Battle of Long Tan: Another Anzac Myth?

[petertsolakis]

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be seen as exceptional troops. This is the reasons why soldiers of all nationalities (Argentinean, British, Vietnamese, etc) make exaggerated claims about the enemy numbers they encountered and the damage they believe their units inflicted on their adversaries. The problem with the Long Tan story is that hardly anyone in Australia (except a small handful of writers) has bothered to examine the battle in more detail to weigh up the evidence and discard the myths that have largely grown unchallenged. Australian writers on the main part seem bent in increasing the number of Vietnamese attackers to the point that we are lately starting to see some articles claiming that some 3000 (http://www.awm.gov.au/wartime/35/article/)– 5000 (maryboroughmuseum.org/long_tan.html) communist troops were involved at the battle of Long Tan. However, US documents do not support the popular Australian claim that 2,500 Viet Cong troops took part in the battle with one US Vietnam veteran writing, "It was later found that most of these [attackers] came from the Viet Cong's 275 Main Force Regiment with a handful from D445, which had played only a minor role in the battle" (Unheralded Victory: The Defeat of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, 1961-1973, Mark W. Woodruff, p 27, Vandamere Press, 1999. The US Presidential citation very clearly states that the Australian forces encountered what was estimated to be just one "reinforced enemy battalion" (diggerhistory.info/pages-battles/long_tan.htm)

[petertsolakis]

The text of the US presidential citation reads as follows:

By virtue of the authority invested in me as the President of the United States and as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, I have today awarded the Presidential Unit Citation (Army) for extraordinary heroism to D Company, Sixth Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment, The Australian Army.D Company distinguished itself by extraordinary heroism while engaged in military operations against an opposing armed force in Vietnam on 18 August 1966. While searching for Viet Cong in a rubber plantation northeast of Ba Ria, Phuoc Tuy, Province, Republic of Vietnam, D Company met and immediately engaged in heavy contact. As the battle developed, it became apparent that the men of D Company were facing a numerically superior force. The platoons of D Company were surrounded and attacked on all sides by an estimated reinforced enemy battalion using automatic weapons, small arms and mortars. Fighting courageously against a well armed and determined foe, the men on D Company maintained their formations in a common perimeter defence and inflicted heavy casualties on the Viet Cong. The enemy maintained a continuous, intense volume of fire and attacked repeatedly from all directions. Each successive assault was repulsed by the courageous Australians. Heavy rainfall and low ceiling prevented any friendly close air support during the battle. After three hours of savage attacks, having failed to penetrate the Australian lines, the enemy withdrew from the battlefield carrying many dead and wounded, and leaving 245 Viet Cong dead forward of the defence positions of D Company. The conspicuous courage, intrepidity and indomitable courage of D Company were to the highest tradition of military valour and reflect great credit upon D Company and the Australian Army.

[andrewwegner]

Maybe we got it wrong with the numbers of VC involved but Delta Company killed hundreds as the website of Martin Walsh of Red Dune films proves.

[Peter H]

Walsh's figures here:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-new ... 22zi5.html

Such set-piece "landmark" battles like Long Tan seem to get their share of prominence in Australian accounts but day,day out "contacts" was what mauled the VC/PAVN in Phuoc Tuy.As highlighted by Bob Hall and Andrew Ross in Landmark Battles and the Myths of Vietnam,article in Anzac's Dirty Dozen:12 Myths of Australian Military History:

If we consider the sixteen landmark battles as a group[Long Tan,FSB Coral etc] ,they resulted in 4075 Australian troops in combat with a total of about 8180 enemy soldiers,and they resulted in 287 Australian compared with 1010 enemy casualties.When we consider the 3900 contacts as a group,however,they collectively involved 82,700 Australians in combat against 20,980 VC/PAVN soldiers,and resulted in 1147 Australian and 4480 enemy casualties...

[petertsolakis]

The claim that hundreds of Vietnamese troops were killed is also highly questionable with 6RAR's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Colin Townsend, initially concluding on 19 August 1966 at 1920 hours (the day after the battle) that "Enemy casualties [were] 188 and 3 Viet Cong captured". The term "casualties" of course in military terms includes both killed and wounded. Nevertheless, the Australian media in the main, seems ever willing to keep accepting without question the story that the Australian troops killed hundreds with some articles in recent years accepting the claim that over 800 Vietnamese soldiers were killed the battle. Many Australian writers claim that the diary of the enemy commander at Long Tan was later captured and that he listed his losses as 878 killed and 1,500 wounded. (Vietnam – The Australian War, Paul Ham, p 245 and p 704, HarperCollins 2007) However, Ernest Chamberlain (author of The Viet Cong D445 Battalion: Their Story) claims that no copy of that report exists (http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-new ... 22y19.html) . The official Australian body count of VC dead is 245, but the information Vietnam War veteran Terry Burstall recieved when writing his book (A Soldier Returns: A Long Tan veteran discovers the other side of Vietnam) has the Vietnamese casualties at around 150. Mark Dodd reports that Vietnamese military sources claim that 47 Vietnamese soldiers were killed and about 100 wounded (http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/he ... 5792091865). Interestingly, 8 Platoon (C Company, 6 RAR) under 2nd Lieutenant Eric Andrews reports a body count on 19th August of 52 killed and the 6th RAR War Diary (available online) records on that same day that, "50 enemy bodies buried in [D] company location." Burstall also recorded his memories of the body count in A Soldier Returns and enemy bodies found were estimated to be 50 according to him and fellow soldiers. Burstall:
When I returned to the battlefield the day after the battle, there were bodies lying all through the area ... Would a shell-shocked digger count an arm, a trunk and a leg scattered over several metres as one body or three bodies? Nobody knew or cared at the time, and certainly not the people doing the counting. ... Looking back I don't really think that I would have seen more than 50 bodies and I spent three days in the area. How can one tell in such a situation? The only thing for sure is that the body count was not done accurately, as any private who was on the spot will testify. (Terry Burstall, A Soldier Returns, pp 77-79, UQP 1990)

The kill count as against weapons captured suggest that the body count was grossly inflated. Australian soldiers in the from of elements of C Company 6 RAR and D Company 5 RAR, picked up the following weapons the day after the battle: 33 AK-47s, 5 SKS rifles, 7 RPD light machine guns, 1 Soviet wheeled machine gun, 1 57mm Type 30 anti-tank gun, 1 M1 Garand rifle, 1 M1 carbine, 1 M1941 sub machine gun and 4 RPG rocket launchers. (Weapons and ammunition captured are detailed in Annex E paragraph, 6 RAR War Diary)

[mikel]

The body count subject from the VN war remains a shameful and contentious subject to this day.

Policies placed unrealistic pressures on field and mid level commanders.

A lot of outright fraud and general bullshit ensued.

No disrepect to the guys who got caught up in some of it. The fighting was there, the casualties took place,

Sometimes there was deception enforced and emplaced on good guys.

This was no necessarily an "all day every day" situation, but it was no small deal.

[andrewwegner]

Proof that we killed more than just 50 VC at Long Tan:

It was eerie. The VC weren't running and diving behind trees like you'd expect them to. They were just walking toward us like zombies and every one you knocked down there were two to take his place. It was like shooting ducks in a bloody shooting gallery. I would have killed at least forty blokes that day.


(Allen May, on the Battle of Long Tan, 1966, in Stuart Rintoul, Ashes of Vietnam: Australian voices, William Heinemanne, Richmond, 1987, p.90)

[mwalsh]

I researched, co-wrote and produced of The Battle of Long Tan documentary for The History Channel which was narrated by Sam Worthington (AVATAR, CLASH OF THE TITANS, TERMINATOR SALVATION).

I have spent 7 years meticulously researching this battle and events leading up to it and afterwards. I've interviewed over 100 Australian, Long Tan, U.S. and Vietnamese veterans who either fought directly in this battle or were in support units. I've reconstructed timelines from battalion logs, radio logs, after actions reports, commander diaries, interviews and other records. This includes interviewing (in Vietnam) the former Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army officers who fought in the battle against the Australians. I've discovered, read and collected hundreds of documents, accounts, diaries, books and official papers on this battle. Your statement that, "The problem with the Long Tan story is that hardly anyone in Australia (except a small handful of writers) has bothered to examine the battle in more detail to weigh up the evidence and discard the myths that have largely grown unchallenged." is completely wrong. I, and many others have spent many years researching this story including Major Ian McNeill the former Military Historian at the Australian War Memorial and Lex McAulay. We've all interviewed both Australian, New Zealand, U.S. and Vietnamese (Allied, VC and NVA).

Here are the former Viet Cong and North Vietnamese units which fought against D Company, 6RAR, the APC's from 3 Troop, 1APC Squadron, some dismounted A Coy soldiers and some B Coy soldiers at the very end of the battle on 18 August 1966 in 'The Battle of Long Tan':

1,600 soldiers from Viet Cong, 275 Main Force Regiment + support elements
500 soldiers from North Vietnamese Army, 45 Regiment + support elements
550 soldiers from VC, D445 Battalion + support elements

Granted some commentators, veterans and other individuals sometimes get the numbers wrong and even after I produced the 'fact' sheet and distributed it to media they still misquote or change the number of enemy but what has that got to do with the widely accepted facts? This is just the nature of the world, people misquote and misstate facts from time to time! The right answer is approximately 2,500 enemy opposed D Coy, 6RAR on 18 August 1966.

The main units who fought directly against D Company throughout the battle were the Viet Cong 275 Main Force Regiment and the NVA 45 Regiment, some 2,100 soldiers. D445 did not directly engage D Coy in the battle as when they were coming to completely surround D Coy, towards the latter stages of the battle, D445 were actually stopped and decimated in a series of close quarter engagements with the Australian APC's and at one stage some dismounted A Coy soldiers which were coming to relieve D Coy.

First of all, what petertsolkis fails to mention at all, is the well known and well documented fact that VC and NVA went to extraordinary lengths to remove their wounded and dead and every weapon from the battlefield so western forces had no way of determining the impact of any engagement and also because equipment was very hard to replace.

As 17 Australians were killed in this battle (a huge shock to the Australian government and public), 1ATF (1st Australian Taskforce) were given a very short, 24 hour deadline to provide an official enemy body count as well as other details to the Australian government so they could inform the media and the public in Australia. This is why the official figure is 245 enemy dead - it was given prematurely and understates the enemy casualties. Many more enemy bodies were found over the next 3 days (even up to 1 week after the battle) in and around the Long Tan area even but the official body count has always remained at 245. In addition, hundreds of blood trails were discovered in and around the area over these next 3 days as well.

Australia did not have any history of exaggerating enemy body counts in WWII, Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam or any other wars to this day.

A 'body' was deemed a torso, not an arm, a leg or other pieces of the body and the Australian troops were very sensitive, respectful and meticulous in how they treated the enemy dead. Much respect after the battle was given by the VC and NVA to the Australians for the humane way they treated the Vietnamese dead.

This battle was so intense and destructive that for the VC and NVA to actually leave 245 bodies on the battlefield (plus the many bodies found over the next few days) as well as the 2 wounded VC and one wounded NVA soldier plus so many highly valuable weapons is exceptional. Particularly when their tactic was to go to extraordinary lengths to clear the battlefield of dead and wounded. The amount of bodies, prisoners and captured weapons and ammunition demonstrates that the enemy dead and wounded was definitely much greater than the official Australian count, hence the estimate of 500-800 enemy dead.

VC and NVA weapons collected on the battlefield; 33 x AK47's, 7 x RPD LMG's, 5 x SKS's, 4 x RPG's, 2 x 57mm recoilless rifles, 2 x M1 Carbines, 1 PPsh M1941 submachinegun, 1 x SGM heavy machinegun, 1 x M1 Garand rifle, 1 x Thompson submachinegun, 1 x BAR, 10,500 rounds of ammunition, 300 x hand grenades, 40 mortar rounds, 22 x recoilless rifle rounds and more. Once again, the fact that so many valuable weapons and ammunition was left behind when it is a key tactic to clear the battlefield, illustrates how high the opposing forces were and how much destruction was reaped on the VC and NVA.

Now, in relation to books, the U.S. Presidential Unit Citation and other things. Until Lex McAulay's book, The Battle of Long Tan which was published in 1986, 20 years after the battle, even the key Long Tan commanders, soldiers and supporting units like the New Zealand, Australian and U.S. artillery, Australian Air Force and Australian APC's didn't even know the whole story. Even then, McAulay's book did not include everything, for example all of the intelligence side of things as it wasn't accessible. At the time of The Presidential Unit Citation and in those early years after the battle nobody truly knew what enemy forces opposed D Company, 6RAR at Long Tan and or what damaged they inflicted on them. They were in a War zone until 1972 and until hostilities had ceased, all the facts, figures, stories and interviews could take place, the real story remained understated and generally 'lost' or forgotten for decades. The U.S. citation, single soldier accounts or newspaper articles do not authenticate facts about the battle, particularly enemy numbers opposing D Coy or the casualties. The information available at the time (18 August 1966 to 1972) was at best sketchy.

There is a better examination of the enemy strengths and situation in Phuoc Tuy province before, during and after the battle in "To Long Tan: Australian Army and the Vietnam War, 1950-66" (Official History of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1948-75) by Ian McNeill. He arguably had the greatest access to secret and declassified government records, cables, military records, intelligence and interviews (Australian, U.S. and Vietnamese) than anyone else.

In regards to people like Terry Burstall, he was a private soldier in 12 Platoon, D Company 6RAR. He was at the rear of the company position during the battle and was not involved or engaged in any significant action (according to his platoon commander Dave Sabben). Further, almost all the Long Tan veterans and military historians discredit almost everything Burstall claims. For example, if you speak to any other private soldier they will all say they had no idea what was happening (until McAulay's book was written) as a private soldier only sees the 10-100 meters in front of them and the 10 metres either side of them. That is the general extent of their view of the battle and it was the same the day after the battle. Private soldiers like Burstall did not wander around the entire battlefield and get an overall context of what happened or a chance to do a personal body count! The fact is, the official number was 245 enemy killed but many more bodies were found over the following 3 days and then more over a 7 day period.

Once again, the fact that a key tactic of the VCA and NVA was to remove wounded and dead bodies from the battlefield and yet so many bodies and weapons were left behind indicates that there WAS a significant superior force opposing D Coy and that the enemy body count was much, much greater than the official Australian count of 245. In interviews with VC and NVA who were in the battle, other evidence of how much 275 Regiment and D445 were rendered ineffective in the province after this battle, intelligence, interviews with former VC and NVA who fought in the battle and other evidence gathered in the decades after the battle and war, all support the facts which have been widely accepted.

The nature of these types of battles is confusion and if you ask two soldiers 50 metres apart in the same platoon during the same battle they will generally each have differing views of what they saw and when. The same is when other events or incidents take place; ask 5 people and you'll generally get 5 different views. So, your references to documented accounts by people like Burstall, Eric Andrews, Mark Dodd or even the Presidential Unit Citation mean little in terms of an overall assessment of the facts and figures of enemy body counts and casualties.

You've conveniently chosen to ignore facts relating to well known VC and NVA tactics of removing bodies and weapons from the battlefield, situational factors such as limited intelligence until after the war, pressure on officers for facts ahead of a comprehensive sweep of the entire area and on and on. We've since learnt that there was another unit at the battle called Mrs Phuong's Medical Evacuation Unit made up largely of females and who were unarmed who went to extraordinary lengths to remove the dead and wounded. They suffered significant casualties as well.

I'll bet a thousand dollars that even more facts will come out in years to come. I still keep hearing new things even from the veterans themselves when they send me letters and other documents which they've never even shared with their own family, let alone the general public, War Memorial, media etc.

I'll give you another example of the urgency, stress and confusion in the days and weeks after the battle. Major Harry Smith, OC of D Coy, 6RAR was given and therefore his subordinates as well, less than 24 hours to write and submit gallantry citations. Many deserving individuals therefore were overlooked because of this stress, pressure, shock and limited time. D Coy CSM Jack Kirby should have been cited for a Victoria Cross, the APC's and a couple of individuals from A Coy should have been cited for actions of gallantry. The point is, even these overlooked events have resulted in a distorted view of the importance of the battle and individual actions in it. Some recent Government Inquiries have rectified some awards but many are still yet to be addressed.

Anyway, these are the facts, situational context and other evidence demonstrating that the 245 enemy body count is understated and not overstated as you claim and of the size of the VC and NVA forces opposing the Australians.

It really makes me angry when people make these ridiculous claims without any context other than selective newspaper articles, selective personal accounts, selective books or other things without a comprehensive assessment of all sources, situational factors and all the facts, which in most cases gets better with the passage of time. Unfortunately most of these types of claims have dubious motivations behind them rather than a genuine desire to seek and or expose the truth.

There was no fraud, no bullshit, no exaggeration of the facts around the Battle of Long Tan or Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War. Some people and some media might have slightly different views and sometimes get numbers wrong from time to time but this happens with practically anything. In 1966 there was no Internet, no satellites or UAV's providing detailed intelligence, and very limited communications. In hindsight today and with the equipment and technology we have today, the information and other facts recorded in the days, weeks and 5 years after the battle would have been much different and more consistent with the facts as we know them today.

There is not a single shred of reliable evidence to even remotely prove that only 50 or so enemy bodies were found and buried. This is also particularly absurd in context of 3.5 hours of human wave assaults numbering 50-100 at a time from multiple directions with the second wave being decimated by 6-8 rounds per minute from 24 artillery guns (18 x 105mm + 6 x 155mm guns) and the first wave being stopped my small arms fire from D Coy. It is also absurd in context of the sheer number of weapons and bodies collected over the entire 1 week period after the battle and the subsequent ineffectiveness of 275 Regiment and D445 in Phuoc Tuy over the following years. It is also inconsistent with the majority of individual, personal accounts and the views of the majority of veterans who were there, both Australian, VC and NVA and reputable military historians.

[petertsolakis]

Here are some interesting comments (that I have highlighted in bold) posted online by a certain coolbert, regarding the inflated body count practice in Vietnam (http://militarythoughts.blogspot.com/20 ... count.html):

monday, june 16, 2008

Body Count.
This is coolbert:

"Long Tan - - What Happened?"

"a heroic victory at the Long Tan rubber plantation made headlines across Australia and America. A newspaper editorial even said:"

"it ranks with some of the great stands in military history."

"The Americans subsequently awarded the company the Presidential Unit Citation for 'extraordinary heroism in operations against an opposing armed force.'"

"The Battle of Long Tan is arguably the most famous battle fought by the Australian Army during the Vietnam War. August 18–19, 1966."

Australian forces in Vietnam, engaging a much superior enemy force, emerging victorious, inflicting very heavy losses on the NVA/VC, with minimal loss to themselves. The type of engagement that makes headlines and for which medals are awarded.

"Even though newspaper editors and military chiefs were very impressed with the Diggers, exactly what happened at Long Tan is an issue of contention . . . 108 Diggers were able to defeat 2500 Viet Cong. [???]"

That the Aussies fought with great courage is undeniable. That they were awarded the U.S. Presidential Unit Citation and were worthy of same is also undeniable. THE NUMBER OF ENEMY KILLED IS WHAT IS AT QUESTION. BODY COUNT!!

"The action occurred when D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR) . . . encountered the Viet Cong (VC) 275 Regiment and elements of the D445 Local Forces Battalion."

"There have been accusations that the Australians exaggerated VC and NVA casualties . . . The official Australian count is 245 Communist dead and 150 wounded. The number of NVA/VC killed and wounded was about twice the initial radio report of 188 killed or wounded from Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Townsend. (War Diary) . . . US forces later claimed to have captured documents indicating 800 killed and 1,000 wounded"

The claim has been made, ever since the height of the Vietnam War, that the U.S. military, and presumably the Australians as well, exaggerated, embellished, falsified, and downright lied about the number of enemy killed on the battlefield.

Is this so??!!

Many years ago now [over thirty years], I spoke to a discharged U.S. Army infantry officer [Michael K.] whose task [among many] was to determine enemy body count in the aftermath of a battlefield clash with North Vietnamese/Viet Cong [NVA/VC] units.

An American officer, cruising the battlefield, in the aftermath of a combat action, counting, and trying to determine, as best he could, HOW MANY ENEMY SOLDIERS HAD BEEN KILLED!!

There WAS a certain specific, well-thought-out protocol to determine enemy body count in Vietnam. THIS WAS NOT a helter-skelter, willy-nilly procedure that tended to inflate, deliberately or otherwise, the numbers of enemy soldiers killed. A protocol that went as follows:

* Each enemy dead body found on the battlefield counted as one killed-in-action [KIA]. [DOES THIS REQUIRE ANY FURTHER ELABORATION!!??]

* Each large blood smear counted as one enemy killed-in-action [KIA]. The inability of the NVA/VC to provide quick and appropriate medical care for their wounded meant that such a large loss of blood more or less meant death, even with the absence of a body!

[there was a certain significance to finding a large blood smear on the Vietnam ` battlefield.]



"During the Vietnam War, soldiers reported that shooting an enemy soldier with the M-16 did not kill as quickly as the old 30 caliber weapons. Instead soldiers would follow a massive trail a blood a few feet away from where the enemy soldier had been hit to find him dead from massive blood loss."

* Each large body part found on the battlefield counted as an individual enemy soldier killed-in-action [KIA]. Each foot, hand, leg, arm, or head found counted as a separate enemy dead. Again, the inadequate medical care available to NVA/VC personnel probably meant death for any individual losing a hand, foot, leg, or arm. As for the head taken off, you decide for yourself.

At this point, I interjected, “how do you know that finding a hand, foot, leg, arm and head on the battlefield is not five enemy killed-in-action but is rather the same individual blow into smithereens??”

"smith·er·eens - - pl.n. - - Informal - - Fragments or splintered pieces; bits"

The answer [from Mike K.] was - - “well, you don’t’ know, but in lieu of a better way to determine things, that is what you go with!!”

Can anyone fault this protocol?

Well, someone has. See the comments of an Australian Vietnam veteran [and veteran of Long Tan.], Terry Burstall:

"When I returned to the battlefield the day after the battle, there were bodies lying all through the area ... Would a shell-shocked digger count an arm, a trunk and a leg scattered over several metres as one body or three bodies? Nobody knew or cared at the time, and certainly not the people doing the counting ... Looking back I don't really think that I would have seen more than 50 bodies and I spent three days in the area."

But, from the web site of Ray Smith, read this:

"on April 3rd, 1995, on the 20th anniversary of the end of the Second Indochina War, the North Vietnamese Communists finally admitted their true casualties. While the U.S. Command had officially stated that we killed about 750,000 NVA and VC, the Communists declared, in an official press release to Agence France, that we had actually killed 1.1 million NVA soldiers."

"a practice of adding estimates of the number of 'probables' (i.e., "probably killed, no body recovered") to the count of 'confirmed' killed. While it is certainly possible that some commanders choose to report the sum of these two numbers rather than separate figures, I doubt whether this was a systemic practice based on personal experience."

[a confirmed would be an actual body. A probable would be a large blood smear or a major body part found!!]

"There was a standard formula for estimating enemy wounded, based on statistics gathered from World Wars One and Two that basically said that two men were wounded for every one killed."

[Actual figure for American troops in Vietnam and Soviet troops in Afghan was roughly about 350 wounded for each 100 dead - - Bert.]

This particular item within the wiki entry of course immediately caught my attention:

"The reverse slope that D Company [the Australians] used to defend their position meant that the VC found it difficult to use their heavy calibre weapons effectively; the VC could only engage the Australians at close range."

The use of the reverse slope defense again. The preferred means to establish a defense. From both WW1 and WW2, the experience of all combatants was that a defense using the reverse slope was the most effective. You would kill more of the enemy in this situation than under any other circumstance. I hope that they still teach this technique at the U.S. Infantry School??!!

Body count in Vietnam! Was it all a lie? Certainly the official records of the communists would seem to suggest - - NO!!

You decide!

coolbert.
Labels: Australians, Long Tan

posted by albert at 6:49 pm

[South]

Good morning M. Walsh,

Welcome to the forum.

There's a tangent point - focused in re the US and not the Aussies - I want to ask about. I'm not sure you're using the phrase(s) as a literary technique or making an explicit point.

Re: "In 1966 there was ... no satellites ... providing detailed intelligence ... ";

Is it not correct to say the acquisition of raw material was arriving but it was not properly processed and thus not properly used ?

Orrin DeForest and David Chanoff's "SHOW BURN-The Rise and Bitter Fall of American Intelligence in Vietnam" (ISBN: 0-671-69258-5, 1990, Simon and Schuster) comes to mind.

I believe a decade later this same type of issue - at least, as I'm presenting it here - was experienced by the Israelis regarding their 1973 Yom Kippur (spelling?) war.

Again, welcome to AHF.


Warm regards,

Bob

[South]

Good morning Peter T. Solakis,

Body count protocol was not the issue.

Illustrative:

During the Lt Kalley My Lai trial...forgot if it was Captain Medina who gave testimony on this...but it's in the official transcript. A report of eg "3 to 5" enemy KIA would get transmitted by radio and delibertly changed to "35" (thirty five).

I recall the joke that a tally of the enemy KIA matched against the last North Vietnam census would show that the place has no people.


Warm regards,

Bob

[RobbieEscudo]

There are several reasons why I believe the Australian body count is false. To begin with, only about 60 VC/NVA weapons were recovered by the Diggers. Had there actually been 275 VC/NVA killed, there would have been double that number of wounded VC/NVA troops who would have also dropped their weapons. Given the blinding rain and thousands of artillery shells crashing on the battlefield, it's not believable that the VC/NVA survivors had the time or inclination to search for and collect hundreds of discarded weapons.

[Harvs73]

RobbieEscudoe, did you even read the response by MWalsh? It is a very well known fact that the Vietnamese would go to great length to clear the battlefield of weapons, bodies and even empty/fired ammunition cases. It was nothing new for a contact to happen, VC seen to be killed or injured but no weapon or body found as the VC would remove it. They did this to the French, they did this to the US forces, they did this to Korean forces and anyone else they fought against as it was a good psychological weapon.

I would suggest you read up a bit more on the tactics of the VC/NVA then re-asses the Long Tang figures.

[petertsolakis]

The Battle of Long Tan was not the epic stand against several Vietnamese battalions, according to a recently published Australian book. The heroic image of the Australian soldier was built up by the Australian press and no doubt inspired by the Zulu (1964 film) that was screened in cinemas around the world. "The strength of the 275th Viet Cong Regiment was around 1200 at the front and that included D445 Battalion," the authors of Vietnam: The Complete Story Of The Australian War conclude. After years of research, Bruce Davies and ‎Gary McKay also reach the conclusion that Major Harry Smith's Delta Company had in fact walked into an ambush.

Both Australian authors claim that the body count was exaggerated:

'The VC divisional planners estimated that four to six labourers would be needed for every wounded soldier requiring evacuation. A 30 percent casualty rate at Long Tan would mean a force of 1200 would take 360 casualties. Using an 80:20 split for the casualties, 288 would be wounded and 72 killed. To get the seriously wounded and dead off the field, a labour force of something like 800 would be needed. If the casualty figures were increased to 245 dead, the wounded would be 980. Under the 30 per cent rule that would mean an attacking force of just over 4000, plus a clearance labour force of 3500. These are unimaginable numbers ..."

The weapons the Vietnamese were forced to leave behind hardly support the claim that 245 Vietnamese dead were found on the battlefield. "The number of weapons found helped with body counts. With large counts there had to be a good quantity of weapons, too. In this case, 58 weapons were collected," Davies and McKay explain.

They also question the popular claim that the diary of the Viet Cong commander at Long Tan was captured and that he admitted losing several hundred killed:

"Unfortunately, the diary or parts of it have never been produced. It is also difficult to understand why such an important document was not sent to the combined Document Exploitaton Centre, from where translated copies would have been despatched to all intelligence commanders."

[ErnieCh]

Hi All, Having published a history of the 33rd NVA Regiment earlier this year, I'm now completing a second book on the D445 VC Battalion - with a focus on the Battle of Long Tan on 18 August 1966. I placed on Scribd as "free-to-read" a two-page paper that I provided last year at an Australian War Memorial conference on the War and at the NVVM (Phillip Island) earlier this year- titled: The Battle of Long Tan: NVA/VC Forces - Revisited. If interested see: https://www.scribd.com/doc/221823315/Th ... -Revisited . That short paper summarizes my view of the NVA/VC forces present at the Battle. On NVA/VC casualties, my upcoming book will present the KIA list of 275 VC Main Force Regiment personnel for that Battle - ie place of birth, date of birth, NOK address etc. While not necessarily complete, that listing - provided from Hanoi sources, numbers 171. On enemy elements present at the Battle, following recent research I can also confirm small elements of C.982 Company and possibly C.187 in the area on 16 August - but not that they participated in the Battle itself on 16 August. I can confirm that - despite some claims, 274 Regiment was not involved in the Battle - or "in support". In particular, 274 Regiment had no plans to ambush 11 Armored Cavalry Regiment (11ACR) elements coming south down Route to aid 1 ATF. Indeed, at the time of the Battle, the 11 ACR armoured vehicles were still at sea - ie on their way to Vung Tau from Oakland California (they arrived on 7 September). Regards, Ernie