Long March finished on 12 March 1972.

Headquarters 1 ATF Nui Dat.