Aussies v Charlie: Battle of Binh Ba, Nam '69

[PoorOldSpike]

Aussies v Charlie,
The Battle of Binh Ba
6 June 1969

Armour in action at Binh Ba

In the years following the establishment of the Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat, the nearby village of Binh Ba was subject to several cordon and search operations but the insurgents continued to return to, and operate from the village. Living on Route 2, a major road that ran from Phuoc Tuy’s capital Ba Ria northwards into the neighbouring province, Binh Ba’s residents were accustomed to seeing military traffic passing through their village.

On an early June morning in 1969 two Australian Centurion Tanks were making their way northwards along Route 2 when they came under fire from a nearby house. The shot, believed by some to have been fired by a nervous soldier and by others to have been a deliberate provocation, had its effect. Within hours an Australian force sat just beyond Binh Ba awaiting the order to go in and clear the village. Ahead of them lay a battle of unexpected ferocity in a setting unlike almost any other experienced by the Australians in Vietnam.

Main road to Binh Ba

Less than 10 kilometres from Nui Dat, the village of Binh Ba and its hamlets—Duc Trung and Duc My—had been familiar to the Australians since the Task Force base was established in 1966. In August that year the village was the target of a cordon and search operation, Operation Holsworthy, in which the Australians apprehended a number of Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas and sympathisers. But Binh Ba’s proximity to Nui Dat did not ensure its continuing freedom from insurgents. Within two months a VC cadre and guerrillas were once again in residence, collecting taxes and recruiting. Cordon and search operations such as Holsworthy and Operation Caloundra, in early 1967, were fleeting. When they were over, the insurgents returned. In late 1967 they ambushed and killed two members of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam just outside the village. Their activities were mostly covert, though. One VC soldier recalled his unit being divided into cells of a few men each and sent on a ‘proselytising mission’ to Binh Ba, during which they met their local counterparts in various village houses.

The situation persisted into the middle of 1969, by which time Binh Ba’s security had been placed in the hands of local Regional Force soldiers. Neither the Task Force nor the South Vietnamese forces which had day-to-day responsibility for the village’s security had been able to rid the area of insurgents. That June morning, with one RPG round, they compelled the Australians to fight for Binh Ba. There are a range of reasons why the battle was initiated. Some believe that it was an attempt to relieve pressure being put on the North Vietnamese Army’s (NVA) 33 Regiment headquarters in the area to the north where 6RAR were operating. Others believe that it was part of a nation-wide offensive aimed at influencing peace negotiations which were then taking place in Paris; still others saw it as an attempt to gain credit for the soon to be announced withdrawal of some 25,000 United States troops from Vietnam. 5RAR’s Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Colin Khan, who commanded the Australian force for much of the battle, believed then and continued to believe more than 30 years later that the attack on the Centurion was nothing more than the result of poor fire discipline by a ‘wayward soldier’.

After the Centurion was hit, two Regional Force platoonswere sent to investigate but were stopped by heavy fire from the village. The district chief requested support from provincial headquarters in Ba Ria, which in turn requested Australian assistance. Less than an hour later, Major Murray Blake, the officer commanding the Task Force’s ready reaction force—D Company, 5RAR—attended a briefing at the Task Force headquarters. His orders were to mount a clearing operation of the village. Expecting to meet a couple of Viet Cong platoons, Blake told his company sergeant major that ‘there didn’t seem to be too much in this’. He elected to bring six newly arrived reinforcements along for the experience.

Waiting to move off

The battle begins
At 10:00 am Blake’s company left Nui Dat in armoured personnel carriers (APCs) commanded by Captain Ray De Vere of B Squadron, 3 Cavalry Regiment. With them was a composite troop of tanks from B Squadron, 1st Armoured Regiment, under the command of Second Lieutenant Brian Sullivan. While the Australians travelled the short distance between Nui Dat and Binh Ba, the local District Chief attempted to evacuate the civilian population and deployed his own troops, members of the Regional Force, into blocking positions to cut off the enemy’s escape.

Half an hour after leaving Nui Dat, Blake’s force deployed about 300 metres to the south-east of Binh Ba and awaited clearance to move in. Sergeant Brian London, 10 Platoon’s acting commander, remembered pulling up on open ground before the village. Looking through the APC’s open hatch he saw thirty or forty people running as if to make up a defensive position’. Seconds later RPG smoke trails headed towards him. Instinct demanded that he exit the APC—a hit from an RPG could have killed or wounded everyone on board—but he fought the urge and stayed. The armoured vehicles were just outside effective RPG range and their crews were already returning fire—the Battle of Binh Ba, known officially as Operation Hammer, was underway. Blake, meanwhile, was concentrating on the flurry of radio traffic coming through on about eight networks. The airwaves
were busy with talk about who was in the village. Civilians, it turned out, remained and Blake instructed his men to take care and make sure their fire was aimed only at the enemy. It was, he said, a ‘big ask’ in a combat situation. He had also to consider how best to carry out the attack. Numbers were limited: D Company was badly depleted, with only seventy men from a normally full complement of 120 available. Between them Blake, De Vere and Sullivan decided on an armoured assault, believing that dismounted infantry would be too vulnerable to enemy fire. De Vere, the senior armoured officer, took command during this phase of the operation. By 11:20 the Australians were cleared to move in. The District Chief, wrongly believing the village to be free of civilians, told Blake, to ‘go in and do what you have to do.’ Binh Ba, a picturesque village with a well-ordered streetscape, solidly constructed houses and verdant, productive gardens would, he knew, soon become a battle ground. Approaching from the east the Australians advanced with tanks in the centre of the formation and the APCs on either side and to the rear. As they entered Binh Ba it became clear that not all of the civilians had been evacuated, so 11 Platoon was ordered to dismount and help the villagers to safety.

 

[PoorOldSpike]

Ahead of them, the tanks advanced slowly, moving cautiously between the rows of houses. Then two of them left in pursuit of
enemy troops reported by the pilot of an observation plane to be moving through the nearby rubber. One was hit by two RPG
rounds, wounding three of the crew, but the gunner, unable to traverse his turret, kept up a steady fire against the enemy
whenever they crossed his line of sight. Still believing that they were facing just two Viet Cong platoons, the rest of the
Australians continued into the middle of Binh Ba, now with just two tanks in support. In the village centre they came under a
storm of fire. Murray Blake remembered seeing enemy everywhere, among them a heavy machine-gun crew wheeling their
weapon into position before they were killed by fire from De Vere’s APC. This was no pair of Viet Cong platoons—the
Australians had come up against NVA troops, a far stronger force than they had expected to meet. The noise of RPGs, small
arms and machine guns, recalled Blake, was deafening,
and the scene completely chaotic. Amidst the din,
messages could only be reliably sent using hand signals
or by runner. The tanks, meanwhile, were running low on
ammunition and the Australians needed to extricate
themselves from the village.
Overhead a helicopter gunship fired rockets into an
enemy occupied house. From above, the pilots saw tanks
and APCs firing into the buildings while enemy troops ran
between dwellings, some having escaped observation
until they were seen from the air. A light fire team of two
Bushrangers flew in, guided by De Vere’s directions to
attack positions on Binh Ba’s southern side. Coming in
low over the tanks, they fired rockets and miniguns into
the enemy, clearing the way for the armour and D
Company to make their way out. Every tank had been
damaged by enemy fire, one so severely it was
useless for further action. Sullivan, like the others, had
been so heavily engaged that his tank left Binh Ba with its
last round of canister loaded.
The Australians had come through the chaotic fight without losing a man. Tanks and helicopters gave them fire supremacy,
keeping the enemy from bringing the troop-laden APCs under effective fire. But these too were heavily armed and the armoured
vehicles’ combined firepower proved decisive. The After Action Report described the Centurions in particular as a ‘battle
winning factor’. For some, however, it was a close call nonetheless. At one point during the fighting in the village square Sullivan
saw the shock wave when an RPG round struck the neighbouring vehicle, wounding a crewman in the neck. An instant later he
glimpsed the round of an RPG being fired at his own tank. He ducked but felt the sting of its tail fins grazing his back before it
exploded against a nearby wall, peppering him with shrapnel. Fortune and fine margins sometimes meant the difference
between life and death.

Duc Trung sector

The second assault
Once the tanks were safely on open ground away from the village, 9 Squadron RAAF helicopters flew in replacement crewmen,
evacuated the wounded, including Sullivan, and delivered fresh ammunition. D Company, having broken out of the village, lined
up for a second assault, this time from the west and supported by fresh tanks from 4 Troop, B Squadron. As midday
approached, B Company, 5RAR, was dispatched to assist D Company, at which point Lieutenant Colonel Khan took command
of Operation Hammer, relieving 6 RAR’s Lieutenant Colonel David Butler.
When they reached Binh Ba, B Company established blocking positions to the south and watched as flames rose from some
buildings marking the scene of the most intense combat. They then moved through the rubber to block from the east. One
group, moving along the plantation’s fringe, was seen by the tank crews who were still being resupplied, and brought under
machine-gun fire. Then an officer ran over and identified the figures in the rubber as Australians. The firing stopped before
anyone was hit.

Supported by APCs and tanks, the dismounted assault force,
now back under Blake’s command, divided into house-clearing
teams of two to three men and advanced on the village. Fire
from the first row of buildings hit Private Wayne Teeling, one
of the morning’s reinforcements, in the neck. Two men
dragged his body from the line of fire, but nothing more could
be done for the 21-year-old, killed in his first action. Climbing
up to the hatch of a nearby tank, Brian London had the crew
commander fire a high explosive round into the building from
which the fatal shot had come. Inside the ruins the Australians
found the bodies of six enemy soldiers.
Similar actions, localised fights involving small groups moving
from house to house, were being fought all along the closest
rows of dwellings. Fire came at the Australians from the doors
and windows, from any vantage point that offered the enemy
cover. By now it was clear from the uniforms that some of the
dead included NVA soldiers as well as Viet Cong. That
explained the heavy weapons seen that morning and the
surprising intensity of the fighting in Binh Ba.
To dislodge the enemy, D Company’s house-clearing teams
would fire until a tank could get into position. Once the door had been blasted in or a hole put through a wall with high explosive,
the tank crews fired canister through the hole, sweeping the inside with hundreds of steel projectiles. Then the infantrymen went
in, clearing the houses room-by-room and throwing grenades into the bunkers dug by the villagers for shelter and now being
used as cover by enemy troops. Sometimes there were terrifying close-quarter fights inside the shattered buildings.
For most of the Australians the fighting in Binh Ba was unlike any that they had yet encountered.

 

[PoorOldSpike]

An ungainly acronym, MOUT
(military operations in urban terrain), described the
experience. They were fighting in a populated area,
people’s homes were destroyed and civilian lives were
lost. But for the Australians’ bravery and discipline, many
more of Binh Ba’s inhabitants might have been killed or
injured. More than once, when there was doubt about
whether those in their sights were enemy combatants or
civilians trying to flee the maelstrom, the assaulting troops
held their fire, exposing themselves to mortal risk. These
life and death decisions were often made by the
company’s youngest soldiers—twelve of the twenty-one
rifle sections sent into the action were led by privates.

Many of the NVA soldiers fought to the death. Others
removed their uniforms, discarded their weapons and tried
to escape alongside the civilians still seeking to flee the
battlefield. When the fight was about an hour old B
Company dispatched a platoon to screen the civilians
escaping to Binh Ba’s north. Among them were two Viet
Cong passing themselves off as non-combatants and
another, nursing a head wound, who surrendered under
the Chieu Hoi program, whereby the VC who gave
themselves up were promised safety and good treatment.
All three were taken prisoner along with another VC captured
to the east of Binh Ba. At one point Ray De Vere
watched as a man came out of the village, his raised
hands exposing the webbing under his shirt.
De Vere pointed at the incriminating piece of kit. The would-be escapee shrugged and smiled before surrendering.

The battle winds down
By the evening of 6 June the fighting had died down. An exhausted D Company and armoured corps personnel took up a
defensive position for the night. Binh Ba, however, was still not secure. Late in the afternoon, while the fighting in the village
continued, B Company set up a harbour on the edge of the nearby rubber plantation. A gentle rain began to fall, just enough to
make the night uncomfortable. All was quiet until 3:20 am on 7 June, when an Australian platoon killed two enemy troops as
they tried to escape to the south.
B Company’s Bill O’Mara, from 6 Platoon, spent the night taking his turn on sentry duty and then sleeping. Early the following
morning he was awakened by the sound of shooting. The sentries had noticed troops moving through the rubber in assault
formation. Thinking at first that the approaching figures were from D Company, they soon recognised them as enemy and let fly.
O’Mara recalled seeing the flash from incoming RPGs and the sound of shrapnel hitting the rubber trees above his head. No
Australian was hit, and when some of the platoon went over to where the NVA had been there was no trace, not a single blood
trail. O’Mara thought that everyone had fired too high.
At 7:00 am a company of NVA were seen heading towards Binh Ba. B Company opened fire and the enemy fled. When the
Australians swept the area they found a body and blood trails indicating that six others had been wounded. An hour later a
section of APCs travelling north towards Duc Trung came under RPG fire and a large group of enemy troops were seen moving
between houses. The 5RAR Assault Pioneer Platoon, although readied for action, were not needed in the hamlet and moved to
form a blocking force to Binh Ba’s north-east. Local Regional Force troops went into the hamlet and found the NVA had gone.
Just before 10:00 am the Australians—D Company; 5 Platoon from B Company; two combat engineer teams from 1 Field
Squadron, along with the tanks and APCs—lined up for another sweep of Binh Ba. They had to make sure that no more NVA or
Viet Cong had infiltrated the village during the night and flush out any who remained from the previous day. By midday the
western half of the village was clear; the enemy was gone. The search was then handed over to Popular Force troops who
swept the eastern half of the village.

Binh Ba was quiet, but shortly afterwards fighting flared
again in Duc Trung. The Regional Force company,
having earlier found the hamlet empty, was being
overrun. Artillery fire from 105 Battery began falling
among the enemy troops, a light fire team flew in
support and B Company prepared to go in with the
APCs. They lay in a line amidst the trees, every man
facing the village, weapons at the ready. On command
the line rose and spread out between the APCs, moved
in from the south, covering the hundred metres or so of
open ground before the hamlet without incident. In front
of them the tanks approached Duc Trung in extended
line, but not a living soul remained in the southern part
of the village. The damage, wrote Bill O’Mara ‘had been
well and truly done’. In the north, enemy troops were
mingling with civilians. Wanting to avoid casualties
among the villagers, the Australians left the task to local
Popular Force troops.
Pursued by shell fire and helicopters, the enemy
withdrew to the north-west. They left behind six dead
and a series of tell-tale blood trails. Perhaps these
unfortunate men were those buried later in the day by
O’Mara and another soldier. He recalled being detailed
to bury six enemy dead, a ‘grisly task’ during which he
noticed that they were wearing the black clothes of the
VC rather than the NVA khaki.

The night of 7 June also passed without contact and a
final sweep the following morning confirmed that the
enemy had gone. A few hours later the men who had fought the battle returned to Nui Dat. Australian Civil Affairs personnel
were already in Binh Ba when they left. Hours of heavy fighting, from street to street, house to house and finally even room to
room, had destroyed much of the village. The villagers returned to find that large holes had been blown through the walls of
many houses, and in others the door was gone; the wreckage told of violent combat and the weight of firepower directed against
those inside.

NVA dead

The Australians in Binh Ba had been lucky: Teeling was the only man killed. Many years later his niece, Sandy, visited Vietnam.
She dropped a rose quartz crystal, given to her by Teeling’s widow, Carolyn, in Halong Bay as a gesture of respect to an uncle
she probably never knew. One loss in a battle of such ferocity must be considered fortunate, but for those who knew and loved
that individual, the death remains a tragedy. The same tragedy befell many Vietnamese in Binh Ba. Casualty figures vary, but it
seems that more than 100 VC and NVA, possibly many more, lost their lives in the battle. Several South Vietnamese soldiers
were also killed in the fighting. To the engineers, plant operators from 1 Field Squadron and 21 Engineer Support Troop, fell the
unpleasant task of digging a mass grave in which to bury the enemy dead.
Sadly, a number of villagers also lost their lives during the battle. In such a confused, intense fight no amount of care could have
prevented civilian casualties. Houses and vegetation limited the field of vision and some of the enemy, members of a VC
guerrilla unit rather than the NVA, were hard to distinguish from Binh Ba’s residents. During the latter part of the first day’s
fighting, some NVA troops discarded their uniforms for civilian clothes making it more difficult for the Australians to make the
distinction. However much they lamented the loss of civilian lives, and it is clear from veterans’ writings and interviews that this
has weighed heavily on some, those who fought at Binh Ba should also be proud that their efforts, often at great personal risk,
prevented a far greater loss.
The 1st Armoured Regiment, the 3rd Cavalry Regiment and The Royal Australian Regiment were all awarded a battle honour
for Binh Ba. A number of individuals were also recognised for their bravery. The village, left in ruins, was rebuilt and today Binh
Ba stands, as it did forty years ago, beside the rubber plantation from which many residents still derive their income. The old
market place in the village centre now hosts a memorial complex dedicated to the 33rd NVA Regiment, many of whose soldiers
died in the battle. The village has grown and newer buildings adjoin Route 2, obscuring the old and making Binh Ba appear very
different to the place that for two days in June 1969 was the scene of a fierce battle.
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[Bootie]