In Harm's Way

The Tet Offensive

This chapter details personal experience during the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam starting 30 January 1968 and lasting, on and off, for over six months. See here for a more accurate historical account.

The Vietnamese population might dispute a statement that the country and culture is a region of southern China.

Tet celebrates the start of the Chinese New Year which in Sino culture is our equivalent to Christmas - a time which is sacrosant.

A "cease fire" between conflicting forces was declared and the 2400-0600hrs curfew lifted.
Combined with the weekend, Embassy staff had a four-day holiday starting 31 January.

Tet I

Sergeant Ray McCabe, Australian Federal Police (AFP) was the Embassy Security Officer.
Ray was a Rhodesian and had done a lot of police work with counter terrorism in his home country.  He stuttered when he got angry excited or had a couple of drinks.

He received a report from his intelligence contacts about the possibility of some increase in VC terrorist activity in the city and sent staff a memo to be careful - just in case.  The following is a classic case of "Understatement":

Bruce Scott Second Secretary (Administration) hosted a Pyjama Party on the night 30/31 January.

Guests came in dribs and drabs.  I bowled up to the front gate where the night watchman was in attendance - effusive but silent.
He was wearing the traditional black pajama trousers and black chemise, thongs and conical straw hat.
He was bowing and making a fuss of my arrival and bidding me to enter.

Well it turned out that this person was not the night watchman but Dennis Milton, First Secretary (Administration).
He came dressed as a Vietnamese peasant and fooled us all.

This set Dennis off.  He was fond of a drink, probably the last to leave and walked home - one step forward and two steps back.

At the same time, all hell had broke loose and there were lots and lots of similar dressed individuals running around in the same clobber but carrying AK47 automatic rifles and RPG7 rocket launchers.  It was probably the two steps back that saved  poor Dennis.

Everybody was awake at dawn.  Some in their own beds - some in others.
We all said "Shit Dennis!" So we all started phoning him.

On or about the fifth call Dennis, perhaps still affected from the previous night, answered "VC here!" ... It was Lou Border, the Ambassador...

I lived in Precinct 3, a block to the left of the American Embassy.
I could hear the noise of gunfire and explosions. But it was sufficient for me to realise that something was amiss.

There was a radio and TV news blackout - as the National Radio Station (to my left) was also under VC attack.

I got a quick telephone call from Ray McCabe to (a) ask if I could see anything (No) and (b) stay inside (You Becha).

Around 1800hrs, darkness had set in.  Buildings were luminated against the glow of spot fires and intermittent tracer projectiles.

Ray called into my residence (see x1 on map) to ask me to accompany him to the Chancellery - a distance of about a kilometer.
The purpose was to establish communication with his AFP superiors in Canberra.
It was a harrowing trip - both there and back to our billet.  Marshall law had been declared.  We reasoned that nervous allied combatants would be less likely to fire upon us if we set the internal car lights to the ON position and drove slowly.
But in doing so we risked sniper fire from remnants of VC/PAVN elements yet to be floushed out.

A block to the east in Precinct 1, there was continued fighting.
A foreign journalist took newsreel footage of a South Vietnamese Police Colonel Loan murdering a captured Viet Cong in cold blood.
(This was an action that rocked the US and probably turned the tide of public opinion against the war.)

The Embassy had a set of Emergency Procedures.
I prepared a small suitcase and awaited transportation to a predetermined location where others would be billeted.  Marshall Law was declared.  It did not need announcing - the streets were eerily empty.  Embassy staff drove the vehicles - the drivers had returned to their villages for the holiday.

I was billeted at the Aid House x3.  This was a large villa with high walls and a garden. 
It was used as a transit point for visiting aid personnel who would be coming in and out of Saigon and had about eight bedrooms.
Each of the five "Safe Houses" was equipped with two way radios which was a godsend.  The public telephone utility company had closed down due to lack of staff.

We were caught unprepared, There was no food and shortly the water service was cut off.

The Australian army was quite busy with its own problems. 

Ba Ria, the provincial town of Phouc Tuy Province had been captured by the VC/PAVN and ADFV's main force was engaged in retaking it.

The contingent at Free World HQ in Saigon were non combatants.  They organised a truck with escorts and went around the above Safe Houses to deliver military C Rations.  The Saigon daily markets operated on a day to day basis due to the tropical heat.  It had ceased operations.  So C Rations - washed down by a hot beer or two were our only sustenance.  The power was off.  It was uncomfortable.

The vehicles were clearly military. But an observant "Saigonaise" would notice something different about them.

The escorts were Land Rovers and all had an emblem of a red kangaroo.

Our armed forces had it painted on every Australian vehicle.  It was a symbol of mateship and the Australian spirit and also a recognisable icon for the allied forces.  But most Vietnamese did could only see it as a rat.  Thus in the spirit of Australian larrikinism everybody referred to it with affection as "The Big Red Rat".

The escorts stopped about 100 metres either side of the house and out got armed soldiers who fanned out taking defensive positions - as we unloaded the truck.

An army doctor was part of the team.  He was there just in case anyone was having health problems or was likely to have some in the near future - very thoughtful.

I remember him being quite chatty and optimistic.  He lamented the fact that in Saigon, professionally, he was occupied mostly with treating the soldiers for the clap and now there was this total curfew he was pissed off that he could not get around and treat the girls.

The army then left us to bunker down for about a week.

The Aid House was in an area that borders Saigon and Cholon (Chinatown).  Cholon was now the main area where the Viet Cong were dug in and there was fierce street to street fighting.  In hindsight - bad choice for a safe house.

The Viet Cong/PAVN suffered heavy losses but won the psychological battle.

In mid-February 1968, Walter Cronkite, the Anchor man for American CBS News journeyed to Vietnam to report on the aftermath of the Tet Offensive.

Upon return, on February 27, 1968, Cronkite closed

"Report from Vietnam: Who, What, When, Where, Why?" with an editorial report:[29]

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi's winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that -- negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.[30]

Following Cronkite's editorial report, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." Several weeks later, Johnson announced he would not seek reelection.

Mortar Barrages

Still a vengeful Viet Cong started a new terror campaign of indiscriminately bombarding the city.

In the past, a few 122mm rockets or mortars were lobbed into the city more of a nuisance or a sign of a political gesture.

But now we were subject to an eleven day barrage of about a dozen rockets directed at the key political and administration posts. 
The Viet Cong could not get any more off because their locations would be vectored in and artillery brought down upon them.

All action happened between two and five in the morning.

The rockets would be "walked In".  This meant if you heard the first bang and if the second bang was louder, the bombardment was coming your way.

There would be sheer fear and panic as we scrambled for the toilet under the stairwell as the pipework in the concrete offered reinforcement.  First in best dressed or rather best undressed!

I would be running out and down the stairs the maids would be running out and to the stairs.  We would be holding the kiddies.

(See foto of kids under stairs was the toilet where we would huddle)

The nearest a rocket landed was in a quadrangle outside the hotel Caravelle.
It blew in all the windows on that facade.  But the glass did not splinter because it was cris crossed with masking tape as a countermeasure for such an occurrence.

Being so close to an explosion of this measure with concrete all around amplified the noise of impact.

Our ears would ring for days.  The concussion was such that your teeth would be numb as if you had been to the dentist.

But on the bright side, once the bombardment ceased one's adrenalin level was quite high.

As well there was a feeling of general euphoria that you did not get killed or hurt.

By February 1968, the situation had improved enough for us to return from the "bunkers" to our domiciles and servants who had to fend for themselves.  We could not get in contact nor pay them. Any way the banks were also closed.

Arms Custodain

By mid 1968, the Embassy as better prepared.  I was in charge of the vault/strong room. 
The strong room contained our classified files; two cryptographic machines and now an armoury that had been supplied by the Australian Defence Force Vietnam ADFV.

The latter consisted of six Browning .45 calibre automatic pistols and three armalite M15 rifles.

In addition Canberra sent up two sets of chemicals on the supply ship HMAS Jeparit.
One set of chemicals was stored in one end of the Chancery and the other set at the opposite end.  I was given some virtual training in how to smash parts of the secret Rockex coding machines and how to sprinkle one chemical on both the broken machinery and a pile of classified files and then go and get the other chemical; sprinkle that on top of the heap and then run like hell before the two chemicals started to interact.

I asked Ray McCabe about training in firing the Browning pistol.  Ray said: "Don’t worry Paul, in these confined quarters just point the barrel in the general direction and fire.  If you hit anybody you will really hurt him and if you miss, the noise will scare the living daylights of him".

I did feel some form of comfort with this new form of "diplomatic immunity" rather than some old fart's borrowed leather passport - see earlier.

Tet II - The Second Tet Offensive - May 1968

It took place, not so much as in Saigon, but more so in adjoining Cholon.

North Vietnamese re-enforcements were coming into Vietnam from the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  The trial went from North Vietnam then into the sanctuaries of Laos and Cambodia where apart from massive B52 bombing, the allies were reluctant to invade for fear of expanding the war by bringing China into the conflict - China had close ties with Laos and Cambodia.

It meant that, at will, the North Vietnamese could amass large troop concentrations for a planned attack on the South's strong holds. (See Map at the start of this Chapter). The darker colour represents the allied strong holds; the yellow = contested areas and the orange the North Vietnamese supply routes.

The gigantic civilian/military airport base on the outskirts of Saigon was regularly "hit" by VC irregulars.

Most of my days were sitting around with Sgt McCabe, inside the air base perimeter - in an embassy vehicle keeping an eye on Safe-Hand material.

Quite often, we were "entertained" by either military aircraft dive bombing or allied paratrooper exercises clearing out VC insurgents trying to break into the base and cause chaos.

Fire Support and Patrol Bases FSPB Coral and Balmoral

The ADF played a  role in the Second Tet Offensive.

By agreement with the Americans (not Vietnamese) it had secured Phouc Tuy province to the south east of Saigon.

But the Task force was now asked to respond to intelligence reports of a "build up" of PAVN/VC troop movement in the north east around Tay Uyen for a second attack on Saigon.

The support requested was six batteries of 105 mm Howitzer artillery  guns together with defensive mortar, machine gun pit crew and a command HQ.

The operation was code named Fire Support Base Coral

The objective was to supply artillery support for the American "grunts" forming a defensive perimeter around Saigon.

The cannons were airlifted in by chinook helicopters.

As fate/luck had it, the equipment was landed directly in the path of the enemy advancing for an attack - that night.

The base was not prepared as the engineer/sappers had no time to prepare its defenses before sunset nor set up communications properly.

A mortar battery and a howitzer was over run.

But shortly thereafter the howitzer was recaptured just as it was being prepared to be used against the Australians.

Above is a picture of this gun which now appears in the Australian War Memorial.

See animation of the battle.

Ten Australian troops were killed that night.

At the end of a month long intervention 25 Australians were killed and over 100 wounded.

I found it deeply distressing when these casualty numbers were published

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them"

In Saigon intelligence , Interceptions were coming in fast and furiously.

But instead of the original Offensive in January-February, we were now better prepared.

In the Embassy I was reading the communiqués.

I knew where our troops were positioned - about 25 miles to the north west of my office window.

From this vantage point on top of the Hotel Caravelle nothing could be seen during the day - due to the tropical haze. 
But at night there was no difficulty seeing the incessant flashes of artillery for the next 26 days & nights and knowing that the combined involvement of 70% of Australia's armed forces in Vietnam was committed to protecting Saigon.
It was the largest combined deployment of artillery; support troups and armour since WW2.

B52 Bombers

American B52 bomber were also engaged.

The ground beneath you and buildings shook as thousands and thousands of tons of ordinance were dropped on the enemy's support lines.

In Saigon, our buildings would rattle from the percussion.

Mortar/122mm Rocket Attacks

Again we were subjected to indiscriminate mortar attacks at night by elements of the North Vietnamese who had evaded the American defensive perimeter.

Puff the Magic Dragon/Flares

A fleet of aircraft called Puff the Magic Dragon would be used to sort out enemy elements that were getting through.

The You Tube link does not do justice to the spectacle of the dark night sky being illuminated by this converted Douglas DC3.

It was deadly but spell binding.

In support, flares would be dropped constantly by other aircraft.

The effect was that night would be turned into day.

Goodness knows how much this high tech intervention was costing the American tax payer.

While highly interesting at the time, I do not like any night fireworks display such as New Year or the annual Brisbane River Festival.  Thank you ... but no thank you!

The Irony