While historians have thoroughly examined the Australian and New Zealand role in the Vietnam War, much less has been written about the working relationship between the Australian and New Zealand forces and their American counterparts. Of particular interest in this regard is the 2d Battalion, 35th Field Artillery, a unit equipped with M109 155 mm self-propelled guns that operated alongside the 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) from 1966 until 1971. Nicknamed the ‘Huskies’, the 2d Battalion had the distinction of being the only American unit during the war to serve as a regular, integral component of a foreign combat force. The US corps-level II Field Force headquarters, which had operational control over both the Australian Task Force and the 2d Battalion, assigned one of the 2d Battalion’s three batteries to 1ATF on a rotating basis after the Australians asked for medium-calibre artillery to augment their light pack howitzers. The United States was eager to fulfill this request because the two nations enjoyed a close diplomatic relationship, a shared language and compatible cultures, and a high confidence in one another’s military skill. The special arrangement yielded excellent results, rarely more evident than during Operation Toàn Thắng I (Total Victory I) on the night of 15-16 May when the allies confronted the 141st PAVN Regiment at Fire Base Coral, located approximately 40 km north of Saigon.
When Operation Toàn Thắng I began in early April 1968, the 2d Battalion of the 35th Artillery had been working with 1ATF for nearly two years. In May 1966 the advance party from the battalion flew from Fort Carson, Colorado, to their new headquarters at Xuân Lộc, the capital of Long Khánh Province located 50 km east of Saigon. The province of Phu’ó’c Tuy to the south contained 1ATF, a recently formed battle group composed of two infantry battalions, an artillery regiment equipped with 105 mm howitzers, an armoured cavalry squadron, a Special Air Service squadron, and other supporting elements. The Australian taskforce wanted regular and dependable access to medium-calibre artillery; it therefore asked the II Field Force headquarters, the American corps-level command for the southern half of South Vietnam, for an American 155 mm gun unit to be stationed at Núi Dất, the taskforce’s newly established base camp. As fate would have it, the soon-to-be executive officer of Battery A, Lieutenant Chuck Heindrichs, was at the II Field Force headquarters when the Australian request came in. He had flown to South Vietnam with the advance party but had time on his hands because the rest of his battery was still crossing the Pacific Ocean on a transport ship. The battalion commander decided that Heindrichs would make a good liaison officer. The gregarious West Pointer was therefore soon on his way to Phu’ó’c Tuy Province to lay the groundwork for his battery’s arrival. When Battery A disembarked at Qui Nhὀn in mid-June, it first went to Biên Hòa and then on 22 July moved to Núi Dất to begin working with 1ATF. 1
The Americans soon developed a close bond with the Australian Task Force to the extent that the battery thought of itself—in spirit at least—to be a part of the ‘Aussie’ Army. Most of the men adopted the floppy bush hat as their standard headgear and several even painted prominent red kangaroos on the hulls of their vehicles. The Americans admired much of the Australian equipment, especially those items custom-designed for jungle environments. The Australian lightweight tents and ingenious jungle showers (a canvas bucket that required only two gallons of water) rated highly with the men of Battery A, although they felt that their own fatigues were superior to the cotton, jungle-green uniforms worn by the Australians.
The Americans enjoyed socialising with the jocular, gregarious Australians and the equally friendly, if somewhat more decorous, New Zealanders.2 The Husky gunners found their counterparts to be highly professional and extremely well trained but always ready for a good party when off-duty. Their ability—seemingly inherited as a birthright—to consume prodigious quantities of beer never failed to amaze the Americans, who were no teetotalers themselves. While some Australian habits—including their passion for tea and general indifference to sweets and candy—struck the Americans as a little odd, they shared with the Australians a love of sport. However, as a number of US servicemen learnt at the cost of their battered bodies, the Australian version of football, played without the benefit of protective gear, was considerably rougher than the North American style. Fortunately both groups were also fond of volleyball, probably much to the relief of their commanding officers and the medical staff.
The Australians, most of whom had never visited the United States, were full of questions about its culture and geography. They compared the idiomatic expressions used in their own country with those found in America, and swapped stories about common pastimes, including cars, music and women. According to Lieutenant Mel Moffitt, the Australians seemed particularly interested in Texas and its culture. While the Lone Star State was quintessentially American because of its historical and symbolic connection to the Wild West, the Australians could identify with it because of their own outback culture. The bushranger, jackaroo and cattle station were cultural icons not far removed from those of the American West.
The organisation and traditions of the Australian Army, based as it was on the British regimental system, offered some surprises to the men of Battery A. Lieutenant Chuck Heindrichs was amazed to learn that he, like all Australian officers, was entitled to a batman, a personal aide who looked after the mundane chores of his superior. This system enabled the officer to devote more of his time to professional duties, but Heindrichs could never bring himself to accept one. While the batman system reflected the class-conscious roots of the British military system, Heindrichs was intrigued to find that the Australian officers were on a first-name basis with one another in the field, eschewing some of the formalities of rank found in the American Army. Another surprise to Heindrichs was the Australian officers’ mess, a formal affair complete with linen, toasts, and a portrait of the British Queen displayed in a place of honour. 3
The men of Battery A discovered that their counterparts in the 12th Field Regiment—composed of the 102nd Field Battery, 108th Field Battery, and the New Zealand 161st Field Battery—used somewhat different methods and procedures from their own, although none of these prevented the American artillery from working effectively with 1ATF. Whereas the American gunners used stakes in the ground to calibrate the aiming of their howitzers, the Australian and New Zealand soldiers used a system based on mirrors to achieve the same end. The Americans, who calculated their firing missions with slide rules and tables, were intrigued to find that their allies did so with a circular wheel chart. The officers of Battery A were also surprised to find that a major commanded an Australian or New Zealand battery rather than a captain, as was standard in the American Army. However, that artillery major typically accompanied whatever infantry battalion his battery was supporting, which left the ‘two eye-cee’ (2IC, or second-in-command) in charge at the gun position.
Somewhat to their surprise and amusement, the Americans learnt that the Australians used a more formal radio protocol. Mel Moffitt, a second lieutenant when he joined Battery A in May 1968, noticed that the Australians sounded more dignified and cool-headed than most American soldiers when speaking on the radio. Unlike many American officers, the Australians rarely, if ever, used obscenities while talking on the radio. Their English was more grammatically precise and the Australian radio operators at headquarters began each conversation with a polite ‘Hello’ before relaying information. The radio operators also wrote down everything said to them and read it back to the speaker, a verification technique that Moffitt admired.
Despite their intensive training at Fort Carson, Colorado, Battery A needed several months of combat experience in Phu’ó’c Tuy Province before they could tap the full potential of their 155 mm howitzers. The Huskies had to learn, sometimes by trial and error, the quirks of operating in a subtropical environment that was radically different from the high plains of North America. They discovered, for example, that the monsoon rains of South Vietnam—far stronger than anything they had experienced back home—would detonate their variable time fuse shells in mid-air as they collided at supersonic speeds with the heavy sheets of water. The men alleviated the problem by devising a simple cone to fit over the detonating trigger, a modification that later became a standard feature on 155 mm shells used in South Vietnam.
Despite some initial concerns about the inexperienced Americans and their powerful guns, the Australian commanders came to depend on Battery A. In the beginning they were cautious about the M109 system because the potential radius for error of the more powerful 155 mm howitzer shell was much larger than that of the 105 mm gun. Moreover, the 155 mm shells were more than three times as destructive as the 105 mm high-explosive round and had a much wider fragmentation kill zone. For these reasons, the Australian infantry were wary about using Battery A in a close support role. However, after the 155 mm howitzers had operated for several months without committing any major errors or mishaps the American gunners gained the complete confidence of the 1ATF. Battery A won special accolades from the task force on 18 August 1966, when the Husky gunners fired in support of two platoons from D Company, 6th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (6 RAR) that was trapped in a wood near the village of Long Tan and was in danger of being overrun by a reinforced battalion of Việt Cộng. Aided by Australian, New Zealand and American artillery, the surrounded Diggers fought off the enemy until reinforcements came to their rescue. While the Australian commanders generally relied on the 12th Field Regiment to provide close-in fire support for infantry missions, they routinely used Battery A to hit suspected enemy staging areas and withdrawal routes, base camps, and fortified targets such as bunkers. The 155 mm guns frequently fired missions in direct support of the Australian armoured units, who presumably felt somewhat safer than the infantry in the event that a round landed a little too close. By the end of 1967, Battery A had become a tightly integrated part of 1ATF.
On the nights of 30 and 31 January 1968, the communist high command unleashed the Tết Offensive, sending approximately 84 000 Việt Cộng and North Vietnamese soldiers to attack urban centres throughout South Vietnam in a bid to topple President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu’s Government and force the United States to withdraw from the war. When the offensive began, the bulk of 1ATF was some 40km north-east of Saigon in Biên Hòa Province. Their mission, codenamed Operation Coburg, in the vicinity of the Dông Nai River, was to prevent the enemy from launching 122 mm rockets at the Biên Hòa and Long Bình military complexes. Battery B from the 2d Battalion was operating with the Australians because Battery A had temporarily moved north to Phu’ó’c Long Province to support the 101st Airborne Division. The taskforce continued to operate near the Dông Nai River for an additional two weeks, claiming ninety Việt Cộng dead and taking five prisoners, before it split into smaller groups and moved south to Long Bình and Phu’ó’c Tuy provinces.4
On the night of 18 February, a battalion from the 274th Việt Cộng Regiment attacked Battery B and the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR), at Fire Support Base Anderson, located just west of Xuân Lộc in Long Bình Province. Australian casualties amounted to seven killed and twenty-two wounded, with Battery B suffering one dead and three wounded. The Việt Cộng battalion probably suffered severe casualties but the total number remained in doubt: the enemy removed most of their dead and their weapons from the battlefield before retreating. The battle of Fire Support Base Anderson marked the first time that a unit from the 2d Battalion had come under ground attack. Battery B acquitted itself well, using high explosive and white phosphorous shells at point-blank range to repel the attackers while also employing .50 calibre machine-guns and small arms to defend the perimeter. Although they did not yet know it, the men of Battery A would undergo a similar trial by fire three months later.
The Tết Offensive proved to be a military disaster for the Communists, particularly with regard to the losses that they suffered in the fight for Saigon. On 11 March, the allies launched Operation Quyết Thắng (Determined to Win), a massive counteroffensive to clear the Việt Cộng and North Vietnamese from the capital region. The month-long campaign resulted in the death of 2650 enemy troops and the capture of thousands of small arms and crew-served weapons. On 8 April, II Field Force commenced Operation Toàn Thắng I to build on the success of Quyết Thắng and to establish a permanent security belt around Saigon. Despite the grievous losses they had suffered, however, the Communists intended to make a second major assault against Saigon and other major cities that Spring. In mid-April, II Field Force learnt from enemy defectors and captured prisoners of war that another massive communist offensive would strike within a matter of weeks. It remained to be seen whether Toàn Thắng I could pre-empt, or at least significantly blunt, the new communist offensive.
The taskforce, once again reunited with Battery A, joined the operation on 21 April. The taskforce deployed to the Hát Dích area, located on the border of Phu’ó’c Tuy and Biên Hòa provinces, after receiving intelligence that a Việt Cộng battalion was lurking in the vicinity. When the Communists began their second or so-called ‘mini-Tết offensive against Saigon on 4 May, however, the senior Australian commander in Vietnam, Major General A. L. McDonald, instructed his liaison officer at II Field Force headquarters, Major A. B. ‘Alf’ Garland, to find a more aggressive role for 1ATF. In the meantime, the taskforce shifted north, moving into Area of Operations (AO) Columbus III, a region east of Xuân Lộc and south of Highway 1 that the Communists often used to launch rockets against the Long Binh/Biên Hòa complex.
At II Field Force headquarters, Major Garland proposed that 1ATF deploy to a region on the border of Biên Hòa and Bình Du’o’ng provinces known to the Americans as the ‘Catcher’s Mitt’. Located just north of the town of Tân Uyên on the bank of the Dông Nai River, the Catcher’s Mitt served as a rest-and-supply area for enemy soldiers infiltrating from War Zone D to Saigon. Controlling the area would block enemy withdrawal routes from Saigon and hinder communist replacements and supplies from reaching the capital district. The Americans approved Garland’s scheme and instructed the 3d Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, to perform a similar mission to the west of the Australians while the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, operated to their north and east. Major Garland codenamed the area AO Surfers and began working with his staff to plan the operation.
Garland had no illusions that it would be an easy mission. Allied intelligence informed 1ATF that at least five enemy regiments—the 141st and 165th PAVN from the 7th Division, the 274th and 275th Việt Cộng from the 5th Division, and the independent Dông Nai Regiment—were thought to be in the vicinity of AO Surfers. Also present in the area were several Local Force units and the 83d Rear Services Group. The total enemy strength was imposing, potentially more than a two-infantry battalion taskforce could handle, but the Australian commanders were not unduly worried. They thought that many units would be battered, disorganised, and probably demoralised as they retreated from Saigon after a week of fighting. Those communist forces advancing toward the capital would likely be under orders to move quickly and to avoid allied strong points. Although between 3000 and 4000 Main Force soldiers plus another several thousand Local Force and logistics troops might have been in the vicinity of AO Surfers, the Australian headquarters believed that the enemy could only concentrate a fraction of that total if they chose to attack the Australian Task Force.
The 1ATF headquarters planned on using speed and mobility to confound the enemy. The Australians decided they would insert two infantry battalions and two artillery batteries by helicopter and then bring armoured and logistical units as well as Battery A to AO Surfers by road. Unbeknown to the Australian planners, however, the site they chose for their initial helicopter landing—an abandoned plantation just east of Bình Mỹ—touched upon the forward base area of the 141st and the 165th PAVN Regiments of the 7th PAVN Division. The North Vietnamese had moved into the area during March and April in order to prepare for the May phase of the Tết Offensive. The 165th had orders to attack the north-east quadrant of Saigon while the 141st was to be held in reserve as an exploitation force. The communist high command also instructed the regiments and local guerrillas to protect the Bình Mỹ region once the offensive began. Although they did not yet know it, the lead elements of 1ATF would be landing right in the midst of a well-armed and highly disciplined communist force several times their size.5
As the task force prepared to move from AO Columbus to AO Surfers, American patrols in the Bình Mỹ corridor collided with communist forces advancing on Saigon. On 5 May Company D of the 2d Battalion, 28th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, and Troop L of the 3d Battalion, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, engaged a battalion-sized North Vietnamese force 5 km south of Bình Mỹ, killing an estimated seventy enemy troops.6 The same day 8 km southwest of Bình Mỹ, elements from the 1st Infantry Division encountered the 165th Regiment as it marched toward the capital. The contact led to a ferocious two-day battle that resulted in the deaths of approximately 500 communist soldiers and the defection of the regimental commander. After breaking contact, the survivors of the 165th fled north-east to their base camp near Bình Mỹ.7 If these contacts were any indication, 1ATF could expect to see heavy action when it entered the Catcher’s Mitt.
On 10 May, the II Field Force headquarters formally requested that the taskforce deploy to AO Surfers. The following evening, the 1st Infantry Division sent company-sized patrols to sweep the Bình Mỹ area so that Australian helicopter insertion scheduled for 12 May would go smoothly. In the early afternoon, the Reconnaissance Platoon of the 2d Battalion, 28th Infantry, and the 3d Platoon of L Troop, 3d Battalion, 11th Armored Cavalry, made contact with an estimated company of North Vietnamese 3 km west of Bình Mỹ. The enemy proved to be resolute, well armed, and strongly entrenched. After several hours of battle, the commander of the 28th Infantry Regiment sent Company A of the 2d Battalion to reinforce the attack. Tactical air support, artillery, and light-fire teams pummeled the enemy position but the North Vietnamese held their ground until the fighting tapered off around midnight. When the Americans swept the area the next morning the enemy company was gone, leaving behind only a small rearguard that fought briefly before fleeing. Troops from the 1st Infantry found thirty-nine bodies among the bunkers and took two prisoners of war. The captured men revealed that they were from the 141st Regiment.8
As that battle was heading towards its conclusion, a second infantry patrol from the 1st Division was marching through the darkness toward an abandoned plantation east of Bình Mỹ that was to serve as the taskforce landing zone. When the soldiers arrived at dawn they found no signs of the enemy. With the area secure, the Australian headquarters ordered its two infantry battalions— 1 RAR and 3 RAR— plus the 12th Field Regiment to proceed to the landing zone. The taskforce depended on American helicopters because it possessed only a single Huey squadron. The first Australian infantry touched down shortly before 8 a.m. They discovered that the landing zone was covered with saplings, which led to delays in the successive waves coming in and forced the larger Chinook helicopters to unload the 161st Field Battery further south than was intended. Despite these headaches, all elements assigned to the mission had by afternoon debarked at the landing zone.
That evening, the four companies of 1 RAR were arrayed to the north, east and south of Fire Support Base Coral, which contained the headquarters of the 12th Field Regiment and 1 RAR. The 102d Field Battery, the mortar platoon and the anti-tank platoon of 1 RAR, D Company of 3 RAR and the battalion headquarters were positioned 500 metres to the west of Coral. The New Zealand 161st Field Battery was in an open field approximately a kilometre south-west of the fire base. The rest of 3 RAR, three companies strong, marched several kilometres to the west to scout the future location of Fire Support Base Coogee. The Australian Task Force headquarters, which subdivided AO Surfers to facilitate command and control, assigned the eastern portion of the zone, AO Bondi, to the forces built around 1 RAR, and the western portion, AO Manly, to those built around 3 RAR. By nightfall the bulk of the task force was sitting squarely in the middle of the communist infiltration corridor.
At approximately 1.45 a.m. on the morning of 13 May, an estimated enemy battalion to the north of Coral attacked the fire base with rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and mortar fire. A ground assault followed only minutes later. The mortar platoon from 1 RAR took the brunt of the attack, but they held their position with help of three 105 mm guns from 102nd Battery. While antipersonnel rounds tore gaps in the communist ranks, a collection of gunners, headquarters staff, and men from the anti-tank platoon counterattacked and stopped the enemy’s advance. American helicopters and a ‘Spooky’ gunship soon arrived on the scene, pouring a hail of rockets and machine-gun fire on the now-disorganised North Vietnamese. The enemy retreated at 8 a.m.
When the Australians swept the battlefield, they estimated that they had killed at least 100 North Vietnamese. A captured prisoner of war revealed that the attackers had been the 275th Infiltration Group. The unit had been marching from Cambodia to Saigon when it spotted the 102nd Field Battery arriving by helicopter. Sensing an easy victory, the group commander decided to assault the guns later that evening. That decision turned out to be a grievous mistake.9
Despite the one-sided nature of the battle, five Australians had been killed and another eight wounded. The seriously wounded men were airlifted to an American hospital, where they received emergency treatment before eventually heading back to the 1st Australian Field Hospital in Vũng Tàu.
On the afternoon of 13 May, the big M109s of Battery A rolled into Fire Support Base Coral along with A Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment, the Australian Task Force’s forward headquarters, and several logistics units. The sight that greeted the men of Battery A was one of Australian infantry combing the field to the north, collecting enemy equipment and picking up pieces of North Vietnamese soldiers killed the night before. Seeing the carnage of what apparently had been a ‘human wave attack’, the Americans realised that the enemy was prepared to pay a high price in order to destroy Fire Support Base Coral.
The taskforce improved the defences of Coral over the next two days while infantry patrols swept the surrounding area, engaging several North Vietnamese reconnaissance squads. On the evening of 15 May, Battery A was situated on the southern flank of the fire base along with the headquarters of the 12th Field Regiment while the four infantry companies of 1 RAR guarded the western, northern and eastern quadrants. The 102nd Field Battery, the headquarters units and the logistics troops were positioned in the centre of Coral. The M113s of A Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment, stood ready as the counter-reaction force. Battery A created a berm in front of their position with their bulldozer, giving them an extra measure of protection. The Americans provided their own security detail armed with M-14 rifles, M-60 light machine-guns and vehicle-mounted .50 calibre heavy machine-guns.10 he Huskies also had with them a pair of M42A1 ‘Duster’ tracked anti-aircraft vehicles, each armed with two rapid-fire 40 mm cannon. The Việt Cộng attack against Battery B at Fire Support Base Anderson in February convinced the 54th Artillery Group to assign Dusters to all of its 155 mm howitzer batteries. While originally intended for use against Soviet aircraft, the M42s had proven devastating in a ground support role, especially when used for base defence.11
The defenders of Fire Support Base Coral were thus ready when the main communist blow fell later that evening. At 2.15 a.m., the enemy launched an intense mortar, recoilless rifle, and RPG attack against the firebase, particularly aimed at its eastern side. Ten minutes later a battalion-sized infantry force assaulted that sector, which was held by A and B Companies of 1 RAR. Fighting from shallow pits and protected by a single row of wire, the Australians stopped the onrushing communists before they reached the perimeter. Meanwhile, the enemy launched probing attacks on Coral from several other directions. All were turned back, although a few North Vietnamese managed to slip inside the perimeter before being killed.
When the first mortar rounds landed, signalling the start of the attack, the gunners of Battery A slammed shut the hatches on their vehicles, levelled their barrels, and began firing high-explosive and white phosphorous shells across the open field to their south. In the darkness, the Americans could see the muzzle flashes of communist small arms and the sudden flare of light from RPG launchers. Along with the 155 mm howitzer fire, the Americans poured out 40 mm cannon rounds from the Dusters in long fiery arcs and raked suspected enemy positions with machine-guns and small arms. The Duster crews, positioned in the south-east corner of the base next to Company B, coordinated their fire with the Australian .50 calibre machine-gun crews, and thus created a deadly and overwhelming torrent of fire against any target that they observed.12
Whether by prearrangement or due to the intimidating power of the American artillery, the North Vietnamese made only small probing attacks against the Battery A perimeter. The officer commanding B Company, Major Bob Hennessy, fighting on the left flank of the Americans, thought that it would have been ‘suicide’ for the enemy to face the M42s and M109s head-on.13 Although not directly subjected to an infantry assault, the American gunners still faced danger from mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades, and the occasional communist who found his way into the Husky sector from another direction. The executive officer of the battery, 1st Lieutenant David Meriwether, killed one North Vietnamese in hand-to-hand combat after encountering the man lurking among the American tents and vehicles. Only a few yards away, Lieutenant Moffitt was working the radios in the Fire Direction Centre, an M577 command vehicle that was ringed with sandbags for extra protection, when he heard mortar fragments ricochet into his compartment. Moffitt fervently hoped that his thin-skinned vehicle, conspicuous because of its height and radio array, did not attract any RPGs.14
Minutes after the battle began, every available US artillery piece within range of Fire Support Base Coral came to its defence. At II Field Force headquarters in Long Bình, the senior commander, General Fred C. Weyand, monitored the battle with his staff and made sure that the Australians had all of the support that they needed. Soon a torrent of shells from 105 mm, 155 mm, 175mm and 8 inch guns landed on suspected North Vietnamese staging areas and avenues of approach. First Lieutenant David McLeod, the Assistant Executive Officer, coordinated the incoming fire from his position in the Fire Direction Centre. Fortunately for the defenders of Coral, there were no other large battles going on in the area that evening; therefore the full weight of the II Field Force artillery could be brought to bear. Some of the shells landed within a few-dozen metres of the perimeter, alarming the defenders but fortuitously obliterating at least one North Vietnamese assault party just as it was rushing forward.15
About an hour after the attack began, American helicopter gunships and a Spooky arrived to punish the enemy from above and to illuminate the battlefield with flares. The concentrated machine-gun and cannon fire made it difficult for the North Vietnamese to mass their troops and thus to coordinate a single powerful thrust against Coral. The helicopter pilots made repeated strafing runs against enemy machine-gun positions, often putting themselves at great risk in order to avoid hitting friendly troops on the ground. US Air Force F-4 Phantom and F-100 Super Saber fighter-bombers flew numerous sorties in defence of the fire base, descending to less than 200 feet as they dropped their bombs and napalm on North Vietnamese positions.
The initial communist thrust against the eastern perimeter stalled at 3.40 a.m., and for the next hour and a half the enemy conducted probing attacks elsewhere around Coral. At 5.15 a.m., the enemy mounted another battalion-sized attack, this time from the north-east, but it too failed. Finally, at 6.10 a.m., the North Vietnamese tried a push against the western side, held by D Company, but were repulsed before they could reach the wire.
The enemy broke contact at 6.30 a.m. and vanished within minutes. When the Australians swept the battlefield the next morning they found thirty-four communist dead and took one prisoner of war. The battle cost the Australians five killed and nineteen wounded, and the Americans suffered two wounded. Enemy documents captured later in the year suggested that the enemy force, 1300 strong, had lost approximately 600 soldiers in the battle. The documents identified the attacking units as the K2 and K3 Battalions of the 141st Regiment, the 269th and 275th Infiltration Groups, the C-17 Recoilless Rifle Company, and the C-18 Anti-aircraft Company. After breaking contact, the battered communist units apparently withdrew to concealed positions north of the fire base and then marched away from the area when darkness fell.
The defenders of Fire Support Base Coral had performed admirably, turning back a regiment-sized attack and badly mauling the enemy in the process. Interestingly, a North Vietnamese doctor, who was attached to the 7th Division and defected to the allies in July, told his interrogators a very different version of the battle. When he attended an after-action briefing at the 141st Regimental headquarters, he was told that the unit had overrun a ‘1st Infantry Division’ base camp in Tân Uyên District and had killed all 680 of its defenders before it withdrew, with losses of sixty killed and 100 wounded. Since they had never encountered the Australian Task Force this far north, the enemy probably assumed that they had fought a battle with American 1st Infantry Division soldiers. communist officers routinely exaggerated their accomplishments in after-action reports, but the fantastic claim of having wiped out 680 Americans’ was excessive even by their inflated standards. While the rest of the 7th Division may have believed this propaganda, the survivors of the battle certainly knew better.16
The allies remained at Coral for another three weeks after the battle. The task force conducted aggressive patrols along the Bình Mỹ corridor but encountered only small groups of Communists, most of whom were attempting to retreat from the Saigon area. On the nights of 25 and 28 May the 165th PAVN Regiment attacked a second Australian fire base, Fire Support Base Balmoral, located to the north of Coral. The defenders of Balmoral, which included a squadron of Centurion tanks, repulsed the North Vietnamese and inflicted heavy losses on them on both occasions. The 7th PAVN Division, now severely depleted, avoided further contact with 1ATF and at the end of July retreated back to the Cambodian border. Operation Toàn Thắng I concluded on 31 May and was immediately succeeded by Toàn Thắng II, a mopping-up operation that continued into the late summer. The task force departed from AO Surfers for Phu’ó’c Tuy Province on 5 June. In all, Operation Toàn Thắng I claimed an estimated 7645 enemy lives, 164 prisoners, five ralliers, 1505 small arms, and 499 crew-served weapons. Among American and Free World Forces there were 587 killed—including twenty-one Australians, one New Zealander and one hai—and 3719 wounded, including eighty-six Australians, nine Thais and four New Zealanders.17 At a time when Australians and Americans are again fighting together in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is useful to recall operations in Vietnam. Operation Toàn Thắng illustrates how the Australian Task Force and its American component, Battery A of the 2nd Battalion, 35th Artillery, played a crucial role in the success of Toàn Thắng I and demonstrated the value of combined operations in the Vietnam War.
Endnotes
1 Author interview with Chuck Heindrichs, 12 June 2002, Historian Files, US Army Center of Military History, Ft. McNair, Washington D.C. (hereafter referred to as CMH).
2 Author interview with Douglass Green, 14 June 2002, Historian Files, CMH. Green recalled that the behaviour of the New Zealanders reminded him somewhat of English gentlemen, while the Australians tended to be more irreverent and boisterous. During a research trip to Australia in 1987, the author heard several Australian veterans make this same observation.
3 Heindrichs, 12 June 2002, Historian Files, CMH.
4 AAR, Operation Coburg, 1st Australian Task Force, 22 May 1968, Historian Files, CMH.
5 ORLL, 1 April - 31 July 1968, 1st Inf Div, pp. 16-17, Historian Files, CMH.
6 ORLL, 1 April - 31 July 1968, 1st Inf Div, annex 3d Bde, 6 August 1968, p. 1, Historian Files, CMH.
7 ORLL, 1 April - 31 July 1968, 3d Bde, 101st Abn Div, 12 August 1968, p. 2, Historian Files, CMH.
8 ORLL, 1 April - 31 July 1968, 1st Inf Div, p. 8, Historian Files, CMH.
9 For a comprehensive description of the battle, see Lex McAulay, The Battle of Coral, Hutchinson Australia, Hawthorn, Vic., 1988. See also Captain A. H. Jensen’s short history of the battle at <http://www2.ozland.net.au/users/marshall/coral/coral.htm>.
10 Battery A used the older M-14 rifles instead of newer M-16 rifles because, as a nondivisional unit, it tended to be last in line for new equipment—a fact that galled many members of the 2d Battalion. Author interview with Mel Moffitt, Historian Files, CMH.
11 Author interview with Jay Pennywell, 9 July 2002, Historian Files, CMH.
12 McAuley, pp. 168-9.
13 McAuley, p. 165.
14 Author interview with Mel Moffitt, 6 June 2002, Historian Files, CMH.
15 McAulay, p. 156.
16 Combined Military Interrogation Center (CMIC) Interrogation Report, 3 September 1968, Report Number US 2437-68, Sub: Enemy Engagement with US Forces, Source: Returnee Pham Luc (Famv, Luvc), CMIC No 2296. Historian Files, CMH.
17 ORLL, 1 May - 31 July 1968, II Field Force Vietnam, p. 31, Historian Files, CMH.
