Book Review - The Viet Cong D445 Battalion: Their Story

Journal Edition

Written by: Ernest Chamberlain

Point Lonsdale, 2011, 252 pp

Paperback ISBN: ISBN 9780980562347

Reviewed by: Dr Bob Hall

Usually, the victors get to write the histories of wars. But in the case of the Vietnam War the historiographical output of the United States—and to a lesser extent, Australia—dwarfs that of Vietnam. To make matters worse, those histories that are published in Vietnam are sometimes difficult to find and, not surprisingly, are written in Vietnamese. Both factors tend to limit their Western readership. But, with his publication of The Viet Cong D445 Battalion, Ernest Chamberlain, a former senior intelligence officer, Vietnamese linguist and Vietnam veteran, has enabled us to see the war in Phuoc Tuy province—the Australian area of operations—from our former enemy’s point of view.

The foundation of Chamberlain’s book is a history of the Vietcong (VC) D445 Battalion published in Vietnam in 1991 under the title The Heroic 445 Battalion: Its History and Tradition. This comprises Part I of Chamberlain’s book. Though fascinating in itself, to this translation of the Vietnamese text Chamberlain has added a wealth of detail and analysis contained in ‘translator’s notes’. Many of these notes link statements in the Vietnamese text to primary source documents held in the Australian War Memorial or various US archives, enabling scholars of the war to pursue further the many insights they will find in this book.

In Part II, Chamberlain adds a series of annexes containing translated and other material relating to the history of D445. These include translated extracts from the 5th VC Infantry Division history, descriptions of the organisation and personalities in leadership positions in D445, translated extracts from the history of the Minh Dam secret zone—a D445 base area—and much other data. Included in this part (at annex G) are translations of D445 command and political reports that give insights into the functioning of the battalion at about the time of the battle of Long Tan. Chamberlain’s book makes these reports and other Vietnamese sources available to Western readers for the first time.

In 1971 the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF) noted that ‘one of the most formidable forces with which the Task Force has had regularly to contend is D445 VC Local Force Battalion’.¹ In terms of its military capability the Task Force rated D445 as akin to a main force Viet Cong or People’s Army of Vietnam (North Vietnamese) unit. From its arrival in Phuoc Tuy province in 1966 to the departure of the Task Force nearly six years later, D445 remained a constant irritant no matter what the Task Force threw at the task of destroying it. Its battlefield skill, determination and capacity to take punishment yet remain a potent and active force earned for D445 the respect of many in the Task Force. No one took D445 lightly.

In The Viet Cong D445 Battalion, Chamberlain describes how the force that would one day become D445 emerged from the Binh Xuyen—a private army of nationalist leanings—that was attacked by the Diem regime in 1955 in its attempt to consolidate its own power. Infiltrated by revolutionary cadre, this small force gradually acquired recruits, arms and a military doctrine. A decade later it had fallen completely under the control of revolutionary cadre, grown to ‘company’ strength and played a pivotal part in attacking the Diem regime’s ‘strategic hamlet’ program in Phuoc Tuy province. Following the arrival of the 1 ATF it had grown to ‘battalion’ status with a strength of over 350 men. It took part in the battle of Long Tan (18 August 1966) and numerous other battles and was the target of numerous 1 ATF operations. The accounts of these battles have to be read with caution. The D445 account of the battle of Long Tan, for example, seems to claim that ‘tanks’ (probably armoured personnel carriers) accompanied the leading elements of D company, 6 RAR into the battle, that one tank was hit and burned, that an entire Australian company was ‘wiped out’ and that heavy casualties were inflicted on an Australian battalion. Chamberlain’s detailed ‘translator’s notes’ provide a broader context, citing both Australian and other Vietnamese estimates of casualties leaving readers to draw their own conclusions.

The Viet Cong D445 Battalion provides valuable insights into the effects of 1 ATF operations on D445 battalion. Although 1 ATF conducted numerous ‘reconnaissance-in-force’ operations against the enemy in Phuoc Tuy province, these seem to have made little impact on D445. They are barely mentioned in the Vietnamese history. Instead, the 1 ATF ‘strategies’ that feature strongly are those that attempted to, or partially succeeded in, cutting off D445 from its supporting population base. At a 1952 conference on guerrilla war, Ho Chi Minh had emphasised the importance of the connection between the guerrilla forces and the people. ‘What matters the most’, he said, ‘is that our armed forces ... must hold fast to the people; divorce from the latter will surely lead to defeat’. In a phrase that contained echoes of our own ‘hearts and minds’ strategy, Ho continued, ‘to cling to the people means to win their hearts, gain their confidence and affection. This will allow us to overcome any difficulty and achieve sure success’.² The bond between D445 and the people of Phuoc Tuy was essential to the battalion’s survival. From its supporters among the people, the battalion derived supplies, intelligence, recruits and political support. But, most important of all, from these bonds the battalion derived food. Without a sure supply of food D445 would have to shed strength and turn much of its effort to food production. Threats to the continuing connection between the battalion and the people posed a significant challenge.

The D445 history describes three ‘strategies’ adopted by 1 ATF in its efforts to cut this connection. These were the barrier minefield built by 1 ATF between the village of Dat Do and the sea (the story of which is described in Greg Lockhart’s, The Minefield³), the construction of bunkers and barbed wire fences around the villages and lastly, what the D445 history calls the ‘barrier-shield’ strategy. This last strategy was the saturation ambushing around the villages. These tactics, particularly the latter two, are described in the D445 history as ‘extremely dangerous’. The history describes how D445 examined the problem posed by the 1 ATF tactics and, mostly successfully, formulated responses to them.

The D445 response to the 1 ATF saturation ambushing around the villages is particularly noteworthy. It is evident from their history that these ambushes posed the greatest challenge of any of the 1 ATF tactics. The history notes that because of the ambushes ‘445 Battalion was almost never able to slip into the hamlets by night’.⁴ Their solution to this 1 ATF tactic was to form ‘suicide squads’—small teams of men who would sacrifice themselves on the Australian ambushes to reveal the ambush positions to larger, well-armed groups which would then assault the ambush positions. The D445 history claims that this technique caused numerous casualties for the 1 ATF ambushers and allowed them to penetrate the ambush screen around the villages, but this is not supported by Australian records. Instead, 1 ATF appears to have found the Holy Grail of counterinsurgency—a tactic which forced the insurgents to fight on 1ATF’s terms.

An interesting silence in the D445 history deserves comment. Both 1 ATF and the Viet Cong recognised that the war in Vietnam was primarily about the building and maintenance of political legitimacy. The military struggle was essentially for the creation of relative security in which the contending political forces could compete for the political allegiance of the people. Australian military historiography of the Vietnam War tends to overlook or downplay this political element of the struggle. On the strength of the D445 history, we can now say that Viet Cong historiography of the war also avoids or slights this political dimension. The D445 history follows the relentlessly positive practice of using terms such as ‘the masses’, or ‘the people of Phuoc Tuy’, as if to imply that the vast majority, if not all, of the citizens supported the revolutionary cause. We know that this was not the case. 1 ATF’s tenure in Phuoc Tuy province was marked by numerous elections conducted by the Saigon regime. Perhaps chief among these were the National Constituent Assembly election of September 1966 a few months after 1 ATF’s arrival in the province, and the October 1971 South Vietnamese Presidential election held shortly after 1 ATF’s departure. Both elections were marked by a strong voter turnout against the demands of the National Liberation Front/Provisional Revolutionary Government to boycott the elections. None of these elections—key markers in the political struggle—are discussed in the D445 history.

Chamberlain has done a great service in translating and contextualising the D445 history. He has produced a book containing golden insights into the war in Phuoc Tuy province. Read in combination with other sources Chamberlain’s work also reveals insights into counterinsurgency in general. For those with an interest in developing a deeper understanding of Australian combat operations in Vietnam, The Viet Cong D445 Battalion: Their Story, is an invaluable resource. Hard copies (which include all the annexes) are available through select libraries and collections. The book is also available on the internet at <http://www.scribd.com/doc/62621973/The-Viet-Cong-D445-Battalion-Their-S…;, but the internet version does not include the annexes.