Moves to recognise Long Tan vets (Australia)

FRESH moves are under way to see that Australian soldiers involved in the Battle of Long Tan receive appropriate medals after almost four decades.

Long Tan is the best remembered single incident of Australian involvement in Vietnam, an epic battle in which 100 diggers fought off more than 1500 Viet Cong (VC) soldiers. Seventeen died and 21 were wounded.

Yet the Australian commander Major Harry Smith was recognised only with a Military Cross when the recommended award was a Distinguished Service Order (DSO) - second only to the Victoria Cross.

Three platoon commanders were recommended for Military Medals but their awards were downgraded to mentioned-in-despatches.

In a new book - The Battle of Long Tan Battle As Told By the Commanders, by Bob Grandin - Australian War Memorial director Major General Steve Gower said it wasn't too late to remedy past errors.

He said Long Tan had become a battle which literally defined the Vietnam War for Australians and was so decisive that its anniversary had become Vietnam Veterans Day.

General Gower said World War II Resistance heroine Nancy Wake was recently and justifiably honoured for her activities with the French resistance.

"It is hard to reach any conclusion other than that Harry Smith and a number of those who performed valiantly were treated ungenerously," he said.

"The quotas implicit in the awards system then in place is said to have limited what could be done but what about the flexibility and fair play we as Australians are supposed to be renowned for."

The Long Tan battle took place on August 18, 1966 when members of Delta company, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR), set out to find Vietcong mortar crews who had attacked the Australian base.

In teaming rain in the rubber plantation of Long Tan they ran headlong into an advancing Viet Cong regiment. Fortunately, the battle occurred within artillery range of the Australian base and massed attacks were shredded by hundreds of artillery and mortar rounds.

But it remained close run. It eventually ended with the arrival of a relief column of armoured personnel carriers.

The US recognised D company with a presidential unit citation while the South Vietnamese government made some of its own awards. Only last month were surviving members of D company given official approval to actually wear them.

At the time of Vietnam, Australia was bound to the Imperial awards system and the problems started at the outset with senior Australian officers downgrading Major Smith's recommended award and in turn those of the platoon commanders.

Almost four decades later, this remains a nagging sore which persistent letter writing, freedom of information applications and representations to ministers have failed to remedy.

Former D company Sergeant Bob Buick, who took over one of the platoons when its commander was killed, said politicians had proven unwilling to open what could be a can of worms involving professional jealousy and political reputations.

"There definitely was some sort of procedure implemented for Vietnam that was not there for WWII or Korea," he said.

"If Long Tan had happened at time of Korea, Harry would have got his DSO and the platoon commanders would have got their military crosses."

The Long Tan veterans, including Major Smith and Sergeant Buick, will be in Canberra on August 17 for the launch of the book at the Australian War Memorial.

British Commonwealth medals - all the Commonwealth nations had the same system of medals - Victoria Cross, Distinguished Service Order, Military Cross, Military Medal, etc.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Australia started replacing the Imperial awards with its own system - those who earned Imperial awards still continued to wear them, but any future awards would be under the Australian system - the Victoria Cross was retained as the highest award for valour in combat, and the George Cross as the higherst award for valour in a non-combat environment (nobody was going to mess with those), but most of the other awards changed.

The reason for the changes were threefold - firstly, that Australia simply wanted its own system at that time, secondly some of the decisions associated with the Vietnam War seemed rather odd - medal recommendations being downgraded in London, according to rumour, and thirdly because the Imperial system often gave different medals to different ranks (officers often received a higher degree medal than other ranks for the same act of courage, simply because they were officers) and they wanted to fix that.

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