Into Vietnam. Shaun Clarke
Camp, Malvern, where he had worked with his former Malayan Squadron Commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Pryce-Jones, on the structuring of the rigorous new Selection and Training Programme for the Regiment, based mostly on ideas devised and thoroughly tested in Malaya. Promoted to the rank of major in 1962, shortly after the SAS had transferred to Bradbury Lines, Callaghan was returned once again to his original unit, 3 Commando, but then wangled his way back into the SAS, where he had been offered the leadership of D Squadron just before its assignment to the Borneo campaign in 1964.
Shortly after the successful completion of that campaign, when he had returned with the rest of the squadron to Bradbury Lines, he was returned yet again to 3 Commando, promoted once more, then informed that he was now too old for active service and was therefore being assigned a desk job in ‘the Kremlin’. Realizing that the time had come to accept the inevitable, he had settled into his new position and was, as ever, working conscientiously when, to his surprise, he was offered the chance to transfer back to the SAS for what the Officer Commanding had emphasized would be his ‘absolutely final three-year stint’. Unable to resist the call, Callaghan had turned up at Bradbury Lines to learn that he was being sent to Vietnam.
‘This is not a combatant role,’ the OC informed him, trying to keep a straight face. ‘You’ll be there purely in an advisory capacity and – may I make it clear from the outset – in an unofficial capacity. Is that understood?’
‘Absolutely, sir.’
Though Callaghan was now officially too old to take part in combat, he had no intention of avoiding it should the opportunity to leap in present itself. Also, he knew – and knew that his OC knew it as well – that if he was in Vietnam unofficially, his presence there would be denied and any actions undertaken by him likewise denied. Callaghan was happy.
‘This is top-secret,’ Callaghan now told Jimbo and Dead-eye from his hard wooden chair in front of a blackboard covered by a black cloth. ‘We three – and we three alone – are off to advise the Aussie SAS in Phuoc Tuy province, Vietnam.’
Jimbo gave a low whistle, but otherwise kept his thoughts to himself for now.
‘Where exactly is Phuoc Tuy?’ Dead-eye asked.
‘South-east of Saigon,’ Callaghan informed him. ‘A swampy hell of jungle and paddy-fields. The VC main forces units have a series of bases in the jungle and the political cadres have control of the villages. Where they don’t have that kind of control, they ruthlessly eliminate those communities. The Aussies’ job is to stop them.’
‘I didn’t even know the Aussies were there,’ Jimbo said, voicing a common misconception.
‘Oh, they’re there, all right – and have been, in various guises, for some time. In the beginning, back in 1962, when they were known as the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam – ‘the Team’ for short – they were there solely to train South Vietnamese units in jungle warfare, village security and related activities such as engineering and signals. Unlike the Yanks, they weren’t even allowed to accompany the locals in action against the North Vietnamese, let alone engage in combat.
‘Also, the Aussies and Americans reacted to the war in different ways. The Yanks were training the South Vietnamese to combat a massed invasion by North Vietnam across the Demilitarized Zone, established in 1954 under the Geneva Accords, which temporarily divided North Vietnam from South Vietnam along the 17th Parallel. The Americans stressed the rapid development of large forces and the concentration of artillery and air power to deliver a massive volume of fire over a wide area. The Aussies, on the other hand, having perfected small-scale, counter-insurgency tactics, had more faith in those and continued to use them in Vietnam, concentrating on map reading and navigation, marksmanship, stealth, constant patrolling, tracking the enemy and, of course, patience. Much of this they learnt from us back in Malaya during the fifties.’
‘That’s why they’re bloody good,’ Jimbo said.
‘Don’t let them hear you say that,’ Dead-eye told him, offering one of his rare, bleak smiles. ‘They might not be amused.’
‘If they learnt from us, sir, they’re good and that’s all there is to it.’
‘Let me give you some useful background,’ Callaghan said. ‘Back in 1962, before heading off to Vietnam, the Aussie SAS followed a crash training programme. First, there was a two-week briefing on the war at the Intelligence Centre in Sydney. Then the unit spent five days undergoing intensive jungle-warfare training in Queensland. In early August of that year, with their training completed, twenty-nine SAS men took a regular commercial flight from Singapore to Saigon, all wearing civilian clothing. They changed into the jungle-green combat uniform of the Australian soldier during the flight.’
‘In other words, they went secretly,’ Dead-eye said.
‘Correct. On arrival at Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut airport, they were split up into two separate teams. A unit of ten men was sent to Vietnamese National Training Centre at Dong Da, just south of Hue, the old imperial capital. That camp was responsible for the training of recruits for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the ARVN, but the base was also used as a battalion training centre and could accommodate about a thousand men. There, though constantly handicapped by the almost total corruption of the ARVN officers, they managed to train recruits and replacements for the regular ARVN Ranger units.
‘The second unit, consisting of a group of ten, was sent to the Civil Guard Training Centre at Hiep Kanh, north-west of Hue. The function of the Civil Guard was to protect key points in the provinces – bridges, telephone exchanges, radio stations and various government buildings. Though they weren’t nearly as corrupt and undisciplined as the troops of the ARVN, they were considered to be the poor relations, given clapped-out weapons and minimal supplies, then thrown repeatedly against the VC – invariably receiving a severe beating.
‘However, shortly after the arrival of the Aussie SAS, most of the Yanks were withdrawn and the Aussies undertook the training of the Vietnamese – a job they carried out very well, it must be said. But as the general military situation in South Vietnam continued to deteriorate, VC pressure on the districts around Hiep Kanh began to increase and in November ’63 the camp was closed and the remaining four Aussie advisers were transferred into the US Special Forces – the Ranger Training Centre at Due My, to be precise – some thirty miles inland from Nha Trang.’
‘They went there for further training?’ Jimbo asked.
‘Yes. I’m telling you all this to let you know just how good these guys are. At the Ranger Training Centre there were four training camps: the Base Camp and three specialized facilities – the Swamp Camp, the Mountain Camp and the Jungle Camp – for training in the techniques of fighting in those terrains. Reportedly, however, the men found this experience increasingly frustrating – mainly because they knew that a guerrilla war was being fought all around them, but they still weren’t allowed to take part in it.’
‘That would drive me barmy,’ Jimbo said. ‘It’s the worst bind of all.’
Dead-eye nodded his agreement.
‘Other team members,’ Callaghan continued, ‘were posted to Da Nang to join the CIA’s Combined Studies Division, which was engaged in training village militia, border forces and trail-watchers. Two of those Aussie SAS officers had the unenviable task of teaching Vietnamese peasants the techniques of village defence – weapon training, ambushing and booby-traps, and moat and palisade construction. The peasants were transported from their own villages, equipped and trained at Hoa Cam, on the outskirts of Da Nang, then sent back to defend their own homes. Unfortunately, this failed to work and, indeed, inadvertently fed weapons and supplies to the enemy. By this I mean that once they heard what was going on, the VC, who vastly outnumbered the South Vietnamese villagers, simply marched in, took over the villages, and seized the American arms and supplies for use against US and South Vietnamese forces.’
‘A bloody farce,’ Jimbo said.
‘And frustrating too. If the Aussies weren’t being driven mad by the corruption and incompetence of the ARVN officers, they were