The Minefield – An Australian Tragedy in Vietnam
Written by: Greg Lockhart,
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2007,
ISBN: 9781741141061, 306pp
Reviewed by: Brigadier David Buring, AM (Retd)
Greg Lockhart’s book on the Australian Army’s mine warfare experience in Vietnam has its basis in a history of the barrier fence and minefield laid in southern Phuoc Tuy province in 1967. The consequences of laying this obstacle were extensive and serious; eventually it was largely cleared but with difficulty.
The author tells the story passionately, casting a wide net that catches more than was really necessary to do justice to the subject. It is an extraordinary effort, with an extensive and detailed collection of material, especially from the participants. Lockhart describes in significant detail nearly every mine incident involving Australian soldiers. He gives a graphic description of the events, identifies most of the people affected, and illustrates how mine warfare was conducted, especially by the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN). He contends that General John Wilton incorrectly located the 1 Australian Task Force (1ATF) base. Brigadier Stuart Grahams barrier fence and minefield plan allegedly arose from a barrier mentality generated by fighting against Japan in the Second World War, which was subsequently extrapolated into the ‘domino’ theory of Asian communist expansion, and the need to provide resistance. The perennial military lesson not to underestimate your enemy is starkly emphasised by the extensive effort of NLF combatants to recover and re-lay mines that had not been satisfactorily protected. Lockhart also illustrates the principle that a counter-insurgency campaign will not succeed without gaining and securing the effective support of the people being supported. Finally he draws parallels between Vietnam and Gallipoli as failed campaigns leading to what he regards as unsound legends for Australia.
In approaching this subject, much of the advice from Colonel E G Keogh in his recently reprinted article ‘The Study of Military History’ is particularly helpful.1 Care is needed in developing a historical evaluation of the Vietnam War. A historians task is recognisably difficult when many participants are still alive and able to either multiply or to contest the presented viewpoints. That difficulty is more intense when the analysis involved needs to work through the genuine pain of the friends and families of war victims and surviving veterans to fathom and evaluate dead commanders’ motives. In applying Keogh’s recommended critical approach, Lockhart’s book potentially generates a myriad of detailed responses, but this review aims only to offer some selected matters for consideration.
Soldiers and Mines
Thirty years ago in The Face of Battle, John Keegan wrote of battlefield accidents, ‘Mine laying and, even more so, mine-lifting are procedures which kill sappers, who are also very much at risk when arranging demolitions, and there are a variety of other ways in which military engineering can harm its practitioners.’ This comment also suggests the difficulty in appreciating hazardous work in fields such as bomb disposal, special action forces, police, military combat, disease control, nuclear technology, oil drilling and many similar activities. Outside observers are, not surprisingly, likely to perceive the work as much more hazardous than the practitioners do. The book reflects this characteristic to some extent—for the sappers, laying mines was a completely normal task.
Mines are perceived as highly emotional weapons, more so than bullets, bombs or shells. Stepping or driving on them has an own-goal characteristic that is even stronger if the mines originally came from a friendly source. Mine incidents can therefore combine guilt with injury for all those affected, giving an added psychological advantage to the enemy, which can often feed into decisions about mine placement. The related battlefield discipline is different, because the normal combat responses of moving, taking cover, or shooting back are not freely available. (Such responses are of course forced if the mines support an ambush.) These are good reasons why the related psychological damage can be as serious as the physical damage.
The barrier minefield was not the whole story of mines in Vietnam. In the Phuoc Tuy/Long Dat area minefields other than the barrier field contained nearly as many M16 mines as the barrier—plenty for the NLF/PAVN to choose from. And the official history of the Royal Australian Engineers points out that mine casualties would have been high with or without the barrier field. Booby traps, stick grenades, Claymore-type mines, and unexploded shells and bombs were widely used at all times. Efforts by the NLF/PAVN to recover and re-lay mines and grenades from the barrier field were extensive and costly to both sides. According to the book’s epilogue, the total civilian and military casualties on the Vietnamese side were probably of a similar order to those suffered by the United States and its allies, and occurring for a long time afterwards.
Strategic Implications
The word ‘strategy’ is often overused when writing about military matters. Its applicability can usually be clarified by considering the division between the strategic, operational and tactical levels of thinking and acting (allowing that these ideas have gained their main credence since the Vietnam era). Australia’s strategic choices expired with the decision to join in the conflict, the choice of the province to work in, and the size of the force involved. Maintaining community support for involvement is also a strategic element. Matters of vital ground, the design of deployments, and methods of controlling populations and resources such as rice, are operational matters. Minefield siting and content, and also precautions and behaviour in mined areas, are tactical aspects. A more strategic overlap occurs in a counterinsurgency campaign when all these matters influence the loyalties of the target population.
The criticism that Lockhart levels at the Army for not applying sanctions to Brigadier Stuart Graham, and for issuing understated press releases about mine casualties, overlooks the state of hostilities that still existed. Responses such as firing a senior officer or having a high profile public and political argument about mine casualties would have handed the enemy a major propaganda victory. In the worldwide strategic battle for public opinion, this would have been pre-emptive capitulation.
Lockhart argues that the superior military authorities in Saigon or Canberra should have countermanded the minefield plan. In principle, higher headquarters interfering in operational command and planning is undesirable. Doing so would require strong reasons that did not exist at the time. To withdraw on your own initiative from a conflict that cannot be won might be a strategic failure, but it is not an operational defeat. Nobody entering any contest aims to lose, and early stages of a campaign will normally be optimistic. The minefield was conceived within the first few months of the 1ATF deployment in Phuoc Tuy province.
Unsuccessful military operations and campaigns can inspire deep soul searching. To argue that because they did not succeed, they should not have been attempted, is too facile. For a full understanding it is far better to examine thoroughly why the activities were undertaken, respecting the attitudes and values of the time, and gauging the balance of reasons why success was not achieved.
Operational Aspects
Lockhart criticises locating the 1ATF base at Nui Dat, and the only apparent alternative suggested is Vung Tau. Other sources explain this choice fully and satisfactorily. A main factor had to be freedom of action: the ability of the task force to fire its guns, mortars and machine guns in defence, which would have been heavily curtailed within Vung Tau. General Wiltons preparations and consultations were sufficient that the choice of Nui Dat was not a unilateral decision. The task force faced a permanent dilemma whether to chase main force units or to ambush and patrol against local NLF/PAVN groups. Combat power in 1ATF was probably more suitable for the bigger operations, as preferred by the United States, but the smaller operations generated more apparent success and had direct influence locally. The minefield was clearly an attempt to create a force multiplier for the limited manpower of 1ATF in 1967.
Lockhart discusses the categorisation of the minefield without understanding that purpose and siting define a minefields category, not its content. He refers to a memo from the Chief Engineer Australian Force Vietnam (CE AFV) that would have had force in that theatre, but does not qualify as a channel for changing mine warfare doctrine. The author challenges Brigadier Grahams authority to lay the barrier minefield, because there was no Australian divisional commander present. This diminishes the role of Headquarters 2 Field Force Vietnam (HQ2FFV); their operational influence over 1ATF was real and legitimate, and clearly, they could not have released over 20 000 mines and the M5 anti-lift switches to 1ATF without suitable command authority. It also means that Grahams decision was (again) not unilateral.
Contemporary sources such as Robert O’Neills Vietnam Task show that the purpose of the fence and minefield was to safeguard the rice harvest in the province and to disrupt contact between main forces and the local population. The patrol workload without the obstacle was too high to accept. Lockhart expands this limited purpose into a much wider barrier philosophy, which is a clear case of argument by extension, meaning to project the argument beyond the proposer s intention in order to criticise it.
A supreme irony was that two major population control measures undertaken in 1967, the fence and minefield and the village relocation into Suoi Nghe, were examples of a proper attempt to emulate successful principles from the Malayan Emergency. Deficiencies in their execution cause both to be regarded as unsuccessful, but Brigadier Graham actually deserves credit for the attempt. The disruption objective was even pursued again in 1970. Differences between the campaigns are often used to show that the experience of Malaya was inapplicable in Vietnam. However, when principles do not work, they are not necessarily wrong. Further, the ability to apply counterinsurgency principles had much to do with Australia’s involvement in Vietnam in the first place, and also for the selection of Phuoc Tuy province as a separately Australian area of operation. The full circumstances again need to be considered carefully.
Tactical Matters
The most damning and perplexing aspect of the minefield was the failure to protect it and respond to interference. People recovering mines from the field were remarkably exposed, yet they were not challenged. Planners clearly recognised the need for security at the outset, and there was apparently an agreement to monitor the minefield, with patrols from Australian forces on the eastern side, and Vietnamese forces on the western side. Loss of intent and any lack of capability to respond deserve closer examination than Lockhart gives. Examples would be to explain the effects of replacing the province chief and the local battalion of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in the months after the minefield was laid. One cogent evaluation of Vietnamese capability is included in Ian McNeills ‘The Team’, but the drawbacks he identifies would probably not have been evident to 1 ATF in early 1967. Why 1ATF did not continue to fulfil its part of the agreement needs to be explained.
The book includes a good description of the minefield clearance, and this work illustrates the contrast between the two sides of the conflict. The Australian effort clearly recognised that the state of an armed mine/grenade combination could have been anywhere from rusted solid and useless to a hair trigger condition. Hand clearing would probably find every mine, but it was not worth the risk of casualties or the time required. Conversely the NLF was prepared to take that risk, and they were given the time. The experiments to find a practical mechanical clearance method were fine examples of the characteristic ingenuity of military and mechanical engineers, although the buried mines are a doubtful legacy.
Concluding Remarks
While a worthwhile book, various aspects underline that it needed stronger editing and production assistance. Some diagrams and maps are not sufficiently clear, especially those showing the location of mine incidents. There was much discussion about an allegedly misleading PR photo about mine clearance that is not in the book. Indexing is limited—for example there is no reference to HQ 2FFV or to US connections. The choice of language in sections is questionable, with the use of far too many coloured and emotive words when better alternatives were available—comments such as ‘We thought the hierarchy were Dickheads and still think if (from a former officer), ‘Who was the dummy?’ (about unmined areas inside the fence), and ‘Was this a case of the blind leading the blind?’ (about Brigadier Graham’s retirement work) would be considered unacceptable and unnecessary by many readers.
Looking to the future, this story shows that to abandon old principles is perilous. Mines, especially when used in the nuisance role, pose a threat that is little different in principle from the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that infect today’s combat zones. Many principles and techniques of counterinsurgency that were so clearly established in the 1950s are highly pertinent to the efforts to deal with unconventional and terrorist threats in the twenty-first century.
Greg Lockhart’s book gives the reader a great deal to think about. Its harrowing descriptions of the actions and the experiences of the soldiers make clear what mine warfare is and what it does to bodies and minds. His evaluation of commanders’ intentions and other surrounding factors is severe but questionable; other sources discuss these matters in more conventional ways.
Lockhart’s ideas need to be seen in perspective, and this review has deliberately not covered all of them. They will satisfy the predilections of some; they will be anathema to others. So much depends on the attitudes of the time, especially when the southern zone of Vietnam was arguably entitled to self-determination without military or terrorist coercion. This is the premise on which any military intervention depended. Nevertheless, there is no need to see the whole effort as futile. During the writing of this review, a former Vietnamese refugee commented on a national radio programme: ‘It was not about communism; it was about freedom’ Or, to quote John Keegan again: ‘Battle is a historical subject, whose nature and trend of development can only be understood down a long historical perspective.’ Maybe it is still too soon.
Endnote
1 See Scott Hopkins, ed., Chief of Army’s Reading List, Land Warfare Studies Centre, Canberra, 2007, and Colonel EG Keogh, “The Study of Military History’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. IV, No. 2, 2007, pp. 145–64.
